MSL: April 29, 2024

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The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm .org.

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When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers. Taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

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Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. You're listening to Matt Slick Live.

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And I hope you're going to enjoy the show today, by God's grace, by God's mercy. And so if you want, you can give me a call on this lovely

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April 29th, 2024. You can give me a call if you want, 877 -207 -2276.

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All right, so this weekend I spoke at a conference. And it was a busy weekend. And I'm exhausted.

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I'm actually tired from it. And after the show today, I'm going to go watch sci -fi for a few hours tonight.

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That's it. Just watch sci -fi. And just relax. But I had a good time. Great people.

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It's a privilege to be able to teach. Now, when I teach, I do a kind of a teaching -preaching combo.

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I just do. When I teach, I get passionate. I say, here's the admonition of God. So I teach and do that as well.

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So kind of a teach -preach thing. Got the privilege of doing that this weekend. And great bunch of folks.

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Really good people. Really good people. I will admit. Really good people. I had a lot of good fellowship and just enjoyed it.

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So I thank them for lowering their standards to have me on and speak at the conference.

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So that was good. At least for me. All right. So praise God. And if you want to email me, you could do that as well.

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All you have to do is direct an email to info at CARM .org. Info at CARM .org.

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And just put in the subject line, CARM, excuse me, radio question or radio comment.

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And we can get to it. All right. Pretty easy. Easy peasy. Not a big deal. All right.

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Hey, let's just jump on the line. Let's get to Luke from Washington, D .C. Luke, welcome. You're on the air. Hi, Matt.

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How are you? Doing fine, man. Hanging in there. What do you got, buddy? Hey, today

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I was talking to one of my Muslim friend. He's my co -worker. So I said, we have assurance of salvation that is.

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And then he's laughing at me. Why is the blasphemy assurance of salvation? I said, this is not a lottery ticket.

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So my question is, what assurance does God give us? Well, let's talk about him first.

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The reason he's going to say it's blasphemy is because in Surah 23, 101 and 102 and 103, it talks about if you do enough good, then you'll make it.

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And there there he's interpreting Christian theology in light of his own.

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So what he's saying is that by his mocking you, he's saying that you are so arrogant for thinking you can earn your place with God and but you can, but you just better hope, inshallah, you better hope that if Allah wills that it'll work out for you.

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And so if you say you have eternal life right now, then you're arrogant and you're prideful and you're blasphemous. That's why they're saying that I'm going to respond to them more often.

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I'm going to say, well, let me ask you a question. If you break a law, are you a criminal?

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Yes. OK. And so criminals should be punished. Right. Yes. So you're a criminal before God because you have broken his law.

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He says not to do certain things and therefore you've sinned. So you're a criminal. So why does your

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God let you as a criminal go free? This is the problem with Islam, because your

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God approves of criminals and just says you can go free. It's OK. You've done evil, but no consequence or payment needs to occur because I'm going to let you go and you come into heaven.

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That makes God unrighteous. And so this is why you and your arrogance think that you can please

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God, because you think that you're a goodness. You can. But you're nothing more than a criminal before God.

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And you're going to face a judgment of the holy God on that day of judgment. And the justice will fall upon you like a like a guillotine, like a hammer, like a noose around your neck.

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It's going to destroy you in hell. You tell him. All right. So how do we have assurance?

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We have assurance because our salvation does not depend in any way in any part upon our goodness.

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It depends on the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Now, in Islam, Jesus didn't die because it wasn't crucified, Surah 4, verse 157.

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So what I do is I tell them I said Jesus was crucified and the Bible tells us he was crucified and Jesus spoke about his own crucifixion.

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And yet you guys in your Koran deny what Jesus himself said. He says this with his temple three days.

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I will raise it up. John 2, 19 through 21. He was speaking of the temple of his body with John, the apostle said that you guys deny what

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Jesus himself said. And so you have no assurance. And we do because we rest in what he did, not what we do.

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It's arrogant to think that maybe you and your arrogance, your pride, your hubris might be able to earn a position with God through your goodness, your sincerity, your repentance.

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Now this message needs to be heard by a lot of Protestants, especially Catholics and Eastern Orthodox people who are similar to the

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Muslims in their doctrine of salvation, that by their good works. But they have the cross of Christ and other stuff, the grace and all they're similar.

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They don't realize it, though, but a lot of Protestants have this this arrogance as well in that they think that that the cross arranges for them to be able to earn a place with God through their goodness, where they they're saved by grace, but they're kept by their goodness and their obedience and their humility and their sincerity.

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So they're not too far off from the Muslims as well. So this is what we do. We talk about our righteousness in Christ and that we have it because of our faith and what he did, not because of what we did, because nothing we do is good enough,

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OK? So one more question. What is the assurance of salvation from the

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Holy Spirit? What is it? It's the witness of the truth. The Holy Spirit bears witness of truth,

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John 14, 26, John 15, 26. And so the truth is that we're secure in Christ.

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Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish.

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So Jesus equates eternal life with never perishing. If you go to John 3, 16, where it says

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God to love the world, gave his only begotten son that whoever would believe in him would never perish, but have eternal life.

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So Jesus equates eternal life with never perishing. So the Holy Spirit bears witness of truth, like I said,

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John 14, 26, John 15, 26. So therefore, he'll bear witness that we have eternal life will never perish,

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OK? So you're saying that he guarantees our eternal security all the way to heaven right now?

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Of course he does. Of course he does. How so? And also, why they are so mad when we talk about Trinity and they laugh at you?

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Because the Muslims mock the Trinity because they're in the service of the devil through their false prophet,

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Muhammad, who denied the truth of who God is. He was just nothing more than a false prophet, and at the worst, he was possessed by the devil.

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And so the Muslims have fallen prey to the lying false prophet called Muhammad.

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So they will deny the truth of who God is because they're in the service of the devil ultimately. That's why.

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OK. OK, man. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, man.

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God bless. All right. All right. All right. All right. Now let's see if we can get on to, let's try

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Juanita from Michigan. Juanita, welcome. You're on the air. Hello there. Thank you.

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I was calling about your comments on Matthew 27, 46, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And you were,

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I don't know if you were, you weren't confused. I don't want to say, but you had a hard time explaining.

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You said we don't know the extent and nature of the effect that Jesus becoming sin had on the

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Trinitarian communion. So I was wondering, what is it about what happened that challenges the

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Trinitarian communion? I can't quite, kind of, I'm not a Trinitarian, and so I know it's all kind of confusing anyways, but I'm just wondering what...

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The Trinity is not confusing. It's confusing to people who don't understand it. Okay? And so, no offense, but you don't understand it.

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You don't know what the scriptures teach in regard to God. But this is not an issue of confusion, it's an issue of truth and submission to the

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Word of God. And I can defend the Trinity very well. If you want, you can get your best anti -Trinitarian representative of your group or your whatever, and I'll do a public debate with them.

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Well, I've asked you before about that, and I was kind of waiting for some kind of, yeah.

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It's been a little while. I kind of had other things. But getting back to Matthew 27, 46, because I really would,

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I kind of felt like maybe you dropped the ball on that. I really feel like we need to do it in seriousness.

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But getting back to my question, what is it that, you know, that we don't realize the extent and nature of the effect that Jesus becoming sin had on the

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Trinitarian community? What is the problem with what happened on the cross when He said,

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Why have you forsaken me? Why does that cause a problem? It's not a problem.

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So what's the problem that you think there's a problem? Well, you said we don't really know the extent and nature of the effect that Jesus, if Jesus became, if Jesus became sin, you said that He didn't stop being divine.

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If I understand your position, you're saying that Jesus was simultaneously had two natures, one human and one divine.

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So are you thinking right? Are you are you proposing that on the cross when

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He said, Why have you forsaken me? What could that mean that would have had a problem with your

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Trinitarian communion? There isn't any problem by Trinitarian communion. So I don't understand your question.

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You keep saying this. There's a problem with it. There is no problem. You don't see what the problem is. You just want me to assert there is a problem.

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So if you unless there isn't one, if you can tell me what the problem is, then I'll address it. But you think.

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Well, what you say is you say, however, there was an effect upon Christ in relationship to God the

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Father. OK, so there was an effect, something happened on the cross when he said,

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Why have you forsaken me? So I'm wondering, you're saying, however, you know, that Jesus didn't stop being divine, that the nature of Christ was being attacked by false teachers, that Jesus was not separated from God.

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He did. He was not abandoned by God. The Father did not turn away from Christ.

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However, there was something that happened that may have.

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I'm wondering what it is that that that particular scripture or what he said challenges the

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Trinitarian Communion. You said we have to be very careful. It doesn't challenge the

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Trinitarian Communion. You keep making this mistake. You don't understand the

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Trinity. This does not challenge the Trinity at all. When we say

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Jesus became sin, we don't mean that his nature became sin. Second Corinthians 521 says he became sin.

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What he's talking about is the imputation of our sin to him, because to break the law makes you a criminal.

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And so we, the criminals under the judgment of God, can only find escape from his righteous judgment through the atoning sacrifice of God in flesh.

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This is the only way to have any hope. This is the only possible way. Yeah. But you did not a

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Trinity. So you therefore deny the true nature of God and the true work of Christ. We can get into this and I can tell you why.

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But when we talk about this from a Trinitarian perspective, we don't know to exactly what extent what happened.

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We just don't know because the Bible does not tell us. But we do know that he bore our sin in his body in the cross, 1

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Peter 2, 24. And then he quoted Psalm 22, verse one. That's what he was doing there, drawing attention to the prophetic aspect of the scriptures regarding his own crucifixion.

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So other than that, we really can't go beyond that. Hold on, we've got a break. Is it possible? We've got a break. No, we have a break.

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So hold on. And we'll get back to you. Okay. Okay. Hold on. I enjoy these conversations.

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Why do? I like them. So, hey, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned.

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

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Here's Matt Slick. It's Matt Slick Live! Welcome back to the show. Before we get back to Juanita, I need to let you guys know we have an issue going on.

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This is the first time I'm going to mention it like this. There's a troll and the troll, let's just say, has done some stuff that legally is problematic for the troll.

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Our show is receiving inappropriate chats from a certain individual. And our corporate attorney and law enforcement will file a complaint if this continues.

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We've already talked to the officials and lawyers and we're getting ready.

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And a VPN does not offer protection. Okay? We can break the VPN and I'm a computer tech and I'm not going to say

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I'm doing anything, but trust me, I know that they can beat that. So that is something

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I want to let you guys know, that if any of you hear or see something in the chat like this that are inappropriate, we're aware.

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We're dealing with the individual and we'll take the necessary steps. This is a public announcement for that right now.

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Let's get to Juanita back. Things are waiting. Sorry about that. Okay. Go ahead. I feel a little bit,

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I'm not a troll and I've never been in any chat room anywhere. I feel a little funny.

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I felt like you were talking to me. No, no, no. No, no, no.

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You're not a troll. You don't do that. We disagree, but you're not like that at all. Right. Right. Okay.

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So I guess what I'm wondering now and then is that this issue on the cross,

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I think what there might be an objection, that you have an objection to, is that by what

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Christ said would be denying His divine nature.

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If you feel that Christ has no, okay, all right, so I don't want to get a whole lot, but you do feel that Christ has had and always will have both a divine and human nature.

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Is that correct? If He's part of the Trinity, that's what the Trinity is. The Trinity, one

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God and three distinct simultaneous co -eternal persons, the second person became in union with the human nature.

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This is called the hypostatic union. And the attributes of both natures are ascribed to the single person.

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This is called the cunicatio idiomatum. And since the nature of Christ, the divine nature, is still part of the

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Trinity, then we have what's called inseparable operations, that Christ will say things like, whatever the

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Father does, I do. Whatever He says, I see, I hear, because He's there, and the attributes of that nature ascribe to Him.

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So this is orthodox theology, okay? So when the nature of Christ, you say that simultaneous, if the

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Trinity, if they are simultaneously share these attributes, like what

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I seem to see that is when Jesus says something like, the Father is greater than I, or I do nothing of myself, they cop out back to, well, that was

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His role. He was playing. That wasn't really His nature. Cop out? It was just Him and His role.

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Okay. Well, hold on. Hold on. I'm sorry. You need to understand that if you're going to start speaking deleteriously and pejoratively about this, when you do this, hold on a sec, hold on a sec.

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When you do stuff like this, you catch my attention. They cop out as though we don't have any competent response.

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Let me tell you, I've debated the Trinity a thousand times, and I can ask you questions you won't be able to answer.

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Hold on. I apologize. Okay. This is how it works.

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When I tell her to hold on, you hold on, because I need to say what I need to say, and I don't want you to speak over me on my show, so I dropped her.

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Let's get to Ryan from Pennsylvania. Ryan, welcome. You're on the air. Hello, Matt.

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Thank you for taking my call. I was reading on CARM the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy that you have posted there.

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Okay. And I had a question about it. The copies that we have of the biblical text, are they inerrant?

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Okay. Inerrancy deals with the autographs. We have copies of the inerrant documents, and the documents are not perfectly preserved.

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They're 99 .85 % textually identical and things like that, so that's where we need to start talking about.

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So the copies are not inerrant? What do you mean by inerrant? Are they inerrant?

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Well, what do you mean by inerrant? It's the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. Without error. Okay, what do you mean by inerrant?

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It's the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. Okay. Okay, good. Yeah, it's been a long time since I've read that.

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It's been a long time since I wrote the article on that. I'm not familiar with what their statement was. Okay. Okay.

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So, is it a reasonable thing to say that the copies of the originals are not inerrant?

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I don't know what you mean by inerrant, how you're using it. What do you mean? Well, you were saying that according to the

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Chicago Statement, they are saying that the autographs are inerrant.

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But they did not answer the question about the copies, whether or not they are inerrant. And that's the reason I'm asking.

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Yeah, they are free from all falsehood, all lies.

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That whatever they speak on and address is 100 % accurate and truthful. Well, I assume that you've done some study in textual criticism.

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So, you know there are transcribable errors. You know there are redactionary elements. You know that they have been rearranged from the originals.

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Well, when you say rearranged from the originals, I don't know what that means. The other stuff I understood, but I don't know what it means.

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They were rearranged from the originals. I don't know what that means. Well, if you take a look at the three different versions of the

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Parable of the Sower, they definitely have different elements in each one of the versions.

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Okay? Okay. So, obviously, there is some participation somewhere along the line that changed the three different versions of the

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Parable of the Sower. Okay. So, I'm curious. Why are you bringing this up? What's the issue with you?

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Why are you bringing this up? Are you attacking God's Word? I have asked any number of people about biblical inerrancy.

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And they always go to the autographs, but we have no autographs.

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I mean, everybody knows that. So, what's the reason you're bringing this up, though? What's the reason?

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The reason is I want to know, do you guys consider the copies to be inerrant?

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Yes. You do? Mm -hmm. Everything they address is free from any falsehood.

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Everything is accurate and true according to what it conveys. Okay. So, you're ignoring the transcribable errors.

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You're ignoring the redactionary elements. You're ignoring the rearranged portions. You're ignoring all of that?

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Are you asking me or telling me I'm ignoring them? I'm asking you. No, I'm not ignoring them.

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So, let me give you an illustration of something. If I write a thousand -word document and I send it to somebody,

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I handwrite it out. And it's about how I used to go body boarding, boogie boarding, body surfing in Southern California back when

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I was in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. Okay? That's what I used to do. All right. And I write this statement.

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And I write a sentence on one particular day. It was huge. And it was so bad that I literally crawled out of the water and collapsed on the beach, which is true.

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I crawled. Okay? And collapsed on the beach. So, if someone copies it and says crawled out on beach, but the word the is there, does it mean it's no longer true?

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We'll get back to you and we can answer that right after the break. Hold on. We'll be right back, folks, right after these messages.

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Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live!

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

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All right, folks. Let's get back on the air with Ryan. Okay, Ryan. Sorry about the break timing. It's the way that it was. Okay. So, would my document then be inaccurate if one word was missing?

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No. I mean, that's something you could fill in the gaps with. I understand that. A little bit of background.

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I was born and raised in the Deep South. And Christian folks in the Deep South, many of them insist that the

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Bible had to be dictated by God to the writers. And that is the way they define inerrancy.

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Clearly, the Chicago Statement, well, clearly the Chicago Statement rejects that.

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And so, you know, that's why I'm saying it's like, okay, in what sense are we talking about inerrancy?

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Because one of the reasons I was kicked off of CARM because of my questions about inerrancy, that was never answered.

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But, yes, I believe that we have the Bible as an accurate record of the activities of the

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Savior that I believe in. I believe that the Bible is an accurate guide for us as believers in both action and in faith.

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So if that is enough, but, you know, I have no problems with transcribable errors and reductionary elements and things like this.

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If that is enough to say that I believe in inerrancy, then, yes, I believe in inerrancy. If it means that, you know, there are no, you know, reductionary elements, there are none of these problems, there are no homoio -lactams, there are no homoio -touloutans, then, no,

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I don't believe in biblical inerrancy, because they're clearly there. So this is the reason. I agree with you.

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I totally agree with you. I completely agree with you. You know, okay, that's the, you see, that's where I have always had these discussions.

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And, Matt, this is the first time that I've talked to anybody about this who sees this as a reasonable response to these sort of questions about the transcribable errors and reductionary elements and so forth.

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Well, yeah, I just want to make a comment before we continue. I don't want anybody listening to think that the Bible's full of all kinds of problems, can't trust it.

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That's not it. But there are copyist errors and duplications and word omissions, minor here and there.

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I know you know this, Ryan, but I'm just letting people know that they don't affect any area of doctrine.

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Unless you want to go to the ending of Mark, then we could discuss something there. But other than that. So, yeah, the originals are perfect and they weren't dictated.

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They were inspired through the normal writing of people and their personality and everything.

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But the copies are not perfect. They're very close to it, but they're not perfect.

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And so inerrancy deals with the the teachings, the truth, values, the everything, historical events.

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Everything's accurate. It's there. It doesn't mean that if it forgets the word ha, which is the single word in Greek in a textual copy, doesn't mean it's no longer inerrant.

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That's not what inerrancy is about. So, yeah, no problem. Well, OK, I have a request for you.

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I'd like to send you an email. And I would like to send you in a concise form what

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I think are five, maybe six objections that I have to presuppositional apologetics.

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And I would like to put in the title to let you know what it is. The title will be

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Make Me a Liar, because I think that these are insurmountable problems for presuppositional apologetics.

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Would you mind if I sent you that? Send it. Put it in bullet points if you can, one point at a time. And put in there permission for me to be able to reproduce it and respond to it on the car.

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OK. Oh, sure. I'll be glad to. OK. All right. Thank you for permission to do that.

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I will send that out soon. Sounds good. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you very much,

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Matt. I appreciate it a lot. Bye bye. OK, bye. All right. Oh, man.

27:25

So much heresy, so little time. Jamal from North Carolina, welcome. Jamal, you are on the air.

27:34

What's going on, Mr. Matt Spick? How are you doing today, sir? Hey, you're the guy that was my neighbor. I remember you now, man.

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When you move into Idaho, just that fast. Huh? I don't know if I'm moving.

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I like it here in Winston -Salem, but I definitely want to visit. No, no, no, no, no, no. Are you married?

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You're married, right? You're married? No, sir. Oh, well, I was going to say, you could just walk up to your wife and go, Hey, we're moving.

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A guy named Slick said to. It would be great. See what she says. But OK, you're not married, so it's all right.

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All right, buddy. What do you got, man? Yeah, I'm sure that'll go over well with the wife if I had one.

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Yeah. You said what? A guy named Slick? What, are you an idiot? Be fun.

28:16

Right. Are you from Santa Ana, California? Yeah, I used to live in California, Southern California.

28:24

Uh -huh. Yeah, yeah. That's probably one of the reasons why

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I'm not married. Because I listen to a guy named Slick. Money's the water sometimes.

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That's right. You can't talk to a woman about that. It's just bad news, you know.

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Yeah, I listen to a guy on the radio named Slick. I believe whatever he says. She'll just back away. That's right.

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OK, go on. He's one of my spiritual leaders. I mean, you're just saying all the wrong things.

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It's going downhill fast. And here's

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Bobby Loma. That's right. He's my spiritual leader, a guy named

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Slick. That's right. He lives in Potatoville in Idaho. It's just bad.

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Just not good. OK. And like you say, she starts backing away.

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OK, all right. That's right. Good luck with that, dude. But if she says, oh, really?

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Oh, sounds good. Then you probably should back away. There's no win in this.

29:38

Yeah, yeah. I'm all right. I'm OK. All right. OK, big man.

29:45

What do you got? And I apologize about that. Yeah, yeah. We left on a cliffhanger.

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And I apologize about that. That's good. I have people saying, you know,

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Matt Slick can be kind of tough and direct. And I was like, well, yeah,

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I get that. However, you want somebody that's going to Joel Osteen you, you know, just tickle your ears and give you lollipops and rainbows all day?

30:12

No, I'd rather have somebody give it to me like the doctor does, like the mechanic does. Hey, man, you got a broken tailpipe or, you know, you got a broken foot.

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They don't say, hey, you have leg issues. Or, hey, you have car problems. No. OK, what are my car problems?

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What are my medical issues? Tell it to me straight. And thank goodness you do that. We have too many ear ticklers right now.

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So that's what the cliffhanger was from last week. Oh, dude, you have got to move out of here.

30:40

Man. Oh, OK. You and I just get along. You know, I mean, I can tell. You just say it right.

30:47

That's right. Yeah, I appreciate that. Well, yeah, you got to say it like it is.

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Try and say it nicely. But, you know, it's the truth. You don't like it. Not my problem. Take it up with the author, you know.

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I was about to say the same thing. I was like, this is what the Bible says. So, you know, don't you want absolute truth?

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Don't you want to know what's going on? Do you like to walk around life aimlessly? Oh, you know, the spirits or my feeling or the universe.

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I heard that on TV. I was like, the universe? Where the heck did you get that from? How did you?

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From a guy named Slick. That's what it sounds like. Yeah. No, it sounds a lot worse than Slick.

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It sounds a lot worse. Yeah, I've talked to people and it's bizarre.

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I'm in tune with the universe. That's how I get my knowledge. I'm like, what? You're out there in the

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Andromeda Galaxy. You got some issues. Okay. Sorry.

31:52

Yeah. That's right. That's all right. Not to upset the audience. I'll get to the question because everybody's going to want to talk.

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Hey, you let Jamal talk. Slick. I want to talk too. Dang it. So I'll get to a question.

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Do angels have, and it's not a gotcha question. This is a legit question. Do angels have free will?

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Yes. Okay. All right. Because I heard that they do as the father instructed.

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But if they do, that kind of messed up my follow up question. Sorry. Jesus could only do what the father did, and Jesus had free will.

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You go to John 5, 19, John 5, 30. I can only do what I see the father do. So free will is the ability to make choices that are consistent with your nature.

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They're not forced on you. If a sentient being doesn't have free will, it doesn't have sentience. Part of what it means to be self aware and make choices is just to have free will.

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The ability to make choices that are consistent with what you are generated out of yourself. If you don't have free will, how are you alive?

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How are you sentient? Now, amoeba, little celled creatures, and ants, do they have free will?

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In a very limited sense, yes. So people don't understand what free will is.

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It's an interesting concept. And we could discuss this more. But yeah, of course angels do. And so do we.

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We just believe that free will is restricted by our nature. We're not omnipotent.

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And Jesus, who had free will, was only able to do what the father told him to do. Okay? You know,

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I don't know. I know this though. We had a break. And my buddy

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Charlie will find out the articles. And if you hold on to the break, I'll tell you what he finds. And he'll put them in a link thing for me.

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He always does that. He's great. And then I can tell you what we do have on free will. And if I don't have something addressing that directly,

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I'll write an article on it. Okay? So hold on, buddy. Hold on. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

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

34:15

Here's Matt Slick. All right, buddy. Welcome back to the show. Before we get to Jamal, back to him,

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I just want to say, hey, we stay on the air. By your support, please consider supporting us. We definitely do need that.

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And that's how we stay on the air. So all you have to do is go to CARM .org, C -A -R -M .org,

34:33

forward slash donate and everything you need right there. We really appreciate it. So there you go.

34:39

Let's get back to Jamal. Hey, Jamal, man, you're on, buddy. Thank you, sir.

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And for the listening audience out there, yeah, please do support Matt Slick. He's a rare gem.

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He's a good guy. I broke out of my heatness to make $5 donations, $10 donations here and there.

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Yeah, please do that. It's not going to cost anything. That's a happy meal, guys. He's worth a happy meal every now and then.

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So yeah, I share that sentiment. Yeah, please support Matt Slick and what he does. We appreciate that, man.

35:15

We really do. Oh, yeah. Hey, like I said before the break, Charlie put some links in there.

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We have a lot of stuff I've written on there. What is free will? That goes into the philosophy section.

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And then what is compatible as free will? You can look up that. If God knows our free will choices, do we still have free will written on that?

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And do angels have free will? Another article. So we got to just type in free will in the search engine and see what pops up.

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A lot of stuff I've written on there. Yeah, and that was something

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I haven't heard about before about the dissection of free will. What I've heard before,

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I guess on a language term level, is free will is just the ability to choose to do whatever you want.

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I haven't heard it broken down into different pieces like that. So that's very interesting. I'm glad you have a section up there that I can reference.

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Yeah, let's talk about it a little bit because a lot of people just have humanistic philosophical ideas of free will.

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Humanism is alive and well in the Christian church. This is something I'm becoming more and more aware of. I'm gathering information and I'm going to write an article on it and do a video on it.

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But humanism is so very much alive in the Christian Protestant church. It's very well alive in Meso -Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

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But we Protestants are guilty of it too. And so humanism is the idea that man is the standard and the goal of man is what

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God can do for us. He saved us. He forgives us. He does this for us.

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He's going to give heaven for us. This is why God created us. That's not the right answer. That's not what it is.

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He created us for his glory and the atonement is for his glory. And you go to Philippians 2 11 for that. But anyway, so this idea of man centeredness is just part and parcel of our nature is part of the fall and the effect upon us.

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So people will automatically naturally turn to the issue of free will and judge it by their own expression, their own feeling.

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And so they essentially are humanistic in this. They'll say, look, free will is the ability to make a choice that, you know, between good and bad and all you need is the information.

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You can just do it. And God can't predestine you because then you don't have free will and they don't even think these things through.

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And this is what's taught a lot of pulpits across America as well, which is just a form of ignorance. And I could say some other stronger words, but it's really bad.

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So, look, Jesus had free will. He was able to do whatever he desired, but he said he could only do what he saw the father do.

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And he was sent from eternity past by the father to do what the Lord God father had ordained for Christ to do.

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And you go to, for example, John 530. It says, I could do nothing of my own initiative as I hear that's present tense.

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I judge and my judgment is just because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me. So Jesus says he's not seeking his own will, his free will.

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But he also says he could do nothing of his own initiative. Well, wait, how could he do nothing of his own initiative if he has free will?

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That's what we got to look at. And don't ask the question, how's it possible? We say, oh, it is possible because it's right there in Christ.

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Then what we have to do is understand that our free will needs to be defined in relationship to the person of Jesus Christ, which is

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God in flesh and human and therefore shows us what true freedom really is.

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And true free will is the ability to submit to the will of God, the father, not to say our own will must be elevated and I will do what

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I choose. No, it's true. Free will is to submit to the one who is the creator of all the sovereign king.

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That's the best expression of free will. And so that's what Jesus did. And he submitted to the will of the father from eternity past.

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And yet he freely chose to do what the father wanted him to do. That's what free will really is.

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And that's how Christians should see their own free will. They should see it that way. But too many

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Christians say, no, no, no. God would never ordain you to do something predestined to do something because it'll violate your free will because they're humanist in their philosophy.

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They're humanist in their intentions, and they don't realize the blasphemy of what it is they're saying.

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And they're even denouncing Christ and his actions before God when they say things like this. Inadvertently, they do this.

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OK. OK. Forgive me. It's slick from a human brain standpoint.

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Try to unpack this. So how would true free will be to do the will of God?

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Because Jesus is the one who had true free will, and that was his will. The true expression of free will is exemplified by Christ.

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He's the standard of righteousness. He's the standard of all that is true and good. His expression of free will was to submit to God the father.

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We sometimes think that free will is something that must be autonomous from God. But Christ showed that free will is dependent on God.

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Christ showed us that the free will he had was generated out of the will of the father. And then he submitted to that of his own freedom.

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So the best expression of free will is to submit to the will of God and do what he wants and not what we want.

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That's the best expression of free will because it's expressed in Christ. OK. Could it also be tied to what is of not of God is of the devil?

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And that's when Jesus said, you know, you guys don't do what God wants you to do. Therefore, you are modest with Satan.

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Does that kind of tie into that? Yes, it's like that. No, no, it's like that. This is the general theme.

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It's in that. That's right. We want to do. Yeah, I could go on.

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I'm holding myself back. Go ahead.

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All right. And just to follow up, that part of the devil, that's self -destructive, even in the short term and long term.

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So if you really want true life, as God said, you will do the will of the father to give you life abundantly, which is ultimately serving our purpose.

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Yeah, it just doesn't go right when you go outside of the will of God.

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But I thank you for the conversation. I always appreciate our talks.

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We're good. I don't know if I'm ready to buy a house out there in Idaho yet. But whenever I'm able, I'll definitely move out there.

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And thank you as always. Take care. And God bless. Hey, you too, man. God bless, Jamal. You'd love it out here, too.

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People are great. All right, brother. God bless. Okay. All right.

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Yes. You know, humanism. Humanism is alive and well in the

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Christian church. Let me just talk about it a little bit. We have a caller coming in. But let me see if I can find my notes.

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I've been developing some notes on this whole thing. And the useful

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God, the utilitarian God, is the God of humanism. The useful

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God, God's got to be useful to us. That's why we go to church, isn't it? Because he's useful to us.

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Is that why we're going? Because, you know, he can save us. He can help us.

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He can direct us. He can provide for us. Is that humanistic?

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Yes and no. Expand on that. But think about this. What if the ultimate reason that you go to a church and follow

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God is that he saves us? Provides for us? He keeps us healthy. Keeps us financially secure.

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Makes our lives better. Well, those are the primary reasons you go. You trust in Christ and you're a humanist.

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That's humanism. Here, I'm going to show you something. Check this out. I'm going to go to what's called the, uh, uh,

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Carmen Christi. This is out of Philippians 2. Okay, starting at verse 5. I'm going to read a little bit here. Have this attitude in yourselves, which also was in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.

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But he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men.

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So, he emptied himself. He was in the form of God, in a Trinitarian essence, and he emptied himself.

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Doesn't mean he stopped being God, but he became a bondservant. Why would he do this? Because how much he loved us?

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That's part of it. Verse 8. But being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

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Well, that's so he could save us. True. For this reason also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow.

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Wait, wait, wait, wait, what? So, in the humility of Christ, God exalted him.

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God the Father exalted him, bestowed on him a name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow.

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So, one of the goals here is the reverence of Christ in the crucifixion.

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And he says, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord to the glory of God the Father. So, whoa, whoa, whoa.

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You see, the atoning work of Christ ultimately is for the glory of God the

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Father. And in that we are justified, we are atoned for, so that we can live for God, so that we can as Christians glorify

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God. It's not to glorify ourselves. It is not to say, Lord, what can you do for me today?

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Let me list my grievances. Let me list my needs. Please solve them. And there's nothing wrong with saying,

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Lord, please help me here and help me there. I've got these problems, and we pray for others. That's okay.

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I'm saying if the ultimate goal, this is the main reason that you pray and that you are a

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Christian, is for your comfort, then you've got a problem. That's idolatry.

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It doesn't mean you're not saved. It means your mind and your heart and your spirit need to be corrected.

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You need to move towards God. You need to seek the true Lord and say, you saved me for your glory.

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And this means that in my salvation, in my health and in my sickness, in my riches and in my poverty, it's all for your glory.

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So now, if that's what your eyes are fixed upon, then through any circumstance that you are in, whether it be so to speak, good or so to speak, bad or hard or easy, then you are working and living for the glory of God.

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The crucifixion was for the glory of the Lord God. And in that glory, you are redeemed for the glory of God.

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The crucifixion ultimately is about God, not about you. In humanist philosophy, the churches across America are saying things like,

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God loved you so much, look what he did for you. Well, there's truth in it, but they're not coupling it with the ultimate standard of holiness and righteousness, which is

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God himself. He says, be holy for I am holy. 1 Peter 1 .16. The standard is

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God, and he created us for his glory. Isaiah 43, verse 7. He says that. I created you for my glory.

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There is nothing greater than God and nothing greater than God's glory. And so everything that we do and that Christ did was for the glory of God.

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And we are the expressed representation of the atoning work of Christ for the glory of God, the

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Father. Keep your eyes on him, not on yourselves, not the false ear ticklers who say

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God came to love you and just you to provide for you. It's wrong. Hey, folks, we'll be back tomorrow.