Matt Slick Live: January 31, 2025

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, take in your calls and respond to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. Here's the

Matt Slick Live! And if you want to 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 you 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 want to 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 everything's fine.

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. 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 going to have, but did not be able to get to it because of the change in plans last night.

I was going to get to do a Q &A with some Eastern Orthodox people last night, but I had to take my wife to the doctor's stuff.

So we canceled that. And they were gracious about it. They said, OK, we get that. You know, not a problem. So hopefully we're going to set it up again, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow night, maybe next day.

I don't know. And we're going to go through and do some Q &A stuff with the

Eastern Orthodox. Now, I'm going to 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, by 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.

All right. Now, we have a caller coming in, but I want to 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 that that to that category of things.

Now, when I go to First Corinthians one, seven, it says so that you are not lacking in any gift and any charisma is for the actually it's a charisma team.

But that's just a cognitive charisma, charismatic. You're not lacking any charismatic gift awaiting eagerly the revelation of our

Lord Jesus Christ. So right there, First Corinthians one, seven, it says that the church is not to lack any charismatic gift.

So when people tell me, oh, they say, you know, the sign gifts are done. And I said, well, who says so?

And then they go to First Corinthians three, excuse me, thirteen, eight through thirteen.

I think it is First Corinthians. Let's see. Thirteen. No, First Corinthians thirteen.

And so they will they'll say, we know when the perfect comes, the imperfect is is is passed and that the the perfect is the the coming of the canon.

So the first is thirteen ten. They talk about it. And I'm looking 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 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. Now, we don't make doctrine out of experience, but a lot of them are very, very 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. And, you know, 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 that's another story.

Let's get to Lonnie from Oklahoma. Lonnie, welcome here on the air. 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 OK? Yes. 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 percent.

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 521, it says that he who knew no sin became sin.

And in Guzman'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 just a matter of theology. Wayne Grudem?

I'm sorry. Wayne Grudem. Yes. Sorry. I always say Goodman. 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 Stereo, 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 Advocate 2 .4, I think is what it is, that the eyes are too pure.

Let me look and see if that is the case. I have Gulley'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, 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. Yeah. 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 the Bible is clear. There's a yes and no to this. It depends on the logic. This is

Habakkuk 113, 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, because 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 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. OK, so how do they translate that? You know, he became sin, made to be sin.

So what he's talking about is the imputation of our sin to him. First, Peter 224, he bore our sin in his body in 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 stay away from that. That's what I'm saying. Really, really quickly and trying to be careful about this with people who might be curious about that particular verse.

OK, 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. One. 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 in the father son relationship as a son made for a little while or 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. I don't know. I've I've also encountered that same issue.

And so, you know, we're sitting with 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 to the goat of the Zill, 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. 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. OK, 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, and welcome back to the show. You want to 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 Gazel, in which the sins were passed off and, you know, they forced them off a cliff.

So the sins were never able to come back to the people. Clearly, you know,

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 be 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.

And so, 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 has 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've got to be careful when we discuss the issue, 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 in His body on the cross, 1 Peter 2, 24, and Isaiah 43, excuse me, 53, 5 through 6 or 4 through 7,

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 way to sin is death. So He was definitely our substitution. Now, during that period of time, like I said, say it again, 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 could 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 want to say much more than a disruption and effect.

Well, what was that effect, Matt? I don't know. I don't know, and I don't want to 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. 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 want to go to Bible college when I was in the Evangelical Church, by the way, and because I wasn't married, this was 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. Wait, wait, couldn't go where? Wait, couldn't go where because you weren't married?

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 going to be more stable, I'm assuming, because all the pastors had wives.

So they, you know, I guess they read this into Scripture 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 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. Man, I'm 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 mail. 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. And I'm like, well, I just gave you my opinion 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 at this 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.

I'm Reformed. Okay. I'm Reformed. Well, I've gone through. For example, I've gone through Colossians 2 .14,

where it says, 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 revealed it to the cross. And I'll ask people. I remember one guy, I said, when did

Jesus cancel the sin debt? When you believe. Well, let's go through the text again. And really, seriously, it went 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 want to submit them to the scriptures.

It's the case. It happens a lot. But there's not a break, buddy. Yeah, exactly. In fact, yeah.

Okay. Well, call back. I'm getting in line. Okay, we've 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.

All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to 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 are so insightful, everybody, all hours of the day.

To your knowledge and your resources and what insight in 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.

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 sacrifice themselves.

That's my understanding of a dubious action. Okay, so that's a noble thing to sacrifice yourself for 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. 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 our group or a, you know, you know,

I mean, would you consider what Jesus did a dubious action? You know, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I wouldn't use the word dubious that way. I think it's a misuse. Right. I'm sorry. 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. I'm not sure what you're asking, though. Use a different word and rephrase it.

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

Okay. They should not sin. It helps society. You know, you know, is is how does

Scripture or the Lord look at that? Yeah. God says, don't sin.

Don't you can't justify sin because it might help somebody else. Right. So sin is against God.

Sacrifice yourself. We measure sin by what it is in God's eyes, not the outcome based on ours.

So we need to say, no, if someone wants to do something sinful to help somebody else. No, we don't. We don't encourage that.

Okay. Okay. I mean, I mean, it's clear. I guess maybe I thought about it so much that to hear

I spent 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, you know, but you cleared it up.

Thank you. Thank you very much. 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 call them up or email them at the, you know, the truth network dot 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 guy takes two magnifying glasses to read my Bible. You know, you know,

I, I, I, I just, I, I just, I'm, I'm, you know, the radio station is, is, is basically my, 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. I'm glad that the station, the network is there to help.

And when I see Dr. Stu, the owner again, I'll, I'll hopefully remember.

I'll mention it. Okay. All right. And God bless you.

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, I met. Hey, how you doing?

I'm doing okay. Yeah. For today is actually ironic that, that my, 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 is 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, you know, through a, through whatever means he wanted to, to kind of, kind of work with whatever mess we've made.

And, and I say I'd also, because I know a lot of the Jehovah's witnesses and a lot of cults, they use what they call theocratic warfare where they may just straight up.

Yeah. Yeah. They may just, 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. Why? 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 my wife sometimes, you know, and, and, you know, 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, if 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. Say, no, 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, 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 gonna tell you the truth. She goes, OK. 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.

OK. OK, 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? And they say, or is anyone here like the

Anne Frank situation or or even if say, you know, I met you somewhere and someone came with a gun and say, hey,

I'm looking for Matt Flick. 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 saying 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.

And so I'm going to 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 just tell him the truth and 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. 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. Yes, I'm in Virginia. Virginia. Oh, we've got a

Virginia right there. Sorry. Hey, we've got a break coming up. Just bad timing on my part. So hold on, buddy.

We'll be right back after these messages. So please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live.

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

All right. Welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Paul from Virginia. Paul, welcome. You're on the air.

OK, thank you. I've had this question for quite some time and I have wondered about it and have wanted to call at a different time.

But for one reason or another, this was my first chance to call because I wanted to get your opinion. Sure. In the past,

I've heard you speak of Joyce Meyer and Kenneth Copeland and maybe some others that you had concerns about their teaching and preaching.

And so I thought maybe you might be aware of a church called the

Philadelphia Church of God and Gerald Fleury. It's a cult.

It's a cult. Yeah. Well, it's from the Worldwide Church of God, the

Philadelphia Church. Yes. I was going to ask you about that. And do they consider the man who's been deceased for nearly 40 years now,

Herbert W. Armstrong, do they believe he was a prophet? I believe they do.

He was supposed to be the one who revealed the truth of who God was. That fits the issue of a prophet. And then there was some split offs afterward.

But the Philadelphia Church of God is bad. I'm looking. During the break, I was reviewing the

Statement of Faith. And yeah, it's definitely a cult, non -Christian cult. How does one like because they have a

TV program that comes on various stations and he's always there speaking.

And the things that he says and teaches, it sounds.

Sounds good. Yeah, it sounds like. Yeah. But you have to see, cults are good, like Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, Worldwide Church of God, the

Way International, Christian Science. There are different groups that can sound good to the average

Christian. And the reason is because they have to use biblical ideas, biblical words, biblical terms, and they'll put them together in such a way that it sounds biblical.

But the definitions of those terms is different. So, for example, here's what it says here on their

Statement of Faith. I was reading through it. All men will ultimately be resurrected.

And those who are worthy will fellowship with God and Christ forever. Now, that statement right there, all men are ultimately resurrected.

All men will. What do they mean by the resurrection? Resurrection to good, resurrection to bad. Do they believe in annihilation?

In that statement, it's not clear. And those who are worthy, what do you mean by worthy? Are they worthy because they're justified by faith?

Or are they worthy because they believe in faith and words? Will fellowship with God and Christ. Does that mean that Christ is separate from God?

The wording in this kind of stuff is bad. And that one right there causes me to ask several questions because it's not clear.

Here's another one. The Holy Spirit is a gift received from God. Does it say the Holy Spirit is the third person of the

Trinity? No, because they don't use the word Trinity. So, you have to kind of know what the truth is.

It's like a car mechanic who's been doing it for years and years. He goes over to see someone and says,

I'm putting water in the oil area for the oil because it needs to run better.

No, you don't want to do that. That's not correct. Don't tell me what to do. I know better.

And so is this kind of a thing? And when you're trained, you can start seeing the problems very quickly, very easily.

And when I read through their statement of faith, it's pathetically bad. It's pathetic. It's written in such a way that the average bearer,

Oh, it sounds good. But it's just wrought with problems. Okay.

All right. That was my question. So you answered it. Thank you very much.

You're welcome very much. All right. Take care. Bye -bye.

All right. Now let's get back on with Lonnie from Oklahoma. Lonnie, welcome. You're on the air, buddy.

Thank you. I appreciate it. By the way, I was thumbing through Grudem's book.

Sorry, I keep saying Grudem. I guess I'm hung up on German there. So I'm looking at page 574.

And in this, the title is Abandonment. And so hopefully if you have his book at some point, not today, you can read through this and I can try to call back in and would love to discuss this further with you because, you know,

I'm Reformed theology coming out of evangelical background. I sat down and read a few books by R .C.

Sproul. I've invested heavily. I've wanted to go to Bible college, never could, as I mentioned before, so I invested heavily in Logos.

And it's allowed me to go in and study Greek and Hebrew and all sorts of stuff. And so I didn't end up with a, you know, $10 ,000, $20 ,000, $50 ,000

Bible education, but rather I've used Logos extensively for doing research.

And so I go and check things out like the Bereans. And I can tell you that when

I read something like this and debated a pastor who, by the way, had a master's in theology. Yeah, they ended up kicking me out of the church and it was a bad thing.

But, you know, it's it's not the only time I stand up for God's truth, because what

I tell people, my answer comes from Scripture. If you ask me for my opinion about something, whether I like Canadian bacon or pepperoni pizza,

I'll give you my opinion on something like that. But when it comes to Scripture, Scripture is the final court of arbitration.

And I don't like everything it says, but hey, I have to live by it. And I choose to obey God. So as I've studied

Reformed theology, it has become apparent to me that predestination, something

I didn't believe in, I'm convinced is God's truth. We see that in Romans chapter nine, especially, and other places we see that.

And it's funny because people cringe when you say predestination, like, you know, God's surprised that you actually make a choice to do something.

But I used to want to go to Bible college, and I'm glad I didn't go now, because I would have ended up at an evangelical

Bible college. And I would have to unlearn a lot of the stuff that I've had to deal with.

And, you know, it's just been really heartbreaking, because I've lost a lot of friends over that.

When I start telling them about the elect and other things, people have a hard time understanding what

Scripture says. And so a lot of times I point people back to Scripture, and I tell them, your argument is not with me, but it is with Scripture.

And if we can't trust what God says, and we don't study Scripture, then we don't learn the in -depth truth of God.

And I just, you know, that's my struggle, and that's my conviction. So I live by what

Scripture says. It's my final court of arbitration. And I only hope that I can be the person that God wants me to be.

And so I used to want to go to Bible college, but that just never worked out for me. And so, but I continue to preach the word where I go.

Well, good. Okay, so I'm looking at the quote, okay? And I have it open on my

Kindle. Jesus bore our sins on the cross. He was abandoned by his heavenly Father, who was of pure eyes and behold evil.

He doesn't explain what he means by abandon. So there's different senses in which we could look at that. There could be no break in the nature of God, but fellowship could be affected.

And it's fine, you know.

So practically speaking, there's something else that's interesting. Jesus requested of the Father to not go through the crucifixion in Luke 22, 42.

He didn't want to go through it. And so he... I wouldn't want to go through it. I wouldn't either.

No thanks. And so one of the senses of which an abandonment could be understood, if we want to use that word, in the cross, is that he did not deliver him from that trauma.

In that sense, he was abandoned to it. So God abandoned him to the unrighteousness of others, or let him suffer it.

That's another way it could be looked at. And I can accept that.

But however, he goes on to say, the Father who is of pure eyes, then to behold evil.

So in my understanding of this, he's actually becoming sin, because they will misunderstand, and they'll say, well, the

Bible said, he who knew no sin became sin. Well, just because I know something doesn't mean that I become that.

And so this is what Goodman goes on to say, where he says, the Father who is of pure eyes, to behold evil.

So this is insinuating that Jesus turned into sin on the cross, which he didn't.

And I tried to point this out to somebody who has a four -year

Bible degree, that if that were the case, then where does the Trinity go? If God truly abandoned

Jesus, then what happens to the Trinity? And Jesus says he never changed.

He says, I'm the same today, yesterday, and forever. But I don't think abandonment necessitates a break in the nature of God.

It's impossible. And I know that Wayne Grudem is brilliant. So if you're curious,

I would write him and ask, what do you mean by this abandonment? This topic has been debated among Christian theologians for a while, as you know, if you've done any research on it.

So I just know that something happened some way. There was a fellowship disruption between the

Father and the Son, but that's as far as I'll go. That's it. So abandon them. But hey,

I'd ask them. Yeah, that's a strong term. Yeah, it is. I'm kind of curious, because it's kind of like, you know,

I have children, and if I abandon my children, you know, I might have a reason to abandon them if I couldn't afford to feed them or something.

You know where I'm going with this. The point I'm making is, in my estimation of reading this, he goes on to say, the

Father, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil. In that particular statement, it makes it sound as though that Jesus took on the evil, and so God could no longer look at him.

I don't know if you're reading it the same place where I am. Yeah, because Grudem's Reformed, and so he,

I don't think he would go that far. I think what he would say is that Christ, our sin was imputed to him, to his account.

Now, here's another question, which is really interesting. What does that mean? What does it mean to have our sins imputed to Christ?

And I don't know. The penalty. Well, but I think there's more to it.

I think the punishment. Yeah, there's more to it. To impute means to walk into another's account. Go ahead.

Exactly. No, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, I agree. I've heard of legal cases in which somebody else took the punishment for what somebody did.

For example, you know, if you get a speeding ticket, and I'm like, hey, here's a check,

I'm going to pay this for you, but the next time be careful and drive more cautiously, for example. But I'm a little bit bothered by the fact that he goes on to say, the

Father, when it says, as Jesus bore the sins on the cross, he was abandoned by his heavenly

Father, who is of pure eyes than to behold evil. In my estimation,

I've done some legal work, and my estimation, he's making it sound like Jesus literally turned into sin, instead of a sacrifice.

What I would do, we're almost out of time here, we've got 30 seconds. What I would do is contact him. Because, you know,

I've written 4 ,500 articles on my website, and sometimes I'll go back and read one of them and say, you know, that was just not the right way to say it.

You know, you know what you're thinking at the time, it doesn't come out right. And that's fine. I would just contact him and say, what do you mean by abandoned, to what degree?

And see what he says. I've talked to him before on an online conference, so it was great. And he was a real nice little guy.

So I would contact him and see what he says. Absolutely. Well, I will do that, and then,

God willing, I will follow up with you. I appreciate you taking time out and visiting with me about this. I've listened to your show all the time.

I'm a formed theologian for theology, and so I praise God for your show.

It's very enlightening, and it's very challenging, and I appreciate you sharing God's truth with everyone. Well, praise