MSL: March 18, 2024

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The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at calm .org.

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When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live! For answers, take in your calls and respond to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

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Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, how you doing? Today's, let's see, today is

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March 18th, 2024. If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877 -207 -2276, and I want to hear from you.

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Give me a call. And, uh, let's see, working on some, uh, connective, uh, connection problems with the, uh, the main studio.

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I don't know what's going on or why, so we'll figure that out. And if you want, like I said, if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276,

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I want to hear from you. Give me a call, and we can talk. We can blab, all right? It's easy to do.

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And, uh, I'll be waiting for you. We have nobody waiting right now. I hope you all had a good weekend. My weekend is interesting.

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I did a lot of cleaning up, did a lot of that kind of stuff, and, uh, continued to work, continued to do things.

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So, uh, that's what I'll be doing, you know? That's what it is. All right. All right. All right. So, like I said,

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I want to hear from you. Give me a call. I was in some discussions on, uh, on, uh, let's see, uh, what was it, uh,

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Friday night and Saturday night. I think it was both. And, um, so I, I was discussing the issue of, uh, you know, biblical truth with Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

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And it was, it was interesting. Uh, it was interesting. You know, I do discussions quite a bit, impromptu kind of discussions.

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I try and get in there and talk about the things of the Lord. I want to be able to, um, well,

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I want to be able to witness to them and hopefully get them to believe in the gospel, just believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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That's what I'm hoping. So, um, you know, we can just hope that by the preaching and the teaching of the word of God, that what they'll do is believe it.

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That's what I'm hoping will happen. All right. So, uh, boy, we've got some issues going on.

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The video stuff, I'm working on stuff, working on stuff. So there you go.

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All right. Nobody's calling right now. If you want, you can also email me and that's easy to do. Just send an email to, to, um, let's see, info at carm .org

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info at carm .org and just put in the, the subject line put in, um, uh, let's see, it would be a radio comment or radio question.

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All right. So that's it. I guess that's about it. If you want to give me a call, like I said, nobody waiting and yes,

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I'm aware of the video issue. I don't know what's going on with it, but we're having a problem right now.

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So I'm going to try and get it going. We'll see if I can get it to work. There we go. Hopefully that'll work right there, man.

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Oh man. Um, yeah, let's try different things. There we go. Woo. All right.

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I think we've got that under control. Like I said, I want to hear from you. Give me a call. All right. So if you're new to the show, uh, besides the little issue, we write this, you know, this is,

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I've been under attack lately. I'll just tell you that, um, that, uh, a lot of stuff's going on.

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I know that there's a lot of people praying against me. I got some really bad news today and, uh, bad news.

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It's really distracting me quite a bit. And then right before I get on the internet, I mean, right before I get on the radio, um, right there, all of a sudden, one of the channels that we normally use to get on the radio wasn't working right.

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And here's another thing is, uh, today I went and, uh, got my oil changed in one of our cars and the battery died.

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I mean, it was just all of a sudden. So, uh, it was tough, you know, it's been a tough day.

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And so there you go. All right. All right. All right. Give me a call. 877 -207 -2276.

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Uh, that should be working. Everything should be working. I hope you can all hear me. Let me know if you can or can't. All right.

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All right. Let's get to Derek from Virginia. Derek, welcome. You are on the air. Hi, Matt.

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How are you doing? Ooh, it's been one of those days. It's been one of those days. I hear you.

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Uh, yeah, Matt, I was just, uh, me and a coworker were at work talking today. He had, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had a, uh, he had

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He goes on, and, uh, let's see. He says trust, ignore because of my imprisonment.

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He says in verse 13. This is Philippians 1 .13. So my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well -known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else.

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All right, so what we know is that we can know very quickly that Paul was an interesting guy in that he was performing miracles.

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So he had a reputation, so when he's in jail, people are going to be talking to him and about him.

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They're going to want to know who this guy is. I'm sure that he had great wisdom. Maybe he healed some people.

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Maybe he did some miracles in prison. I don't know. It doesn't say so, but you just never know. So the thing is, it's not the case that they would just say, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't have any communication, because they did have the ability to communicate.

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And they did. And so obviously the letters got out. And so what I understand, the Praetorian Guard, what happened was that they would chain

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Paul to one guard at a time. And so then he would be with them and he'd be talking to them.

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And you know that they're just doing their job, but he's known in the whole household of Caesar as well.

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So they had communication. Yeah. Okay. All right.

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Well, thank you very much. You're welcome very much. No problem at all. All right. Okay. Take care.

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God bless. Okay. You too. All right. Well, let's see. Okay. We have three open lines.

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If any of you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276 and we can talk.

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All right. And you can also email me at info at carm .org and just put in the subject line, put in a real question or radio comments.

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All right. So let's get to, oops, here we go. Let's get to Rebecca from Salt Lake City.

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Rebecca, welcome. You are on the air. Hello, Mr.

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Schick, Pastor Schick. I wanted to know, perhaps you've answered it before, but I didn't hear you.

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What is the significance of 40 days when it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and then

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Jesus was counted by the devil for 40 days in his depot laying on his right side, take the inequity of Judah for 40 days, et cetera, et cetera.

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The Bible is full of numbers and patterns. And so we have what number five is number of grace because they would pick up five smooth stones to fight

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Goliath. Israel came out of Egypt five in rank. The holy anointing oil was pure and composed of five parts.

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The number of man is six because man was created on the sixth day.

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He labors for six days. Serpent was created on the sixth day, et cetera. Seven is the number of spiritual perfection.

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Seven days in a week, seven colors in the spectrum, seven of the 10 commandments begin with the word not.

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There are seven seals, seven trumpets, seven variables, and it goes on. Forty is the number of probation or trial.

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The Israelites wandered for 40 years. Moses was on the right for 40 days, 40 days of Jonah and Nineveh, and Jesus was tempted for 40 days.

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OK, so it just means again,

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I have to write that down. It means what again, sir? Probation trial testing. OK, OK.

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So that's what that is, basically. OK, well, I appreciate your answer and you have a good day.

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No problem. God bless. Thank you. God bless you, too.

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Bye bye. Bye. So, yeah, there are a number of patterns in the

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Bible, 12 is the number of governmental perfection. There are 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles, 12 foundations in the heavenly

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Jerusalem, 12 gates, 12 pearls, 12 angels, and measurements of New Jerusalem are 12 ,000 furlongs or stadia, while the wall will be 12 by 12 cubits.

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Let's see, I already did 10. Number nine is that of judgment. There are 39 Greek words derived from the root word meaning judgment, decay.

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And each following each word occurs nine times in the Bible, etc.

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Let's see, I did seven, I did six, five, four. So three, let's see, there's a lot of interesting stuff.

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I got my notes. I haven't looked at them for a long time. Three appearance of Christ, past, present, and future.

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What is three? What's the three? Let's see, one is number of unity, two is the number of division.

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And Jesus has two natures, and we're male and female, there are two testaments.

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There's the sheep and the goats. There's this age and the age to come. Three is divine perfection.

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The Trinity consists of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are three qualities of the universe, time, space, and matter.

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And let's see, we go on here. Three shepherds, Christ has three shepherds, the good shepherd, the great shepherd, and the chief shepherd.

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And he has appeared, is appearing, and will appear. And the Father spoke from heaven three times, in Matthew 3 .17.

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This is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased. Matthew 17 .5, this is my beloved Son, in whom

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I'm well pleased. Listen to him. And John 12 .28, I have both glorified it, that's the

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Father's name, and will glorify it again. The tabernacle, a temple, consists of three parts, the court, the holy place, and the sanctuary.

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Regarding the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies was a set of three, ten cubits by ten cubits by ten cubits.

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And the Holy of Holies was a cube, 20 cubits by 20 by 20. And so it goes on, number four is creation.

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And number 39, which I don't have listed here in my notes, is the number of mercy. 39, you got 39 stripes instead of 40.

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They were supposed to be called merciful, only within you 39 times. And there's some other stuff about that, which, there you go.

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So, let's get on the air with Carl from Dayton, Ohio. Carl, welcome.

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You are on the air. I can't believe it, I'm on the air. That's right, there you go, man.

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Okay, make this kind of quick, quickish. I want to talk about apostates, apostasy.

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And I want to know if, and it's not really a fair question to you, because you don't know when

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God gives someone up, when he just turns them over to their own way of thinking. He won't allow the spirit to convict them. I don't know.

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You don't know, only the Holy Spirit knows. I have a brother about 70. We got a break.

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Can you hold on? We got another break, okay, buddy? Of course. This is an interesting topic. You got me curious, all right? So I want to talk about it.

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Okay. And we'll be right back, folks. After these messages, if you want to give me a call, it's 877 -207 -2276.

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We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

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Here's Matt Slick. All right, buddy, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

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Carl, you're back on the air. Okay, you can hear me? Yeah, I hear you fine, man.

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Good stuff. Where do you go? Okay, I guess I'm going to go back to my phone. I guess this is not a question I want you to answer. I guess I just want you to give me a commentary on what you think.

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So I have a brother -in -law. I love him to death. Love him hard. He's 71 years old, and for years he's been communicating.

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He was actually being considered. You're getting muffled. Okay, hold on. Can you hear me? Yeah. Can you hear me?

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Yeah, a little bit. Can you hear me clearly? Well, keep going. Okay, go ahead.

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He was actually being considered for being a pastor of two churches. He was being considered.

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He did not get the job, and he kept giving me indicators over the years of who he really is.

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And one day I was just at work. I just went downstairs, and I just asked him. I said, tell me something.

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Do you believe, and he was a good Sunday school teacher. A lot of people probably get saved by hearing his words, you know, with the help of the

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Holy Spirit. So I just went downstairs and asked him. I said, do you believe in the virgin birth? He said, no.

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I said, do you believe in the deity of Christ? He says, no. And from that point, it was like something that was not discussed but understood.

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We knew that our relationship was gonna change. And he makes a mockery of the cross.

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And for years and years and years, I knew that he was a true believer. And he told me he didn't talk about Christ anymore.

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I mean, all these years he's been teaching Sunday school and going through all these antics.

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So what I wanna know is, and I continue to pray for him. Now, if he knew that I was praying for him to come under conviction, he would probably say, why are you praying for me?

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Why are you doing that? I don't need you to pray for me, I'm fine. So he actually believes that he's gonna be accepted by God because he's a good boy through his good works.

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He doesn't need Christ. So do I continue to pray for someone like him? I mean, I don't know when

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God turns someone's over when he didn't allow the Holy Spirit to convict someone.

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So I don't know, Mr. Matt. So do I continue to pray for him? Am I wasting my prayer?

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What do I do in this instance, you think? My advice is to err on the side of caution and just keep praying.

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Okay. Unless God communicates to you that this is a wasted effort. But I would just continue to pray and ask

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God to give him repentance and that he would see the truth. And if he said he doesn't need

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Christ and he could make it on his own goodness, then I would just call it what it is.

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I'd say that's pride, that's prideful. No, oh my goodness, it's stinking pride.

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Yeah, he is a classic Gnostic and a classic Deist. Very good looking, smart, charismatic, good at arguing.

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He's just, he's fascinating. He's just fascinating. Yeah, I can understand why heretics are interesting.

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I get it. Yes. Yeah. So you can - Cause I call him - Yeah. Now, I'll tell you this really quick.

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Now, this shocked me because he's normally Mr. Coo. Mr. Coo. So I called him once, I said, now

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I'm not gonna call his name. I said, so I just say Eddie. So Eddie, now, you know, when you die, you know that there's no do -overs, you know

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Hebrews 9, 27. He said, you know, there's no do -overs, right? He said, I know, I taught it,

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I know. And I just, and I said this, I just casually said out of my mouth, casual.

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I said, well, you're lost. He went, it's like it was something in him coming out of him.

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He went off. I've never heard him go off like that. He went off on me so bad. He couldn't even talk to me any longer.

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And he started mumbling something. I didn't know what he was saying. It sounded like it was somebody else in him talking.

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It was fascinating. And I just casually said, well, you're lost. And he said, you're a liar, you're a liar, you're a liar.

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Totally out of his character. And we get off the phone. We didn't talk for about two months. And I called him back cause

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I love him. Anyone who's married to my sister can become my brother. And I love my brother. But it was just, it was like a dual personality.

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I've never seen him like that before. And I just casually said, you're lost. And he went, O -F -F.

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Well, it sounds like he's demonically oppressed if not possessed, who knows.

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But it's bad. And you can keep praying for him and you can also pray imprecatorily.

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What that means is to pray that God would discipline him heavily in order to bring him to repentance.

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That's the idea. Okay, one more quick thing. My sister, whom he's married to, she's been, her father was a pastor for 36 years.

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He was truly in the kingdom. Died, you know, we all went to church cause we were good pastor's kids.

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But it didn't mean anything sitting in the brick and mortar building. Didn't make you a Christ follower in any way. So I asked her, cause

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I was curious. Cause I know that if she is in the kingdom, she's going to have a hard time dealing with him cause he's totally opposed to it.

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So I said, my sister asked her, so how are you going to be accepted by God?

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Like, tell me, like, I mean, how are you going to be accepted? And she said, she didn't mention

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Christ one. She said, well, I love people. And she just kept talking about love.

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Cause that's what he talks about. Well, Jeff, I love people, so I'm fine. She didn't mention Christ one time. So should I be concerned about my sister?

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And my other sister said, well, Jeff, she watches The Chosen. I'm like, what do you mean? What does that mean that she watches The Chosen?

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Doesn't mean that you're in the kingdom cause you watch a TV show. So would you be, should

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I be concerned about my sister? Of course. See, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

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And so if what comes out of her heart isn't Jesus, well, then he's not in her heart.

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That would be the logical conclusion. Wow. Wow. Okay. Okay, Mr.

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Matt, thank you for taking my call. You have a great day. It doesn't mean she's not a

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Christian, but it's, that's just definitely a warning flag, you know, and that's all.

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So you gotta, okay. Someone asked me, Jeff, Jeff, how are you going to get in the kingdom? I'm like, oh, it's only because of Christ.

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It's because of absolutely nothing what I do. And I, you know, the closer I get to him, the closer

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I get to know him, the more violent, wicked I see I am. People think, oh, Jeff, he's so nice.

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Oh, I know me. I know me. I'm not. Because I understand God's, and I really hate to use the word perfection, because what he is is really beyond what we think perfection is.

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It's way beyond that. You got that right. So I know that I could never enter the kingdom on my very best day, but it's gonna be good.

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Never, without Christ. So on that note, I'll let you go. You have a great day. You too, brother.

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God bless. Wow, I like that. Well, that's Carl from Dayton, Ohio. He is right. The closer you get to God, the more you realize what you really are and how we're saved by grace through faith and kept by grace.

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Praise God. Let's get to Chris from Georgia. Chris, welcome. You are on the air. Hey, Matt, thanks for taking my call.

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I really appreciate it, man. Sure, man, no problem. Okay, I just got a quick question about the

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Lord's Supper. I just wanna know what your opinion about it is when you know Paul talks about it in 1

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Corinthians chapter 11, for we know when he says, whosoever eats in an unworthy manner, and what you think that means, because I always feel really nervous when we do the

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Lord's Supper at my church. We do it like once a month. And sometimes I don't partake of it because I know the stuff I struggle with, and I don't feel like I'm worthy of it.

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And so I really have a major issue with it because it's like something, every month it comes up,

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I'm really nervous about it. So I just wanna know what your thought on what Paul was talking about there. Well, you remind me of me.

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I go through the same thing every time. Dead serious, I'm serious. Yeah, I've even said

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I don't like taking communion because it makes me feel bad about myself because I don't like looking at myself.

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But I take it because I need it. But we'll talk about that when we get back because there's a break.

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Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. We have one open line, 877 -207 -2276.

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Please give me a call. It's Matt Slick Live!

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

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All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. As soon as Chris is reactivated there in the waiting list, we'll get right there and get back to him.

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There we go, let's get to Chris. Hey, Chris, you're back on the air. Hey, hey Matt, welcome back.

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Yeah, my question about the Lord, so you know, like I was saying, I just get nervous every time we have it. I'm like, I know the stuff

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I struggle with and I know what Paul talked about. Sometimes I just abstain from it. I don't partake of it.

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And so I just, like I said, I just wanna know what your take is on that. So there are different possibilities here.

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And what we have to understand is that we are not worthy to take it, period.

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We are not. But we take it by faith because what we're doing is we're trusting that Jesus Christ is

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God in flesh, died on the cross, rose from the dead. He shed his blood for us.

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And that when we take the elements, what we're doing is proclaiming that. That's what verse 26 says in 1

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Corinthians 11. As often as you eat the bread, drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Wow.

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Now, whoever eats in an unworthy manner, from what I understand in some research I've done on this is that a lot of times what the people would do is get together for binging and eating in a gluttonous kind of a way.

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So when we take the bread and the wine, we take a little bitty cup and a little bitty piece of bread.

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That's not how it was. The first supper, the disciples were having a meal, a big meal.

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So there was a big thing of wine, probably, and a big loaf of bread, a loaf, but a big bread.

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And so he would tear pieces off. Well, this is because people would come together. So one of the theories about this is eating it in an unworthy manner is that you're not eating it and participating in it as a remembrance of what

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Christ has done, but as a means to just get food while you go to the communion supper.

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That's, you're not to do that. So don't drink, don't eat and drink in an unworthy manner. Another interpretation could be that you are in a particular sin on purpose and you have been partaking in it and then it's time for communion.

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Now, some have said that would be in an unworthy manner because there's hypocrisy there.

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Because what you're doing is you're saying, I need to have communion, but I'm not repentant of my sin.

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Because communion, when we take it, is in part a designation of our turning from sin.

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So now that's what's interesting is because let's say that you, me, whoever has a sin

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X, Y, Z that we've been struggling with and maybe won't conquer it our whole life, okay?

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And the morning of communion, you fall into that sin.

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Maybe it's unrighteous anger, maybe it's pride, salvation, who knows? It could be all kinds of things. Now you go to church, you're like, oh, yeah, what do

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I do? Well, if I say I'm not gonna take it because I have just sinned, then you have to ask yourself, if I'm not taking it because I sinned, but am

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I repentant? Because if you say, well, I've repented 100 times, but I still struggle.

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Well, take the communion in the intention of your heart. You're saying, I need you,

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Lord, and I'm proclaiming the salvific work that you have done in this, and I wanna partake in it because of what you've done, and I'm just depending on you all the more even through this.

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Now if someone were to say, well, hey, it's no problem. I'll just do this. I'll go do my own sin again. I don't care.

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That's a different story. Because then you're abusing what the communion's supposed to be about, the forgiveness of sins, which is related to our repentance of sin, and so we should repent.

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So you see, it's a tough one. Yeah, it would come down maybe like a godly sorrow. You can have godly sorrow.

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You can struggle with things, but have godly sorrow. I mean, there's a difference between the guy that struggles with things and has godly sorrow and says,

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Lord, forgive me. I'm not worthy, and the guy that sins and says, well, hey, God's grace covers this.

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I'm good to go. There's a difference between those two people, and I think the former is the one that's talked about when he says, talking about godly sorrow, you know?

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Right, yeah, and so I remember once my wife and I were on our way to church, and we got into an argument in the car on the way to church, all right, and it's one of those things that happens in marriage sometimes, and I get there, and I remember, oh, boy, we're taking communion today.

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Ay yi yi yi yi. Yeah. So I just swallowed all my pride, and I said, look, hon,

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I'm sorry. I apologize, ask forgiveness for my part. I think she did, too, at that point, because we're facing this very issue of communion, and we took, and does it mean we never had a fight again or never argued or disagreed again?

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Of course not, but the idea is to be contrite as much as possible when we go to that table, and so when

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I'm, especially when I'm giving communion, I'm like, oh, man, because I'm extra careful for days ahead of time, which is kind of hypocritical, because for days ahead of time,

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I'm extra nice, extra this, extra that, because I'm gonna give communion, right? Well, why aren't

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I like that the whole time? Yeah, you should be like that all the time. Yes, exactly. Right. Yeah, so I'm like, oh, man,

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I just can't win. I'm just, boy, I'm really wretched, man.

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Yeah. You know, it's just bad. So that's what, and I say to myself, oh, man, boy, do

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I really need him all the more. Yeah, yeah, and it's just like that last caller said, you know, the closer we get

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God, the more wretched we see ourselves as, you know, and I can definitely relate to that. It's like sometimes I feel like I'm worse, and I've been a

29:50

Christian for over 30 years, and I feel like, sometimes I feel like I'm worse now than the day that I became a Christian, you know, and I can definitely relate with what

29:58

Paul is saying in Romans chapter seven and all that. Yes, I relate to Romans chapter seven a great deal, and I remember once I was praying and I was very contrite and confessing all my sins.

30:14

I couldn't even think of any more, and then in the next breath, I said, Lord, thank you for not making me like the

30:20

Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, which is what, you know, Jesus said, you know, the

30:25

Pharisees said, don't, you know, thank you for not making me like that tax gatherer, and I recognized, oh, my goodness,

30:32

I got pride even when I'm humble. Yeah, I've been there, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So that's why

30:39

I take that communion, because that's where the forgiveness redemption is, and I need to cling to that, yep.

30:46

Yes, amen, absolutely. Well, that was very helpful advice, Matt.

30:51

I really do appreciate it, I really do. Well, praise God, and boy, you were less like repeating my exact thoughts, so yep.

31:02

All right, you must be as big as filthy vile sinner as I am, you poor guy. Well, you know,

31:08

Paul said he was the chief of sinners, and sometimes a lot, well, I don't know, Paul, I think I can give you good running for that. Yeah, that's, yeah,

31:14

I'm there, too. I'm like, I heard of someone's, I love this saying, and I believe in predestination, you know, and it says,

31:22

I'm glad God predestined me from the foundation of the world, because if he'd look at me now, he wouldn't pick me.

31:28

Yeah, yeah, I think Spurgeon says something like that, you know, you know, I think,

31:34

I don't know if he was the original one, but yeah, I definitely agree with that, yeah, amen. That's right, amen, brother.

31:41

Well, all right, well, thanks for calling, man, I appreciate it. No problem, I always appreciate your advice.

31:47

You have a good day, Matt. Okay, you, too, man, God bless. God bless. Okay, all right, that was

31:53

Chris. Now let's get on the phone with Derek from Virginia. Derek, welcome, you're on the air.

32:00

Hey, Matt, it's me again. It's been a long drive home. Yeah, I just have a question.

32:06

Thank you for taking my call again. My question, I guess it's about God in relation to time.

32:15

I've heard a lot of, like, different speakers say that time is irrelevant to God.

32:22

You know, they've said, like, he knows the past, present, and the future. So he knows the end from the beginning.

32:30

So for him to know the beginning, he had to have been there. And then for him to know the future,

32:37

I guess, like with prophecy, then he would either have had to have seen it or have been there. I guess my main question is, is

32:45

God in the past, present, and future all at the same time? I don't know.

32:53

Okay, I don't know. And the reason I don't, the reason I don't is we have to define our terms first.

33:00

Well, we have to define terms. And so time is a fundamental aspect of physics.

33:08

And generally, it represents a series of events, progression, change, alteration.

33:15

So here's a question. Does time have an ontos? See, the coffee cup in my hand right there has an ontos, has a nature, has an essence.

33:26

And this one, I can pick up, measure, et cetera. I can heat up the coffee inside of it.

33:33

Thought, what about a thought? Is a thought, does it have an ontological essence? Does it have properties?

33:40

What about time, does it? Well, if we can't answer these questions, we can't say, well, how does it relate to God?

33:46

Because God and time, is time part of his nature? Well, how's it, we just have a lot of questions.

33:53

So hold on, we got a break too. So we're out of time. So hold on, buddy. We'll be right back after these messages.

33:59

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

34:15

Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show, Derek. Are you still there? Yes, sir.

34:23

All right, so as I was saying, the difficulty here is we don't know the nature of time.

34:28

Is it an actual objective reality that has an existence? Or is it subjective experience as we perceive things, and we just put a label on it?

34:40

Now, I'm not a physicist, so I don't know. Maybe a physicist could come up and say, hey, when did we actually learn some new stuff about it?

34:45

You know, you could tell it's like it has a mass, it has a dimensionality, it has whatever they might wanna say.

34:51

I don't know. So the problem here is that, you know, I've had people say it, I used to say it, but I don't say it anymore.

34:57

You know, God's outside of time. Well, what does that mean? I don't know what that means. I don't know what it means to be outside of time, because if time is a measurement of sequence of events, then by definition,

35:09

God has time related to him because he created in six days.

35:15

So, but then we might say, well, did time come into existence when he first created the first day? You know, then time came in, because some physicists have said time is a property of the physical world.

35:28

So it gets really difficult. Then there's A theory of time. And then there's B theory of time.

35:33

A theory, I believe A theory is that everything, everything exists simultaneously.

35:41

And then B theory is the, it's consecutive. I forgot. I think I got that right. I might have them reversed.

35:47

Well, if B theory is consecutive, then that would be more the concept of what's called open theism, where God can only know present things exhaustively, because he's restricted to time in the

36:00

B theory sense. Right. So it's like, okay, this, you know, this is, you know, it gets to be very difficult.

36:07

And so that's why I'm saying, I don't know. Okay. Yeah.

36:13

You see what I'm saying? Yeah. I understand. Yeah, that's just something I always thought about, you know, could he be, you know, past, present, future, all at the same time, you know, and I've often wondered too, like, you know,

36:27

Satan, he knows, I guess, from scriptures and everything, how the end is going to be.

36:34

And, you know, I've often wondered, why doesn't he try to do something different? Or maybe he does. It always seems to bend back to the will of God of how he, you know, you know,

36:44

I'm thinking to myself that I'm Satan. I'm going to try to do something, all that I can differently to try to avoid the outcome.

36:50

But I guess God is like a, you know, like a chess game. He's always one step ahead. I'd say about a kabillion steps ahead.

36:59

But yeah, yeah, he's way ahead. And so, you know, and everything that happens happens by his decree, either directly or indirectly, his permission, his will.

37:13

And I've had discussions like this, very in -depth conversations with people about this. And just to be frank,

37:21

I can't figure it out. And I don't know. And it just requires a level of knowledge that we don't have, okay?

37:30

Is that right? That's right. So yeah, yeah,

37:35

I don't know. I'm not even sure how to answer the question. Oh, yeah, I know how to answer it. I don't know, okay?

37:42

I don't know. Thank you, sir. Okay, man. All right, we'll talk to you, buddy.

37:49

You too. All right, let's get to Byron from Greensboro, North Carolina.

37:57

Byron, welcome here on the air. Hey, how are you? Oh, a little exasperated, melancholy.

38:03

I'll guess it's a tinge of a streperousness kind of waiting in the shadows. Other than that, I'm okay.

38:08

Man, yeah, you know it's coming then. Hey, I had a quick question. I couldn't phrase it as well as I wanted to to the guy who answered the phone, but I have a friend who's not,

38:21

I'm a Christian. I have a friend who's not a Christian, and he, I don't like, he's always talking about, well, you

38:31

Christians, and we never get into an argument. It's more like, hey, it's just a conversation, and we've made it clear from the, or I have from the very beginning.

38:41

I'm not gonna be another Christian where he leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I wanna kind of witness how

38:48

God wants me to witness, led by the Spirit. But we were talking today, and I was talking to him about, okay, forget the

39:00

Bible right now, because he never talked about Bible as far as the facts behind was

39:05

Jesus an actual person, and did he die, did he resurrect, and all that kind of stuff.

39:11

He hears what I say, but it doesn't make sense to him. So I said, well, you know what? I don't know whether, and this is the question to you.

39:18

I don't know whether there's a secular or a historical document from back then, not a

39:31

Christian writing, but just historically, whether it shows the death, obviously, and I think that's a definite, but whether there's anything written historically about the rise and the end from non -Christian.

39:48

Yes, there are, yes, there are. Flavius Josephus, and he was born in roughly 37, and died in 101.

39:57

So now Christ died in 33, but Flavius Josephus was around during the time when the apostles were there, and he wrote, he was a historian, so he would do his research, and it was well known all over the

40:13

Mediterranean area that this man named Jesus had risen. Now, is it a fact or is it a rumor? Well, Flavius Josephus wrote about it.

40:22

Tacitus wrote about it. Excuse me, was it Tacitus? Let's see, yeah, Tacitus did.

40:29

And he was born in 55 AD, and so he wrote his research.

40:35

What he said, he mentioned people who had believed in and affirmed that Christ had risen.

40:40

Then there's Thallus, and he wrote of, he wrote not of Christ, but of something else.

40:50

Pliny the Younger wrote of Christ, and he died around AD 112, so he probably was not around at the time of Christ, and like saw him with his own eyes.

41:05

And the Talmud mentions that Jesus was hanged on the

41:10

Passover for 40 days before the crucifixion, et cetera. Lucian, who was born in 120, mentions

41:17

Jesus as well. So there are accounts. Now, if you give them to this guy, what he'll probably say is, well, that wasn't eyewitnesses.

41:27

Well, you want eyewitness accounts? Yes, okay, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, you know, and then he'll just deny them.

41:33

So you say, look, the evidence here was written by the eyewitnesses.

41:39

And they'll say, well, why isn't it written by others? Well, for one thing, here's some information that needs to be understood.

41:45

The Roman Empire was in control geographically of that little strip of land over there on the east side of the

41:54

Mediterranean. This little strip of land was called Israel, and around Israel were mountains and deserts.

42:02

So this strip of land made it possible for armies to march instead of going across the

42:09

Mediterranean, which was costly, difficult strategically, and sometimes dangerous.

42:15

They would march. So they needed that geographical area. So they had puppet masters that were in that area that would enter to Rome.

42:24

The Jews and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin were in cahoots to a degree with the

42:31

Roman leaders who were puppets. So the Romans could send a whole legion out to destroy

42:37

Israel if they wanted, but they didn't want to do that. It's expensive, difficult, why bother? Just let the puppet masters rule over them as long as the peace is held.

42:44

All right, so there had been Jews who had rebelled against this system. They didn't like it. And they had been killed many times before.

42:53

So when Jesus comes along, the Sanhedrin, they're really nervous about this, as well as every other person.

43:01

Wait a minute, we don't want the Romans to come in and destroy us, because they did in 70 AD. They're big, powerful, world -class armies.

43:10

So they wanted things to be copacetic. Let's keep it nice, let's keep it cool.

43:16

So if you were to say, as a Jew, yeah, Jesus rose from the dead, and he's

43:21

God in flesh, the Jews would consider it to be blasphemy, for one thing, and would kill him.

43:27

They'd pick up stone to throw at Jesus. But the Jews weren't supposed to be able to execute anybody, because Rome had said you can't do that without a trial, because if they're born under the

43:37

Roman province, then they're Roman citizens. They had to have a trial, a hearing. So when the

43:43

Jews wanted to kill Jesus, they're risking their own lives. This is very serious stuff. So, plus Herod and Pilate and these guys, they had to answer to Rome.

43:54

They're not gonna want any problems. So what's gonna happen? Hey, let's get together and write about everything.

44:02

Furthermore, people didn't write. The scribes would do that, trained people would do that.

44:08

The average Jew did not read or write. All right, now what do we do? So what we have are those people who are trained, who are with Jesus, who actually wrote the

44:19

Gospels. We don't have Jews who would write this stuff because they wouldn't do that.

44:27

They wouldn't do that because that means they're gonna be ostracized by their own Jewish community, and they don't want that.

44:34

Furthermore, are the Romans gonna start writing, hey, Jesus, this guy claimed to be God, rose from the dead?

44:40

Well, there's another problem. Rome practiced what's called Caesaropapism, emperor worship, he was considered a god.

44:48

So now if Roman soldiers or historians or whoever were to start writing about all of this stuff, they were risking a lot.

44:57

So this is why you don't have a whole bunch of stuff written outside of Israel, because it was geographically precise, but it was the eyewitnesses who did write, and in so doing, they talked and preached and taught about what

45:13

Jesus did, and it cost them their own lives. So this is why you don't have all this extra -biblical stuff.

45:21

Well, of course people would be writing it all down. I mean, what you would do, wouldn't it? Oh, of course you'd be doing that, no. And when you understand the historical cultural context, you go, oh,

45:29

I guess not. But Flavius Josephus did, and he was a Jewish historian.

45:39

No, that's awesome, you put it together really nicely. I'm not, you know, ultimately it's

45:49

God, you know, it's God nudging him and him accepting, but I'm just looking at a human man.

45:59

You know, I'm still trying to prove my argument, and then I started thinking, I said, you know what?

46:04

I mean, if he's not ready to hear my repeated, you know, hey, you ought to do this,

46:10

Christ changed my life in these and those ways, but it's not tangible to him, or he doesn't want it to be tangible.

46:18

And then you're trying to think in human terms, but thank you for answering that. Okay, I hope that helps, all right.

46:25

Yeah, it does, I think I'm gonna, I'm driving down the road, but I made a mental note of those names, and I guess

46:33

I can just Google it, and hopefully my memory serves me.

46:38

But if it does come up, I mean, are those writings that you were talking about, even though it's after Christ, and some of them, are they easily attainable on the internet?

46:51

Yes, they are. Okay. And if you go to my website, CARM, and you look up non -biblical accounts of New Testament events, or New Testament people, non -biblical accounts of New Testament people, you'll find the article, which is what

47:06

I was reading. Oh, really? And going through, yeah. Now, what is your website? CARM .org,

47:12

C -A -R -M dot O -R -G, and it's about 28 years old, and I've written about 6 ,000 articles on it.

47:22

Oh, man, that's awesome. Okay, I'm gonna look it up. Thank you so much. All right, buddy.

47:29

Okay, see ya. God bless. Bye. Okay. You too. All right, that's perfect timing. There's the music,

47:34

I'm outta here. May the Lord bless you by his grace. We'll be back on the air tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll talk to you then.

47:41

Whew, and I hope you have a great evening. God bless, everybody. We'll talk to you tomorrow, bye. Another program powered by The Truth Network.