Matt Slick Live: January 31, 2025

Show Introduction and Listener Questions

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

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

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

Everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. You're listening to Matt Slick Live. And if you wanna give me a call, as usual, it's easy. Just dial 877 -207 -2276. And you can also email me. That's just as easy.

All I have to do is direct an email to info at karm .org, info at karm .org, and put the subject line, radio comment, radio question, and we can get to them. And on Fridays, often, it's slow, and that's okay.

So, Lord willing, we'll get to that. And I wanna hear from you. Give me a call. All right, all right. So, not a big deal, but last night, we had to take my wife to the hospital, and she, everything's fine.

She had, she has issues, you know. So, we're there, and we're getting out, and then this nurse, she comes in, and really nice, personable. And I saw that she had a Holy Spirit dove tattooed on her wrist, and so we get talking.

I said, oh, you're a Christian. Oh, yeah, yeah. And she tells me what church she goes to and everything. And so, we got talking, and I said, yeah, you know, I do apologetics. She says, I love apologetics.

And I said, really?

And so, we get talking, and I pull up my phone, and I show her the website, and she goes,.

That's your site?

I said, yeah, and she goes, I go there. I was asking questions, that's where I go. And so, it was really nice to see that, a nice little surprise. I like it when that happens. It's nice, you know, it's nice to hear that people are using the site and stuff like that.

I get a kick out of it. All right, now, I was gonna have, but did not be able to get to it because of the change in plans last night. I was gonna get to do a Q &A with some Eastern Orthodox people last night, but had to take my wife to the doctor's stuff.

And so, we canceled that. And they were gracious about it. They said, okay, we get that, not a problem. So, hopefully, we're gonna set it up again, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow night, maybe the next day, I don't know.

And we're gonna go through and do some Q &A stuff with the Eastern Orthodox. Now, I'm gonna just tell you, the Eastern Orthodox Church preaches the false gospel. It does, and they think it's a true gospel.

And they just can't get it, like the Roman Catholics, they can't get it. No, you're justified by faith, in what Christ did, not by faith, a combination of your works, added together, mixed together. That's it, it's just that simple.

And because they can't get it, refuse to get it, then they don't have the true gospel. They don't understand what the gospel is at that point. It's really unfortunate, but that's how it is. So, there you go.

Continuation of Charismatic Gifts

All right, now, we have a caller coming in, but I wanna get to some of the questions, and I'll get to some of those right now. Let's see, how about this one? Hey, Matt, speaking in tongues today, speaking in tongues today, I believe it was a sign gift, no use today.

Can you explain briefly? All right, so, yeah, I don't believe that it was just a sign gift. That's just a title given to this issue so that they can then say the sign gifts are now gone. They assigned speaking in tongues, word of wisdom, word of knowledge to that category.

It's a sign gift, so therefore, sign gifts are gone, so therefore it's gone, and they just say that. I don't see any scriptural warrant for assigning that to that category of things. Now, when I go to 1 Corinthians 1, 7, it says, so that you are not lacking in any gift, in any charisma.

It's from the, actually, it's charismati, but that's just a cognate of charisma, charismatic. You're not lacking any charismatic gift awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. So right there, 1 Corinthians 1, 7, says that the church is not to lack any charismatic gift.

So when people say to me, oh, they say, you know, the sign gifts are done. And I said, well, who says so? And then they go to 1 Corinthians 3, excuse me, 13, 8, through 13, I think it is, 1 Corinthians, let's see, 13, no, 1 Corinthians 13.

And so they will, they'll say, we know when the perfect comes, the imperfect is passed, and that the perfect is the coming of the canon. So 1 Corinthians 13, 10, they talk about it. And I'm not gonna go too deeply right now, but no, it doesn't make any sense to say that when you read the text.

I don't see it, how it makes any sense at all. So anyway, I know I'm going over it lightly, but no, I believe all the charismatic gifts are for today. And particularly when you realize scripturally that there's warrant for their continuation, but also all over the world, there are accounts of miraculous charismatic things happening in churches.

It's all over. We don't make doctrine out of experience, but a lot of them are very, they're legit. People speaking in tongues, having prophecies, words of knowledge, they're coming to pass, it happens.

So anyway, I just don't think that the gifts have ceased. And let me tell you, that position cost me a lot. That position cost me my pastorate when I was a pastor back in the 90s. And it really was an interesting time.

And I had to be true to what I believe the word of God said. And I said, no, I believe they're still around. But they're not normative. They're in the context of the expansion of the kingdom, the witnessing of the truth of God's word, things like that.

And long story short, that was over. So yeah, that's another story. Let's get to Lonnie from Oklahoma. Lonnie, welcome. You're on the air.

Well, thank you, Matt. I'm glad I'm able to get through to you. By the way, I have a friend that has probably ran into you in a big screen. And we were talking about you. We do a afternoon Bible study on Sunday.

And so we often discuss topics. Can you hear me okay?

Yeah, so you do it on big screen?

Matt?

Yeah, I hear you.

Yeah, he does. He actually met you on big screen. I don't get on big screen, but your name came up in conversations because of my background. Eventually, I started out in a Lutheran church, a little bit about my history.

Ended up in an evangelical church. And, you know, Scripture says we're to test everything. And they started saying stuff that wasn't correct, like trust your pastors 100%. If you don't obey your pastors, you're not obeying God.

And there were many other things. And so as I began sitting down and studying Scripture, I began to find out that I'd been subjected to a lot of false teachings. So unfortunately, I hate to say this, but a lot of people just are ignorant when it comes to Scripture and the application thereof.

But I have a question for you regarding this. Something I studied, I actually got kicked out of a church for my position on this. You know, in 2 Corinthians 5 .21, it says that he who knew no sin became sin.

And in Buechmann's book, Wayne, he mentions the atonement. And he talks about how God abandoned Jesus. And so I have issues with that because of God truly, Wayne in his book and systematic theology.

Wayne Grudem?

I'm sorry, Wayne Grudem. Yeah, sorry, I always say Goodman. And anyway, so in there, he says, well, I don't either. And so this is the point I want to ask your position on. I asked Dario, who met you on big screen, just to ask you about this and then follow up with me.

So I just had some free time today. And I thought I would give you a shout. But I think you had mentioned his book. It's been a few months back. And in his writing, he goes on to say that, basically, that God was of more holy eyes and couldn't look upon Christ when he was on the cross.

Yeah, see, yeah, that's Habakkuk 2 .4. Thinks what it is, that the eyes are too pure. Let me look and see if that is the case. Habakkuk, Gali's verses in my head. No, but righteous will live by faith.

His eyes are too pure to look upon evil. I'll find it, but at any rate. So yeah, it's a difficult thing to say exactly what happened in that context. It's just not easy to say. I don't like it when people say, this is what happened.

When he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We don't know what that means exactly. We know it's a quote from Psalm 22 .1, but we don't know exactly what happened in the spiritual realm. So we shouldn't say that.

We shouldn't say what did happen. We shouldn't say, here's the theories. I think these are weak, these are strong, and you go through and they leave it up like that.

That's it, you know.

Well, the problem I had with it, number one, somebody who goes and spends four years at Bible college, you know, and studies Greek and stuff, should look at this stuff, and also look at the theology of the Old Testament.

I've been through some very difficult things in my life, and there were times when I might feel as though God abandoned me. However, in the spirit, I know he didn't. So we've all had those days where we just throw our hands up and it's like, what's next?

So I, in a sense, I can understand how Jesus might feel that way from the flesh side, but if God truly abandoned God, the problem we now have is that we've broken the trinity.

Right.

And this is what I tried to make, and in the Bible, it's clear.

There's a yes and no to this. It depends on the logic. It says Habakkuk 1 .13, that his eyes are too pure to look upon evil. So Jesus was not made evil. He was imputed with our sin. He was made sin. So let's go over this a little bit first.

I agree.

So for the people who might be listening, cause it sounds to me like you are a bit more knowledgeable than the average bear. So what it literally says in the Greek, it says in 2 Corinthians 5 .21, it says, he made him did not know, who knew, not sin.

And then it doesn't say to be. There's no verb in there. It just says sin. So it says, he made him who knew no sin, sin on our behalf. So that's what it literally says in the Greek. Okay, so how do they translate that?

He became sin, made to be sin. So what he's talking about is the imputation of our sin to him. First Peter 2 .24, he bore our sin in his body on the cross. So we have to be careful that we need to make sure that the holiness of God is not stained by becoming sin.

We can make, stay away from that. That's what I'm saying really quickly and trying to be careful about this with people who might be curious about that particular verse. Okay, having said that, so when it says that God, you know, why have you forsaken me?

We know it's a quote from Psalm 22 .1. All right, so I can't see, just as you said, I'm very pleased to hear you say that. It could not be that there was any break of nature that would be a problem. But I could see since Jesus was made under the law that as sin was imputed to his account, that there was an effect.

And I say the word effect without being able to define what that effect was. There was an effect in that fellowship with the father-son relationship as a son made for little while, the Lord and the angels under the law.

And how that it was affected, I don't know. And that's as far as I go when I give an answer to that particular question. I'm not going any further because I don't know.

I've also encountered that same issue. And so, you know, when Sidney made him lower than angels, I'm looking at this as, you know, he stepped down from his glory per se in the heavenly realms to the lower regions of earth.

And so I can see how somebody could look at the position that he assumed without losing his identity as part of God, being a God's son, if you will. And so that's my position in scripture. I've looked at both the Old Testament, the New Testament.

In fact, I've even looked at some of the Jewish writings on the sacrifice of sins. And what you clearly understand when you go and you look at some of the sin offerings from the Old Testament, it's clear.

He says he's the lamb of God, the perfect lamb of God. In fact, we see John the Baptist proclaiming this. The only time I see in sins where sins were passed off were to the goat of Bazil in which the priest laid their hands on it, the sins were imparted to the goat, and then the Jews would force the goat off a cliff so it could never find its way back to the camp, thus separating the sins from the people forever.

And so that was...

The Imputation of Sin and the Cry of Abandonment

Oh, hey, hold on, man, we had a little glitch there. I've got a break coming up. There's a music. Hold on, we'll be right back after these messages, okay? Stay tuned, folks, we'll be right back.

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

All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. If you wanna give me a call, the number is 877 -207 -2276. Let's get back on with Lonnie. You still there?

Yes, I am, and I appreciate you taking my call and discussing this issue. You know, in my reading, I use logos, and I have several Bible translations on here, and the majority of the newer Bibles also add a sin offering to that.

And so in our previous conversation, we were talking about the Goat of Gazelle, and which the sins were passed off, and they forced them off a cliff, so the sins were never able to come back to the people.

Clearly, Jesus didn't... I understand he took the sin, his blood washed us clean, but he never turned into sin. And so how would you turn into sin when you conquered sin? That would like me becoming a communist to overtake communism, for example.

And I really struggle, not me personally with that, but I don't understand how somebody can go to a four-year Bible college, get a degree, and supposedly can read Greek, and then try to have this argument and get upset when you try to correct them gently with respect, and try to point out where their position is incorrect.

But yeah, this has been weighing on me heavily as I've read this within the context of systematic theology. It's just one of the things that I found wrong with this particular book. In fact, the pastor where I go to church, he also had the same book, and I asked him about it.

We didn't really get a chance to follow up on it.

Well, I'm with you, and I think you have a good head on your shoulders. You're able to see these things and articulate them pretty well. And I'm with you on that. So we gotta be careful when we discuss the issue of the nature of the atoning sacrifice, because it's critical, perhaps the most critical issue in the universe.

So when it says he became sin, that we know for, at the very least, it was an imputation of our sin to him. He bore our sin, his body on the cross. First Peter 2, 24, and Isaiah 43, excuse me, 53, five through six, or is it four through seven, I think it is, where he took our place, took our stripes, et cetera.

So he did that, and then he died with our sin, the wages of sin is death. So he was definitely our substitution. Now, during that period of time, like I said, say it again, I'll be very careful, that something happened, but it doesn't say what happened.

That, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I think we need to be very, very careful when we discuss this issue. Just like I said before the break, we need to be very, very careful about saying what did or did not happen.

So if Wayne Grudem said that the fellowship was broken, I would like to see the qualification for that, in that, well, I can see how fellowship could be affected, but it cannot be broken to the extent of violating the Trinity.

But it could be affected deleteriously, as far as the person of the Son with two distinct natures on Earth, and the Father in Heaven, there was a, I could say disruption, but I don't wanna say much more than a disruption, an effect.

Well, what was that effect, Matt? I don't know, I don't know, and I don't wanna go too close to that and say. So that's all I say, and that's what I'm doing. So, yeah, I think so.

Anyway.

I think, too, one of the things that is very, very difficult, even for myself, because I've spent a lot of time studying, I used to wanna go to Bible college when I was in St. Angelico Church, by the way, and because I wasn't married, this is in my early 20s, and I'm over 60 now, they told me I couldn't go because I wasn't married, and I had issues with it.

So I eventually left that church.

Wait, couldn't go where, because you weren't married?

They were sending people to, yeah, because they were sending people to Bible college, and you had to be married to go, and I wasn't married, so they wouldn't send me. Where'd you say that?

In the Bible.

It used to bother me. Well, it doesn't. It was just the church doctrine. They felt like if you were married, you were gonna be more stable, and that, I'm assuming, and so, because all the pastors had wives, so they, you know, I guess they read this into Scripture, and, or something, but this is one of the things where I sat down and started studying the Scriptures, and I began to realize just because somebody says something, it's incumbent upon us as believers to go and check things out like the Bereans did, and then the Bible says test everything and hold on to that which is good, and I, unfortunately, have been involved in churches where they were pushing false theology and including one was the word faith where a lady ended up dying because she wouldn't go get a surgery.

She believed that if, word faith, she believed that if you went and saw the doctors that denied your faith because the same faith that saves you is the same faith that heals you, and I ended up speaking to the senior pastor there.

Some of the other pastors, they would not listen, and I even played clips of Kenneth Copeland claiming that he could do what Jesus did on the cross, and they refused to acknowledge that as blasphemy or heresy with Benny Hinn and some of the other things, so I've been dealing with apologetics, and it's not fun because when you show yourself approved and you stand up for God's truth, people will resist you, even in your own family, and so I'm saddened by the fact that there's all these biblical resources, including your websites, that is free, and people will continue to hold to their false beliefs and change, so I always tell people, you have a choice to make.

You're either going to follow what Scripture says or you don't, and so when people ask me for my opinion, I point to Scripture, and that doesn't always go well.

So, I believe that one of the

I am liking you, I am liking you.

Well, I think one of the biggest problems that we have in the American church is that people don't understand a couple of things. One is that God's holy, we're not. God is the spirit, we're flesh, and they don't understand that God is perfect in all of his ways, and we aren't.

So when we, like Job, when Job got angry with God in chapter 40 and started questioning God about what was going on, God just said, wait a minute, let me ask you a question. And so, just like with Job, and you see this with the other prophets as well, God spoke to him by his presence, and this is what I believe, when we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, God speaks his truth through his presence that we can verify in Scripture.

And that's a big problem within the context of the church, because people aren't reading their Bibles, they're not studying it, they hear a sermon, and they think that's their weekly meal. And it's really unfortunate, because a lot of times when people ask me for my opinion, I point to Scripture, they'll turn around and ask me for my opinion again, I'm like, well, I just gave you my opinions from Scripture.

It isn't what I think, God's justice, and God's mercy is his, not mine. So if you're asking me as an unrighteous person, although I'm saved through Christ, righteously I stand before God, but my mind isn't perfect, and I am not in a position to judge God, so I just point people back to Scripture.

Yeah, you're a man after my own heart, that's how it should be, exactly, that's right. And you know what's interesting, is why people don't believe the Word of God. I have gone through various Scriptures with people, I don't know what perspective you are, if you're Reformed, or Arminian, or what, but I've gone through, okay, I've gone through, for example, I've gone through Colossians 2 .14, where it says that, talking about Jesus having canceled the certificate of debt, consisting of decrees, which was hostile to us, he took it out of the way, having failed to the cross.

And I'll ask people, I remember one guy, I said, when did Jesus cancel the sin debt? Would you believe? Well, let's go through the text again. And I really, seriously, 20 minutes, I said, everybody in the room was listening, I said, let's continue to do this.

It took 20 minutes before the guy said, okay, at the cross. And he's a Christian, but you know, people get there, you know, we have the ability to be idolaters, even as Christians, we have a certain theological perspective that we've shed blood over, and time, and we go to bed with it, you know, we're fornicating with certain idolatrous ideas that we think are true, and they don't wanna submit them to the scriptures, it's the case, it happens a lot.

But there's not a break, buddy, so.

Yeah, exactly, in fact, yeah, okay.

Well, call, tell you what, call back, get in line, okay, we got a guy waiting, and if you want, let's continue to talk, because I think you've got a good head on your shoulders, man.

Absolutely, well, I'll call back in, thank you, sir.

Okay, all right. Hey, folks, be right back after these messages.

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

Dubious Actions and Sinful Means for a Good End

All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. If you wanna give me a call, the number is 877 -207 -2276. Let's get on the air with Brett from Indiana. Brett, welcome, you're on the air, buddy.

Yeah, I'm here.

Okay, all right, man, what do you got?

Yeah, yeah, I listen to you guys every day.

Good.

You guys, you're so insightful. Every, by all hours of the day. To your knowledge and your resources, and what insight and scripture could you give on, you know, dubious actions? Because, you know, a lot of great things have come through people doing dubious actions throughout history.

Well, what's scripture, or what's out there that you can throw my way, or what direction, you know, to find an answer for this?

I'm not sure what you mean by an answer. You mean, why do people do things that aren't good?

Yeah, that are for the greater good of others. You know, for the masses, they'll do bad, they'll sacrifice themselves. That's my understanding of a dubious action.

Okay, so that's a noble thing, to sacrifice yourself or someone else. I wouldn't call it dubious, I'm a little confused. But Jesus says in John.

Well, that's the definition I got from dubious. When I looked it up myself, I, you know.

Dubious comes from the root doubt. It's doubtful, it's not that good.

Oh, gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the way I understood it, it was like you do a bad thing that you know is bad for the greater good of other, for a group, or a, you know. I mean, would you consider what Jesus did a dubious action, you know, for our sins?

No, no, no, no, I wouldn't use the word dubious that way. I think it's a misuse.

Right, I'm sorry if that's.

That's okay.

In the wrong way, I apologize to the Lord. I don't mean it that way.

That's all right.

I'm lost on that, you know.

I'm not sure what you're asking, though. Use a different word and rephrase it, and then that's, so what?

If someone knows that they, it's gonna be a sin for them to do something, but it's gonna create a lot of people to go in the right direction.

Okay, yeah, they should not sin.

It helps society, you know, you know, it's. How does scripture or the Lord look at that?

Yeah, God says don't sin. You can't justify sin because it might help somebody else.

Right, right.

So sin is against God.

You're sacrificing yourself.

We measure sin by what it is in God's eyes, not the outcome based on ours. So we need to say, you know, if someone wants to do something sinful to help somebody else, no, we don't encourage that.

Okay, okay, I mean, it's clear. I guess maybe I thought about it so much that to hear, I spend a lot of time alone, but to hear it out loud, you know, you're right, I got caught up on the word dubious, you know, but you cleared it up.

Thank you, thank you very much. So I appreciate it very much, and God bless you and your radio station. You guys are doing wonderful things.

Well, you know, just give, I'd call them up or email them at the, you know, thetruthnetwork .com, and just, you know, give an email every now and then.

I don't have a computer, and I don't have, and I got vision problems. I, it takes two magnifying glasses to read my Bible. I, you know, you know, I just, I just, you know, the radio station is basically my time with the Lord, and then after I get your message, I turn it off and talk to the Lord some more.

Every day is a day for the Lord, to me, every minute.

Well, good, praise God, praise God, man. Well, I'm glad that the station, the network is there to help, and I'll, when I see, talk to Stu, the owner, again, I'll hopefully remember, or I'll mention it, okay?

All right, and God bless you, and you have a wonderful day.

You too, man, God bless. All right, all right, all right, all right. Let's see, let's get to Jermaine from California. Jermaine, welcome. You're on the air.

Oh, hi, Matt.

Hey, how you doing?

I'm doing okay. Yeah, for today, it's actually ironic that my question has to do with a little bit of what I think the previous caller was trying to say about God justifying actions that may appear to be sinful or wrong, but have worked out.

And I say that because I actually was watching the confirmation hearings, and you see a lot of back and forth, and a lot of deception and questions and answers. And I know that's politics, it's kind of a circus, but it did make me think about certain people in the Bible, like maybe Rahab and other people who were less than perfect.

And if we're honest, you know, some of us had different times where you may have done something you knew was either sinful or borderline sinful, but was it the right thing to do, or did God just work it out through whatever means he wanted to to kind of work with whatever mess we've made?

And I say that also because I know a lot of the Jehovah's Witnesses and a lot of cults, they use what they call theocratic warfare,.

Right.

They may just straight up, yeah, yeah, they may just lie or omit the truth just enough to kind of suck you in and justify it as if they're doing something righteous. So I know it's kind of a lot, but I want to hear what you have to say about it.

Well, yeah, it's called theocratic warfare of the Jehovah's Witness organization. And so it justifies them being deceptive in order to achieve the greater good. And the problem is that deception is a lie.

So they're sinning against God to help God out is what they're thinking. And that's self-refuting. So when a statement or a concept refutes itself, then it's not a good or truthful statement. So to say, I must do something wrong, lie to help for the greater good is to say that I am doing what's wrong to do what's right.

And that by definition is self-refuting. You can't do that. And right and wrong are not measured by our standards, but by God's. So God says, don't lie. So don't lie. Just don't lie. And that's why I don't lie.

I don't lie. I'll exaggerate with my wife sometimes, you know, and I'll say, well, that chicken you made is the best I've ever had in my entire life.

In the universe, you know.

And the intention is not a deception there. So we've got to make sure that we don't want to justify sin by saying it'll help somebody else. That's why people say, well, I tell white lies. And I've heard so many Christians say, well, a husband might say, if my wife comes to me and says, what do you think of this dress?

I'm going to lie to her and say it looks really good. So you know you don't, that's a lie. Well, it's to help her feel better. Then you're lying to make her feel better. You're sitting against God. And I had to rebuke one guy for that.

And so when my wife, to finish this little anecdote kind of thing, my wife would come to me when we first got married and says, what do you think of this dress? I'd say, I'm going to tell you right away.

You tell me, you ask me, I'm going to tell you the truth. She goes, okay. And I said, that dress looks good. And another time, no, that dress does not look good on you. I don't like it. I just tell her.

She wasn't offended. So we don't want to compromise our integrity before God by using sin to justify what we think is a greater good.

Okay.

Okay, now, would that also include situations like I've heard of in Nazi Germany where people were hiding Jews and others who were being hunted in the SA or is anyone here like the Anne Frank situation?

Or even if, say, you know, I met you somewhere and someone came with a gun and say, hey, I'm looking for Matt Slick. I'm not going to tell him where you are. And yeah, I probably would lie. But is that more of like a sacrificial thing or is that just a lie I'm trying to justify?

You're not trying to justify, it's still a lie. And that's a common situation that people ask. What do you do? Well, one option is not say anything at all. It's one option, just don't say anything. And I've heard people say, well, I don't know what to do.

I'm not Jesus. I can't come up with a perfect answer. And I want to save them, so I'm going to tell a lie to try and save them. And then once, if they go, they leave the door after that, you go in and you say, Lord, please forgive me.

I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know how to get out of it. And I've had another person say, no, he would just tell them the truth and hope that God would blind their eyes or ears, whatever it is.

So there's different options and it's a tough one. But I think the best option is just don't say anything.

Okay, yeah, I think that's fair.

Yeah.

All right, thanks a lot, man.

You're welcome, man, God bless. All right, let's get to Paul from Philly and then we'll get back to Lonnie probably. Paul, welcome, you're on the air.