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 calm.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers. Taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Everybody welcome to the show it's me Matt Slick and your list of Matt Slick live if you want to give me a call in this lovely June 11th 2025 all you're gonna do is dial 877-207-2276 and we can get to your calls you can also send an email to info at carm.org And then we can get to you there. All right, we've got nobody waiting right now. And let's see, there's this, there's that. Put this over here. I always have a lot to do at the beginning of the show. Now, so I had an interesting discussion last night online with with an Eastern Orthodox person, and nothing bad came out of this. This was one of the few good conversations that we had. We talked about the sovereignty of God, the majesty of God, and all kinds of stuff, and got into the issue here of talking about the knowledge and wisdom of God. And what I tried to do in this discussion was to witness about the truth of who God is and what he has done. See, a lot of people don't seem to put together the issue of God's great sovereignty and his great wisdom with how everything works in the world. Ephesians 111, it says that God works all things after the counsel of His will. All things after the counsel of His will, all right. So when I ask people what does that mean, a lot of times they don't really want to answer the question. And it's usually in the context of the sovereignty, majesty of God, including election, predestination. And people have an inherent resistance to the sovereignty of God. They want their own sovereignty. One of the questions I asked the same gentleman a couple of nights prior was something very simple that he refused to answer. It was a simple question. Does God know what it would take and how to do it to bring any individual anywhere, anytime that's ever lived into the faith? In other words, does God know what it needs? Does God have the ability to bring anybody into the faith anytime, anywhere? That's the question. He wouldn't answer the question. And the reason, I believe, he wouldn't answer this question, is because if it is the case that God can do that, which it is the case, it is the case that God knows exactly what is necessary, what to do with anybody, anytime, in order to bring anybody into the faith. He did this with Paul the Apostle. He opened the hearts of Lydia to believe the things that were spoken of by Paul. It's Acts 16, 14. Jesus opened the minds of the disciples so they could understand what he was teaching. And in Proverbs 21, 1 says that God moves the heart of the king where he wishes it to go. And so this question is a difficult question for a lot of people, particularly if they are resisting the divine sovereign doctrines of grace. So if God does know how to bring anybody to the faith, and as they like to say, doesn't force them, but he's got to be a gentleman, of course, that's what they say. And that has to work with God's, with the person's free will, has to always be about human free will, always. And so when When I ask the question, does God know what it takes to bring anybody into the world, into the faith, to convince anybody by their own free will to believe, they won't answer the question. Because the next question is, then why doesn't he do it? And I've asked this question before of people, and I'll tell you that they do not like the question. They don't like having to face the idea that God chooses not to bring every individual into faith. What they'll do, this is kind of a preamble of stuff, is they will Go to 2 Peter 3.9. God is patient towards you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. And also 1 Timothy 2.4, that He desires all men to be saved. And this is a question, it's a good question. It's something I wonder about. Why does He say that? And yet, he speaks in parables. Jesus speaks in parables so people will not believe. That's Mark 4, 10 through 12. And he knocked Paul off his horse in Acts chapter 9 and got Paul to believe, you know, spoke to him audibly and did that. Why does he do it to everybody? And it's a question I don't have an answer to. It's a question I don't have an answer to, except to say, well, because he chooses not to. That's the only answer I have. He just chooses not to do that. Now why does he choose not to do that? That's the question. I don't know. Because why would he say he doesn't want any to perish, but for all to come to repentance, and yet chooses not to save people? He speaks in parables. Jesus does. So people will not be saved, not be forgiven. And so I've been thinking about this for quite a while. And I don't have any answers, so I'm just going to muse out loud this thing. We're made in the image of God. We have what's called the communicable attributes of God that we can think just as God thinks. You know, God loves, we can love. God hates, we can hate. God reasons, we can reason. These are the communicable attributes of God. And we have this aspect called free will. Now free will is that which is consistent with your human nature. You can't choose to do something you can't even conceive of. If there's no concept in your mind about something, you can't make a choice about it because you're just unaware of it. So your free will is limited by your nature to be able to choose that which you can become aware of or conceive of. If you can't conceive of something, how do you make a choice? Because there's no options there for you. So what is this free will? Well, free will is like that, and people can be approached with the gospel, have the gospel preached to them, and they will choose to reject. This is because their hearts are wicked and deceitful. And in line of this, Jesus says that no one can come to him unless it's granted by the Father, John 6.65. Why doesn't God grant it to everybody? And as the answer is, well, because he chooses not to, there's another answer. And this is a more difficult answer, but for God's glory. And that one makes me scrunch my brow together. What does that mean? Because God says we're made for His glory, Isaiah 43, 7. And He is the greatest of all beings. No one is equal to Him. No one is beyond Him, He answers to no one. His ways are not our ways. And I'm okay with that. But I'll tell you, maybe you're like this. Why doesn't God intervene in more people's lives? Is it because there's something about free will that he submits to? Is it because there's something about free will that we don't understand how it relates to God's nature and his omniscience? Is there something about God knowing things that we just can't even begin to understand? I mean, all of these issues and questions. And I'm not sure how to answer them. But these are some of the questions, though, that I wonder about and I think about. I don't understand how to answer him sometimes. So, I don't know. Anyway, these are some of the things I wonder about. But I know this, that you can't come to Christ unless it's granted by the Father, John 6.65. And that God grants that you have repentance, 2 Timothy 2.25. So, okay. Why doesn't God do that more? And here's another question. You know, my wife has a lot of medical issues. She really does. And I do appreciate all your prayers for her. It's very, very difficult for her and getting worse. And it's very hard on her. And I pray on a regular basis, you know, please heal her. And God doesn't. Well, here's the question. Well, why doesn't he? I'm not complaining. Why? Why doesn't he heal people of various things? I have ringing in my ears. Very loud. Had it for over 30 years. It's really annoying. But it's what it is. I prayed countless times for God to heal. He doesn't. And it reminds me of Paul the Apostle. He says that he was buffeted with an infirmity in the flesh. But the reason was to keep him humble. God works with our will, with our bodies. There's something deep down inside that we are accountable to. And God knows there's something in the imagio Dei, the image of God that we are made in, the imagio Dei, that we're just not aware of. At least I'm not aware of. Maybe some better theologians than me are. Now, as I was discussing this, we'll get to the caller after the break, coming up in a couple minutes, but as I was discussing this, does God know what it takes to save anybody, anywhere, anytime? The person said it was a loaded question and refused to answer it. I know why he refused to answer it, because it didn't fit his theology, because the seriousness of it just didn't, because in his theology, it's all about free will. It's all about your cooperation with God. It's all it is. So that question is just out of bounds. So I looked up what a loaded question is. It's a question that has a built-in assumption, often a controversial or unjustified assumption, so that any straightforward answer appears to admit something the respondent doesn't agree with. It's kind of like a trick question. Well, I actually typed in and asked. I went to an AI source. I said, is it a loaded question to ask, does God know whatever it takes to save anyone? And no, I'm just, you know, I just thought I'd give it a shot. And it said, no, it's not a loaded question. Because it's just a straightforward yes or no. Yes, he does. And a loaded question is such that if you answer one way, you lose. And this guy said, well, you still beat your wife. And I said, well, that's not a true dichotomy. I said it to him. I said, it's either the case that God knows whatever it takes to bring people to faith, or anybody and everybody, or not the case. There's no middle option, no third option. It's that you're presenting something that's different. And it was interesting to see how people worked so hard against the will of God. Now here's a question. What do you think about free will? What do you think? Do you think your free will is the sovereign decider of everything? Do you think you and your wisdom are the sovereign decider of your salvation? You and your free will are the sovereign decider of keeping your salvation. Those are good questions to discuss about with people. If you want to call me, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, and welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it's easy, 877-207-2276. All right, let's get to Chris from South Carolina. Chris, welcome. You're on the air. Matt, how are you doing, buddy? hanging in there, man, more hanging than in there, but hanging in there. So while we're getting older. Yes. Yes. You have, you have seasons. Um, mine's in the hurricane season lately. So that's what I tell everybody. Well, my, my summer's just beginning. So the question that I have and not the question that I have, and I was asked, um, many, many years ago, a couple of decades ago, I was sitting and minding my own business, and an individual came up to me and asked me this, and I've never forgotten it, and I didn't know the correct answer, and I told him I didn't know the correct answer, but the question was, is someone goes to heaven if they've never heard of Jesus? Like, let's say someone's in the middle of a desert or a jungle or somewhere, you know, real Antarctica or wherever, and I was like, well, I don't I thought for a second, and I was like, well, I don't know if God would want to send someone to hell for not believing in him or all, but I'm thinking that was probably the wrong answer. And the guy got very upset about it, and he stated the only way to go to heaven is through Christ, which is true. And like I said, I wasn't as knowledgeable then, but what do you think about that scenario? All right, let me lay it down first. There's two views that we need to look at. One's called exclusivism and one's called inclusivism. Exclusivism says that they have to actually hear the name of Jesus and the gospel preached in order to be saved. Inclusivism says, no, not exactly. There might be someone in a desert or a jungle to whom God could communicate sufficiently the doctrines or the truth to save him, since it is God who is the sovereign king and can give someone a vision or a dream about a helper, a Messiah, a deliverer, and a person submits to that without properly knowing Jesus. So I'm an inclusivist in that sense, in that though the only way to salvation is through Christ, God has his ways of communicating to people who have not specifically heard him, but they can be shown the equivalent understanding by visions, by dreams, by whatever it is that God would work in an individual, because God is the sovereign king. But such a salvation is not aside from Christ, but only through Christ. And God, I believe that God can reveal himself and the person, work of Christ, whichever level and manner he chooses to, to anybody that God chooses to. That's my position. Okay. So you're saying that like, let's give me a example, like a native American 800 years ago here in the U S uh, could see God through Mother Nature or whatever. Is that kind of where you're headed? I wouldn't say through Mother Nature. No, I wouldn't say that. I would say that, let's just say there's an American Indian 800 years ago, and he's pondering the nature of God in existence. And why is he pondering? Because God is working on his heart. And he's out there by himself on the plains one day, and he sits down and looks at the sunset. And he believes that there's a great creator, a single creator. This is because God's working on him. And then later, God could put it upon his heart that he's a sinner, that he's failed, and that this man appeals to God and says, well, I just trust in what you have. Is that enough to save him? Well, think about the Old Testament saints. They didn't know the name of Christ. They had a sacrificial system, and they were able to be saved by the looking forward to the Messiah. Even though they didn't know who he was, or they didn't have an understanding, it would certainly seem that the Old Testament saints did not have an understanding of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. And yet they were justified, as it says, Abraham was justified by faith because he believed in God. So it's only because of that, like Romans 4, 3, Abraham believed God was credited him as righteousness. that he did have the knowledge of the true God because God spoke to him. God communicated to him. Could God do that to a guy, an American Indian 800 years ago on the plains? Yes, he could. He could communicate to him. He could speak to him audibly if he wants. Speak to him in a vision or a dream. So I don't have a problem with that. But I don't want anybody to think that, oh, well, then you don't need Jesus. That's not what I'm saying. Quite opposite. The only way to be saved is through Christ. Then what you said about creation, well there's three revelations of God, and one is in creation, one is in scripture, and one is in the person of Christ. And so the things of God can be known, as Romans 1 says, in creation. The majesty and greatness of God. Now that's not enough to save somebody. but they will know that there's a creator and a worker of all things. And so they can come to believe that there is this one being, the one who does this. Well then, what happens if the Holy Spirit is convicting such a person? Can he do it? Well, of course he can. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Not just people who might have heard the word of Christ. So I believe that God could save people in the Americas and Indians and Aborigines as well. Did it ever happen? I can't say it did. Did it not happen? I can't say it didn't. But I can say that, for example, God is working in the Muslim community of the Middle East, and there's reports of about a million to a million, one to two million Muslims a year are coming to Christ because of visions and dreams. And the Christ that they have heard of is Esau, that's his name, in the Quran. And he's specifically said in the Koran not to be God, never to have been crucified. And yet they're coming to faith in him in spite of what the Koran says that they've been indoctrinated with. So God's able to communicate himself to people. So I think he could do that whenever and however he chooses. I could say more about this, but I've been talking a long time. Go ahead. Keep going. You're doing good. I remember reading a book years ago called Bruchko. It's really a good book by Bruce Olson. Bruchko, B-R-U-C-H-K-O. And it's about a guy, he had blonde hair, blue eyes, I think, and he was a Lutheran, and then he says later he got saved, if I remember correctly. And God called him to go to, I think it was Columbia, South America, and preach to the Motoloni tribe. I'm maybe not representing every detail correctly, but I read it like 30 years ago, but it made an impression on me. And so he went there, and long story short, They received the gospel. He was good at languages, learned their languages, and preached to them. And they received Christ. And later they were talking about this. I'm skipping a lot of really good details. There's some interesting stuff that happened. But I'm just getting to the heart of the issue. And he asked them, why did you believe? And they said, to have a prophecy. There was a prophecy in their tribe, in their nation, their people group, of a man with white hair who would come to them with the words of God written on banana leaves. Banana leaves are Bible pages. And so they were ready to believe because it was there. There's a tribe, I forgot where, and I'll tell you about this after we get back, that has biblical stuff in it in tribes. But we gotta hold on, okay, because there's a break. I'll tell you about that, too. Hey, folks, be right back after these messages if you want to give me a call. The number's 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. Chris, are you still there? Yes, sir. All right. The name of it, maybe my friend Charlie remembers it. He's got a good memory for book names. Eternity in their hearts? That's the book. It just flashed into my mind. Eternity in their hearts. I don't know what that book is. Anyway, there was There was a missionary trying to witness to, there's two things that I remember. One is there were these two tribes that would war with each other, and when one would flee, say they caught a guy or they're chasing a guy, he could run through the jungle and he could jump into a little square made of stones. Like the square was six, eight, 10 inches high, a foot high, I don't know, but just something like that. And there's no fence, there's no doors, there's nothing, he just jumps inside And it meant that nobody else could attack him. And the enemy would find him standing there. All they could do is just throw a spear and kill him. But they wouldn't do it because it was off limits. And it was reflective of the city of refuge in the Old Testament. Where does concept come from? Then there's an issue of firstborn son of the kings being exchanged. And by the firstborn son being exchanged between two leaders of different groups, peace was given. There's some really interesting things all over the world like this, where it's like, wait a minute, those are biblical things. In fact, in ancient Chinese characters, their symbols are pictures that have evolved. Well, the most ancient A symbol for a boat is a mouth, which is a symbol of a human, with a number eight, eight mouths, and a boat symbol. Well, all you need is a boat. Why boat with eight mouths, eight people, Noah's Ark? And garden is a snake with a tree, or sin is a snake with a tree. And these weird things that are ancient, so God has these all over the world, and so I believe he's prepared the hearts and the minds of people and cultures to be ready to hear the truth when the Holy Spirit calls upon them. And so I'd like to say that God casts his net further than we do, but nobody can be saved except through Jesus Christ, without exception. There's no other way. Now what about Mormons and stuff, Jehovah's Witnesses? Well, they believe in false gods. Absolutely. So their faith cannot save them. In fact, it's a detriment to them because their faith is in a direct false god. And if they don't repent of that false god in the false gospel, then they're going to be damned when they die. But you could have a native, for example, who's unaware, who may believe something false, but God works on that person to bring them to monotheism, and then salvation by grace, and then an appeal and a hope and a trust in what God can do. And just like the Old Testament saints, that's what happened, and they were saved. So that's why I'm an inclusivist. in that sense, not an exclusivist, though I think that might give some people a raised eyebrow when I say that, but as long as they understand it's only through Christ and God's revelation through people in different places, different times, the way he does, then no problem. I hope that helps. Yeah, it helps a lot, and I think that I used the wrong term whenever I said Mother Nature, because that's a different way of looking at it. The way I believe in God is people ask me, hey, how do you know that there's a God out there? You know, God didn't send us a book or video or anything and says, okay, here's why I'm here. You know, it's through faith. When I look at the world and I see mountains And I see trees, and I see the reproduction of humans, and I see examples of what humans need in this world. We need water. Water here on Earth is a solid, a liquid, and a gas. You take out one of those, we no longer have water. It's the cycle that it goes through and everything. So whenever I look at the world and what was created, I also say, okay, this didn't come from nothing. Something had to create this. And yeah, that's extremely powerful to believe that, to say, okay, yeah, something was here, you know, and how long was God here? You know, was he here 1,200 trillion years ago or 50,000 years ago? You know, it is extremely complicated, and that's one of the questions people always ask me, especially people that don't know that much about God, that are my age and younger. And people want to look at it as they want an answer. And the answer, I think, is like you said, like right in front of you. And if God gives us all the answers to every single thing, then why would we need to be having as much faith. You know, when you were talking about suffering and all, if we didn't suffer and we had everything we needed living in the garden of Eden, you know, people wouldn't, people won't be as loyal, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And, uh, it has as much faith as they do. Yep. So when I was like, no, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. Um, Well, I'm getting at is, do you think that too, like, like while we're going through pain and suffering and all here on earth, like, um, cause people are like, why, why, why is the devil here? You know, why, why does the devil put these thoughts in people's minds, uh, to think of evil things and to change the way from God or not go to God and be, and be persuaded by man. in certain religions, like what you're talking about, Muslims and all that. Yeah. Yeah. It's, these are tough topics and are good topics worth discussing. And, um, and you're just good. And I think, you know, you're, you're dealing with these issues and related them to people and talking about them. And I think it's a good thing to do. So keep it up. All right. All right. Thank you. All right. OK, brother. Well, God bless. OK. All right. That was good stuff. It was good stuff. I like that. Hey, if you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. Let's get to Jason from Tennessee. Jason, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt. Good to talk to you. I've listened to you for a long time now. Actually, I'm 39, and I started listening to you on and off Okay. Since I was in college, so I was about 18, 19 years old. And, uh, I remember actually back then purchasing your thing, you call it the mother of all notebooks. Yeah. So I, I got that thing down to, uh, uh, staples and got that out, print it out and put it in a giant binder and, uh, yeah, use it as a giant reference for a long time. uh... but i'm calling today uh... i may have called all a long time in the past but quality because uh... from that's been on my mind is you know you hear as a calvinist often people talking about um... god is the author of the old in there certain people among acts and there's a a couple people who are more on the free will side to talk about god is the author of the world my question is pertaining to primary and secondary causes, and if you could kind of define that and then talk about how I understand that we are responsible, as Scripture says, that we're responsible for our sin. God is not the author of evil, but can you explain that, how primary and secondary causes kind of, I don't know if it fixes that, but kind of explains that? Yes, okay, so primary causation would be, in the context of Christianity, it's God's direct and sovereign action that brings about an event, brings an event to actuality. So, for example, creation of the universe is a direct cause, direct work, creation of mankind. Miracles, like the parting of the Red Sea, these are by the direct hands of God. He's the primary cause. Our regeneration. God is the primary cause of our regeneration. We don't regenerate ourselves. God does this. A secondary cause is something that occurs or is caused to occur within the realm of the primary. So created means of action, it could be whether personal or impersonal, so such things as human decisions, we can generate our own decisions. But the reason we generate our own decisions is because God is the primary, or I'm going to say, the ultimate cause. So God is the ultimate cause of all things, which means that nothing can occur without him. Now, let me take a tangent here before we get to the break. There's what's called efficient causation, proximate causation, and ultimate causation. So Adam was in the garden. He chose to eat the fruit. He disobeyed. No one forced him. He is the efficient cause of his own sin. God is the proximate cause of his sin in that God created the garden, allowed the snake to come in, said, don't eat of that fruit, and allowed Eve to tempt Adam. And so God's the one who arranged the condition in which an efficient cause occurs. So God is, he's the primary cause by creating everything, but inside of that, the secondary causes are the results of those beings and issues that are independent of God's direct action. Hold on, we've got a break. We'll be right back, okay? Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, buddy. Welcome back to the show. Last segment of the hour. Let's get back on with Chris. Hey, you're you're in Idaho, right? Huh? Chris, you there? Hey, Chris testing. Oh, no. Wrong one. Hold on and put him on hold and get back to a Jason. I clicked on the wrong thing. Sorry about that. But maybe Crystal wake up anyway. All right, Jason. Sorry, I clicked the wrong one. You know, from no problem yet. I'm here. All right. So did that help any? I gave you a lot of stuff, but is that help? Yeah. And I as I've pondered this, I, you know, I started out, I think naturally it's natural for new believers to lean more towards a free will view of soteriology and then I made a graduate, just because we live in space and time and we experience what we seem to think is this autonomous free will. I then tried to balance it all. That's heresy. Yeah, yeah. That's a heresy that a lot of people believe, yes. Yes. I leaned towards, I tried to balance it all, and I went towards Mullenism for a while, and listened to a lot of William Lane Craig. But I just saw some inconsistencies with that. He's too smart. He's too smart to be a Mullenist, I'm surprised. Yes, yes. And then I listened to you and I listened to James White and a couple other guys, and I was like, you know, this Calvinism, it kind of puts us in the right place. It puts God where he belongs. It puts me where I belong. And, you know, when you look at it, I think part of it is just we have a hard time as creatures within time and space. We don't fully understand and grasp that. Like, there's no way for us to talk about eternity. There's no way for us to talk about God outside of time, because all of our language is time-based. And so I think one of the big things that people have a hard time putting together when it comes to these causes and responsibility and things is just people just don't understand time and space. Yeah, you're right. I've had many discussions on ultimate, proximate, and efficient causation, primary, secondary causation. And also, which relates to this, is the infinite knowledge of God of both actuals and counterfactuals. Counterfactuals are things that don't exist, but they're potentialities. Out of an infinite set of potentialities, God actualized one. And yet, inside of that, we have free will. Well, what kind? compatibilist, you know, and the discussion gets to be multi-layered and multi-faceted. I boil it down to, this is my opinion, people who hate Reformed theology love their own free will, that they elevate it above everything else, and that in so doing, they risk idolatry. They risk it because they want to say that such free will is autonomous, just like you mentioned. that it is independent of other things and is completely self-generated and therefore it's by their own will and it's up to them. Well, that's humanist philosophy. That's humanism. And it's really bad and there's some other issues with it related. But even, and I say to them, did Jesus have free will? Yes, well in John 5.19 and John 5.30, he says he could do nothing of his own will, but only what he saw the Father do. So did he have free will? Now they're stuck, because he, his free will, was to do the will of God the Father, and nothing of his own initiative, but he had free will. This proves compatibilist free will, in that the sovereignty of God is compatible with human free will, which is what Jesus certainly possessed, and that Jesus came to do the will of the Father. Well, there you go. And Jesus, well, was not independent or autonomous from the created order of God in the sovereignty because he's a human under the created order and had to work within that. So, yeah, it gets to be difficult. But people are, let's just say, obstreperously recalcitrant when it comes to this. Well, Matt, I appreciate your reply there. Let me ask you a real quick question. Your website, you've been known for someone who is full of a lot of knowledge on various topics. I know Mormonism is something that you've been really strong in from your past. Can you tell me, can you name one or two things that you think that you excel in? Being obnoxious. In theology, in theology. Oh, I think, well, if I could dare say, I think I'm pretty good at the doctrine of the Trinity, the person's work of Christ, and justification by faith and salvation. so that I can defend really well the nature of God, the work of Christ related to the law and our salvation. Those I know very well. And dare I also boast a little bit further, hope it's not too much of a boast, is I could stand up on a stage, for example, and from memory just teach on Calvinism, quoting verses. I could do it for an hour to two hours without opening a Bible. For notes, I just have it memorized. So I know those topics pretty well. And I hope that's not a boast, but I've been doing it for so long that I can. So I know those pretty well. Awesome. Well, thank you very much, Matt, for what you do. I appreciate your time, and have a great rest of your day. Well, you too, brother. God bless. Thanks. Appreciate it. All right. Bye. Bye. All right. That was Jason, and I had a good discussion with him. Let's get to Chris from Idaho. Chris, are you there? Yeah, Matt. How are you? Good. Hey, we've talked before, haven't you? Haven't you called before and said, hey, where in Idaho are you? Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've called a few times. I listen. I tune in quite a bit. I subscribe to you on Facebook so your live feeds pop up. Oh good, I'm just curious again. Remind me, what city do you live in? Nampa. That's what I thought. Have we ever met? Yeah, we met. I went to one of your Bible studies. I think it was a Bible study off of Emerald and Orchard or something like that, somewhere around there. My brother came with me, and you met him, and we were kind of all discussing. I forgot what the topic was, but it was pretty interesting. Well, just to let you know, we live in the same city. On third Thursday of each month, we just have people come over to the house, and then we just talk. So you're welcome to do that. You can email me and say, hey, and tell me who you are and stuff like that, and we'll do that. But also, I'm seriously considering starting a Bible study on the book of Hebrews. Oh, nice. And we teach it every other week, instead of every week, just every other week. And something like that. So anyway, just thinking. But probably we'll do that. No, definitely. Well, I have a friend who, he just moved back into town. He moved to Oregon for quite some time, and he's back. church and meet up sometime and kind of talk about that. Kind of pick your brain a little. Sure, you ever want to do coffee someplace sometime? Yeah, we could do that too, you know, because it's right here, local and everything. Yeah, no problem. Nice. That'd be great, yeah. So, um... So what do you got? Okay. Um, yeah. So the, uh, the question is regarding the, uh, the final battle between God and Satan. Um, is that a, is that a physical or spirit? Like another thing that I'm trying to like, is Jesus is all good and born against something that's complete evil. How does that, how does that work? Well, there is going to be a physical battle. And Armageddon is it. I've been to the valley. I've seen it. It's incredible. But it's going to be a physical battle and a spiritual battle. But Jesus, or Paul says in Ephesians 6.12, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities of darkness. So there's going to be a spiritual aspect of it, but it's going to manifest physically. So it's going to be both. And if you go to Matthew 24, Luke 17, two men in the field, one is taken, one is left. The ones who were taken are the wicked, not the good. And that hill I will die on, because when you read the context, that's just what it is. And so they're going to be taken to a place of judgment. And when they ask Jesus, where are they taken? In Luke 17, he answers the question, where the body is, the vultures gather. So it looks like this is all part and parcel of the final battle of judgment, to be physical and spiritual things going on all over. OK? Yeah. And then another thing that's, you know, Satan. We're going to lose in you. I think it might be driving or something. But you're kind of going in and out. Try it again. Hold on one second. Is this better? I think so. Yeah. I was just saying like the, the idea that, you know, Satan is completely evil and him going up against God who's all good. I mean, Jesus would have to have some type of, some type of angst or something. And right. I mean, you broke up angst. This is something I think that Christ would have. It implies a deficiency. But the question is, why doesn't he just, you know, snap his fingers and Satan's gone? Well, there's more to history going on, and it has to do with us being made in his image and that righteous judgment of God upon people who have served the evil one. so that it's not just snap his finger now they're in hell, they didn't do anything, but that they are culpable for their own choices and in their rebellion against God it will come to the culmination of all things at the Battle of Armageddon that the new heavens and new earth will be made. Okay, nice, okay. Well, hey, I think that, uh, that covers it. And, um, yeah, I'll shoot you out an email and we'll try to connect sometime for sure. Sounds good. Sounds good, man. Okay. All right. Okay. God bless. God bless. All right. Bye. Okay. All right. Yeah, Idaho. Been here 21 years. Wow. Cannot believe that. From Southern California. I'm glad I'm not down there where all the riots and everything is happening. And I call it the People's Republic of California. My wife and I left. One of the reasons we left was because we didn't like the politics that was going on and how they were invading the homeschool society, how they were trying to make us do things and say things and teach our kids in our own homes. Forget that stuff. I hope you've enjoyed the show. I want to let you guys know out there that we do stay on the air by your support. Ministries have their changes within things and things that happen. that all of a sudden things are good, all of a sudden things are bad, all of a sudden things are hey, whatever. And that's just the nature of all kinds of ministries. And so we are a ministry that stays on the air by your support if you like what you hear. If you don't mind listening to some guy named Slick on the radio, that's my real name, and you don't mind hearing this stuff, and if you like it and if you're learning, please consider supporting us because it would be Helpful and we do need it. 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