Matt Slick Live: July 24, 2024

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

It's Matt Slick Live! Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm .org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers.

Taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. And if you were listening the past few days, hopefully it'll be interesting as well today. If you want to give me a call on this lovely July 24th, 2024, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

I want to hear from you. If you want, you can also email me at info at karm .org, info at karm, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. And you can put the subject line, radio comment, radio question, easy peasy. And we usually get to those on Fridays.

Now, there was something else I was just going to say. What was it? I can't remember. Eh, that's all right. No big deal. Hey, why don't we just jump on the phones. Let's see who's the longest waiting is.

Okay. Ryan. Hey, Ryan.

Welcome. Welcome back. You're on the air. Hello, Matt. Thank you very much for inviting me to call back. I was here two days ago, and we were discussing 1 John 2 -2 and John 1 -29, and you invited me to call back and to discuss this further.

If you don't mind, I've printed up a thing from karm .org about how to do biblical exegesis, and you have 10 steps on there about how to interpret scriptures. And when I have done biblical interpretation, I have also been asked what sort of procedure that I use to interpret scripture.

And it's 10 steps. Would you mind if I read off exactly what I do to do biblical exegesis? Okay. Sure, go ahead. Step one, lexicography, morphology. What is the word meanings? What is the word usage? Number two is etymology, history of the word meanings.

How has the meaning changed over time? How is the current biblical meaning different from the historic non-biblical meanings? How is it similar? How does the current meaning enhance or contrast with the historic meaning?

And of course, that's the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. And you know, I've had my 10-volume set since 1976, so I'm sure you're familiar with that also. The third is compare and contrast.

How have different biblical authors used the same terms? How have different non-biblical authors used the same terms? How is the current usage similar to other usage? How is the current usage different from other users?

Step four is grammar. What is the grammatical structure of the line, the paragraph, and the passage? Number five is authorship. Who wrote it? Who was it written to? When was it written? Immediate context.

What is the topic? Is this the beginning of the topic discussion, the middle of the topic discussion, or the end of the topic discussion? And of course, that's very germane when you're dealing with Hebrews, since the first 11 chapters is one narrative.

Okay?

Then... The... Summarize them really quickly, because, okay, you just read the, you know, like, look at the context. Look at the author.

You know, things like that. Well, but there's more to it than I get into. I get into the linguistics. How is the text influenced by the immediate world view? Culture. What is the cultural context of the writing?

And then exegetical history is my last step. And I ask the questions, does my interpretation agree with the traditional treatment of the passage? Does it enhance it, or does it go against it? And if it enhances it or agrees with it, then I stay with it.

If it doesn't, then I throw it out and I start all over. Okay? That is the process that I go through. Okay? Can we agree that that is a reasonable process of going through biblical interpretation? It's reasonable.

Okay? Okay. And so I have a question for you. If I went to James 2 and I read, faith without works is dead, and then I turned over to Romans 117, where it says, just shall live by faith, and I say, oh, well, James said this, so when he says that just shall live by faith, that means faith without works is dead, and therefore you're not just.

Would you agree with me that that would be a misappropriation of the book of James? Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. The last time I talked with you, I thought you knew some things, and perhaps I was imbibing some knowledge that you had that you did not have, so I'm going to try to be careful and not assume that you know things that I thought you did know.

So anyway, my point is that, and I think you would also agree that James is a different author, has a different context, has a different meaning, and therefore when you take that context out of that and impose it upon Romans, then you are misappropriating and misusing Romans and misusing James.

Okay, so once we get this, we'll go ahead and just get to the point, okay?

Yeah. Okay, the point is, two days ago, you tried taking a context from Matthew and imposing it upon John, and you tried taking from the Old Testament atonement ideas and tried imposing it upon John, and you did exactly what I did when I took James and tried to impose it upon Romans.

Okay.

No, I would disagree with you. So, do you have a particular verse you want to look at?

John 129, 1. John 2 .2. That's the one you wanted me to call back and ask about. Which one do you want to look at first? John 129. John 129.

John 129, all right. So the next day you saw Jesus coming to him and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, okay? What about it?

Mm-hmm. Okay. Clearly, I think in the context of John and the prologue of the fourth gospel, the world is clearly referring to all of creation, and take away is different than atonement and different than propitiation, and it is a sacrifice of Christ in the aspect that he is creator of all things.

All things fell without him, and he died to redeem everything that was lost. Okay.

Okay. So like Colossians 120 relationship. So he took away the sins of the world. What's the word world mean? No, it's not sins.

It's not sins. It's sin. Okay. It's not referring to the acts of sin. It's referring to the status of being fallen. That is what sin refers to. Okay.

The status of being fallen. So he took away our fallenness?

What he did was he suspended his wrath against all of creation, which he could have destroyed at all because of the sin of Adam. He had mercy upon all of creation, and he suspended that through the sacrifice of Christ.

Just as in 1 John 2. He did the same thing with wrath and toward all of mankind. Okay.

You're not making sense to me. So when it says he takes away the sin of the world, did he take away the sin of the world? Yes, he did, of course. Okay. So the world means what? People and or creation.

The earth. What? All of creation. All of creation. Since all of creation is all without. All right. Okay. So he took the sin away of the people as well. Right? Yes. All of creation. Yes. Okay. So people are in the creation.

So we're talking about people right now. So he took away the sin of the people who are judged to damnation? Correct. Okay. So they don't have any sin because it's removed. And yet they're damned. How's that?

How does that work? I did not say it was removed. Okay. And the.

It takes away. Yes, it does. And that is not atonement. That is expiation. So it's a different aspect of the sacrifice of Christ than atonement or propitiation.

Yeah. Expiation is not what we're talking about. It's related to propitiatory sacrifice. But look, what we're talking about here is it takes it away. Did he take away the sin of the people who are damned?

Yes, of course. How did he take away their sin if they're damned because they're damned for their sin? I don't get it.

Well, they are damned because, again, they love the darkness more than light. And we see this time and time and time again. That's sinful.

That's sinful to do that. That's correct. Right. So God took that away from them. Right.

Yes. Okay. Why are they judged? There's a reason they are condemned, because they have chosen to love the darkness more than light. So the reason they are condemned is not because Christ did not die for them.

But that's sin. They took it away. So how can they be judged for what doesn't exist anymore, is taken away?

I just explained it to you. This is a suspension of God's judgment against all of creation. And therefore, the reason they are condemned is not because of a lack of the sacrifice of Christ, but because of their own choosing to follow the darkness rather than the light.

But I'm curious, because he says their sin is taken away. So they don't have any sin.

Is that right? Well, you're confusing expiation with atonement. This is not atonement.

I'm just asking if it's taken away. No, I'm not bringing up appreciation or expiation or atonement. I'm just saying it's taken away. I'm just asking what the text says. So you're the one violating your own rules.

So it's taken away. Is the sin taken away of those people who are judged for damnation and go to hell?

Yes. So the reason they're because of their own choices, not because of the lack of sacrifice of Christ. That's why I know that is without it. But that's sin.

They've sinned. And you say there's sin. Is all of their sin taken away?

Listen close. When it refers to sin, it's talking about the fallenness of all things, OK, not talking.

About wait, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no, no, no fallenness. No trees are fallen.

OK, come on. Come on, Matt. Come on, Matt. You know, we're talking about the fall, the fallen in Genesis, all of Adam, all of all creation. Stop. Stop the tree.

Stop. All of creation is affected by sin. The fall entered the world, therefore trees die. We have plagues. We have earthquakes. We have storms. We have famines. Yes. This is because of the effect of sin in the world.

When you say the sin is taken away, that's why I focused earlier just on the individuals. OK, so if an individual, a person's sin is taken away, it doesn't exist anymore. Is that correct? No. It's been suspended.

It's been suspended.

Oh, so it's suspended. It's not taken away. It's suspended. Well, that's what take it away means in John 129.

So what's the verb to take away in Greek?

OK, to take it away. It is not atonement. It is not propitiation. This is an Aramaic idiom, and if you had studied this passage, you would know that it was an Aramaic idiom. Wow. So the Greek word is the Old Testament.

It's foreign to the Old Testament.

It means to take away, to raise up, to get rid of it. OK, you can raise the ground, the stones. The word has a lot of different meanings. So let's see. So we go to John. Let's see. The ESV says takes away, as does the King James takes, takes, takes away.

Look at all these versions. Takes away. LEB, NIV. I'm looking, scanning through them. They all say the same thing. Take it away. Take it away. So if something's taken away, is it still there anymore?

Once again, this is referring to the suspension of God's judgment against all of creation. That's not what it says. That's why it's referring to fallenness. It doesn't say suspend.

It says take away. Well, that's the meaning of take it away. The fallenness of the world. So you didn't even know what the Greek word was, and yet you're telling me what it is?

Well, you are more fluent in Greek than I am. That's for sure. I don't doubt that. And it's been a long time since I took Greek, and you've kept up with it far better than I have.

I don't doubt that. So what you're telling me, then, is that the sin's taken away. It doesn't say suspended. That's something you're just adding into the text. So it doesn't say that. The word is used for pick up, take, take away, remove, carry, pull away, things like that.

So that's why they translate it as take away, not suspend. It doesn't fit the semantic domain of the word. So what you're doing is you're changing the meaning of the word in order to make it fit the theology.

That's not good. Well, that's what you do also when you try to limit world to just the elect, and that's why you have to impose upon it from the book of Matthew. When you take the context of Matthew and impose it upon John, that is what you're doing.

I did not do that. I told you, I don't do that. Yes, you did. No, I don't. Yes, you do. You don't. Show me where. That's what you did two days ago, Matt.

After the break. After the break, show me where. Okay. Hold on. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after the break. We'll go through one more little session with him, and then we'll get to the callers. I hope you're enjoying this.

We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned.

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

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Let's do one more segment of this, and then we'll move along. Let's see. Ryan, are you still there? Yes, I am.

Thank you very much for letting me hang on. I appreciate it. Mm-hmm. Okay. So two days ago, did you not refer to Matthew and saying that Christ came for the lost sheep of Israel and use that as a reason for denying that world in John 129 was referring to at least all of creation or all of mankind?

Well, he says he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Sheep are individuals. So Jesus was only sent to the people of Israel covenantally. Okay. Okay.

So what does that have to do with the context of John 129?

I'm just saying that the word world has different meanings in different contexts. That's what I'm saying. So what does it mean in John 129? Well, I don't know exactly. I think it... I probably would assume it means all the nations, groups, and peoples and stuff, not just the Jews.

Okay. So if you haven't noticed, there are only two kinds of people. There's Jews and Gentiles. That's all of creation.

I mean, excuse me, that's all of mankind. There's also the elect and the non-elect. There's a saved and a non-saved.

There's a Christian and non-Christian. There's no way that you can restrict this to just the elect, neither this or John 3, 16 or 17. No, no, no. I'm correcting you. You just tried to. No, I'm correcting you.

Okay.

You tell me what this... Hold on, Ryan. Hold on. I'm correcting your error. I'm being polite with you, but you don't realize how many mistakes you're making. You're prideful and you're stubborn. I'm trying to tell you, you made a mistake.

You said there's two kinds of people, the Jews and Gentiles. I was saying there's other groupings that you can do with people as well. It's all I did. I didn't say world, man, but either one of those, which you took one of the several that I offered.

So that's what I said it mean. You have got to stop doing this, Ryan. I ask you the questions. I ask you, did he take away the sin of the world? And I said, let's focus on individuals. And you say, yeah, he takes it away.

But then you say it's suspended. That's not what it says. It doesn't say he suspended it. You are committing the fallacy of putting your theology above the word of God. You are doing that.

Okay. You tell me what world means in John 1 29. I don't know exactly what it means.

I told you already. It can mean a range of things that are exegetically possible.

Okay. So is one of those exegetically possible interpretations referring to all of creation?

Yes, it can. But you see, here's the thing. Okay. The thing is, if the sin is taken away, I have a question for you. How is a person who's damned for their sin guilty if their sin is taken away?

Because they love the darkness more than life. That is sin.

It's taken away. So how can they go to hell if their sin is taken away?

I just explained it to you because they choose to enjoy the darkness more than light. That is sin.

Their loving darkness more than light is sin. Therefore that sin is included in the sin of the world. So did Jesus take away that sin too or not? Or is it limited atonement?

Yes. So that's why you're there without excuse when you're condemned.

What is it? Did he take all of their sin away or not all of their sin away?

Which is it? He took away everything that was the result of the fall.

So all sin is taken away from all people. How do they go to hell then?

Because they chose the darkness more than light. They chose to love.

That's sin. They're choosing to do something sinful. Was that sin taken away too or not? Yes, it was. And once again. So that sin that they're going to hell for is taken away, but they're going to hell for that which doesn't exist is taken away.

It's gone.

Well, again, this is why no man is without excuse, because the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient for the sins of all mankind and for the sin of the fallenness of all things. Okay, apparently you don't know what world means because you haven't studied it in John 129.

Okay. So apparently you haven't studied that. So you don't know if it's referring to all of creation.

I'll tell you what. Why don't you go to Karm and look up the table section on Karm and look up my examination of the word world in every single instance of where it occurs. Have you done that?

Have you done that? Um, actually, I just went through. Well, the thing is, I've gone through exactly what I do with biblical exegesis, taking you through that. You agree? I've done my own translation.

I've done my own exegesis. Okay. And by the way, I guess we've come to the same point again. So why don't you enjoy your guano buffet for your furtive symbiotic sycophants and enjoy yourself. Okay. Your ignorance and your stupidity is a degradation to the cause of Christ and to the cause of apologetics.

You are ignorant and you're arrogant and you are a stupid debater. Okay.

Well, and yet I beat you all the time. Wow. All right, folks. So, uh, I let him say it because that's what we call hate mail. And I love that stuff. Boy. Well, okay, let's go. The next longest waiting person is Alan Allen.

Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, man. How's it going?

It's going fine. How are you doing? Yeah. All right. I want to say come out with the last caller is that, um, uh, as much as you have hate in your heart for Matt, um, I don't think God would want you to be doing that.

You know, it's hilarious that he was spreading so much hate to you when it's very clearly stated that you should love. And who are you if you only love your brothers?

You know, he may not believe you're saying, well, he got cornered, got cornered, you know, and he doesn't know how to get out of it. So except to attack. So anyway, so what do you got, buddy?

Uh, yes. So I'm, so one of the things it was about, um, I'm wanting to narrow down. I'm wanting to, um, get these foundations of definitions down for words. Like for example, I tried looking up Deacon and having a hard time actually finding a strict definition for Deacon because there's like certain ones for like Roman Catholicism and I see some, some information on your website, but I don't have like a clear, like this is a glossary of this, this, this, and this, or like stuff like Deacon church, stuff like that.

Well, here we go.

You see a word means what it means in context and then a word can have a range of meanings, a semantic domain. So the word Deacon us, okay, it's 1249 and, and, um, the strongest concordance and it occurs 29 times in 27 verses and it's translated as servant.

And I'm looking, I'm scrolling through it on, if you can see also minister in the NASB it is. And of course, Deacons. All right. And, uh, let's see, there we go. So what we do is we look at the, how the word appears in this different context.

So guess what you do? So in the pastoral epistles where we're talking about the issue of what their office is, that's in first Timothy and it says in first Timothy three, eight Deacons must be now, Oh, what is a Deacon?

It comes from the word, uh, Deacon us comes from, you know, to serve. So there are pastor elders, there are just elders, there's bishops and there's Deacons and the Deacons are the ones who are supposed to serve because that's what the word means.

So a Deacon in the church is someone who serves and provides and helps. And then we'll get back to it after the break. There's more. Okay. So hold on buddy. Hey folks. We'll be right back after these messages.

So please stay tuned. We'll be right back.

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

Welcome back to the show. Hope you're enjoying the show. And if you want to give me a call, it's 877 -207 -2276. And we need to get back to Alan as soon as the producer reactivates. There we go. Hey Alan, buddy.

Welcome. You're on the air.

Well, thank you, Matt. So what do you got? Oh, I just wanted to get more into it. So like, would you, um, would you say a, a reasonable definition for Deacon that would be an assistant of a church?

It's reasonable, uh, but you can have an assistant who's a woman. And so then it would be an insufficient definition because women can't be Deacons either.

Okay. Yeah. That's my thing too. It's like, well, I want to get like the Deacon thing. Cause I want it. Cause I know one of the, I don't remember what the website was, but it was, uh, it was TMS .edu.

It had, uh, there was a church that was recommended for me and I looked at it cause I was looking at the, uh, leadership and it had a section for Deaconesses and I was wondering what your take on that is.

And if they're potentially mislabeling, mislabeling them as Deaconesses, yeah, because even though.

The Bible says Deacons, you know, for example, first Timothy three, 12 Deacons must be husbands of only one wife, good manners, literate children, et cetera. And so, hold on a sec. So what that's saying here, it's, uh, Andres Miasgonikos in the Greek and, uh, it just means husbands of one wife.

And so a woman can't fit that bill. So a Deacon can't be a woman by biblical mandate. It just did. So this is the pastoral epistle. So a church that have women Deacons is not submitting to the scriptures in that area.

And that's a problem. Now some may say that they're just servants of the church. Well then they call them a servant, but don't call them a Deacon because the word Deacon has a, an ecclesiastical meaning to it.

But a servant is far less ecclesiastically minded. So they could have someone with the same function with different titles. And we don't want to be too slick about it. I think it might drift, but we've got to be careful.

So we don't want women to be Deacons in the sense that they have those Deacon, uh, responsibilities.

Yep. Okay. Yeah. I guess it's one of the things I would need to research more on because I still have a rough time differentiating between Deacon and Assistant.

Um, okay. Generally speaking, a Deacon is someone who will take care of the needs of others. An Assistant might help a pastor arrange a flight. A Deacon wouldn't do that, though could, but a Deacon would be the one who say someone comes to the church, a woman and a living in her car and she needs food for the children that's in their car.

A Deacon, that's, that's when the Deacon step in and traditionally speaking, and they would take care of her and do what's right. That's not an Assistant's job.

Okay. So, so I guess if you break it down more, someone, say if a woman holds, woman is a member of the church and she holds the door open. For someone who is, uh, lame, is that an act that a Deacon would do or an Assistant?

Well, Deacons breathe and an Assistant would breathe. Because they both do the same thing doesn't mean they're the same office. So holding a door open for somebody who's just polite, but the issue of a Deacon, I don't see the issue of Deacons being, uh, doctrinally, um, specified the way a pastor is.

Pastor's an elder, you go to First Timothy 5 .17, you can do that. But, uh, it says Deacons must be men of dignity, not double-tongued or addicted to wine, fond of sordid gain, holy to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

These men must be tested. Let them serve as Deacons, excuse me, serve as Deacons. And it's from the Greek word diakonoi, again, actually it's a different one, diakonoi, the verb to serve, which is said to cognate.

And so, uh, they're there to serve in that capacity. So what does it mean to serve? Apparently, there were, uh, many needs of the early brethren and the Deacons were the ones who did that job of divvying out money, help, whatever it might have been, housing for the people in need.

It's not an Assistant. An Assistant aids an individual who, for example, a pastor. I, so to speak, have Assistants, you know, I have Assistants like to help me with the ministry in varying areas, but they're not Deacons.

So, okay. All right, um, how, I think that helps me a lot more, um, how would you describe the difference between a church and a ministry?

A church has a, uh, usually it has worship in it, the adoration of God, the preaching of a sermon, the administration of the sacraments, a ministry does not. Karma is a ministry. So I might step into preaching periodically, uh, and teaching, uh, more often than not, but we don't administer the sacraments here.

We don't do anything like that. So it doesn't constitute what we would call a church. It's a ministry.

Okay. Okay. Um, I guess the last part of it, uh, is what are the differences between and then even jealousism, uh, a missionary and the act of witnessing?

And Evangelicalism is a movement for, to preach the gospel. Evangelical comes from the Greek word, euangelia, which is the word gospel. So it's preaching of the gospel, evangelizing, uh, the chocolate ministry, uh, and a missionary is someone who is called by God and recognized by church, a church or churches to go do a certain thing in a ministerial sense, preaching the gospel to a lost tribe.

It could be, uh, leading a men's group at a certain place in a city, whatever it could be, varying things. What was the third thing you said? Uh, witnessing. Witnessing is something that everybody's supposed to do and not everybody does, but we're generally at all.

People are called to do that. But if you're at your mom at home taking care of the kids, you're not witnessing in that sense. But when you get out in the real world, so to speak, then other opportunities arise.

So everybody's supposed to do that kind of a thing where a deacon is male only, a minister's male only ministry is related to church work, uh, uh, is a missionary can be male or female could be sort of supported by a church under their ecclesiastical authority and sending and witnessing is just something that we're all called to do.

Okay.

Okay. So, so a missionary doesn't have to be a deacon per se because women can be missionaries. Is that correct? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Good deal. Okay.

All right. All right, man. I think that helps me a lot. I appreciate it, man. Okay, buddy. God bless. Okay. All right. Let's go over to Ron from Wake Forest waiting 34 minutes. Thanks for the long wait.

What do you got, buddy?

Yes, sir. I was, uh, listening and I wanted to get the scriptures you shared with a young lady. You have to come out in the rapture and how you go to the tribal, be after the tribulation. Yeah. So you go to Matthew 24.

All right. And what it says is that, uh, in verse three, they asked Jesus, what will be the sign of your coming? We don't let things happen. The end of the age. And he says that there'd be wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, delivered over to tribulation.

Many will fall away. False prophets, lazy lawlessness will increase. Love will grow cold. The gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world. So there's lots of things like that. And then it says, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of in Daniel, then flee because there's gonna be a lot of trouble.

And it says, unless those days be cut short, no life would be left. So this is talking about a lot of trouble, a lot of pain, a lot of suffering. Then just as a lightning comes from the east of the west, so will the coming of the son of man be.

All right. So what he's doing there is talking about that. And then what a lot of people don't know, he says, wherever the corpse is, the vultures gather, as Jesus said. Then he says, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light.

That's Matthew 24, 29 through 30. Because he says, after the tribulation, then in verse 31, he says, he will send forth his angel with a great trumpet. But if you turn to first Corinthians 50, 52, then you find out that, let me get over there.

It says any moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound. Okay. And the dead will be raised. That's at the last trumpet when the dead are raised. And furthermore, when you go to first Thessalonians four, starting at verse 16, the Lord himself will descend from heaven.

When they shout with the voice of the archangel, the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Well, that's at the last trumpet, because that's what first Corinthians 50, 52 says. The last trumpet is when the dead are raised.

Now, when you go back to Matthew 24, you'll see that it's after the tribulation that the trumpet is blown. Okay. Okay. All right. Yes. I wanted to research it. You may skip it. You may skip it. Okay. Hold on, buddy.

We've got a break. Okay. Hold on for after the break. All right. Hey, folks, be right back after these messages. If Ron's still there, be right back. Please stay tuned.

Matt Slick Live! Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right. Welcome back to the show. Ron, are you still there?

Yes, I am. Yes, sir. All right. I'm still here. Okay. So I gave you some stuff kind of quickly because we were running out of time, but did that help? Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Like I said, I've been taught that the rapture is going to occur before the tribulation. It doesn't look like it does. What you said made sense. No, sir. I read Matthew yesterday and what you said made sense.

I want to study it more.

Also, you got to go to Matthew 13 and need to find the parable of the wheat and the tares because this really is interesting because it says, you know, it's verse 24. He gave them the parable of the tares, you know, and the good and the bad.

And he says in verse 30, allow both to grow together until the harvest. I'll tell you the reapers first gathered up the tares. So, wait a minute. So the first ones gathered at the harvest are the wicked.

That's what Jesus said. Right. 1230. Then if you go to Matthew 1240, he says, he interprets it. Let me go up to 39. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. And the harvest is the end of the age. And the reapers are the angels.

Just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. So, the ones who are taken first at the harvest are the wicked. Now, that's something I have never heard a preacher preach in a pulpit in all my 44 years going to church.

Me neither. And in fact, when I discovered this, when it was new to me, I'm not saying others haven't found it, of course. But it took me a couple of years of doing radio before I finally started admitting that's what it says.

Because I was concerned. I said, how come I've not heard this before? And if I've not heard it before, that's a warning. Because, well, come on. How could I not get that? Others not get it and I'm saying it?

That doesn't make any sense. So, I didn't see any other commentaries that dealt with it. Or preachers. So, I was hesitant. After a while, I said, well, it's just what it says. So, I had already by then fitted in to my eschatological view.

And so, what my view is that the kingdom of God is now, as Jesus said, the kingdom of God is within you. He is the king. He will take out of his kingdom the stumbling blocks. That's what happens at his return.