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CARM's 25 Year Anniversary Celebration for anyone and everyone who wants to join in and celebrate 1/4 century of apologetics via CARM.
All right, everybody, welcome. This is the virtual celebration of the CARM anniversary, 25 years. It was actually yesterday, which was the 25th. That fell on a Sunday. So I figured what we'd do is move it to a Monday here, the celebration thing, and get people to come in and talk.
Whoever's interested, they could do that. And we'll have people joining in. We got one from zero to four just now. So people are gonna be coming in and we'll just see how it goes. We're in StreamYard, which means we're gonna have up to eight people in this area here that you're seeing.
And we'll get people in and out as they rotate through. So that's it. I expect to have a lot of people coming in. I let people know, and hopefully we'll get the missionaries in as well. And when they come in, we'll give them the floor a little bit, we'll talk to them and stuff like that.
So just letting everybody know about that. And I wanna thank everybody for your support of CARM. I know there's a lot of people who hate CARM who might be watching, but we also know that there are a lot of people who really do support CARM like Charlie here and Laura Anderson and Anthony Silvestro down there in the corner.
He's a, doesn't really help CARM in the formal sense of doing things, but he's a good guy, supporter. He's a great man of God. Known him for years. And so we have a lot of people, I'm sure, who are gonna be wanting to get in.
And just so you know, and maybe I can post a link in here. This is for chatting if you want to get in and be on the video here and you can check it out. So again, this is the 25th anniversary virtual celebration, Shindig for the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry.
I started the ministry 25 years ago. So what I thought I would do is tell you why I started it, what the reason was. And it's really kind of overly simplistic. It was more or less an accident because what happened was, get people added in.
Charlie, are you able to add people in? I can, if you'd like, yes. You can just control it, it'll be fine. Hey, Joanne. So actually, Charlie here, Charlie is the one who got me involved in apologetics.
We were at a Bible study. I didn't even met the guy, maybe a week before. And he read me a quote from Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith boasts that he did more than even Jesus to keep a church together. It's a real arrogant boast.
And it made me so mad that I snatched the paper out of his hand and I said, who said this? And Charlie said, well, Joseph Smith. I said, well, who's that? He said, the founder of Mormonism. And I actually said, well, Mormons are Christian, but this guy isn't.
And Charlie started to correct me. And one thing led to another, and we started studying with Jerry and Marian Bodine, which he was already studying with them, who were kind of disciple helpers of Walter Martin from the Christian Research Institute.
So we started studying this stuff. Well, I got pretty knowledgeable kind of fast. I mean, I was really intrigued. And so as things often happen, I got married later and I had already graduated from seminary.
And I was already answering a lot of questions for a lot of people. Well, there was this thing called BBSs. This is before the internet, the bulletin board systems. And what you would do is get your phone and you'd hook up to the computer and you would dial in and it would go.
And you'd dial in and you'd get online. I said to my wife, I said, I'm gonna be online on the BBS. She goes, okay, tell me when you're off. Couldn't use the phone. And so the BBSs actually had the scripts from back in 92, 93, when the BBSs were the thing before the internet was the internet.
And what you do is go in and read a post. You would copy it, put it into it and save it. And then you'd get offline. You'd write a response. And later an hour, two, three, four or day later, whatever, you'd dial back in and you'd go to that place and you'd post your response.
And so it was pretty slow, another form of snail mail. And so this is how it got started. And then one day my wife said, she said, well, what's this internet thing? And I actually said to her, I don't know where it is.
So I had to figure it out and figured out what the internet was. And then in the BBSs and now the internet had these things, forums and bulletin boards for that stuff. And because I'd been studying for so much for so long, I started answering questions.
And so I would have the same questions over and over again. So I started putting them aside in a Word document. Maybe it was WordPerfect back then. And then I would cut and paste in these various areas.
Then I realized, wait a minute, I've heard of those things called websites. Maybe I could just create a little website and just put the answers up there and just say, go here and look for the answer. Not that I had all the answers, it's just, hey, go here and we'll check it out.
And so I had to teach myself how to do internet. I remember calling up the internet provider and saying, how do I make a website? And he says, go on Yahoo, not Google, go on Yahoo and look up how to create a webpage.
So I had to teach myself how to do that, I had to teach myself HTML, I had to teach myself about FTP and SFTP and chmod. And I taught myself this stuff, it took a couple of weeks and learned, I can still teach HTML, it's easy, HTML is nothing, hypertext markup language.
And so I created the website and started putting some of the answers up there, things I'd written and done in seminary and other stuff that Charlie and I had done, various Bible studies and stuff. And I started putting it up there, I put a counter up on the page and I thought, well, this is cool because I'll be able to see how many people are coming to check this out, this site.
I didn't know what to call it, CARM. I came up with CARM, but one of the other iterations was, CARM is Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, C-A-R-M. And I thought, what I could do is call it Christian Research and Apologetic People.
But I figured the acronym C-R-A-P wouldn't work. And I came up with Christian Research Universalist Ministry, or Universal Doctrines, that'd be CRUD. And I had these different ones, I thought, no, that's not gonna work.
So I didn't know what to call it, I just called it CARM and produced this website. And a little bit later, I'll show you some versions of it. And so I still remember, I still remember this. I went out from the office where I had my little 13-inch monitor, which is like this big, and my Atari computer.
And I would take my hard drive and lift it up two, three inches and drop it on the table. And it would spin up. And then the floppy disks, I mean, it was really archaic. And what I have now would probably cost a million dollars back then.
But at any rate, so I'd get the site going and I'd go in. And I remember when we got 70, 70 page views in one whole day. In a 24-hour period, 70 people had come and checked it out. Hey, Han, 70 people, 70 people have come to the site and checked it out, really, that's a lot.
Well, it started to take off. And I started converting articles, started doing stuff. Next thing you know, it's just getting hundreds a day, then thousands a day. And we were up to 97 ,000 views a day until four and a half years ago, we had a server crash and we're hovering around 20 to 25 ,000 a day now.
And we're gonna slowly start coming up. We're rebuilding the site, that's another thing. It's a long story, it makes me mad what happened. It's a long, long, sordid story. It was a dark and stormy night and the server crashed.
And so there was that. So now I've been on radio for 16, almost 16, no. In January, it'll be 16 years that I've been on radio five days a week. So that's going on, I've written nine books and blah, blah, blah, all from this.
And I still remember my wife and I were in bed one night, just talking, going to sleep. And I said, that's after two years, I remember thinking two years of karma running. I was going, I wonder if I could ever do this full time.
And she's, well, how would that happen? I said, I don't know, but people are interested and they're starting to send us donations because I had these little manuals and I got lots of stories, but they were sending checks for $15 to buy a manual and it would cost us $11 to produce it.
So I had $4 profit, yay, big, big money. And so I wonder. And it wasn't until 15 years ago that I went full time in karma. When I was moved up here from San Diego at the Boise here area, and I was working at Hewlett Packard there and Hewlett Packard here.
And so I was working halftime at Hewlett Packard because I was doing karma halftime, so to speak. And I remember telling my wife, I said, what do you think about me quitting HP? And just trusting the Lord for this.
She goes, what? Quitting the secure job for this? Are you crazy? So every few weeks I'd say, what do you think about me quitting? What? Quitting. And the money was there and we were able to, I said, we could do it.
She goes, what? And then one day she goes, I think you could do it. And so I said, okay, I'll give my notice. Gave a two week notice and it was weird. It was weird that one morning I woke up, no more going to work.
My job was here. And I started working on the website and I would work and it just expanded and expanded. And 25 years ago, I started it. And here we are. So that's a brief history. That's a brief history.
So if anybody wants to add anything, maybe Charlie could, I've known him for more than 40 years. Oh yeah. If they want to read that quote from Joseph Smith, I'll post a link to it and they can read it for themselves.
That's what got you wound up to begin with. You wound me up all right. Am I going to get credit for it now or is that going to give me blame? I think blame is probably the real world, real thing. So anybody, hey, everybody wants to talk.
Do we have to mute them or do they can unmute themselves? Yeah, there's a lot of people trying to get in. So we're going to, I think cycle people in and out as their openings are available. All right.
Matt Slick, how are you today? I know that voice, Dave Neff, David.
Hey, so first off, I want to congratulate you for 25 years of CARM. I know we've had many great discussions and dialogues over the past couple of years. And I also want to say that was an, I didn't listen to the whole debate, but that was an interesting debate you had with Sam Shimon from the Islamic sites.
Yeah, it was an interesting discussion.
Yeah, I get a lot of comment about that, but you know, yep, it was interesting. Yes, I agree, yeah.
Yeah, so your opening about Mormonism was actually kind of interesting because that's kind of what I was kind of wanting to lead into with Mormonism. So what exactly is the Book of Abraham and all of this?
Well, I guess even a more basic question is how did Joseph Smith actually write the Book of Mormon?
He probably took the manuscript from the Solomon Spaulding issue. Solomon Spaulding was a Presbyterian minister in the early 1800s who wanted to write a novel in order to make money because it was very, very economically depressed in the area.
And he passed away and people who knew the manuscript and read the Book of Mormon said, it's the same thing. So there's some eyewitness accounts about that. And that's what we think is where he got it.
He made it up. He was not a true prophet at all.
Oh yeah, he was a lying sack of crap. Yeah, hell sock.
Yeah. That's what I call him, hell sock. A lying sack of crap, that's right.
I will say that if there is a hell, then I'm sure Joseph Smith is at the very bottom of it.
Yeah, along with Muhammad and others. Oh yeah, definitely. Oh, here's my wife. So yeah. Yes, you wanna come on in the camera?
Sorry, can we finally get to see your wife? Because you keep mentioning her and we never see her.
Okay, people are, okay, I'll get the chair for my wife. Hold on.
Okay, we wanna finally see her.
So here's my wife and I'm gonna put her right here and I'm gonna set the thing up so that you can see everything. Let's see. Here we go. All right. There she is. Now you saw her. Okay, see ya. Okay, oh.
Hi. This is my favorite wife, Anit. Can she hear us? What'd she say? Oh, she can't hear you. Let me put you on the speaker. On the, let's see, hold on, the system speaker. Let's see. Okay, where'd it go?
And that one. Oh, now I gotta do it this way on here. That's what I gotta do. Learning how to do this stuff. Okay, almost. Speakers will be high definition audio. Okay, now say something.
Something. Mrs. Slick, Matt never stops talking about you.
Unless it's heresy, then I'll stop talking about her. That's right. And he's right.
You're way too beautiful for him. It's true. It is true. When we were dating, my guy She looks just like her. Oh, she looks like she's one of the three girls she makes forward. That's Joanne.
It's so nice to meet you. It's so nice to finally meet you. This, where's Joanne down there? There's Joanne right there. Okay, you see her? I'm waiting.
So I told them about how the farm got started and how you asked me one night, what's the internet? And I said, I don't know. I don't know if you remember that. Do you remember that? I'm supposed to know everything and I didn't know.
So she mocked me probably. Probably mocked me for that one.
Joanne, I have a question. Matt always keeps claiming that he's six feet tall. Is he just exaggerating or is he telling the truth? I think he's lying. I knew, I knew he was Probably five, 11 and a half.
It's a bit of a bust. That's called cutting you down to size. Yeah, that's what she's doing. Thanks a lot, Joanne. I appreciate that. You can go now. It's really good. You're joking. The last time I measured, I was like an eighth of an inch under six feet.
That's when I measured myself. That's been a while back. But you get older, you start shrinking. That's true. You do. Yeah, and ask her about my weight. She won't, she'll not reduce that. That's right.
Will you, hon? Yeah, I'm 220 at six feet tall. That's right. It's Brandon. Hey, Brandon Shaw. How are you doing, man? I'm doing all right. How about you? Good. Brandon lives about four miles-ish, five, six, seven miles from us right here.
And let's see, there's Matt Yester over there. He's six foot seven. There's Tyler Waymeyer.
What? I see the dentist. I see the dentist on Thursday nights. That's right.
Yeah. He has special mask and lighting to make him look good for a video. That's Dr. Anthony R. Silvestro. He's a good guy, too. I've known him for a long time. How are you guys doing, Matt? Congratulations.
It's awesome. 25. He's got a good radio voice. Hey, we're good radio voice, man. That's good. I like that. It's a special filter. Well, good. So anybody want to say anything? We're going to rotate people through because I know a lot of people are wanting to get in.
So Anthony, you've not really done anything for CARM specifically, which I'm not knocking on it like that, but we've known each other and done apologetic stuff off and on together for a while, right? That's right.
Well, actually, I think Andrew and I are going to be writing some articles here pretty soon, right? For CARM, yes.
Yeah. Yeah, we've got to replace somebody else's evangelism articles. And I'll have to teach you how to write the CARM style. Well, send me the format. It's just quick and slick. Get it done. One of the things I'll do with CARM is, for example, someone will type in, what is the Trinity?
And the article comes up, what is the Trinity? And then it'll give you eight pages of history. And they don't answer what the Trinity is. Me, I'll say, what is the Trinity? And the first sentence is, the Trinity is the biblical teaching, the Christian biblical teaching that there's one God who exists in three simultaneous co-eternal persons.
Boom. Then I expand on it. Oh, that's what that is. That's how we write.
Or I should say, that's how we roll. That's good. That's how I write too. That's good. It's interesting as a science guy, whenever I struggled taking English classes, even though I was really good at English, I could write well, but when you're a science guy, it's pounded into your mind to take a five page science paper and do your best to condense it to two pages.
Whereas when you're an English person, you're supposed to take five pages and put a bunch of junk in it and make it into 20. I'm the opposite. I know how to do things in a very short order and get the point across properly.
Hey, Dr. Anthony, what type of science work do you do?
Well, I'm a dentist professionally. I was a math and chemistry double major back in school. Okay, interesting. Yeah. And now I do apologetic stuff. We actually sold the dental office. It'll be two years ago, this reformation day coming up that we sold the dental office and to be able to focus much more on apologetics and teaching in churches.
And you worked in creationism a lot. A lot in creation, a lot in evangelism and increased up. I get so many calls to do teaching.
Speaking of which, I'm actually debating intelligent design versus evolution this week, I think this Thursday. Dr. Anthony, if you are interested in setting up a dialogue with me on that, I would be very interested in doing that.
Well, when you call yourself a young earth creationist? Yeah, that's correct.
Okay. So you distinguish yourself as intelligent design?
No, I'm actually, I'm an atheist. I am, I guess what you would call an evolutionist. So if you ever wanted to set up a dialogue with me, that would be great.
Oh, you know what? I would love to. We can have you on to apologetics live.
Yeah, I'm gonna actually, I just typed my email and the email address in the private chat. Do you see it? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I'll grab it. Yeah. I'll send you an email right now, actually. Okay, yeah, that sounds perfect.
But anyway, Matt Slick, I was having a dialogue with one of my friends kind of talking about eternal security. And he actually brought up a really good point about that. He said that it's logically impossible to go from a state of being regenerate to a state of being unregenerate and back to a state of being regenerate back and forth.
So that's kind of how he talks about the doctrine of eternal security. I'm just kind of curious as to what you think of that argument.
Yeah, I've had variations of that argument because regeneration is something that God does to us. It's an action that we're passive in. We don't create our own regeneration. So if we become regenerate in salvation and we lose our salvation, then what causes the unregeneration to occur?
If God is the one who generates us, regenerates us, then does he unregenerate us? And since he says he'll remember our sins no more, he was 1017 and other stuff, it would be problematic. So you should call in on the radio show for that.
Yeah, me? Yeah, I would definitely. Probably Wednesday or Thursday I'll call in.
We can have a discussion on that. We can do it on Discord also.
Oh yeah, that'll definitely be fun. So Dr. Anthony, I'm definitely looking forward to having a dialogue with you. And I am going to bail because I am getting a little bit hungry and tired and I know people want to come in.
But anyway, it was nice talking to you, Matt. And I look forward to your email, Dr. Anthony. So let's get that all set up. Sounds good. All right, man. It was almost not talking to you too.
Good night, guys. Good night, okay. All right. Eddie Van Halen from the other side.
You know, Matt, that's how you know that you've hit it big is when you have atheists that call in and congratulate you for 25 years.
I wouldn't be surprised if more atheists do that because I'm nice to them. I don't call them, you know, Satanists out there out to destroy inner evil people. No, they're decent people on the human level.
I just don't agree with their position and I'm polite with them. So, you know, I get a lot of kudos from the atheists. Now, is that a good thing or not? They know where my position is. They know. They know, so.
You know, and David, we've known him for a long time. He's always been very civil and very polite. And he's a treat to talk to because he's civilized. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. They're trying to get this, figure out how to do all these people in here.
So let's see, anybody else want to come in? Eddie Van Halen, he's in. I did. I thought Eddie Van Halen died. He did.
We have a really good internet connection. It goes into heaven. Or maybe other places. They got fiber optic. Fiber optic, that's right. I have something I'd like to say.
Okay. I'd just like to say that through CARM and I've shared this, but not with everybody. Our grandbaby has Asperger's and my husband had watched. My husband is Matt also, my Matt. And so he had been listening for many, many years and I only tuned in to see just how promising my little eight-year-old grandbaby could, how far she could go.
And from that. She's got a tender heart, everybody. She does. From that has come such growth that is definitely from the Lord. But it has been delivered through y 'all. I've made some of the dearest friends that I have through here and y 'all know who you are.
So I won't call out names and leave anybody out. But I just wanna say happy birthday and thank you for everything that y 'all have done. And Anique, I'm sure has, to be in the ministry and to be successful, there has to be a woman behind you that is very giving and she's done that.
And so this is She's right behind me. She is. You said behind me. And so, hey, Charlie. So that's what I wanna say is y 'all mean the world to me and thank you for everything. Well, you're welcome.
Praise God.
Joanne, before you go anywhere, if you can, I'm gonna send my email address in the private chat to you. Reach out at some point because there are holistic ways to deal with autism spectrum disorder, especially at a young age like this through diet therapy and whatnot.
We had to do that with our son. Some of the stuff that Matt had told me several years ago had helped out in terms of behavioral therapy stuff. But then there's a whole other side in terms of biochemistry that can be helped out tremendously through diet.
So we had been doing that stuff with our son for years and it's helped tremendously.
Usually it's heavy doses of sugar and caffeine. And lots of milk. And yeah. Lots of milk and no roughage. So yeah, it helps out.
Dr. Anthony, can I You're muted. No, I'm not. Can y 'all hear me? My Matt's saying I'm muted. He's behind. We hear you. Can you hear my wife when she talks? I can. She's quiet, but yes. She muted me.
I'm gonna put you on the
Do you need my email to send me that?
No, I just sent it in the private chat right now to you.
Okay. I really would appreciate that. She's just been diagnosed with... She should be reading 55 words a minute and she's reading 13. So she's in the third grade reading at a first grade level. She has a whole lot of specialists.
And I mean, God doesn't make mistakes, you know? And he gave her to the most perfect mommy that there is. And that's my baby. But, you know, any help is very encouraging. It's one heartbreak after another and not because of us, but because she struggles, you know?
And I feel like as she gets older, she'll find her knack and things will be great. It's just, you know, right now.
You two ought to connect and talk. And I'm sure that Anthony's got some good advice and stuff. So I put you on a different microphone now and she'll be able to hear me and my wife equally. Okay. I'm gonna mute.
Okay. All right. Let's keep going and see who wants to say something. Laura.
I'll jump in there, yeah. And then I'm tired of looking at my face on this screen. So I'll jump out. I just wanted to say, you know, when I started out listening to you, I was listening to Christian music, but Caleb got sickening.
And yeah, they don't promote Christianity anymore, but my husband would listen to you all the time. And I was like, oh, who's that blowhard? You know, I just, so I was like, I didn't like it. And then I got to where I was wanting to just listen to ministries and got really attached to you.
And then when I had to quit working and that's when I got to watch you all the time. And I've really, I've just so much enjoyed all your material and oh my gosh, now that I'm helping edit, I really know how much material you've written and it's crazy.
And I've had to share a lot of it. And, you know, I first started out with your doing your schooling, your online schooling. And that was just amazing. And started getting people at church to do your classes.
And so it's just been a blessing to be able to help and to see all the people that you're reaching. And it's been a wonderful experience, Matt. Thank you. Well, you're welcome.
But I wanted to back up a little bit because you're telling people how great I am. My wife's sitting right here. So could you let her know how great I really am? Because I don't think she's convinced.
Okay, really, I've been editing all of his stuff. And he's not a good writer, okay? I'm kidding, Matt. He's a great writer. He just doesn't know how to spell. I'm joking. That's true. I use a speech program.
No, Matt is great part. Oh, okay. Matt is so great. He is so great. All we talk about in my house is Matt is so great. Wait, my husband will agree with me. Say hi. How great is Matt? Where are you? He's a good ballerina.
No. No. No. A voice for radio. And a voice for radio, he said. And a face for radio, apparently. No, he didn't say that. Anique's trying to, we're telling her how good you are, right? That's right.
She's not convinced. I can tell. Trust me, she is not impressed with me.
Well, the night's still young, Matt.
Okay, well, good night.
I'm not just paying you to say all that, Laura. I do wanna say, though, it's been really nice when you have your shows during the day and getting to have so much family now that I've just fallen in love with as we pray together, we share, and that's been on top of just the learning experience and is having this bigger family that I just love very much.
Well, praise God. Yeah. Praise God. So I will scoot on out of here and I will miss you a lot. Thanks a lot, Laura. God bless. God bless, yeah. Bye-bye.
Bye. Okay. Well, anybody else wanna jump in? Let's see, we've got the, who's this Tyler Maymeyer guy? What is up? You called me out.
I did. What's up? Yeah, I'm 16 and I had some questions about SDA. So I talked to my pastor and he showed me you guys. So I started reading into it. I'm still confused, but it's been helping a lot. SDA bad.
Yeah, well, I was watching a YouTuber. I forgot his name, but he was SDA and I didn't even know. So I kinda got brainwashed, but now I'm trying to get into like church history and karma has been helping me.
Good.
Well, good, if you want, I have a file, I gotta put them up someplace. It's a searchable thing of the church fathers. And if you're interested in that, I can give that to people, things like that. It's a really good tool.
It's years and years old, but I still use it occasionally. Now I don't have everything on Logos, but that's one thing. So you're 16, huh? What state do you live in? I'm in California.
Where in California? Bakersfield. Oh, I'm sorry. Bakersfield. I was watching your live a couple of days ago. Someone else was from Bakersfield, so.
Yeah, I've been through Bakersfield. They have a good McDonald's there off the freeway. It's a big McDonald's. I remember I stopped there a couple of times. You gotta go up, was it the 95? Is that what it is?
Oh, I don't know. I'm really bad with location, but I'm planning on leaving. I'm gonna Tennessee or something.
All right. Well, good, man. Good, I'm glad you've been learning from Karm and other stuff, and so praise God.
Yeah, I wanna prove my faith more. I got into philosophy, and I think I can prove God. I just can't prove Christianity yet, and that's why I'm getting into our founding fathers.
Well, I'll tell you what. The next guy I wanna talk to you is Matt Yester, and he and I do Discord, and he knows a lot of philosophy and some other stuff. There are ways to demonstrate that God exists.
I'd recommend that you check out Discord, become friends with he and I, and follow us around. Not that we're great or anything. He's great, but I'm not, but you can look and learn. We have some good guys there who can really open your mind to another direction of apologetics and philosophical argumentation, logic, the necessary preconditions for intelligibility, moral absolutes, things like that, abstractions, transcendentals, universals that we use.
So there's all kinds of stuff, all right? Yeah, I'll look into that.
I'll type in my email, and then I'll let more people come in.
All right. Yeah, you have to email us, or just go to Discord and just look for Matt Slick. I'm Matt Slick on Discord. Most people have nicknames, and Matt Yester, he goes by Matt Yester. So, we don't hide behind nicknames and then throw rocks at somebody, and we're not cowards.
Of course, some of the women, I understand, they gotta have nicknames, but I can understand that. But that's why Dr. Anthony R. Silvestro has a nickname. I think his real name is Bubba. Just one word on his birth certificate, Bubba.
I think, I think, I'm not sure, I've heard stuff.
I'll get off, too, so somebody can have my place. All right. Bye, Joanne. Okay, god bless. Bye. See ya. Bye, Charlie.
Bye, Dr. Dennis. I don't know what to do. Hey, Charlie, Charlie's working it. We'll get you out there. Let's see, yeah, okay. And, oh, there's Luke Wayne down there. Well, let's get Matt Yester first.
Hey, man, welcome up. Welcome, buddy. Sure, man. Yeah, let's say happy anniversary to CARM. Happy 25th birthday, and god bless you, Matt Slick, and to Gubby, Lori. First met you, or heard about you, back in about 2010, 2011, I think about 2010, and saw someone who was reviewing your interaction, or made mention of your interaction with that lady from the Rational Response Squad going way back to the late 2000s, early, first decade of 2000s there, that's it.
All right, I gotta check this guy out, and then got into your show. You were Ustreaming at that time, and, yeah, just was totally addicted to that, sort of watching the shows, taking notes, and then you made mention of PalTalk at the time, so we got on PalTalk.
That's how I first heard you, you know, on some other different media and stuff like that, and got to know each other on there quite a bit, and then once we got into videos and stuff like that, you know, once we got on Google Plus and stuff, and then, yeah, people started signing up for the Hangouts and stuff, so we moved to Discord, but I think it's been about a decade.
We've known each other. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, learned a lot, and really got me studying stuff a lot deeper, and, yeah, pretty much made me a Calvinist, you know. First heard you, I wasn't a Calvinist, and everything brought up, I'm like, okay, I need to refute this guy, and started studying out in order to refute you, then I couldn't refute the arguments, and heard a count of rebuttals.
They weren't really flying, so, yeah. Listened to you enough to turn me into a Calvinist, so. And you were predestined, it was predestined to happen. It was predestined as well, of course.
When I first heard of Matt at first, it was back in, it was a couple of years ago. I was still, like, in my teens, and there was this geocentrist Catholic guy that I was interested in, and I just saw him debating Matt, and I kept hearing Matt's, like, but the only context I was hearing of was negative.
Like, everybody wanted to destroy him. So I was interested, like, I was interested to know why does everyone want to destroy this guy, Matt? What does he do, right? So that's how I first discovered Karm, and then I just got into the website, and now it's sitting on my bookmarks, and it's crazy that he's been doing this for 25 years.
Well, just the website for 25 years, apologetics for another 15.
I haven't even been alive for 25 years, and
Yeah, I know, we talk a lot, and I can tell your mental age is way down there. Yeah, yeah, probably. Actually, folks, me and I, we talk a lot. He's smart, and I'm trying to work with him, let's just say.
And Matt, yes, he is, too.
Yeah, so Matt got me to buy Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Faith, so, you know, it's baby steps.
Baby, those are baby steps, that's right. All right, well, good. All right, so that was Eddie Van Halen. Oh, now your guitar is. Matt, yes, you're there and stuff. And, hey, Luke, man, speak up. I don't know who wants to hear from me.
Just so you guys know, Luke is one of our writers, employee, he works full-time with Karm. And how long has it been, like four years? January, it'll be five years. That's too long. Yeah. Man, it does not seem like that long.
Wow. Yeah, so we're hitting 25, so I've almost been writing for you for 20 of what we're celebrating today. That's right.
Wow. Man, I remember I was at Bill McKeever's house when I called you. We were having discussions with other people, and I was at Bill's, for whatever reason. Hey, blah, blah, blah. And, yeah, you've been doing a great job.
You've been writing a lot and did a King James only stuff. And down there in the Salt Lake City area with his wife and kids and stuff like that. So that is Luke Wayne. He looked better than I do.
Ouch, that's really insulting yourself, man. Don't be so homing. Nice beard, man. Nice beard. It's not saying much, you know. No, but it's been a joy and a privilege to be able to write for CARM. You know, looking back over, you know, back in college, I was using CARM.
In my early days of apologetics, going out and sharing the gospel with going to all five kingdom halls in Tallahassee while I was going to Florida State and meeting with Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, three or four days a week until they all started communicating and figuring out what I was doing and kicked me out of all the kingdom halls at once.
So then I just moved to another town and started over. But yeah, I was using mass material and learning a lot and just getting in there. And
They moved the microphone a little. Oh, sorry. Is it not coming through very well? It's hiding your face, which could be good, but there we go. You can still hear me okay? What?
Yeah, we can. But yeah, and then, you know, by God's grace, here I am all these years later. Now I'm writing all the good articles and well.
Yeah, that's right. I like Luke's articles. They're very thoughtful and well-documented. I like his footnotes. I'm one of those people that are interested in footnotes. A lot of people aren't,.
But I like his because they're very thorough. The problem is my articles are about five times longer than they should be, though. That's, still haven't mastered Matt's skill of just getting to the point.
The quick and slick version, right? Yeah, the quick and slick. That's right. Just get to it. Just give them the answer. The problem then becomes how to pontificate to make it sound like you know what you're talking about by getting more information.
But yeah, I've learned this past year as we're working on the new site, I've learned a lot about CARM, like all the stuff that's buried on the site that I didn't know was there. I stumbled on this whole collection of food recipes and I'm like, why are there food recipes on CARM?
And Matt, you should tell the story because there's actually a reason.
Why there's food recipes on CARM. Yeah, there was a reason was because I think it was in Pal's talk. I was looking for opportunities to reach out. And so, usually when I go into a chat room, they find out who I am, they come in as a dog pile and then it becomes really often combative.
Well, sometimes it's like, guys, let's not do this. What else is going on? And we got talking about food. And so, one thing led to another. So I said, hey, what atheists? Because there were atheists in this group.
I said, what's your food recipe? I'll put it up on CARM. And they got a big kick out of that and not to manipulate them and say, hey, you know, but it was like, yeah. And then I gave some food recipes as well.
And we started putting in it and then we would have these common things to talk about and extended the ability for me to witness to them even longer. And then it kind of just gradually went away and so I put recipes on CARM for that reason.
That's it. We did, yeah. She's mocking me. And my wife is a good cook. She really is. Maybe. Does she ever make any of those recipes or are they just all yours? I think it was from them. She didn't care about me.
So I didn't, you know, with CARM stuff, she didn't care. As long as I didn't make money and give her stuff to go shopping with, that's all. She's just. So, you know, I said food recipes. She thought I was talking science fiction because I can't cook to save my life.
But she really is a good cook. It sounds like me and Deb's relationship. Give and take. I give, she takes. That's right. Works, it's work. So I'm not going to try and fix it. That's right. We just got a new used car for her.
She's driving again and everything because of all this stuff going on. And honey, can I use the car? No. It's just this face changes and everything. And I walked near the car once in the garage and she was going.
So I just steer away from it. So it's, you know, that's what's going on.
It is a testament that she has not killed you yet. Brandon would know.
Brandon would know. That's right. All of us, we get that a lot. That's right. Hey, Carlos. Hey, my friend. How are you? Hey, I'm Nick. Hey, Carlos. Carlos, good to see you, brother. Hello, everybody. Hey, Luke.
How are you? Doing good. Good to see you. So let me introduce Carlos to you. Carlos is our full-time guy in Barranquilla, Columbia, South America. And Carlos is great. We actually had the privilege of meeting in person once in Mexico.
Where was that? In Yucatan? No, in Cancun. Cancun. Oh, I tried the water. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
Remember, remember your passport? The passport. Your passport. What happened with it? Remember? That you went into the sea with your passport in your pocket. Well, that's right.
And the passport got wet. Yeah, I was a little nervous about that. I tried to open it up and let it dry out. Okay. Everything worked out. But yeah, so how long have you been working with CARM?
Almost 13 years, next year. Wow. Oh my God. Yes, sir. Damn. Wow. Yeah, I'm getting old with CARM, my friend. You are. I think you're a little bit older than me and not as old as Charlie. No, no, no, no.
Only one month different. One month, that's all. Yeah, that's right. One month. Yes. Hey, but it's nice. Nice to see you guys and, you know, praying to the Lord and thank Him because all the things that you have been doing through CARM, especially for the Spanish speakers, Christians, it has been a pretty, an excellent help.
Okay. And thank you. A pretty nice tool too.
Okay. We have other tools. But you, you know, we went down, I went down to Barranquilla and met you there also. We did a conference together. And I remember during the conference, because I, you know, I speak Spanish enough, but not totally well enough.
But I remember you were talking in Spanish. I remember going, well, this guy really knows his stuff. And you do. And then Luis Carlos Reyes, who's a mutual friend of ours, he's an LA colleague. And so Luis and I met down in Barranquilla, I don't know, four years ago, five years ago for a conference and we became friends.
And he's been here to the house. Anyway, so he speaks perfect English and perfect Spanish. And he does apologetics. And he was telling me how much you know and how good you are. You really, he says, you really know this stuff.
So you, you know, you're awesome, Carlos.
No, my friend, first of all, the Holy Spirit. And then you guy, I mean, I praise to the Lord every day for you and your wife and all the team in CARN, okay? All day, my friend, all days since we started working together.
Oh, good. We appreciate that. Because we definitely need the prayer.
Nick and I have been through a lot and CARN's been through a lot. We're still trying to survive in a lot of areas, a lot of ways, but it's been interesting. So anyway, so this is Carlos. He runs MIAPIC, M-I-A-P-I-C.
Ministerio de Apologeticas y Cristianas. What, how do you say that in English?
Ministerio de Apologeticas e Investigacion Cristiana. E Investigacion Cristiana, MIAPIC. That's right. Yeah. You have to pronounce it. That's right. Yeah, nice, nice. 25 years. Oh, well, I have been with you like almost half of your time.
Yeah, more than 12 years now. Yeah. So you have been working for 25 years. I have been doing with you like 12 and a half years, almost 13 years next year.
You know, you remind me, we had someone that who passed away that I need to mention who was really a huge asset, asset with CARN. She was with me for 17 years. That was Diane Sellner. And she lived up in New Jersey and stuff.
We got to meet a couple of times and she was a real go-getter, a real doer. And she would get under my skin and drive me crazy sometimes, but she was a real great asset to CARN and she wouldn't be here if she were still alive, but she passed away about three years ago.
And, you know, it happens. And, but, you know, I don't know if the Lord can communicate to her. Hey, thanks, Diane. Don't know how well that works, but, but yeah, she was a real asset. And I got to say this too.
Neek has been a real asset. My wife's name is Unneek. We call her Neek for short, but in all seriousness, she does stuff that I hate doing, balancing books, doing data entry and stuff like that. And she's been a real asset too.
She has. And so her office is like four to five, four times bigger than my office. Wow. Oh yeah. I get the little cubicle here, you know, a little closet and she gets a big office.
A little office and a little car. That's what you get.
I get a little office and a little car. She got the big car and I get a go-kart with a helmet and that's what I get to drive. And, you know, it's all right. If I like smooches, that's what I have to compromise for, for smooches.
But it's all right. Now she's doing a lot better. As you guys know, she had some serious health issues and she is doing a lot better. So she actually went to the DMV today on her own. She can do shopping now on her own.
Of course it's hard on her, but hey, she's a trooper. She's a trooper. So that's right. Praise the Lord. Praise God. Yeah. Are we going to have another conference in Barranquilla? Yeah.
Remember that we tried to establish another Congress, but because of this virus, we couldn't do it. But we are planning in his name to have one next year. And that's the idea. Probably in March. That's the idea.
March or probably April. Okay. We have been praying for that. Okay. To see if we can have you here and we can have Luis Carlos and probably we have two or more, two or three more apologetics guy. Okay.
And probably one or two from Latin America. Good. Yeah, that's the idea. Yes. I wonder if David Brito could come up and meet us in Columbia. Oh yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. It would be nice, sure, to have him here too.
Yeah, it would be. It'd be also nice to do a conference there and then fly down to Brazil and do a conference. That'd be fun. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I'm being asked to go to Africa too. So I don't know.
Do some more traveling here pretty soon, I guess. We'll find out what happens. TT Ching. Hey, thanks Ching. I just happened to glance over to get a little cash in there. That's good. Good. Appreciate that.
All right. So Matt Yester was talking. Oh, let's get to Robert Iwacic. Iwacic.
Greetings from Slovenia. Slovenia. Let me tell you how I came across CARM. Our pastor, Todd Hunnicutt, he told me about CARM after I came across a strange webpage where there was like a click through Bible study where I thought at the end that I have to be baptized to be saved.
So after some strange Sunday at church, our pastor told me about CARM .org and there I found the article on this strange cult which says that you have to be also baptized to be saved and other stuff. And that's how I started.
And now I'm listening to your radio show for years now. Wow. And I'm also watching some videos that you have on that Patreon, yeah. That's right, Patreon. Yeah, I've been doing that too.
Do all kinds of stuff. Well, good. So I'm assuming that there's not too many Christians, real Christians in Slovenia, right?
There's an estimate between 1 ,000 to 2 ,000 among two million people, evangelical Christians.
That's like 0 .1 or something. I don't know, yeah.
I've heard that there is more Jehovah's Witnesses than evangelical Christians here.
And they're going door to door and the Christians aren't. So the J-dubs are spreading.
It's mostly Roman Catholic country. But a lot of Atheists and stuff. Yeah, a lot of Atheists. Atheists are growing everywhere. And my background of communism for since Second World War till recently. Yeah, man.
Well, I remember, oh, excuse me, sorry. You will jump into the text during the radio show a lot. I'll see you in there. Yeah. Yeah, well, good for you. Yeah, I appreciate that. So it's, what time is it in Slovenia right now?
Oh, let me see. It's almost three in the morning. Three in the morning. Wow, so you're seven hours ahead of us.
We switched just last Saturday or something. All right. One hour difference. Okay, wow. Otherwise, we'd be even further, one hour, like four. You're gonna put a better light on you so we can see you better.
Yeah, I only have this backlight. Okay. All right. Yeah, I recently won at a harmonica festival in Britain. We had the online festival. Harmonica festival? Yeah, among 21 harmonica players, I won this small cup.
Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. On the same day, I bought myself a really good harmonica, which I used to play since I was 15. Wow.
That's the new music intro for the new Karm sitcom. It's such an easy pun to do right now, the Karmonica, there you go. Karmonica. Oh, that's good. That's such an easy pun. Karmonica. I like that. Oh man.
Yeah, we need a Karm sitcom, you know. That's what we need. You're a heretic. No, you're a heretic. You're a heretic. Yeah, it'd be fun.
All right. Hey, Brandon, man. I'm surprised you came on, but that's good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I saw your video yesterday about it being the 25th anniversary of Karm, and I'm like, ooh, I got some good stories.
Okay, tell us one then. Well, there was the Mormon temple that they decided to open in Twin Falls, and I think it was open to the public for about five weeks. And we turned it into a game based on people flipping you off or coming up and causing a problem.
Matt, of course, won by default one of those days because a bunch of Mormon missionaries mooned him. They got mooned, yeah. That was definitely what took the cake. But who won?
But somebody won the most flip-offs in one day, 26, I think it was.
I don't think it was me. It might've been, oh, crap. I can't think of his name. No, it was Hannah. Was it Hannah that got that? Hannah, yeah. My daughter, Hannah. She's a pretty good flip-off. We had cops flipping us off and all sorts of stuff, but it was definitely an experience.
One of the days we were there, not only was it pouring rain, but a tornado touched down. That was fun. Another day of witnessing. No big deal, right? I remember we had to die for cover when the guy with the .50 cal was going by, strafing us in his .51.
It was bad. You guys should've seen Matt. I didn't know his back could bend so far, just straight up neo-Mormon. It was like Matrix, yeah.
That's right. Now, there's one thing that happened out there. I was on the boulevard, and this guy pulled up in a truck. Imagine there's the fence where the Mormon place is, and then there's four feet of grass.
Then there's two or three feet of sidewalk, another four feet of grass, then the street. The guy comes up on the street in a truck. There's no parking on the street, right? It's a boulevard. He comes up and he goes, hey, you, come here.
I got my sign. I go, what, me? I'm the only one around. I go, me? He goes, yeah, you. He's really mean. Come here. I go, why? He goes, I'm gonna kick your ass. I'm like, me? He goes, yeah, you, come here.
And I look behind me. Me. He goes, yeah, you, come here right now. And I go, me, over there? He goes, yeah, right now. Over there by the truck. Yeah, come here. You're talking to me. If I'm coming over, yeah, come here right now.
And I did this for like five minutes. Finally, I go, dude, you're blocking traffic, man, go.
There's definitely some crazy people out there. There was a friend I had for a little while. She came to visit. We were over at your house and we were talking about Calvinism when I was first getting the hang of it and understanding it all.
And, you know, talking about scripture and just Calvinism in general. She's like, yeah, that makes sense. That'll make sense. She went back, had a chat with her pastor. And he's like, oh no, this is all wrong.
This is so unbiblical, it's not even funny. And then he started publicly writing to me on Facebook saying, you know, you need to defend yourself. You need to say this, that, and the other thing. And what do you think about this?
I'm like, we can talk in a private conversation if you want. I'm down for that and wouldn't do it. And we went back and forth and back and forth and, you know, I'm quoting scripture and he's telling me what the church decided that year.
And at the same time, he was emailing you and saying a bunch of stuff. And I said, well, maybe you should contact, you know, Matt Slick, he's a friend and, you know, you're a pastor, you're educated, fine, you know, go talk to him.
Because one of his big things to me was, well, I have a master's degree, what do you have? And I'm like, I like to think I'm smart. And it went back and forth for a while. And the guy ended up, from what I was told, in front of his church, told everybody in his congregation that Matt and I were going to hell.
Which to me, that is one of the highest compliments I could ever get.
And why are we going to hell? Because we believe that God is sovereign and predestined.
And it blows my mind. The thing that is fantastic to me and that I enjoy the most is, like, I love religion, philosophy, and I love politics. The one thing, however, is I know that philosophy, Christian, Bible does not change.
And having conversations with some people, it's sad how quickly you find the reason why they believe something is strictly because, well, that's what my dad or my pastor or somebody else told me. Or when given the evidence for something and coming from the same book, they just stare at you blankly and go, well, no, but this is the way it is.
I don't understand how you would comfortably go to sleep at night thinking like that. Drives me nuts. But I mean, I met you through one of your daughters, and she was in an apologetics class that was for a bunch of homeschoolers and was sitting on stuff.
I would love to be able to spout things off like that. That is amazing. And giving teachers and moms the run for their money. And that kind of went into the Twin Falls Mormon Temple. And we did the trip to Manti and met Bill McKeever, who was fantastic.
And not only is the repetition, but there's, it's, I don't know, it's fascinating, the things that other people believe. And I have, I've always stood by, if you can prove to me with logic and evidence that I'm wrong, then it should be my responsibility to change the same way I would expect for anybody that I would have a conversation with.
And unfortunately, one of the things Kendra and I inherited by buying the house was it's already been blacklisted by all the Mormons and JWs. Oh, that's right. We don't get that anymore. That's right.
And I was hoping something might change, but yeah, unfortunately they still don't come to the door like they used to. I mean, we had like, we had guys at one point who had finished their mission. We're gonna get picked up to leave and said, hey, can I bring my parents to meet you all the way from Arizona?
And we explained to them, we're not Mormon. We're just, we're having a conversation, if you can prove to me. And we'd have, you know, they'd come over at two in the afternoon and leave at midnight. In fact, at one thing, at one point, you gave them a ride home and you're like, Matt, be nice.
Yeah, the anti-Mormon's a nice guy. Yeah, we can't, yeah. But you know, it's, that really got me into it. And again, I've always stood by, if you can prove to me with logic and evidence that I'm believing something incorrectly, then it should be my responsibility to change.
And I expect the same. And it's amazing how fast people will agree to that. And then faced with, I mean, I didn't think Calvinism made any sense. And I thought it was a terrible, harsh reality. Or not, I wouldn't even have called it reality at that time.
But, you know, when, again, when you have the logic and the evidence there, and it's not like you shoved it down anybody's throats. You were very much of, look, this is what it says. If you don't believe me, go look it, look it up.
And then you tell me what you think. And that definitely, I mean, ever since that and going on Karm, I used Karm pretty consistently. Somebody mentioned recipes. The real secret is in Farks.
Farks is one of the best. Oh yeah, frequently asked ridiculous questions. I don't know if it's still on there, but I guess so.
But you know, yeah, it's something that absolutely changed the way I view things, think things, you know, learning to think critically. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that Karm has been along this long and I hope that it goes on as long as the internet exists.
Unless the leftists get in and then it becomes illegal.
Yeah. That's very true, but I don't know if you want to get political in here, but I don't see it happening right now.
Well, I'll tell you what. Speaking of leftist wackos, I wonder what Atomic Apologist has to say.
Just because I live in Washington does not mean that I am a leftist wacko. Oh, that's right.
I forgot. The wacko part is natural in your little left coast. So I just put together leftist wackos, sorry. This is, this is John Wilkinson. I've known him. How long have you known each other for, two years?
I'm from FEMA Region 10. FEMA Region 10, I love that.
Yeah, I think like. That's my region. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right, that's right. So I think we've known each other for, well, since the Bible's up on wingnut days. It was pretty much when we got connected through that.
With the slick answers and all. And we, there was a time when, you know, we got to know each other quite well through the internet. And so what happened was, there was one year about, what was it, like four or five years ago, I think, my church gave me the responsibility to set up the men's retreat for my church.
So right away, I thought, gotta be Matt Slick. I mean, I gotta have him on there because he can get all these guys whipped into shape. Theologically, not a problem. So I got ahold of Matt and see if he can come and do the men's retreat.
And so, and then once I kind of started advertising at our church, I think a lot of people were, a lot of the guys were kind of doing some research on Matt. And I don't know, if you Google Matt Slick's name, you're probably gonna find more sites that are hateful towards him than good things, I guess.
And so I did get a little bit of some resistance from some of the men in my church, but he was already scheduled to come. And so, you know, it was gonna happen. And so Matt does, you know, he gets to actually speak at my church, to the men for a couple of days.
And it was fantastic. Matt, you were just the coolest guy ever. And we had such a great time learning so much from you. And then I love the part that afterwards, well, the church, my church was kind of concerned because of your Calvinistic background and all that, the Calvinist.
And there were many people within the church very anti-Calvinist.
Oh, we're losing you. So many people in your church, then we lost you. Go ahead. Okay. So you got me now? Yeah. Maybe you turn your video off.
It'll be better. I don't know. Let's try that. Okay. Okay. So what happened was that Matt spoke about being a man, within the Christian community or within a church. And he never brought up anything about Calvinism at all.
I mean, it's fantastic. I mean, and whenever he did kind of edge his way in towards anything of the five points, he would ask permission first from my pastor, which was a fantastic way, example and all.
And so he, afterwards at the end, there was, he got confronted by a couple of guys who were very anti-Calvinist and Matt stood his ground. I mean, it was just fantastic how he just went ahead and spoke with them with very loving and gentle, patient manner.
And Matt just, you know, he made his argument and he made it as a biblical stand. I mean, a biblical reference, you know, and he stood his ground and it was fantastic. And the other guys really didn't have a place to defend themselves.
I mean, they just, they didn't. So anyway, that was probably one of my favorite memories is with Matt is that, yes, he came to my church and spoke to the men and all. But they all swear that they'll never have him back again, though.
I'm sure that's the case. I only get asked to speak maybe once a year and that's it. It needs to be more though.
It needs to be a lot more often. You could be completely book solid.
Don't know why, but it's rare. And there's David Brito, but I rarely get asked to speak and maybe once a year at that, and that's it. We think in part because of my Calvinism and I can defend it. And I don't know what it is.
I can defend it and people make them uncomfortable, not trying to just, what about this? So I don't know what it is, but that's it, you know? So other reformed people I know, they speak all the time everywhere.
I don't know why I don't. And my website's had a hundred million visitors. I'm on maybe 18 radio stations, written a bunch of books. And I just don't get asked, maybe once a year, maybe. In fact, the only time I've been asked to speak any place is by Carlos next year in Barranquilla.
Wow. In Barranquilla, yeah. Sure. That's right. And David Brito just, what? Go ahead.
Oh, I was going to say, and then there's also the car ride back to the airport with you. That was interesting. Man.
I wasn't going to bring it up, but let's just say that we got sandwiched in between two large vehicles and almost got crunched. And it took a while to come down to that one. It was close. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was pretty crazy. Anyway, I'm sorry. David, David Brito. David Brito, man. He's the missionary, car missionary in Brazil. That's right. Hey, Dave. How are you doing, Matt? How are you doing, guys? Okay.
So how long have you been with CARM? Six years now. Wow. Wow. Six years. And you run the Portuguese CARM site.
That's right. I run the Portuguese site called Defendendo a Fé, Defending the Faith. And also we run here one house that take care of the kids in one village nearby. We are also leading a church-based gospel center and for to help provide for the basic needs of the families of children whose parents lost their job during the pandemic.
We are distributing box to each household containing rice, beans, cooking, et cetera. It's about 100 box of food to help eight families. And even before COVID, many of those families were only able to eat every day because of the meal they received at school.
With the school closed, the aid we provide has become that much more essential. So it's very good to people know that CARM do more than apologetics. So we do the social work as well. You're the ones doing that.
I'm very glad to be part of the CARM team.
Well, we're glad to have you, both you and Carlos. You guys do great work. Seriously, you're awesome. And you've been real faithful. And we really appreciate you. In fact, Carlos and I were just talking about maybe next year, if you go to Barranquilla, maybe you could fly up to Barranquilla.
We could maybe have CARM buy the ticket, whatever, because on a traveling cost, ministry and all that kind of stuff, we can work it out. And, or after Barranquilla, I could fly down to Brazil. We could do a conference.
Oh, it would be awesome. Yeah. It would be great. Yeah. So it'd be fun. In fact, people don't know, we have two other missionaries. One's in Turkey and one's in Malawi, Africa. And so it's in the middle of the night for these guys.
And I said, don't worry about it. And so we have Togrel in Turkey and Joster in Malawi. And it looks like we're probably going to also start working with another guy and maybe getting CARM in Swahili, another language.
So, early stages and stuff like that. But anyway, but yeah. So Dave's been running the Portuguese site and it's looking good. He's doing a good job and praise God, man. Praise God. We appreciate you, Dave.
You're a good guy. We appreciate you. I don't know about Carlos, but you're a good guy. I've met Carlos, so, you know. I know your jokes, man. I know them. Joke? Who's joking? Wow. No, you guys are really great.
We do appreciate you. It takes a lot of dedication to do what you do. And I just wanted to make sure you guys were on and saying hi to everybody. They could see you guys. That CARM is not just one guy sitting in a chair and does radio and writes articles.
You know, it's Luke Wayne and it's evangelism. It's Brazil, Colombia. It's Turkey, it's Malawi, and we're expanding. And we're barely able to make it. But you know, God just keeps providing. All we can say is, okay, praise God.
Just keep providing. And I'm telling you, barely making it, okay? He keeps providing. I got to the point now where it's like, whatever. You know? So he just takes care of us and he'll continue to do that.
Oh, there's the website, the Spanish website. I mean, the Brazilian website. The Spanish one is miyapique .com, right? Or is it org? No, dot org. Dot org, that's right. Yeah, miyapique .org, yeah. Yeah, miyapique .org.
That's the Spanish version of it. And yeah, okay, good. Good, good, good, man. Thanks for coming in. And let's jump on over to this guy with the long name, JL. Oh, yeah. So tell us about yourself, JL.
Oh, don't hear you, don't hear you. Speak up. No, nope. Oh, you got to check your connections.
Are you on Windows? How's that? Is that better? Okay. No, I'm actually on Linux. I'm a little more of a nerd. Wow. Yeah. Wow, okay. I had to Which version? Ubuntu and with the GNOME desktop. Okay. I like to tinker, as do you.
Yeah, I can learn not to tinker this machine, though. When you have the time? Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, no, I came out of Mormonism. I'm a kind of new Karm supporter in the sense of monthly donations and stuff, but I'm pretty new listening to it and trying to read the site, which is obviously huge.
So just realizing the scope of the site and getting into it and trying to go back through the conversations that you've had with the various folks in the apologetics conversations. The dialogues, yes.
The dialogues, yeah, exactly. And I was going through the lost book section, the pastors and teachers section, just so much. I mean, the point is there's a lot. And I'm definitely praying for you guys a lot because we can't do anything else without the grace of God in our lives.
And so, no, it's a beautiful thing. Interestingly, just so I was raised a Mormon, lots of life of life of things of non-Christian life. And then God saved me a couple of years ago, in which I actually even wonder if I had like a false conversion a long time ago, but now I'm in the Lord because of just change of life and other things.
But yeah, no, God is so good. And I'm in this interesting Bible study with some folks who are clearly not reformed. And I'm leaning more and more into the reform faith as time progresses. The more I read, the more Bible I look at and read and study, the more my life is drifting into the reform faith and just sort of appreciating what it is as the presuppositional elements of it and things like this.
So I praise God for all of that. And I think that in this day and age, and particularly this year, I feel the providence of God has kept me from going in a dramatic way that certain things have had. So I just praise God for that.
So I thank you for Carm. Matt, I just wanna thank you because you really actually are very helpful to me as I listened to your show and think about some of the things you bring up and you're really helpful in an apologetics context because you are amazingly simple in the sense of not letting things go when you're in conversation.
And so what I mean is like in a good way, when somebody gives you what they think is an answer, it's actually not an answer. And they think they're giving you something that's responsive. It's like, no way, you actually didn't answer the question.
I'm therefore going to repeat the question to you again. And I think it's so simple, but it actually is so important. And I'm just coming to put that into practice more and more with actual humans like on the street because I've had other apologetics approaches and I'm finding that this is even stronger because of the way in which we use the Bible, but don't get too...
I mean, you can get all philosophical. Yes, you can get all philosophical if you want. But I think the simplicity of using clear and simple logic and just listening to the actual answer to an actual question in which an actual answer has not been given.
So I do actually thank you for that, Matt, and praise God for that. Actually, no joke, because it's such a simple thing, but it's so helpful from a human to human relational sense of like on the street evangelism that shows I'm actually listening to what they're saying and trying to interact with them directly and respecting their responses to...
And it could be that I'm listening to them, I'm trying to listen to what they're saying. So I do thank you for that, Matt. That's really been helpful for me as I try to engage in more apologetics. And so I will eventually read the whole site, but it might take me three years to read the entire site, but that is actually a goal of mine.
And the more I read, the more I realize I have much more to read. So anyway, thank you. Well, you're welcome, man. Praise God. Thanks for those kind words. Let me ask you, where are you? What city? Yeah, I'm in Chicago right now.
Oh, wow. Yeah, absolutely. Is that gunfire right here behind you? That's funny. Sometimes it's neighborhood, but mostly it's a little further away from where I am. Exactly. But yeah, no, it's a crazy town with a lot of things happening.
That's the underscored way of saying it.
Well, the understated way of saying it. Do you know where, I think it's Deerfield, north of Chicago in Chad?
Yeah, Deerfield. That's where Trinity Seminary is out there. Yeah, kind of northwest of here, out a bit. So absolutely, it's beautiful out there. That's where I decided to go. I was gonna go there.
And then my mom, I was in San Diego. My mom got breast cancer. And so I had to stay local. So I went down two hours south to San Diego and went to seminary there instead of Ted's. But Ted's was where I was gonna go.
But anyway, no big deal.
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely, it is. No, and also you were in the, Why the Bible Conference this year with Living Waters, which I was attending. It was a beautiful thing. It was such an amazing, just gathering of folks and giving their various arguments for the shooting up of God's Word.
I like those guys, they're good. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. They had really big people on there.
I'm like, oh my goodness. Wayne Gruden was a hero of mine. I'm like, I wanted to say to Wayne, hey Wayne, do you know who you are? Wow, you're something else. And so I was impressed. I got to be in the same virtual room with them, wow.
Yes.
It was nice. And we who were attending enjoyed it a lot. So thank you.
Yeah, I want to start doing stuff like that myself. I do the research to set things up because I think it'd be really good to have some conferences and things like that and some offerings and things. And as long as Luke Wayne doesn't go, we'll be fine.
Right. Luke Wayne, you know. He's got a lot of good stuff to say too.
Yeah. I'd be happy to maybe, you know, I'm not sure technically what kind of, so helping you, minding you with the site in terms of just supporting stuff. I mean, you're trying to migrate the big content over to the new domain or whatever that's going to look like.
I do have some technical background.
It's from Drupal to WordPress and there's a lot of, and you have access to both. The articles are already there. It's just on the new site, the database conversion didn't go perfectly well. So we've got some dates that are off, sometimes authors that are off and, you know, just polishing and then we have to go through and grammar, use grammarly, go in and fix typos.
I mean, just today I did like 20 articles. I'm like, oh man, I misspelled this. I misspelled that. I misspelled this. What are you gonna do? And you know, you just can't edit your own stuff. I guess that's how it works.
Yeah. And so we're just doing things and then marking it up on a spreadsheet and we go forward then. We just hit 80 of the articles, 80 today.
Yeah, that's a huge, that's a huge jump. It seems like you're definitely making good progress on it. Okay, cool.
Yeah, we're working at it. It's slow, laborious and yeah, yeah, it is. But I got so many things I'm doing right now. No, no, I know. And that's something I think about. Do you need any more help or do you feel like you're okay?
And just be honest. We can use help. We can always use help. Okay. Always use help. All right. So what you could do is just info, info us, email us at info. Okay. And we also need your pastor's phone number or a church phone number.
To pick you out. Yeah, yeah, of course. And then, cause what we'll be doing literally is giving you the keys to the new website. Oh, wow, yeah. Or to edit. That sounds like a lot of responsibility. Okay.
Yeah, just one person theoretically to go into all kinds of articles and just change references and change Jesus is God to put the word not in there to get, they can really screw us up. Oh, no. So we gotta make sure that everybody's good.
Oh, here's Pastor George Slade. Hey, Pastor George, how are you? Good, good. How are you? Good. If you guys don't know who Pastor George is, he's a great guy. Does stuff with Muslims. He speaks Arabic.
A real humble guy. Loves the Lord. And we've done a few things together. He's just awesome. You're awesome. And so, he's coming in to say a little bit. How long have we known each other? Been a few years.
I think he froze up. Oh, there he goes. I lost you for a second here. Sorry. Yeah, I was saying, how long have we known each other? Yeah. Maybe five, six years, seven.
Five or six years, seven, maybe. Around seven years. Something like that, yeah. You came and debated for us in Seattle, Washington, and also in Atlanta, Georgia area. It's just awesome knowing you, brother.
It's great. It's awesome knowing you, Amir.
We need more and more people like you. And we need more people like you. I like watching you witness to the Muslims. Because when we were up in Seattle, a couple, three years ago, whatever it was, I remember how you have the tracks and I could just see your kind demeanor as you were talking to people.
It was a Muslim conference, a Muslim festival. And so we went there. And I remember watching you. And I remember watching you. You were really gentle and stuff. I remember that. I remember that. Good job.
Sometimes.
Well, that's what I've seen. It's hard to keep Muslims. Yeah, I know. I know it is. But you do a great job. And tell us about the ministry you do. Mostly, we have teams to go to mosques. Every Muslim, they finish their prayers when they're coming out.
We open discussion with them and share the gospel with them. But also we participate in many public debates. During, since 2007, we did many, many different debates. But the only condition I have that we will not debate defending the deed of Christ unless if they are willing to debate defending Muhammad.
We are not gonna debate defending the Bible unless if they are willing to defend the Quran. And we're gonna have two debates in November. One on the Trinity, one on the concept of God in Islam, Tawheed.
It's gonna be great. But also we go to festivals and Islamic holidays events and to engage Jewish Muslims. But the reason I was so glad to meet you because we do a lot of training to reach out to Muslims in order to answer their objections and defend the Christian faith.
We need people like you. And that's why we partner with you. It's just awesome to have you also once a month to train our people online.
Yeah, that's right. You do that thing at, is it still at Calvary Chapel down there in Anaheim? Yes, every Sunday. Yeah, I remember that room. And it was on not last week, but the week before, I think.
Hope they enjoy the, hope they enjoy when I get there and help them, teach them. So that's good. Absolutely, absolutely. Good. Yeah. And you came up here to Idaho once, I remember. And you spoke at a conference and went there and it was great.
Yes. You do good work. You really do.
Yeah. Thank you, brother. And one of the things I like about your website, the charts, the very simple comparisons between Islam and Christianity, the Quran and the Bible, Jesus and Muhammad. I enjoy those so much.
They're really awesome.
I'll have to do some more of them. Yeah, once we get that site moved over, then Luke and I can start writing again and researching in different areas. We have, unfortunately, over 600 questions that are just waiting.
And that's not even the topics we have to get into. So there's just a lot. There's a great deal to do. I need a million dollars and hire five people. And we have full-time researcher writers all the time.
It's catch up with stuff, but not what it is. But it'd be great. We could fly down to Carlos. See Carlos in Barranquilla and buy him a jet. That'd be good. I think he could use a jet or a helicopter. Yeah, so Carlos, I think you can see in the screen, Carlos, he's our missionary in Colombia, South America.
And then David Brito is a missionary in Brazil. And so he has a Portuguese site in Brazil. Carlos has a Spanish version of CARM down in Colombia. And we have two guys, both, it's middle of the night for them, one's in Malawi, Africa.
And then we have another guy in Turkey. And so he speaks Arabic, some Russian. I think we've talked to him. He's actually going through seminary right now and doing some stuff. So we're kind of letting him slide a little bit.
We're kind of supporting him as he goes through. He's a great guy and speaks great English. So it's probably four o 'clock in the morning for him right now. But yeah, we're just trying to expand. So that's it, no big deal.
But yeah, I was hoping you'd come in and introduce yourself. And just people, if they wanna meet you or come in contact with you, how would they do that? How would they get a hold of you? Are you talking to me?
Yep, yeah. George, how could they get a hold of you? Sorry. Yes, we have a website. It's called ministrytomuslims .com. And that's where, yeah, ministrytomuslims .com. And that's where we have our training videos and also some articles and also how they can help with us in different events.
There's a calendar there of different outreaches. If someone wants to start an outreach to the mosques in your city or state, wherever you are, we'd be more than happy to provide gospel materials free of charge, nothing you need to pay.
And if you want to reach every house in your city, this way we guarantee we don't skip any Muslim. We would be able to provide you the map for your city, the bags that he put the trucks in it, the DVDs and the gospel tracks.
The only thing you need, the invitation from your church. You add this one, it door to door to every house in your city. We'd love to see every Muslim in America to hear the gospel message. Amen to that.
Amen to that. Well, good stuff, good stuff. And also Pastor George, Luke Wayne, he works with us at CARM. He's in Salt Lake City. He's been with us for five years almost. Wow. So he does a lot of writing and researching as well.
So we have Luke and Carlos and Dave. They all work with us at CARM. And my wife, you've met her of course. She's in another room. She was in earlier. Don't know if she's listening still, but yeah. Well, anybody else got anything they want to add?
Kind of slowing down. We've been at it for an hour and a half, but if anybody else has anything they want to jump in, I've got something I can show you guys if you're interested. It's, I just threw together some versions of CARM from the early days.
I can show you what it looks like. And I have to warn you that they're pretty bad. And let's see if I can do this. Whoops, that didn't work. Let's try this. I'm gonna share my screen and the resolution.
There we go. We'll see if it, let's just say click to add. Oh, I see what that is. Click that out. And then I don't know why that little half circles there, but that's all right. That's what it is. Not a big deal.
Okay, so I'm gonna share my screen and show you guys some of the early versions of CARM. And they're not very good screen captures though, but you'll see. Here we go. So that's what CARM kind of looked like to begin with.
Oops, sorry. To begin with, it's pretty bad. Different colors on the right. And I put that stuff in the middle. The present logo is there only because the original one was lost in the archive place. And I had a banner to the left here.
So not a big deal, but that's what it looked like. And it was pretty ugly. In fact, I couldn't capture the rest of this, but underneath it was a table, just a grid down below in here. And it had Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses and things like that so that you could click on it and go to the respective pages.
Then from there, it went to this. Oh, there we go. I don't know why that add title thing is there. I'm gonna get rid of that. Because I just threw this together. And the logo was right here in the middle.
And that logo has been lost. I got it back in my graphics someplace. And this is when I started putting things on the side and that's what it looked like. This is me doing all the work. This is not someone who's competent.
This is someone who does, he just doesn't care and does it himself because he doesn't know any better. And then I went to this.
Do you remember, what are the years roughly on each of these?
This one appears like 1996 or 98. And this one is about 2000 to 2001. And this one I think is around 2004, something like that. And this one, I'm not sure. I think actually this is the next one. I had to learn how to do curves and learn how to do stuff and try and make it look better.
And had a little graphic up here and a graphic right here at the very top. And I would teach myself how to do all kinds of stuff. And so it was writing and researching how to do web design. And then I went to this.
And from there I had to start teaching myself how to do what's called CSS, Cascading Style Sheets. And it's looking better, but this is straight HTML. And that was that, it was okay. And then this one, this doesn't make any sense because it's actually later on, but because the graphics are lost, it looks pretty bad.
So it's supposed to still have over here in the left the same navigation thing as this, but I don't know what happened. So I just imagined it there. And you can see the new logo actually was in place at that time.
Somebody came up with it, it was really great. And then we went to this and that's been around for a long time. And then we went to what's there presently. And just to do it, I can show you the brand new site if you guys are interested, which is not released yet, but it's not ready.
And so this is, where's it go? Right here. So it's still got a lot of work to be done. We've got another two months of work and this is the new version. Let me get out of there. And so it's in maintenance mode right now.
And this area down below is not done because it's just part of the template. We'll work on that last. And we have up here, we have different things and just pulled out. It just looks more modern, that's all.
And about and things like that are writers. We're gonna expand this out, Amazon wishlist. This is a navigation. This navigation thing, the designer and I spent weeks trying to hammer out, weeks, because how do we get the navigation system to work?
For a site that is absolutely huge and yet make it simple. It really had a lot of challenges that we can't get into, but we had decided to do this so that apologetics would have these different areas underneath it.
And Christian living, you see there, Christianity and we've got early church fathers. We've got international stuff, which is not formatted out yet. We got minor groups. So for example, I'll go back to that.
We have questions on different topics. Okay, you can see there's just quite a bit of topic areas. And I've been working on this format for, I don't know, 15, 20 years, believe it or not. We have secular issues, abortion, atheism, creation, homosexual, I mean, evolution, homosexuality, relativism.
We have stuff on the Bible. And we had to compromise on this, how to do Bible stuff, the Bible devotions, maps, studies, verses by topic, Bible difficulties. Because normally these have their own sections and this menu was becoming too big.
So we really had to struggle. And then we got world religions, Baha 'i, Buddhism, stuff like that. And so if we were to click on, say, let's do Islam because George is here. So we still have some tweaking and some things to do.
You can see it's really nice and clean. And we're gonna change the fonts here and do some other stuff. But we have to go in and put all these links in. And all these articles are written, jeez. And then link everyone, go in and do a fresh link to each thing for every single page that has all kinds of stuff in it.
And so let's see. And we have not yet got the article format done yet. It's got this background thing behind it, these lines. Those are all gonna come out. And this is just a holding place. And the format's not ready yet.
You can see it's too big, not formatted out right. And it'll take another week to go through as we tweak things. Not a big deal. But that's what we're gonna have. On the right-hand side, we're gonna have this search engine always in the same place up here.
It'll rotate with. We're gonna have various things go here. We're gonna have advertisements because we've got to get funding. And related things that are just related with graphics. The whole other job we're gonna have to do is go through and find graphics.
It's a major, major job. And the web guy says this thing here, keyword and category index. It's not done yet, but it's gonna auto-generate things. So you can go here and get different stuff. He says it's an interesting concept.
I've not seen it work. So we'll just see how it works. We have the latest on CARM coming up here. When we get things going, new website, new hosting, new, you know. You can see we're still developing it all.
Media, testimonies, book and movie reviews. So we really had to spend a lot of time figuring out the navigation. And so what we can do is, let's see. Let's see, get all this stuff down here. I got a lot of windows open.
I have lots of stuff that I do all the time. So let's see. There we go. So when you take this, see the menu, see how the menu's like right here? When you take this and you go different sizes, now it overlaps.
So that's gotta be fixed. And then when you get smaller, it looks good. And then it turned into a hamburger menu. And then, so you can imagine how tough it was to get the navigation to work right. And there's still a lot of tweaking.
And the guy who's doing it is a Christian and he used to use CARM. He used to use CARM years ago. And so he's delighted. He said to help. We're paying him. But I even said the day I was texting him, I said, man, I feel sorry for you.
I don't think you realize how big a job this is. And he said, yeah, it's by far the biggest site he's ever done. Nothing ever comes close in its massiveness. And he is the one who did our dictionaries.
He converted our dictionaries over. So one of our dictionaries wrote dictionaries. Like, I haven't even checked them yet. And so dictionary theology, which now I realize we got to go in and I got to fix that.
Ooh, it's another day project. Okay. Just stay calm, Matt. Stay calm. Oh yeah. There's so much to do. I wonder if this guy, Authors and Writers is in there yet. Our team partnered with CARM. Anyway, you can see there's just a lot we're doing.
And so we've not put anything in our team yet and they go up here and edit it. And then I got to get a bio from everybody and put it in. You know, it's, you know, I got to do. And it's just, there's just a lot of work.
And we're just at 80 doing the articles. In fact, let me show you those. So these are, I could tell you a long story but I did some computer tricks and got all this into a spreadsheet. So there, I just told you.
And so we took out all of the dictionary entries. And so that got rid of about 1500 entries. So what we do is we have to go through edit, clean the article, removal date, put a category and keywords, focus, key phrase, SEO title, better description, internal graphics checking, remove the carriage at the end.
Then when you're done, like Luke did this, he did this article and he puts, you know, we just put the name in all the areas. We know who did what. And so we have some red things we got to take care of.
And you can just see how many articles this is. This goes on and on and on. I even started getting upset at myself. I'm like, man, you've got mental problems. You're writing too much. And so like, I put my dates in, just to see how many is being done.
We're at 80 right here of the articles, if you guys can see that, of just this. And that's just this. Once this is done, there's more. This is a huge project, huge project. It's just, it's massive. And even I didn't have any idea how big it was.
And it just shows you, I got mental problems. I mean, come on. I've written so stinking much. And it's not even the books I've written, you know? So anyway, I'm just going through and word studies. And then that's the last article.
So I'm pretty close to that. And then what I got to do is go up and go to another blank area and start working on stuff like that, you know, and Mulanism, and I got to check people's work. And then there's some early stuff we did that we didn't put our finished name in there yet.
But you know, we're evolving. Bible verses is my topic. This could be a real problem. I found this out. It's going to be a problem to get that working right. We got church fathers, and we got a whole bunch of stuff on Islam too.
Anyway, so I'll spend hours in here a day working. And it takes about 45 completed articles to go up 1%. And I can do on a good day, I can do about 30. It's just, it's a lot.
It's just a lot. Yeah, and how often do you actually have a good day?
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I had to prep for this debate with Sam Shimon. So I blew off a couple of three days and blended a few. And so I'm back on it at 20 or so today. And, you know, I got to answer emails, phones, do stuff, other things, but then do radio and stuff like that.
So what, do CARM need web designers? Well, we have a web designer, but if someone knows something, we can always use some experts in varied fields. But what we really need is helpers to go in and convert articles.
And let me show you what that is, what that means to do. I can show you that. Let me get back in there. And so for example, let me get the screen showing. If you guys care about this, whatever, not a big deal.
But so what it means is to, for example, come in and it's a slow server right now. We've got to put it in. You put the article title in, it opens up, and then you have the other stuff on the other, a live site there.
You have to click in here. You got to come in and open it up. Then you got to remove the, I've already done it in this article, that author and the date, remove it. Make sure the date corresponds to here on this side here.
We got to make sure the Christ words are in red. We got to make sure that Grammarly checks this out. Tables fit, if we do that, put in stuff. We've got to come in here to do SEO stuff, put in SEO title, meta descriptions.
And that's not even going in here and fixing readability issues. We still have another year of doing that for SEO value. We got to put the categories in. We got to put the tags in. We do all this stuff and then we can hit update and then we go market on the spreadsheet that we're done.
And like, look at this, we're going to fix this right here. See, here we go. So I didn't finish this one and we update it. It updates on the server. Do this thousands of times, thousands of times. Yeah, for days.
I have listened to all my music so many times that I can't take it anymore. And so now what I do is I have, I do this, 12 hours of rain and I put two of them, two tabs up at different times and it gives me a better presentation.
So I just, I listen to rainstorms. That's what I'll do. Yeah. So anyway, how about that? So Jay, I was doing a little bit for JL, if you want to help, it's what it's like that. It's, it's mind numbing.
You bump into walls. I mean, you know, if you look at Luke Wayne, he used to be good looking when he, before, when he started this, look what it did to him. It's, it's not a good thing. And Carlos really, he'd been working with us about 12 years, but he's only 30 and look at him, you know, so you can see how bad it is.
And when Pastor George and I started hanging out a little bit together, he had a full head of hair. It was all, you know, dreadlocks and everything. And now look. So yeah, that's right. So anyway, everybody, that's how it went.
That's what's going on. Since I've known you and worked with you, I've developed a know-how. Yeah. So this ministry has taken its toll. I got some stories of some pretty bad stuff I've had to endure, seriously bad stuff.
And some of it, I recall, still makes me angry. And, but you know, this is ministry, it's life. And then I got swatted, you know, I got swatted. I've had the FBI involved with stuff. My family's been threatened.
And that's just the Mormons. I mean, the Baptists, you know, and that stuff. Been followed. Yeah, I've been followed. We've had things happen at our house, middle of the night, noises. Yeah, for real.
Anyway, so I guess that's about it. Thank you, thank you. Huh? I'm just saying thank you, that's it. All right. Yeah. Well, appreciate you guys showing up. Unless somebody else got anything they want to jump in and say, there's nobody waiting.
Oh, Just a Wretch. You can say something. Hey man, how you doing? Forgot you down there. Are you there? Hello? Just a Wretch? Don't hear you. He's a good guy though. He goes into the chat room. He goes into the chat room all the time and he's there.
So maybe he'll come back in in a little bit. He's probably going, I'm trying to talk. I'm trying to talk. It's not working. That's cool, man. We got David and Carlos here and Luke here and Charlie and myself, people that are working with Karm.
Karm's really influenced a lot of people by God's grace. Nothing but God's grace. That's right. Yeah. You just never know.
Let me tell you a quick story. What's that? Who was involved from these people with the project you did with David?
Oh, who's involved with a project with David Wood here? Just me. Yeah. Oh, you. Okay. Yeah. The other guys weren't involved there. It was awesome stuff. Yeah. You know, I was going to say two of my favorite stories about Karm.
One is I got an email from somebody and he told me this country or this island. And I had to look it up on Google. And it was a speck in the middle of some ocean. And it was small. And the guy, the email said, it was broken English, but it was said, thank you very much.
You've really helped us here. Wow. And then my other one that I just loved was a guy from Vietnam. And he wrote several emails and I was able to figure out what he said is broken English, but it was good enough to understand.
And what he would do is take Karm articles. This is like 10, 12 years ago. Take Karm articles, print them up. And then he would drive in his car or with his scooter. And he'd go up into the hill country where the Vietnamese and the villagers were until he couldn't go any further.
Then he'd leave his vehicle there and he'd walk into the hills. Then he'd sit down with the missionaries and he would use the Karm material to teach them. Wow. And I went, wow. Yeah. And that was good.
And then we got a letter from Smyrna. You know, the books of Revelation? You know, the seven churches? And I've actually been to Smyrna. It's not much anymore, but we went to Smyrna, anyway, on a tour through Turkey.
But the guy wrote me a letter. He goes, Matt, we've taken your articles and we read it in Smyrna in our church. And I thought the letter of Slick to the church of Smyrna. I thought, wow, that's pretty cool.
Amazing. So those are just some of the fun highlights, you know? And then when you go someplace, someone goes, you're Matt Slick from Karm? Yeah. And so apparently, you know, it's had a lot of influence, a lot of people.
And that's just by God's grace. Nothing but God's grace. Amen. Pastor George mentioned David Wood. My son is doing a lot of English-Russian translation for him on some of his materials. That's right, Pastor George.
You don't know, but Charlie here, his son broke his neck in Southern California many years ago. And he's one of like 12 in the world walking quadriplegics. For real. Dead serious. For real. Yeah. Yeah.
I know I joke a lot, but what he broke. Well, he likes to say we all wobble during earthquakes while he walks straight. So. Yeah, but he did. He was in intensive care. And he's technically a quadriplegic, but he can function, he can walk, he can drive.
But it's like, I don't know how to describe it, like someone really drunk and spastic at the same time, kind of. And. He got pulled over in college with his friends and the police was gonna give him a sobriety test and they all laughed.
Forget it, he's gonna fail. Don't even try. And he's a chess genius too, isn't he? Well, you did beat him the last time you played him. It's true. Cause his son, Chucky, we call him Chucky, is a chess genius for real.
And I beat him the last time we played. When was that? Well, Chucky was nine. Exactly. And even then, I barely beat him. He took everything I had. Yeah, he's going on 49 now. That was 40 years ago. And so he says, he called Uncle Matt still.
Uncle Matt, we're gonna play chess. Hey, I beat you last time. I'm not going near a chess board with him. He'd clean me up in one minute. So I like to brag that I beat him last time we played. Nine years old.
I still remember it. I still remember going, crap, he's good. What am I gonna do? I barely, barely beat him. At any rate, it was fun. So. All right, everybody. I guess that's it. It's been two hours. So God bless everybody.
And JL, email us if you wanna, you know. And Pastor George, thanks for coming in. Really appreciate you. You're a great man of God. And you're just a blessing to the body of Christ. You really are. And so thank you.
And David Brito is. And Carlos is. And yeah, Luke is. You know, Luke is, he's a blessing. Luke is a blessing. I'm just, you know, I tease him a lot. Here's my wife one last time coming in. And let's see, there she is.
And so she's a blessing too. In fact, all of you guys are, you know. And Charlie's a blessing and everything. And so what?
Well, I just wanted to say, I just wanted to say that I'm proud of you for how hard you work. And how much heart you put into Karm. And it's your baby. And God's used you so much. And it's just, you know, it's a blessing to have a husband that's sold out for the Lord.
And I can't look at him when he's trying to be serious.
Stop the face. Okay, I'll be, I'll do the mummy thing.
No, it's just, you know, you've touched a lot of people's lives. And we had to be a part of it. Used you and trained you for this kind of work, you know, from a long time ago.
You know, you, stop it. Okay.
You know, you've just designed the whole, you know, how things have come to this point, you know, after all these years. To be able to use you the way you do. You've got all these talents just the way he is.
And I'm proud of you. Whoa. You're doing a great job. Wee.
Yeah, you're very good at what you do. Thank you. Is that the webcam? Or did your head visibly swell? Yeah, it's, he said that the webcam or did your head visibly swell? Oh, it's getting big. She's, she's, she's helped a lot too.
She's made a lot of possible. But there it is. It comes from the wife. You heard all that, right? You guys heard all that, right? Okay, good. It's documented, Charlie says. Good thing, because it's never going to happen again.
Okay. All right. Yeah, thanks. All right. Okay. She's got a lot to put up with. Obviously, as you can see. One time, I got to tell you something, you know, just in the mummy face. Once I did this, she, she starts talking to me, right?
About buying a dress. And I go like this. But the whole time she's talking to me, I'm just like this. And like a minute and a half, right? I'm not moving. Just, and after about a minute and a half, she goes, are you listening to me?
Cause Matt, Matt. I go, were you talking? You said something about a dress. And then it just went. I do stuff like that. You know, she's like, I go, was it interesting? Cause an arm hit, you know? And so stuff like that.
I used to do all kinds of fun stuff with her. She's like, ooh, you're so irritating. Cause I actually asked her one time, hon, what's my gifting? What's my special gifting? She was being irritating. And I said, well, then, you know, the Bible says you got to perfect your gifts.
And she goes, I said, so I'm going to work on perfecting. How to be irritating. She's, she could never win, you know? I'll walk up behind her in the kitchen, just standing there like this, but she's doing something.
Stuff like that. Don't do that. I was just standing here. You know, and she goes, make a noise when you come in. So I go and make a noise. I'm here. So one time, one time we're driving down the road. She goes, she goes, it's hot.
You go, yeah, it is hot. I point out the window, you know, she looks over there. I turned the heater up, you know, so we're just driving. And she's about to, what did you do? The heater's off? How'd that happen?
Look at the armpit, it's just tough. I got a bunch of stuff like that I've done with her, you know, and so there you go. A little bit of fun. All right. Okay, well, I'll see you guys. God bless. Hey, thanks for showing up.
It was a lot of fun. All right. Oh yeah. Happy birthday to Karma. Absolutely. Bye bye guys. God bless everybody. We'll see ya. All right. All right, we'll see ya. God bless, bye.
