Matt Slick Live: August 13, 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 karm .org.

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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.

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Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. You're listening to Matt Slick Live.

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I hope you're going to have a good time listening today. So if you want to give me a call, as always, the number is 877 -207 -2276.

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And if you want, you can email me at info at karm .org, info at karm .org,

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c -a -r -m dot o -r -g. All right, looking, I've got all these windows open on my computers.

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I have four 27 -inch monitors, and I'll tell you sometimes, it's like, where's that, where'd that window go?

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And just battling with that. So, all right, we have nobody waiting right now. If you want to give me an email, send an email, that's easy to do.

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Just go to your email thing and just email it to us at info at karm .org,

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info at karm, c -a -r -m dot o -r -g. Put in the subject line, radio comment or radio question, and we can get to it.

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And as we have no callers waiting right now, maybe I'll just do that really quickly, is get to some of the questions, some of the stuff that we're going to do.

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So that's it. If you're a newbie to the show, you're not sure what the show is about, I'm a

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Christian apologist. That means I defend the Christian faith. I establish its truth. I argue, debate, teach all kinds of topics,

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Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Unity, Baha 'i, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Atheism, some philosophy, logic, a little bit of mathematics,

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UFOs, aliens, the occult, Christian theology, doctrine,

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Bible questions, issues, and things like that. So I've been doing this for over 40 years.

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I love teaching on the Bible, love doing it, and it's a lot of fun.

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All right. Let's see, we've got a caller coming in. We've got two callers coming in. That's Mui Guddo.

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I have a friend here who's staying with us for a few days. He speaks Spanish, and so every now and then we'll, you know, say something in Spanish to each other.

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And if I say to him, Mui Guddo, that's advanced Spanish, he gets a kick out of it.

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Anyway, there you go. All right. Why don't we just jump on the air here with, let's see,

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Ebenezer from California. Ebenezer, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt.

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Yeah, I was just wondering if you could break down, you know, Hebrews 12, how it talks about we are encompassed with a great cloud of witnesses.

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Yeah, because, yeah, I just have a hard time understanding what that passage is.

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All right. So in Hebrews 12, one says we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us.

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Let us also lay aside every encumbrance. Now, if you think of the word cloud, when Jesus was transfigured, there was a cloud.

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When Moses went up to the mount, there was a cloud. God would dwell in the cloud sometimes.

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It was move. So it's interesting that the writer of Hebrews, which I think was Paul, said cloud of witnesses.

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Usually the cloud there is associated with the presence of God. So a cloud of witnesses surrounding us.

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Now, some people say, well, that means that they can all watch us and see us. Well, it doesn't say that.

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The terminology that he's using is a metaphor trying to explain things, just use a little bit of a poetic kind of a thing.

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Anyway, he says, lay aside every encumbrance and sin, which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

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You know, get busy being a Christian, get busy living as a Christian. That's what he's basically saying there. We've got to do that, you know, do what you got to do and live as a good, strong Christian, fixing our eyes on Jesus.

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Now, I don't know how far you want me to go into the text, but I can do that further if you want. I mean, just that first part, because I was, you know,

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I talked to a lot of Catholics and they bring up that passage when they talk about intercession for the saints, and the one in particular

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I was talking to you, I was like, you got to be taking that out of context. Well, no, they're reading into it.

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You see, the Catholics are loyal to their church, not Jesus, and they are loyal to the true church.

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They're going to look for anything in scripture that can be twisted to support their teachings.

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So this is one of the places, a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. So you could do this with a

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Catholic. You could say, okay, so this means that they can hear us? Does this mean they're watching us?

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Is that what it means? How do you know when it says a great cloud of witnesses, are they a cloud?

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Well, a cloud encompasses you. Well, a cloud can be up in the air. See, there you go, Matt. Of course, a cloud could be over there and over here, but it says surrounding us.

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Does that mean it's a donut cloud? What does it mean? If it's surrounding us, does it mean it's on the ground with us?

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What does it mean? You start asking these questions like this, and then pretty quickly, you find out that they don't know how to answer them.

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Because what they're doing is saying a cloud of witnesses means that they can see and hear everything we do. It doesn't say that.

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And furthermore, let's just say, what I'll do is I'll say, okay, let's just assume that you're going to be telling us that your position here is that the cloud of witnesses.

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So all these thousands and thousands and thousands and even millions of people, right? The witnesses, the people who have these witnesses, they'll go, yeah, yeah.

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Can they all hear us? Yes. Does each one hear everybody? Does each one person hearing millions of people simultaneously?

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Is that what you're saying? And you just go on and you work with them. After a while, you find out that they don't even know what they believe.

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They're just being, they're just regurgitating what they've been told. And just, this means this, it means they can hear us and say, really?

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So how do you know that from that? How do you know that's what it says? How do you know that's what it means? And if it does, are you saying they could hear millions of people simultaneously to the characteristics of God?

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Now, what are you doing? You see? Okay. Yeah. All right.

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All right. No problem. All right. All right. Now I know how to help. Thank you.

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Thank you. Yeah, buddy. All right, man. All right. God bless. Okay.

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That was Ebenezer from People's Republic of California. Let's get to Jan from North Carolina.

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Jan, welcome here on the air. Hello. How are you doing? Doing well, by God's grace.

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Thank you very much. I was wondering, I just, I've always been a Southern Baptist and recently I started going to another church that's the

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Free Will Baptist Church. It's very close to my home. And I did not know the differences. I really had not really realized there was a difference.

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And I just, I just kind of was wondering, is there a big difference between the Southern and the Free Will Baptist or what is the difference?

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Well, um, uh, I mean, what is the difference of belief,

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I guess? Yeah. The Free Will Baptists are even more Baptist and Baptist.

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That's what they might say. So they will affirm baptism is only for adults who have confessed

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Christ. And then it must be by immersion. That's what they're going to say. And that's basically with the

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Baptist church as well. All right. They will, this is good. They're both going to say the Bible is the sole authority of faith and practice.

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That's very good. Now that what they're going to say is that Jesus died for everybody who ever lived and that salvation is dependent on individual faith.

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Now, personally, I don't believe Jesus died for everybody who ever lived. Now we can talk about that if you want. That's Presbyterianism, which is within orthodoxy as is the

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Baptist church. But they say, this is where we get into some real problems. Salvation is dependent on individual faith.

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Well, that's true. But what they also say is that everybody has the free will choice as they are to be able to accept or reject

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God's offer of salvation. And that is simply not true. And the Baptists are more that it's predestined that God is destined some people to be saved and some not.

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Yes. So you can have reformed Baptists and you can have Presbyterian, a reformed

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Presbyterian. So I'm reformed Presbyterian and I know some guys who are reformed Baptists. And that's fine.

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We don't argue. It's like, hey, we all believe in everything. It's the same thing, except for a couple of minor things. As a covenantalist,

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I might believe in it for baptism, but not for salvation was a covenant sign, a continuation of the Abrahamic covenant.

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It's a theological thing dealing with fine tuning stuff. You don't have to worry about anything. It's not a big deal.

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There's no downside to the free. I was going to ask, is there a downside to the free will as opposed to the rest?

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Yes. OK, OK. It's not biblical. It's not biblical. It doesn't matter. Yeah. The idea that in any individual is simply able of its own free will to be able to receive or not receive

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Christ is not biblical. It's commonly taught biblical. Yeah. Explain it.

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Explain it to me. OK. The biblical position is that the unbelievers, a slave of sin,

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Romans six, 14 through 20, a hater of God who does no good. Romans three, 10, 11 and 12. He's by nature a child of wrath.

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Ephesians two, three. He his heart is desperately wicked, deceitful. Jeremiah 17, nine.

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He cannot receive spiritual things. First Corinthians two, 14. He cannot. Is that because he will not or there's no redemption for that?

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No, he says it cannot. OK, he says he cannot. So the unbeliever does not have the capacity of his own free will to believe in Christ because he's a slave of sin, a hater of God.

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This is why the Bible says that God grants that they have faith. Philippians one, twenty nine, and that our faith is in Christ.

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That's the work of God. John six, twenty eight, twenty nine. As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

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Acts 13, 48. So I'm trying to show you. And there's another verse, John six, sixty five.

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Jesus says, you cannot come to me unless it's granted to you from the father. So let's use that latter verse.

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The whole denominations base their their theology on the idea of human free will.

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And the reason they do is because they decide how free God has to be and how free we have to be.

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So they're going to say the only way for God to be right and fair is if it's up to us to decide.

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He just gives us a free will choice. That's humanist philosophy. It's humanist philosophy.

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It's in the Christian church. The Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches that God grants we have faith.

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And like I said, Jesus says in John six, sixty five, that you cannot come to me unless it's granted to you from the father.

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Now, I talk to free willers all the time and I show them this and they don't know to do with it.

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And I say, here's some other. I just I've been going for almost I've been going to this church for almost eight months.

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And then I realized it was a free will. I didn't even know. I mean, I didn't know there was a difference. OK, I'll say and I've been baptized in the

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Southern Baptist Church until I was thinking to myself, what have I done the right thing here? You know, they're

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Christians. They're absolutely Christians. They love the Lord. You know, no problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

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It's just that they have the mistake of thinking that our salvation is completely and totally dependent upon what we do in our wisdom.

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Exactly. Our free will. That's a lot of biblical. Yeah, it's not biblical. Yep. So God actually chose.

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Yeah. So I argue with this, but people about this all the time is why I'm so familiar with this, because humanist, you know,

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I even asked I asked the deacon in our church and I asked the preachers and I didn't get that clear of an answer from them.

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So I wasn't sure what was going on. The answer was a little cloudy and it didn't seem, you know, it's because it's because their theology is not very clear.

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And also because they're trying to justify the position, I would imagine. Right. Yes. Now, here's a principle you understand that what people do repeatedly is develop a certain this is what must be true.

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This is what must be not true. This is what must be moral, not be moral out of their own senses. And then they hold God to it happens all the time.

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They'll say in order for God to say in order for God to be fair, we have to have free will choice.

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When people tell me that I say, show me that in the scripture. Yeah, I don't see that Old Testament doesn't seem to conform to that at all, actually.

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You know, God chooses what he wants and whom he wants. And I didn't like this initially, but that's just what it says.

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Yeah. And I debate it frequently and I know the topic well, and they can't win because the

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Bible doesn't teach their position. I just quote him scripture and I see what it says.

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And so I've read that scripture and that's why I decided to call because the more I go, the more I hear, I learn.

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Good. Well, hold on. We've got a break. OK, so if you want to hold on, we'll get back. I'm going to hang up, but I appreciate you.

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Thank you, sir. All right. Well, God bless. OK, thanks. Hey, folks, be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned.

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We'll get to Luke then Albert. I'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, everyone, welcome back to the show. Hey, just want to remind you that we stay on the air by your support.

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Would you please consider supporting us? All you have to do is go to CARM .org, C -A -R -M dot

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O -R -G forward slash donate and all the information you need is right there. We've got a new system. We're polishing the appearance and we're going to be doing is setting it up so that you can log into the website and everything you see, everything that you've done, everything you've donated to schools, everything will be all right there underneath an

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API and a login thing. We're working on that. I was just texting during the break, the web guy about that, and we'll be talking about that next week.

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He and I got a big meeting. All right, so there you go with that. And also, for those of you who are just listening on the radio and you've never checked out my website,

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CARM .org, C -A -R -M dot O -R -G. You want to check it out, you can do that. The Christian Apologetics Research Ministry.

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I've written around 6 ,000 articles and 21 years of radio and written several books.

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So I love doing this and by God's grace, I'm able to continue to do it. Even at my age of 67,

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I still have a decent brain. Now, if you ask my wife that question, she'd say, well, yeah, yeah, your record skipping some tracks, but you know.

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Okay, let's get to Luke from Tennessee. Luke, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt, how you doing?

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Doing all right, man. Hanging in there, buddy. What do you got? Great. Yes, my question is on Michael Heiser.

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I've been reading some of his stuff and I know that there's certainly some things that you and I would disagree with on him, such as his soteriology.

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With that said, what are some thoughts on his divine counsel teaching, as well as like the

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Deuteronomy 32 worldview? What are some thoughts? Well, the divine counsel thing is a real problem that he's come up with, and I wish he would just stop it and go away.

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All right. So let me explain something. This is Psalm 82.

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So God takes a stand. Let's see. Get this right here. All right.

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So God takes his stand in his own congregation. He judges in the midst of the rulers.

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How long will you judge in the midst of the rulers? The word there is Elohim in the midst of God.

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So therefore, Heiser has stated the idea of a council of gods or those who are called

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God, but not necessarily the divine God. I've gotten different views on it and that there's some hierarchical, let's see how to put this, divine counsel that's up there that share in some divine qualities.

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All right. Sure. Okay. And that needs to be put in the trash can where it belongs.

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All right. Flat out. And I'll explain why. Okay. Based off of this chapter or based off of overall scriptures teaching?

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Scriptures. Okay. I'm going to show you. Watch this. Isaiah 43 .10. You are my witnesses declares

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Yahweh and my servant whom I have chosen so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

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Before me there was no God, no Elohim formed. There will be none after me.

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There aren't any. That's what God, that's what God himself says. He identifies himself as Yahweh. He says, before me, there is no

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God formed and there will be none after me. All right. Okay. All right.

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Well, I know many scholars. What? Oh, sorry. I was just going to say, I know many scholars say that this would interpret as there's no

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God like Yahweh. And certainly you see a narrative throughout the Old Testament where God's consistently over and over again, um, you know, yelling at Israel and other nations for serving other gods.

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So I'm going to show you something. Okay. I'm going to go someplace here. I'm gonna go to Genesis three.

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I'm gonna show you a principle. Now the serpent was more crafted than any beast of the field. And he said to the woman, has

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God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. What God had said to Adam was don't eat of the tree.

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The woman said, well, we can't do this. We can't do that. You shall not eat from it or touch it. She added the words or touch it.

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It's a slight alteration for clarification. That's all it was. It's like saying, well,

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God doesn't know what words need to be there. We need to help him out because we have to tell him what it means, not

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God. So let's go back to Isaiah 43, 10. You're my witnesses declares Yahweh, my servant whom

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I have chosen. There's none like me. That's not what he said. Let's just change the wording just a little bit.

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And that way we can get it to say what we want it to say. He says there was before me, there was no

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God form. There will be none after me. So God says Isaiah 43, 10.

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Let's go to Isaiah 43 or 44, 6. Okay. Thus says Yahweh, the king of Israel and his redeemer

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Yahweh of hosts. I am the first and I am the last. And there is no God, no

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Elohim besides me. None. Do you know what the Mormons do with this?

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That means of this world. They add that. They just add the words.

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It means of this world. That's not what it says. So who is the. Go ahead.

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So who's why? While we're in Isaiah, I'll stay there, right? I won't go to another book, but how about like, for example,

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Isaiah 34, one through four, clearly God is enraged against not people, but it seems to be the hosts, lowercase g gods.

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It seems like in verse, I believe it's two. Well, Isaiah 34, the

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Lord's indignation is against all nations. Okay.

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And that's going to do for the Lord is the rich against all the nation. That's still context of people, but he seems to switch here and the furies furious against all their hosts to are the hosts there in this context.

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Well, it doesn't say that his wrath against all their armies. Okay. Okay. So I think what what translation are you original

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Hebrew? I'm in the ESV, the original Dead Sea Scroll. It seems to be host.

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And I'm not I'm not at all trying to argue with you, Matt. I'm just trying to understand because I see both sides.

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Like I do read the Old Testament. It seems like many times he is addressing rulers, kings, but many times it does seem to be some sort of unseen realm spirit.

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Let me help you out as well. I'm going to go to Galatians four. Okay. However, at that four, eight, however, at that time, when you did not know

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God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.

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You're slaves to other gods, but early not gods. This is Galatians four, eight.

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When you did not know God, you were slaves to those which are by nature, not gods. So there's

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Moloch, right? There's the so there are gods from other nations, aren't they?

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But are they really gods? Well, of course not. But they're worshiped as God. People believe them as gods and God will talk about it.

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No, the council of all the gods. I'm the one who will do this and this and that. Well, that means there's really other gods then, doesn't it?

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That's not what he's saying. All of your, your pagan, your false doctrines, your false gods, your followers of all of that,

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I'm the one who blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's not saying they actually exist because Paul, the apostle says, when you did not know

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God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. That's what he's saying.

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He says, because the people would make for themselves different gods. They have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not

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God, but for the work of men's hands, wooden stone. So he destroyed them. Isaiah 37, 19.

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Now let me read you some more scriptures. We already went to Isaiah 43, 10, 44, six. Now I'm going to go to Isaiah 44, eight, but we'll have to wait till the break.

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You have got to get this in your head. There's only one God. And we'll talk about this after the break.

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Why this is so significant. I'd love to hear you on Deuteronomy 32, eight through nine. Okay.

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We'll do that after the break. Okay. Hold that for the break. Okay. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages, please stay tuned.

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

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Here's Matt Slick. Welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Luke from Tennessee.

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Luke, you still there? I'm still here. Yes, sir. All right. So during the break,

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I looked at Deuteronomy 32, eight and nine. Okay. All right. Yes.

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All right. According to the number of the sons of God, right? And yep.

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Yep. Okay. So I, I, on November 9th, 2018, I wrote an article, who were the sons of God in the

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Bible. And I went through in the NESB every single instance of where it occurs.

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There are 10 occurrences in the NESB. The ESB says sons of God. So I didn't put that in there, but the

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Hebrew is, uh, is, uh, sons of, of Israel or the

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King James says, uh, sons of Israel, sons of Adam, excuse me. All right.

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So, and the NESB says son of man, sons of men, because the Hebrew, the word there is

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Adam in Hebrew. Are you sure the original

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Hebrew said that as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls? From my research, it was sons of God. Yeah. Let's just say it was a son of God.

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Okay. Let's just say that. All right. Not a big deal. Okay. What's the term? Well, what does it mean?

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Sons of God? Have you done a search on what that means? The term plural?

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Absolutely. And I've done, I've actually read that article that you're referring to on your website from other places like Psalm 89 and, um, most notably

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Job, sons of God does seem to quite literally refer to angels or spiritual beings.

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So I don't see, um, how you, this wouldn't refer to the same definition here in Deuteronomy 32, when he's referring them back to the

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Tower of Babel and what happened when he divided them. Well, the sons of God can mean people or it can mean angels, depending on the context.

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Okay. Well, in the Old Testament context, it's always going to be angels. No, not necessarily. New Testament.

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Can you point me to a verse then? Let me look, make sure. Actually, you may be correct there.

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Hold on, hold on, hold on. Slow up. Slow up. They're all angels in the Old Testament. In the

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Old Testament, they're all in reference to angels. Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah.

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So are you thinking there's more than one

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God out there? No, absolutely not. I was just getting your, uh, opinion on this

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Deuteronomy 32 worldview. And I thought it was quite interesting because what God's doing in the gospel message is not only giving us, it seems to be, as you read this context throughout scripture, he's not only most importantly, forgiving our sins for the elect, but it seems like he is taking back authority from these divine beings.

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And that's what Deuteronomy 32 and like I originally thought Psalm 82 was referring to.

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No, no, no. That's the unrighteous judges in Israel, Psalm 82. So you're taking, he's taking it back. Yeah, that's what it is.

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But he's taking back authority, whether he lose it to him. No, he was, if you read, let's read, let's read

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Deuteronomy 32, then. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just asking the summation, the summation problem, I don't want to read all the verses.

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I'm just saying, what's the position? Is it that God lost his authority? Is that what it is?

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No, absolutely not. God chose to give some sort of dominion to other lowercase

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G God that he created, right? And God's people with Israel. So God, capital

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G Yahweh is the God of Israel. And over and over again, these other gods failed and we see back in Deuteronomy 32, it seems that he did give authority to these gods.

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Okay. So what's the nature of these other gods you're talking about? Are they divine beings like God?

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Cause God is divine. Are they angels? Are they people? Are they another form of life? Well, I would,

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I would believe they were a reference to his divine counsel. Okay. You're not answering the question.

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They were beings that he created like angels. He's given authority to. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. You're going to do some critical thinking here.

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We know that God is one kind of being. He alone is God. Humans are one kind of being angels and all the demonic is out.

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Okay. Or another kind of being what kind of being are these sons of God that you're saying he created had authority.

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What's their nature? Well, you, you know, there's when you say angels, you know, Matt, that it's not just one level of angels out there.

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I mean, there's certainly different levels out there. And I think these divine beings would fall under the category of angels, but have some sort of authority under your typical messengers.

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So you're just saying that, that these divine beings are angels. Yes. Higher height, high type of high authority angel.

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Yeah. I would say, okay, hold on now to divine. Does that mean they have the quality of being divine of the way

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God is divine? Absolutely not. No. Okay, good. So they're just angels and they're just powerful angels that could do a lot.

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Basically what you're saying, right? Well, yeah, they seem to be angels that have been given authority by God to rule over the other nations and continue to fail in doing so.

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Sure. Sure. Would I have any problem with that? That's not a problem. That's biblical. I've written articles on that. So. Okay.

28:56

Okay. And that's where I was asking about. I mean, that's ultimately what I was curious about. Here's the problem.

29:03

Here's the problem. If you say divine counsel, divine this, divine that divinity is a quality that belongs to God alone.

29:10

If you're calling them divine, now you're opening yourself up to a heresy. You have to say angels.

29:16

You have to see what God means by certain things. It cannot be that there's another class of existence out there besides humans, angels, and God, you know, that are sentient.

29:26

Are you okay calling them? Well, isn't angels more of a New Testament wordology?

29:34

Wouldn't it be okay to attribute them to lowercase g gods as the

29:39

Old Testament does? What's a lowercase g god? What's that? It's what we're talking about.

29:46

It's what the whole Old Testament is referring to, like in the Egypt and the 10 plagues, it says he punished not only the people and killing the firstborn, but he also punished the gods of the nations.

29:57

Yeah, the false gods. You have to be very, very, very careful.

30:02

I'm trying to get you to learn something here. I don't want you to use these terms as gods, the way you are, to have divinity.

30:10

You're going to cause all kinds of problems. You're going to confuse people. Use the terms that we understand them to mean the angels that were sometime and fallen angels who imitated gods and pretended to be like them.

30:25

This Michael Heiser guy has caused problems upon problems upon problems because of this.

30:31

The Mormons are jumping on this saying, see, there's other gods out there. The Jehovah's Witnesses say big g god and little g god.

30:39

You're using the same terminology, the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. And without clarifying everything, you could end up in some serious error.

30:46

Because if you don't clarify it now and you continue with this, you could potentially end up in some, you know, polytheistic thing or panentheism or something else potentially.

30:55

Sure. Well, what I'm getting at, Matt, I'm not, and I've been studying this for five years. I'm not going to fall down that path.

31:01

Don't worry. But what I'm getting at is it appears from saying scripture. And it's really cool that God is over and over again yelling at Israel in the

31:09

Old Testament, not just about some wooden idol, but actual lowercase g gods. I understand you.

31:15

We don't like to use that word. So we'll do angels, some wicked angels. And it it seems to give more context to the

31:22

Old Testament when you read it that way. So I mean, they really weren't gods. There's there's a conceptualization of what a god is, but it has no ontos, has no existence.

31:32

So there's there's certain demonic forces will imitate God, just like certain demonic forces imitate

31:37

Mary and appear to the Catholics. And they will say it's really Mary, but it's not. It's a demonic force doing an imitation.

31:44

So this kind of a thing, you can have demonic forces. Well, what do you what do you say to someone that says the whole Old Testament is using the word

31:51

God? Because it does it because the word Elohim occurs six thousand four hundred eighteen times or something like that.

31:58

And so it has a myriad of of context and uses. So so we're so the word

32:05

God doesn't have any set of attributes that we should assign a specific definition to it.

32:11

Is that what you're saying? No, no, no. Words mean what they mean in context. That's what that's what we say.

32:17

OK, OK. So whatever the context is, is called a semantic domain that a word has a range of meanings in different contexts.

32:28

So the word for Elohim, for example, which is 430 in Hebrew, you know, the

32:34

Strong's Accordance. Whoops. Here we go. This occurs two thousand five hundred ninety nine times.

32:41

I'm thinking the word Jehovah appeared that many other times. Elohim is two thousand five hundred ninety nine times.

32:47

OK, and it has many different usages. There are different contexts.

32:52

Yeah. And through some, you know, some. And I would acknowledge that many of those use cases are for human rulers.

33:01

But what I'm getting at is it appears that many times as well, in addition to it, that it does seem to appear to some sort of angel or demon in the

33:10

Old Testament is what I'm getting at. Well, we have to check to see if that is the case. And I don't have any problem with it as long as we understand the perfect example would be, again, that Deuteronomy 32.

33:20

Yeah, but I don't believe that's the case with the Hebrew. So anyway, look at the Hebrew and the

33:26

Dead Sea Scroll as the sons of God. Well, OK, but it wouldn't be sons of Israel because it's

33:32

OK. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. OK. The term sons of God in the Old Testament is my research refers to angels.

33:39

They're not divine beings. They're angels. The phraseology is unfortunate for us today because it can mean false things without training.

33:48

People will fall into that. There's a break. We've got to go, buddy. OK. All right, ma 'am. I appreciate it. Thank you.

33:54

All right. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Good stuff. It's Matt Slick Live!

34:10

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

34:16

All right, and welcome back to the show. Let's get on with Albert from Georgia. Albert, welcome back, buddy. You're on the air.

34:24

Yes. Good evening, Matt Slick. My question is, I was hearing that a lot of evangelical pastors were receiving money from the left.

34:33

So so these pastors, are they truly considered really true Christians or not?

34:39

What's the reason? We always had to find out what's the reason. If some if a leftist group wanted to give me money, give

34:47

Karm money because they liked a certain article, I'm fine. As long as I don't have to compromise the truth of God's word.

34:55

So that, you know, it's a possibility. Now, if someone who's a or, you know, from a pornography empire wanted to give me money and say, no, you keep it.

35:05

I don't want to do with what you got. Now, it just depends on who, what and what's going on and what organization and what do you mean by left and how far in?

35:13

So it's just not that easy to see what each individual case would be. OK. So so so the word they want to persuade them to accept leftist agenda and stuff like that, only money like Bill Gates or Mark Muckerberg or George Soros and these pastors, they came in and selling out.

35:33

Well, it's certainly possible they are selling out. I'm just saying that each individual case must be looked at to see its own merit.

35:42

What's going on? You could have a very conservative pastor who has said something that was so good that even a leftist agrees and donates.

35:54

OK, OK. You know, it's just a millionaire who's got apartment buildings. And, you know, he he says, here's here's some money.

36:02

OK, but what if it was the Democratic Party organization, you know, the leftist rag group, the

36:09

Democrats? And they want a pastor to preach to his congregation, certain kinds of things with left leaning stuff.

36:16

No pastor should ever agree to that. OK. All right.

36:23

OK, thank you. OK, thank you. All right. You're welcome. All right. Now let's get on with Elijah from Pennsylvania.

36:30

Elijah, welcome here on the air. Hey, Matt, how are you doing today?

36:36

All right, man. Hanging in there, buddy. What do you got? Yeah, before I get to my question,

36:43

I just want to clear up about that caller that you had before the last about the whole

36:52

God thing and Michael Heiser. I just wanted to say I've been studying Michael Heiser for years.

36:59

And and and I I understand why some people misinterpret what he says.

37:06

But but but I just want to say that Michael Heiser is on video saying that the guys that he refers to are angels and fallen angels.

37:16

And even though he has said this, the Mormons, they still twist

37:22

Michael Heiser's teachings just like they twist the scriptures. So so so so I just wanted to let you know that Michael Heiser did not believe in other guys.

37:32

He believed that they were angels and fallen angels. If you could send me that video clip or whatever it is, so I can just write a small article and say this is what he says.

37:44

And that would be helpful. I'll put it that way. OK. OK, yeah, yeah,

37:49

I'll try to find that video. All right. All right, man. So what do you got, buddy? Yeah, my question is out of it was

38:00

Daniel four. I think when I know Daniel 10 versus I think five to six.

38:08

And I wanted to know, is that is that the son of man that Daniel is seeing in those verses?

38:17

Because I know later on in that chapter, the other two entities are angels. But I wanted to know that first that first entity he's seeing is that the son of man.

38:28

That's a good question. It's been a long time since I've studied Daniel 10 with that in mind to see.

38:34

But it's certainly possible the son of man, because sometimes in the

38:40

Old Testament, there are appearances of God that are directly

38:45

God. And that, for example, is in Exodus six, two and three, for example.

38:51

We have other instances where the angel of the Lord appears. Now we get into these issues of what the angel of the

38:58

Lord is. Some say it's an angel and some say that it's the pre -incarnate Christ who's appearing in that angelic form.

39:07

I think either one of those is perfectly fine. So depending on which context which we're looking at, because there's a lot of that in the

39:14

Old Testament. So is it possible that Daniel was seeing the pre -incarnate

39:19

Christ? I would say it's certainly possible. I have to look at the context to see if that's the case.

39:26

But we do know from Daniel 10 that there was the prince of Persia, that demonic force which was sent against,

39:36

I believe it was Michael or Daniel. Yeah, Daniel, to be, you know, in the heavenly realm.

39:42

So without having looked at it, you know, recently, I can't tell you which one or in my opinion, which one it was.

39:48

OK. OK. And I have another question out of Revelation four.

39:56

Sure. In, let's see, around verses,

40:02

I think, six through eight, it mentions the four living creatures. Oh, yes.

40:09

Yes. So in Revelation four here, it says that each of the four living creatures in verse eight, they each had six wings.

40:18

And a footnote in my Bible says that this is a reference to Isaiah, because Isaiah mentions six wings, but those were seraphim.

40:29

And in verse six here, it says four living creatures.

40:38

I'm trying to find it. But anyway, it was yes. So I think it's verse seven.

40:44

And it's referring me back to Ezekiel. So I can tell you about that stuff.

40:50

Yes. Yeah. So it seems that it seems that the four living creatures in Revelation four, because it's referring to Isaiah and Ezekiel when talking about these.

41:00

So it seems like it seems like they're referring to seraphim and cherubim here. Is that what

41:06

Revelation four is about? Yes. Yes and no. So when the 12 tribes of Israel camped around the tabernacle in the wilderness, they camped in four groups of three.

41:17

So it'd be three to the north, three to the east, three to the west, three to the south. Those four groups of three each had a banner, a flag, a banner, lion, ox, eagle, and man.

41:30

And that's what you see here in Revelation, lion, ox, eagle, and man. You also see it in Ezekiel, lion, ox, eagle, and man.

41:37

In fact, the four gospels were also known as the lion, ox, eagle, and the man. So we're not exactly sure what's going on.

41:45

But back to the tabernacle, the 12 tribes, they had the lion, the ox, the eagle, and the man.

41:54

When you add up the number of men in each of those three groups and you extend them out from the tabernacle, you get a cross.

42:03

Jesus says, or God says in Exodus 25, 8, build a tabernacle among my people so that I can dwell among them.

42:10

In John 1, 14, the word became flesh and tabernacled among us. That's who Jesus is.

42:15

So it's all about Christ. What's these four face creatures? I'm not exactly sure, to be honest.

42:21

They are at the very least symbolic of the work of Christ, the work of God. Now, in one context, it deals with the atoning sacrifice around the tabernacle.

42:29

In another context, it seems to be that these creatures here, which in Revelation is a highly symbolic book,

42:35

I don't think they're necessarily really alive beings. I think they're metaphors for something else in the Old Testament.

42:43

And it says each one had six wings. That's why you go to Isaiah chapter 6, because of the seraphim.

42:48

So it's like, okay, what's going on? To be honest, I don't know. I do not know.

42:56

Okay. I heard I heard I heard one theory say that say that they think that the term seraphim and cherubim are just are just like job titles for angels.

43:12

So like, like some people believe that they're not actually like describing like living creatures. They're like describing the job title of like different angels.

43:23

Yeah, there's people who can just say that. But from my studies, and I'm not saying

43:29

I'm right and they're wrong. I'm not saying that. But there are ranks of angels. And so I've done a pretty deep study on this years ago.

43:40

And that's trying to look for which one of my articles are angels. What do angels do?

43:49

And then there's different ones of angels. So I'm just trying to find out which one of I've got. Their appearances to and I'm looking through my notes, characteristics of and different kinds seem to be archangels, cherubim and seraphim.

44:07

And maybe some other categories as well. And I can give you some information on that. But this seraphim had six wings and the cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat.

44:20

So, you know, I've studied this and I was not able to, in my opinion, solve exactly and understand everything about them all.

44:29

Just it's just too I couldn't do it. Okay. Yeah.

44:36

Okay. Do you have another caller waiting or?

44:42

Yes, we do. You want to call back tomorrow? Oh, come back tomorrow. Yeah, sure. We'll go through some more stuff.

44:48

All right, buddy. All right. All right. God bless. Okay. Now we've got one more call.

44:54

Let's get the Kara. Kara or Kara from California. Welcome. You're on the air. Hello.

45:01

I have a question regarding Sabbath judgments. Sabbath judgments.

45:08

Okay. All right. And my question is, why was a man stoned for carrying sticks on the

45:14

Sabbath in numbers 15, 32 to 36? And in contrast, why were

45:25

Jesus' disciples allowed to pick heads of grain on the Sabbath in Matthew 12, 1 through 8?

45:31

So in the Old Testament, when the man was stoned for that, he was specifically breaking the law of work and picking up workload sticks and moving them.

45:43

It was flat out work. The reason the Sabbath was not to have any work done is because the

45:49

Sabbath, which is the day of rest, and Jesus is our rest, the Sabbath ultimately points to Christ.

45:55

So the reason that he was judged because what he was doing was implying the idea, typologically, without him really knowing it, that we have to work for our salvation, for our rest.

46:08

So he was killed for that. When they picked heads of stuff to get to eat, it's not work.

46:13

It's food. You're allowed to gather food and eat on the

46:20

Sabbath. The rule that the Pharisees and Sadducees had come up with was ridiculous.

46:26

It wasn't in the Bible that they couldn't pick heads of grain and eat something. It wasn't work.

46:31

It was just food. OK. OK, I see. All right. And then

46:37

Jesus made it clear that there were acts of necessity and piety and that they were allowed on the

46:45

Sabbath as well. So I've read somewhere that it was that the man can stick on the

46:53

Sabbath. It might have been possible that it it could be out of necessity, like he wanted to warm himself or something.

47:02

And you pick heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath. Well, it's like the issue here has to do with the issue of salvation.

47:12

That's what the Sabbath is. You could put Christ in it. You'll see why the difference is. Jesus is our bread, our food on the

47:20

Sabbath. It's not a problem. Works on the Sabbath is a problem for the Old Testament economy because they don't want to imply that you work on the

47:29

Sabbath. You work on the rest for salvation. Oh, we're out of time. So we call back tomorrow. We go through some more.

47:35

OK, if you want. All right, buddy. We're out of time. OK, thank you very much. Good questions, though.

47:41

All right. God bless. All right. Hey, folks, we're out of time. Good stuff. Good stuff.

47:46

He's got a good question. We'll get into that some more maybe tomorrow. May the Lord bless you and by his grace. We're back on there tomorrow.