The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live! Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers. Taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. If you are interested, you give me a call. 877-207-2276. Today's date is July 10th, 2024. There's a heat wave going on here in the United States. We're in Idaho, and it's 108. And boy, it's hot. But it's a dry heat. So it's not that bad here. And I know it's real hot for a lot of people and I hope people are taking care of themselves and situations are okay. All right, now, look, if you want, you can also email me at info at karm.org. Info at karm.org. And if you do that, I just put in a subject line, radio comment, radio question, something like that, and I can get to it. We've got a few waiting. All right, now some interesting kind of stuff has been going on. There's a rabid, rabid anti-Calvinist out there, anti-security, internal security person out there called Dan Corner. And so I was on a Catholic website. It was not a Catholic website. It was a website that deals with Catholicism and some other stuff. And so I made a comment. Catholicism, this and that. This guy, Dan Corner, comes up, and I've had interactions with him before, and said, be careful, Matt Slick, once saved, always saved, Calvinist heretic. And, you know, I get tired of this kind of stuff, you know, and so I said, OK, let's have a debate. I challenged him to a debate and I said, let's have a moderated, public, moderated, timed debate. And he said he would do it, but he isn't. And he said, but he'd do it on the subject of once saved, always saved. And I said, let's do it. And then he backed out. I challenged him to debate tonight, but he all backed out. I have it all recorded, the text and everything from Facebook, and it's on a page. The reason I'm bringing this up is because there are people who condemn everybody just outright. and who have little if no grace at all and who misrepresent other people's positions and then don't care and then speak ill and evil of people and won't back it up. And so he's a, in my opinion, he's a dangerous teacher you need to be aware of and I've got information on him. So that's that. And on the page today, on the Facebook page, which I have it all linked and everything, you know, he bailed. He bailed out on his agreement. I told him. I said, Jesus says, let your yes be yes, your no be no. You're going to do what you said? And silence crickets for two days. So if he wants to come back and save face and agree to the debate that he agreed to and not go back on his word, then we can have a time-moderated debate. And I will do my best to dismantle his heretical position, his accusations, his false accusations, et cetera, et cetera. All right. Having gotten past that, So if you want to give me a call, you can, 877-207-2276. For those of you who support us at CARMA, I'll let you know that we're working on a new system. We've begun it today, and it'll take a few weeks. We're going to get something replacing what we have, and we hope to really advance the site in some particular areas a lot. And I know that there's a bit of an issue, I don't know why or what exactly, but I've got to find it out, with the schools, and a couple of things happened. So, I don't know if Joanne's aware of it, but my wife knows, and I'm going to work on that as well. I've written enough articles that I've got stuff for another week, that I don't have to do anything, no more writing, and it'll just come out every other day for a week, so I've got a whole week to be able to produce other stuff. And in the meantime, what I'll probably end up doing is, like I did last night, go on, Clubhouse opened up a room and taught some theology and answered questions and I'd go in discord and do that as well And I've started working on an outline system for videos that we're gonna be producing. So I got a lot going on Oh, wait a minute. I see that again. We have a lot going on. I don't use my girl voice. You know my girl voice I can't do it All right, hey, look, why don't you give me a call? 877-207-2276. Let's get to Ebenezer from California. Ebenezer, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt. Yeah, I was talking to some Catholics on TikTok, and I just, you know, brought up the whole thing on how, you know, because they say that Peter was, you know, had authority by Jesus for the Catholic Church and they brought up... Huh? You talking about Peter, you mean? Yeah, yeah. And they brought up some passage in Matthew. I think it was in Matthew 1-2 and also they said, you know, Mary was infallible And it was, it was a lot of things. Um, and they use for the Mary was infallible. They use, uh, they would say that she was sinless. She never sinned. Yeah. Sinless. Exactly. Yup. Yup. Yup. I forgot about that. And, um, the, how there was originally 73 books for the Bible. and some counseling in Jamia. Yeah, that's wrong. 73 books is wrong. You've been misled by a lot of the Catholics who themselves have bought into lots of lies. So let me deal with some. I mean, I know it's I know it's wrong. I know it's wrong, but it was like proving it, you know. Okay, in general, you can actually go to CARM and you can see a lot of the answers to that. So for example, if you go to my website, CARM.org forward slash C-U-T, the word cut, and it's short for cut and paste. And the purpose of that section is to be able to take paragraphs and cut them into paste them and put them into chat rooms. Well, it turns out that this is just pretty helpful because it's basic information. So if you were to go there and you were to click on the Roman Catholic stuff, you can, for example, click on the link Peter, it'll scroll it down in there, and Peter and the Rock, Matthew 16 and 18, and it tells you how to respond to them. It's right there. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm on a website. It was just tough on it. Actually. I, like, I use this, uh, this, uh, this site on YouTube called Christian book. And, um, and like they, they, um, had, uh, to justify that claim, you know, they had, um, uh, I think Ignatius is Ignatius. I think it's Irenaeus or Ignatius letter. where, um, cause I was talking to the Catholic guy and, um, I, I told him how, um, even there's even, he didn't, he didn't specify that, uh, Peter was the Peter was the, um, had all authority. Um, He did not. I mean, it wasn't making justified cases for my claims or their claims either, but they automatically assumed, they said it was some fallacy and that automatically assumed that, Oh yeah, it's Peter. It's Peter. He was talking about Peter here in pole. So I didn't. Uh, so here's the thing. Um, You're going to encounter Roman Catholics who are basically cultists. And when I say that, I want you to think of them as cult members. They don't know the facts, don't care about the facts, only their church is true, and they believe whatever their church says. And the scriptures can only be understood according to what their church says. This is typical of cults. Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, stuff like that. Eastern Orthodoxy also. So you have to think of it like that. And what you need, what I would recommend that you do is go to my website and other websites. And it's really simple to do. I recommend this to people. You can go to Google, and you can create a Google Doc, and just store the address someplace that you always have it. You can get to it on a web browser, you can get to it on your phone. And what you do is you create an outline, and you put answers to stuff in an outline. That's all simple. And when you're talking to somebody, you just bring that up and you just, you, uh, you put your stuff in there. You can say, well, this is yours. You could take information from calm, for example, take a paragraph and copy it in there and you'd have it ready. And this is what I'm on. Yeah, I'm on, I'm on comms with that right now. Yeah. All right. All right. No problem. No problem. Yeah. I was just, I didn't, I didn't mean to just blast you with like all the information I want. No, no, no. I deal with this all the time with Roman Catholics. I mean, I can answer the issue of Peter. I can answer the issue of the Bible and 73 books that they say we took out, which never happened. They were never in. Go through and explain that. I can explain the issue of Mary and the idolatry that they commit with her. I mean, idolatry. So the Roman Catholic Church, you've got to understand, is not a Christian church. It teaches a false god, a false priesthood, a false Mary. It is not Christian. And all people who die believing official Roman Catholic theology are damned. Official. That's not to say there aren't Catholics in there who are Christians. But if they believe official Roman Catholic theology, they cannot be saved. Because it's anti-Christ. A lot of people think that I'm just being crazy when I say that. Well, it's not. I'm not being crazy, because I know what I'm talking about. My notes on Catholicism, my Word document notes on Catholicism, are 228 pages. And it's still growing. And I have more to research. So I take it very seriously. And the Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian church, and neither is the Eastern Orthodox Church. OK? And you've got to find out. All right, Dillmat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, I will be searching your website. Good, man. Check it out. And give us feedback, and call me up and say, dude, that was so helpful. Or, man, I was reading this one thing, it didn't make any sense. And you just tell me. Because to me, it all makes sense, because it's in my brain. But then I can go and I can fix it. Someone pointed out a mistake of the paragraph typo, and I had to go in and fix it yesterday. It happens. So feedback's always welcome, all right? Most definitely. All right. Thank you, man. All right, man. God bless. OK. All right. Well, that was Ebenezer. And if you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. Let's get to Paul from Wake Forest, North Carolina. Welcome, Paul. You're on the air. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. So where are you going? Uh, I'm in the middle of getting gas. I think I'll just sit down and wait for that. Um, okay. I, I've talked to you a couple of times before and, uh, that was probably years ago. But, um, throughout listening to you, uh, I seem to feel that you, uh, believe in, uh, post-tribulation rapture? Yes, that's correct. I believe we're going to go through it. Yep, we're not going to get raptured out. You do, huh? Yeah. What about where it says that God would not allow us to go through his wrath? No, it doesn't say that. It doesn't? Or what does it say? That's what the Bible says. So, oh, there's the break. So hold on, and then we'll get to it, and I'll address it. I'll show you what it's really saying, and why the pre-chib rapture people take it out of context and misuse it. Okay? So hold on, buddy. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick Live! Taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. We have three open lines. Paul, are you still there? Yeah, yes I am. All right, now, the Bible verse you're talking about is 1 Thessalonians 5.9. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Right? Right. OK. I'm going to show you a concept here. I want you to see how God works. In Isaiah 45.7, notice what it says. the one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity. I'm the Lord who does these. So the way of speaking is to set one against the other, not logically, but to contrast. The one forming light and creating darkness, well-being and calamity, Okay? Wrath and salvation. First Thessalonians 5.9. God is not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation. So if he's not destined us for wrath, but it's salvation, salvation means a forgiveness of sins, et cetera. That's what we're talking about. So what does wrath mean there, then? Does it mean we're not going through a tribulation? Is that what it means? I guess not, because I go through a lot of it now. Yeah, it has to do with damnation. Furthermore, let's go to 1 Peter, I'll show you. 1 Peter 3, 20, okay? Come on, my fingers aren't working right, there we go. And so it says in 1 Peter 3.20, talking about the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through the water. Were Noah and his family, were they there during the wrath of God upon the unbelievers? answer is yes they were that's right they were right there and they entered in the ark and they were delivered in it and through it the preacher of rapture says no God wouldn't let us go through it with Noah right there with Noah in fact when you go to Matthew 24 37 for the coming of the Son of Man would be just like the days of Noah For in those days, before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, till the day that no one entered the ark, and they did not understand, till the flood came and took them all away. That's the wicked who are taken. So will the coming of the Son of Man. Two will be in a field, one is taken, one is left. That's who's taken, is the wicked. And that's the parallel passage of Luke 17 says that the flood came and destroyed them all. They were eating, they were drinking, giving in marriage, the end of the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. And then it says two men will be taken, one is left, one is taken. And then they ask him where they take him. Well, they take him to where the body is, where the bodies, where the vultures gather. Where the bodies are, the vultures gather. That's what Jesus answers them. Now, I'll show you one more thing. Because people say we're not appointed to wrath, but salvation. So that means we're not going through the tribulation. Well, check this out. I'm going to show you a few things here. A lot of people don't like this, but that's what it is. So this is in Matthew 24. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, I'm just going to skip through stuff, OK? Whoever's on the housetop, don't go down. Don't get your stuff. Woe to those who are pregnant, flee, lest those days be cut short, no life would be left. If anyone says, you behold, there's a Christ, don't listen, false Christs will arise, false prophets will arise. He's telling us, just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather." And then verse 29, but immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with great power and glory. And he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the sky to the other. That's the rapture. After the tribulation. But before that, there was reading Matthew 24. Before that mention of the rapture, there was another mention. Nope, there's only, no there's not, there's only one return of Christ because in Acts 1, 9-11, it's prophesied how he's going to come back. I thought that there was the coming of Christ before the rapture. Nope. and then seven years were worth the Lord, and then we come back with Him again. So to me, there was like two comings of Christ. One before the tribulation, one after. Right. And that's not in Scripture. It's just not there. There's only one return of Christ. Yeah, it's a common thing, and I believe that preacher rapture is very easily destroyed. So here's something else to think about. Here, I'll show you something that's even more interesting. In Matthew 13, Jesus talks about the parable of the wheat and the tares. The wheat and the tares, right? And the tares are the wicked people, and the wheat are the good people. Now, the wicked are the ones taken first, that's right, when he comes back. And they're taken out of his kingdom. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like Matthew 24 and Luke 17. The wicked are the ones taken. That's what it says. Okay, do you have a lot of this on your website? Yes, yes. Okay. So if you were to go to CARM and look up this article, just type in this age and the age to come in support of amillennialism. Now, I'm an amillennialist, which I believe, and if you're not, that's okay. I mean, that's not why I'm trying to, that's not a big deal. But amillennialism says the future thousand-year reign of Christ, a literal 1,000 years, is not real, but that we're in the reign of Christ now. And people say, well, how come things are so bad? And there's very good answers because even Jesus says he'll take out of his kingdom the wicked. His kingdom is now. That's in Matthew 13. So what I do is I show people the scriptures on this and a lot of people are just stumped and blown away by what it says. But the argument that, I don't care if you're Amil or not, this is about the rapture stuff. So I think the preacher of rapture is potentially dangerous in the Christian church. Because in my opinion, it gives the false security blanket that we're going to be taken out of everything. So don't be that concerned with the world. And I think that is a very bad, very bad thing. OK, so. Yeah. And also. 90% Go ahead. Ninety percent of the Christians I know, or every Christian I know, believe in pre-tribulation prophecy. I'll go with what you told me. Okay, sounds good. We've got to go. There's a break though. Okay. God bless, buddy. Hey folks, you want to give me a call? 877-207-2276. We'll 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. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Easy to do. That's all we're going to do. All right, just give me a call. Hold on one sec here. I need to clear my throat. All right, let's get on the air with, let's see, Rebecca from Salt Lake City. Rebecca, welcome. You're on the air. Okay, the radio is different than the phone. Okay, Matt, I just wanted to ask you if you heard about the so-called evangelist Robert Morris? I can't say I have. Maybe I have, but I don't recall now. Okay. Well, he was just on television yesterday where this young lady and others say that she was molested by him and his staff. And I just wanted to get your comment on that. Obviously. By him and the staff? Okay. Well, that would be an issue for the police to look into. Right. Well, I just wanted to get your feedback on it. Yeah. And, you know, it's always difficult if he's a pastor, biblically, not to bring charges publicly. an evangelist, it falls under one of the offices given, but we need to make sure that we don't spread false gossip. I'm not saying he is or has not, but I haven't heard those things. If it's corroborated and there's attestation that it's the case, then it would need to be brought out and examined and the police would need to be getting involved in that and get to the bottom of it. Accusations can easily be made. And there are plenty of cases where people just make an accusation and other people's lives are ruined because of it. Just an accusation. The old guy personally that was the case, yeah. His life was ruined because of an accusation by a neighbor of something he didn't do. His house was broken into, his car was vandalized, he lost his job. Yeah, he had to move. Yeah, well, this young lady, she's now in her 40s, where it happened she was only 12. And then she talked to a few other girls which were around her age that also were molested by either him or the staff. So you're right, that is for the police to take care of, but it just blew me away. That's right. The police would need to be involved with that. And if it's the case, they need to be dealt with legally and, uh, and then have the fathers talk to him in private. Yeah. That's part of being a false prophet or false teacher. Right. Yeah. Okay, Matt. Well, I just want to get your feedback on that, dear. You have a good day and bless you. you too. Thank you. Alright. God bless. Thank you. Bye bye. Alright. Now, I was going to get to something here because I have my windows open. I know that a lot of people hold to the pre-trib thing. I also know that I step on a lot of toes. I know that a lot of people listening, they might continue to listen because Well, that guy on the radio, you know, he does quote the scriptures. And it does seem to be right there, but I'm still just not sure. Well, that's okay. I mean, you know, last name's Slick. You gotta be careful. But I will say this. The pre-trib rapture idea didn't exist, as far as I'm aware of, until about 200 years ago. And it became popularized here in America through the Schofield Reference Bible later at one point. And I hope that pre-trib rapture is true. I just don't see it. I would suggest that if any of you are interested in doing a study, that what you do is you begin with the time division that Paul and Jesus taught. That time division, the division of history, is this age and the age to come. It's taught in Matthew 12, Mark 10, Luke 18, Ephesians 1, Luke 20, Luke 16, 1 Corinthians 1, chapter 8, 2 Corinthians 4, Galatians 1, Titus 2, Luke 18, Mark 10. I mean, it's all over the Bible. Let me ask you something. if you're a preacher of rapture, or studied eschatology, and people have listened to them, read stuff, have they ever talked about this age and the age to come? If you've heard that before, besides me, and you've heard it, well then, praise God. But if you have not, that's a serious problem. It's a very serious problem because it would mean that the teacher's not done his homework or her homework. You see, this age and the age to come is critical because in this age, blasphemy is not forgiven. We are married and we are given in marriage. In this age, there's power and superiority of God in this age. There's a present evil age. There's the rulers of this age. There's a god of this age, which is Satan. And there's the wisdom of this age. But in the age to come, blasphemy won't be forgiven either. But in this age or the age to come, says Jesus, we receive the completion and totality of our eternal life. There's no marriage because we're in heaven with the Lord, the power and superiority of God in the age to come. So the question then becomes, well, what happens at the end of this age? Because in the new age, that's when new heavens, new earth, all that kind of stuff. Well, what happens at the end of this age? Well, I've got information for you. You can go to my website, you can look it up, you can check it out. But the wicked are gathered at the end of this age. The judgment of the wicked occurs at the end of the age. The elect are gathered. The harvest occurs. Jesus' return occurs and the rapture occurs at the end of the age. Always at the end of the age. And it talks about it happening on the last day. Because when it says at the end of the age that even the judgment of the wicked occurs, that's called the last day. The judgment of the wicked occurs on the last day, which is also the end of the age. Well, if it's the judgment of the wicked occurs at the last day, it also says the resurrection occurs on the last day. all this points to a single time, not a seven-year period of different times where different things happen, different times where we're caught up and then people stay here on earth and the people who are up in heaven in their glorified bodies, or they're not glorified bodies, depending which view they go to, and then we return with Christ kind of, excuse me, we return with Christ at the end of the seven-year tribulation, then people are raptured up at that point, again and or enter into a literal thousand-year period where people will then live for a Thousand years who were not raptured weren't glorified or transfigured But they could live and to become believers during the tribulation period and they go through the a thousand-year reign not dying and our physical bodies and And then the enemy, the Antichrist arises up and Satan rises up and wars against Jesus and all this. I mean, where is that in scripture? That's all I say. This is important stuff. Let's get to Sarah from Raleigh, North Carolina. Sarah, welcome. You're on the air. Hi, how are you doing? I'm doing OK. Hanging in there, just stepping on people's toes. So what do you got? Okay. I recently got a used book and the title was the mysticism of all. And I'm just, I'm, I don't remember who the author was. I think it was originally written in the thirties and then the edition I had was from like 1958 five or something. But I started reading it and I was just kind of wondering if you have any thoughts or know much about that. No, I don't. I don't know what the book is. And I would like to be able to know. But what does he mean by it? But that topic isn't something you necessarily... Well, it just depends on what he means, what you mean by mysticism. That's all. If he's defining it as a New Age sense, then that'd be a problem. If he's defining it as his union with Christ and his experience throughout scripture, then it'd be okay. Okay. Well, I'll call another time after I've read a little bit more and have it in front of me. Again, I was just wondering if it was something that just kind of popped in your head that you thought about or knew? No, off the top of my head. Nope. Oh, no. I've got so many books to read. I think I'm behind 50 books. I know. Seriously. I know you're always behind. Well, thank you for all you do. I appreciate it. Well, good. Thank you. All right. Well, God bless. Have a good day. Thank you. Alright. Hey folks we have about a minute before the break or so and if you want you can give me a call 877-207-2276. You can also send me an email. All you have to do is direct it to info at karm.org and in the subject line put in radio comment or radio question and we can get to it. Maybe we'll do that after the break because we don't have anybody waiting right now. Nobody's online. So there you go. If you want to have your toes stepped on in eschatology, go look at my article on CARM, an examination of this age and the age to come. Go look it up, print it up, go through it, and see if you scratch your head a lot. I'll go challenge you. Hey, there's the music. 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. uh... it's a good question and i'm gonna tackle it because i think it's a good uh... question here it's for about philippians one twenty nine which states for to you it has been granted on behalf of christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him and so uh... jennifer asks uh... i've heard skeptics see that this verse is not sufficient to prove faith is a gift uh... from god I wouldn't say it's a gift, I'd say it's granted. That's what I would say. Because the Bible says it's granted, or you could say, given. And that's what I would say. Because notice the subtlety of what they'll do sometimes. They'll take a verse, and like this, it doesn't agree with them. And they'll say, well it doesn't say God, it doesn't prove it's a gift. Well, that's not what it's saying. They change it because they're interpreting it, and then you argue against what they've changed, and you don't want to do that. I always say to them, no, it doesn't say that faith is a gift here. It says that faith is what's granted. Anyway, it goes on. Since Paul does not use the noun faith to believe, yes, infinitive form, to believe, right. So the question is, is the infinitive form to believe still sufficient to prove that faith is from God? Well, what I would say is, instead of saying faith is from God, I would say faith is granted from God. I stick to what the scripture says, because if it says that, I'm reading the text to them, and they have to then disagree with what it actually says. I'm not going to let them alter it and then argue with the alter. I don't say, it doesn't say that faith is from God, it says that God grants that we have faith, grants that we believe. That's what I would say. That's what it says. I'd say, do you agree with what the text says? I'm always doing this, and I always require them to read the text and stay as close to what it actually says. The question goes on, does the Greek word for belief here equate to faith? Yes. Let me show you something here. To believe. We have belief and faith. They're different words. In Greek, the Greek word for to believe is pestilene. But the Greek word for faith is pistis. It goes from the same root. Pi, iota, sigma, tau, I believe it is at this point, these four letters. So what it's saying is that the root is just from the belief issue. So pistin is the infinitive form, which means to eat, to walk, to do. And it comes from the verb pistuo. which is the first person singular present active indicative. And that means, you know, that literally it's it's I believe. OK, well, it's just Greek stuff. All right. So what's going on here is that God is the one who's granting that we believe. Now, what's important is that it says it has been granted. That's what's called the aorist active indicative, excuse me, aorist passive indicative. My mistake there. Aorist passive indicative. Aorist means past tense. And passive means it happened to you. That's passive voice. So it has been granted. You were granted it. It was granted to you by God. It happened to you that he granted it to you. That you believe. So the belief that you have is so and true because God granted it to you. That's what's going on. That's what it says. So the skeptic, she says, goes on, translates the verse by saying they were given the opportunity or the privilege to believe. I would just say it's not what it says. It does not say privilege or the opportunity. I say you have to change God's word in order to make it fit what you want. You're committing a sin by doing this. Because the Bible says, do not change the word of God. You've got to believe it. In fact, if you go to Genesis chapter 3, when Satan came to Eve, God had told Adam, don't eat of the tree. Don't eat of it. But when Satan came to Eve, and said, well, did you say don't eat from it? She said, don't eat or touch it. All she did was add the words or touch it. She was interpreting what God said and just changing it slightly for clarification. At that point, Satan then knew to contradict because she was no longer trusting what God exactly had said because he said it for a reason. What these guys do, it makes me mad, what they do is reinterpret God's word in order to make it fit their theology, which means their theology is wrong, and I know who did this. Yeah, it's Layton, Layton Flowers. And I had a personal conversation with him about this exact verse, and it's exactly what he said. I said, here it says that God grants that we believe. He says, no, God grants the opportunity to believe. I said, that's not what it says. He goes, that's what it means. How do you know what it means when it's not what it says? See, when you have to change God's word. Now, I'm not saying that you can't interpret things in light of other things, and that's certainly the case, that we need to do that. But when it says it has been granted to believe, it's very clear that God's the one who grants that we believe, and we do the believing. and God grants it to whoever he wishes. That's the sovereignty of God, not the sovereignty of man. At the root of the problem here is that people want their own sovereignty. They want their own privilege. They want God to bow to their own egos, to their own pride, to their own will. They want God to be fair on their terms because they don't like the idea that God is the one who picks people for salvation. They don't like it because that's not fair. They are in privileged position to know how God ought to behave. And I've had this kind of discussion hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times with people who do not like the sovereignty of God, but they want to follow the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian surfer dude dressed in a woman's nightgown, standing at the door of your heart, asking permission for you and your wisdom to let him in. But the God of Scripture. is what grants that we have repentance, 2 Timothy 2.25, grants that we have faith, Philippians 1.29, and Jesus says, you cannot come to me unless it's granted to you from the Father, John 6.65. That's it. Jesus didn't say, you can't come to me unless God grants you the opportunity to come to me. And this is the This is the sinful, rebellious attitude that too many people have when they go to God's word and they submit it to their ideas, to their teachings, to their sentiments. And I wish they would stop. So that's what I have to say about that. Let's get to Martin from Charlotte, North Carolina. Martin, welcome. You're on the air. Good, man. How you doing? Doing all right. That's the only reason I listen. I don't care if they don't like it. That's what it says. You don't like it. Listen to somebody else who can tickle your ears. I'm not going to do that for you. So if you didn't do that, I wouldn't even listen. That's right. That's right. Okay. Um, for you. Okay. Okay. We, uh, some of the stuff in the Bible is symbolic and so I'm not right. I'm sorry. Say it again. some of the stuff in the Bible is symbolic and some not. Right. Yeah. Okay. All right. I have, I've always, I've always believed that. Okay. Uh, may I do the, okay. The scriptures that were, I'm kind of, it makes me a little, uh, in revelation 12, um, nine, Uh, and the great dragon was cast out that the old serpent called the devil and Satan was the seed of the whole world. So that, that makes it clear to me that Satan, the devil and the, all the same people and the serpent, right? The same beings, we call them people. We call them beings. Okay. Right. That's right. Uh, and then, uh, like 11, it said, and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb. So we call Christ the lamb. But what kind of, kind of confused me. So I've always like argue people when they say, when they would say a snake, I was like, well, he ain't really a snake. You know, he's, I would say, uh, well, he was an angel because of the scriptures that talk about him being this beautiful angel. Uh, and then, And then in the Genesis where you just talked about, but Genesis four, where it messes with me is it says, when you talked about Eve and then you said in the curse, because thou has done this, thou are cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field and above thy belly shall thy go. And the dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life. So that kind of mess, okay, why would he say, above every beast? And it's kind of like he is calling him a snake. But because of the scriptures, they're talking about him being this beautiful angel. I would always mess with people sarcastically and go, well, you know he really wasn't a snake, he was an angel, right? Yes, it's a tough thing to get through. The Lord God said to the serpent. Now the word serpent is Kavash. And it's translated as serpent and snake in the Old Testament. It occurs, I can even tell you how many times it occurs, but not a big deal. there's been a discussion about exactly what it was. Was it a snake? We don't know. It's translated as, but we don't know if that's exactly what it was. It's just one of the issues that are there. and that word that's used there occurs 31 times. When it's translated, at least in the NASB, it's translated as serpent every single time, and snake. Serpent and snake. And so it looks like it's that creature, the snake. But it's possible that it could be something else that it was. And that it could be that something that existed that we don't know about or not familiar with, or became extinct. Because 98% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. So there's just some discussion about this. And we just don't know exactly what it is. So, what's interesting is when the serpent was lifted up on the cross, and they would look upon the serpent and they would be healed. Well, why would they do that? Because it represented sin, sin being crucified. Jesus became sin, you're healed. And so it's a typological representation. So there's a sense in which the snake represents Christ, believe it or not, in that context of being lifted up. Okay, so this is part of it. So this is a really interesting topic and it's not easy to get to. Now, here's another question. If it was, let's just say, Satan Entering a serpent. Why would this serpent be be a curse because when? Demonic forces enter human beings are all humans cursed. Well, of course not. So what is this creature? That's why we're not Okay, that's what I was confused. I was like I said, yeah, cuz I was up I'd always tease people. Well, you know what because of the scriptures I Okay, now he's supposed to be this beautiful angel that's more beautiful than any other angel. And he's like this, you know, big, you know, lieutenant or whatever you want to call him. And then, so yeah, but then in 11 word does say, I mean, in nine at the end, it does add angels. It said he was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. So I was like, okay, now they're turning it back to angel. in verse nine of Revelation. Oh man, there's a break. We're out of time, brother. There's a call back tomorrow. But you can see, this is an interesting topic. And I rarely talk about it like this, but it's an interesting topic. And we can't get to the bottom of it, we don't know what it is. Okay, so, but we gotta go. Call back tomorrow if you want me to continue, okay, brother? Gotta go. Hey folks, there you go, we're out of time. May the Lord bless you by his grace. Back on air tomorrow, we'll talk to you then. Another program powered by The Truth Network.