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. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick, and you're listening to Matt Slick Live. I hope you can all have a good day listening today, and if you want, you can give me a call. Same as always, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. Easy to do, real easy to do. We have one caller coming in right now and three open lines, so I'm just asking, hey, zip me a line if you want. Also, if you prefer, you could email me a comment or a question. That's easy as well. All you have to do is go to your email and send an email to info at karm.org info at karm.org C-A-R-M dot O-R-G and put in the subject line, radio comment, radio question, something like that and then we can get to them. Usually we do them on Fridays, today. So we'll check it out. Today's date is August 16th, 2024. I hope the Lord's gonna bless you and this show. Why don't we just jump on the line and get to Jamal from North Carolina Jamal welcome you're on the air Hello, this is your vice president of slick Congress calling again. Hope you doing well, sir Doing okay man by God's grace like that. So what do you got buddy? I had a question about tithing Wanted to see if it's okay to Take that 10% and divvy it up to several different entities that does that 10%, and then sometimes it'll all need to go to one single place. That's a good question. When I reflect on the scriptures about the issue of tithing, the purpose of it is to help those who are in the ministry and working for the Lord to help them do the things that God has called them to do. Generally speaking in the Old Testament, That was for the priesthood and the people who worked in full time and they were able to be uplifted by the work that they did. When you go to First Timothy 5.17, it says, the elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. The scripture says, you shall not muzzle the ox or the threshing the floor. The labor is worthy of his wages. So what we're seeing is there is a general principle that the people who work in that ministry, or in ministry as a whole, are to be supported by the ministry. All right, so now when we talk about church, and you support your church. Now let's say there's 1,000 people in your church, and they've got a lot of money. Let's just say that's how it is. And you want to support a ministry that's not particularly related to that church. Is it okay to do that? I can't see any reason why it would be wrong. I can't see anything in scripture that says, no, you can't do that. I can't see something that says you must tithe to a local church. Nothing in scripture says that. So I say to people, you are free to tithe where you believe the Lord wants you to go and support. If you think it should be at your church, then do that. If you think it should be someplace else, do that. My wife and I, as an example, we knew some people who were, let's just say, one example. a woman whose husband committed adultery and left her, and she was left with kids. And so what we did was we directed our support to her directly. because that's ultimately what it's for. And she was going to her church and she needed help and it wasn't fast enough in the church and things like that. So is that wrong? No, it's not wrong at all. So we have the ability to give the money where we want as we see the Lord open the doors and stuff like that. So it's up to you. Okay. Okay. All right. And you might've answered this question. Forgive me if you did. I just want to, Kind of put it in my own words, so it kind of makes sense. So I know we don't have to tie to the church. Now, what percentage does it have to be in, if it has to be in any kind of percentage? Does the church have to get the 10% all, or can I put 5% in the church and 5% somewhere else? I say you do what you want. do whatever you want. I don't see anything in the New Testament that says your tithe has to go to a church. It has to be 10%. It's just not there. If I were a pastor of a church and you're in the congregation and a bunch of people are there and the topic of tithing would come up, I would say You're not obligated in the New Testament to tithe. Nothing in the scripture says, the Christians shall tithe. It doesn't say that. So you're not obligated to tithe. You're free to tithe, and you're free to do with it as you desire. If you want to give it to the church, all of what you tithe, if it's 1% or 100%, whatever it is, you do what you want. If you want to give it to your neighbor next door because they can't make groceries, give it to your neighbor next door. Oh, that's good. I wouldn't have a problem with that. Now, generally, the people in the church who work in the church need to be supported. If there's only 20 people in a church, let's say, in the middle of nowhere, and the pastor is struggling to make ends meet, I think the people should support him. But if you have a church with hundreds and hundreds of members, and that's not even a problem, they're not going to miss $100, $200, $500 a month, whatever it might be that any individual might say, I'm going to give it to my neighbor who just got in a car accident and can't work for two months. And we'll make rent. Hey, here you go. You don't owe me anything. It's just tithing to the body of Christ or things like that. Wow. Wow. I was thinking about that. Maybe the same thing. I think the Lord is talking to me through you, maybe some other people as well. Cause I came up saying, well not saying, I came up here, you got a tie, you got a tie, you know, uh, uh, it's an obligation and all that. Uh, and I was like, okay, well cool. But then I hear this guy named slick on the radio saying you don't have to. And, you know, this thing, it showed me a scripture and I couldn't really find in the scripture. I mean, I didn't do that much looking, but you know, uh, I, I've never seen in a scripture and I'm thinking, okay, well I do know people that could use it. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. You're not a new Testament, but go ahead. Sorry. Yep. No, it's alright. Thank you for that distinction there, yeah. So I was thinking, well, I know a few people that could use it, and would this be considered a blessing unto God's eyes? And I'm pretty sure a lot of listeners know some people that are struggling as well, and the church, to paraphrase, is supposed to be But we're supposed to be like Jesus to each other, and not looking for the government to help us out. If he knows somebody that needs help, well, we're supposed to be the good Samaritan and help out our neighbor that needs help. Amen, brother. I love what you said, not the government helping you, but the church helping. That's what the church is supposed to be doing. So if your church is there, and let's say there's a family you know, and the husband dies, and she's a widow, and she's got a young child, two, three years old, and she's trying to make ends meet. She's struggling. Well, what does the church do? Hey, we'll pray for you. See you later. No, the church is something to the effect of we're going to look at your finances, get the elders involved, the deacons involved, and we're going to support you, et cetera, which is right. You know, here, check this out. This is First Corinthians nine verses three through ten. This is related to this. Paul says, My defense to those who examine me is this. Do we not have a right to eat and drink? Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working? who, at any time, serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock? I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the law also say these things? For it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing. God is not concerned about oxen, is he? Or is he speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it is written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing of the crops. Now that's 1 Corinthians 9. So, what Paul has done is referred to the Old Testament as being related to them now, that he, a workman of the gospel, has the right to be fed from the gospel and sustained from it. So a pastor who's working full-time, he has the right to be supported by the people in the congregation. He has that right. And so then we get into the issue of parachurch ministries, like the one that I run, karm.org. We literally live, so to speak, on the donations of people. That's what happens. People, they donate, we have PO Box, we have various things, and we do that. And so people recognize the value of something that a normal church can't do. So is that biblical? Well, yeah, it is. Just as you brought up the Good Samaritan, and he put his money aside to help someone he didn't know who it was, it wasn't, so to speak, allocated to the church or the synagogue. So here's another thing. There's a lot to this. Okay, so I'm going through this so much. is that some people will say that 10% goes to the church, and then above that, your offerings can go elsewhere. Some will say you are obligated to give 10% to the church. I don't see such an obligation in scripture. I do see the obligation of Christians to support the people who work in ministry, and that's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, verses 3 through 10, okay? And one more thing, and I'll go ahead and get off here and let other people call in. Oh, you're the only one. You're the only one right now. In their call, they dropped off, but go ahead. Sorry, listeners. I can stay on, so I'm going to stay on for just a few more moments real quick. So I heard that people have have their faith renewed, or took another look at their faith when they had questions about the Christian faith, when they saw Christians being Christians. I think I heard a Muslim say that he was converted by the love of Christians. I heard this other guy who spoke at a Bible study this morning at River Birch Lodge saying that, I had my questions about Christianity, No, I'm sorry, this was on the radio, Truth Network. Sorry, got my sources confused. But the person on the radio said, I overheard a conversation, and from what you were talking, it renewed my faith. So my point is, what you do is seen and heard by other people, and you might not know what kind of conversion story or what kind of conversion action you might plant in somebody else by somebody else seeing and hearing what you do. So if you will hear personally or me personally, or just Christians in general, is that what you're meaning? Yeah. Christians in general, if they see the church being the church, then I'm pretty sure we have a lot more people coming into the church, filling out, out, out the pews and whatnot. And you know, we were filling our numbers, not as a numbers game, but, uh, Christ said he wished that none would be lost. So we're trying to get as many people to heaven as we can, and if people see the church being a church, then we will bring more people in than we would not have before. That's right. Okay, we've got a break, but let me tell you this. Jesus says in John 13, 35, by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. There you go. That's what you're saying. Amen. God bless you. Hey, brother. All right, man. God bless. All right, hey, there's the break. May the Lord bless you. 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, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it is easy. All you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. And if you want, you can give me a call as well. That's easy. If you want to give me an email, that's easy to do. All you have to do is direct an email to info at karm.org. Info at karm.org. And you can email me there. Just put in the subject line, radio comment, radio question. Should be easy. All right. Let's get to David from Salt Lake City. David, welcome. Hi Matt. Hey. Can you hear me alright? Yes, I hear you fine. So what do you got? Great. So I've listened to you before for quite some time. You were talking about Jeremiah 2911 regarding the plan the Lord has for you to prosper, right? Not to harm you. And correct me if I'm wrong, but did you say that that was more directed towards the Israelites specifically? Yes. See, what a lot of people do is they'll find something someplace in Scripture and say, oh, that applies to you. You've got to be very careful about that. So let's look at this in Jeremiah 29. It's the message to the exiles. That's what's going on there. So let me do this. So in verse 1, he says, these are the words of the letter with Jeremiah, the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, the priests, the prophets, and the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. So that's who this is going to. The letter was sent by the hand of Elisa. It says, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. So the letter is sent about what God says. Build houses, live in them, take wives, seek the welfare of the city. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you. They prophesy falsely, thus says the Lord, for the 70 years. have been completed for Babylon, I'll visit you." He says, I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, give you future and hope. Is it to the Christians? In this case, no, directly not, right? That's right. So, and I guess, and this is part of a bigger picture as far as different scripture that talks about God's provision and, you know, obviously He's sovereign, right? So, there's also lots of scripture that points to, such as within Romans, Paul is teaching that, you know, it's not, you might go through tribulation, it's that you will, right? There are various trials that we'll experience, and so I understand that the Bible does not, you know, as you like to talk about, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed surfer Jesus, right? I understand that taking up a cross and bearing the persecution that He promises will come. Does that necessarily mean that He will not also give us this day our daily bread, if you will? That if we're living a righteous life, Yeah, I don't know. I guess that's the conundrum that I'm dealing with. Well, here's the thing. What people often do is take verses like, and Jeremiah 29, 11 is a perfect example. Take a verse that's intended and designed for specific people at a certain time, and then say it belongs to you now. And because he has the plans, not for calamity, to give you a future and hopes, therefore, pre-tribulation rapture is true. They'll do stuff like that. It's horrible. It's horrible exegesis. And so what they're doing is taking one verse out of context and applying it. Now Christians are going to have to stop doing that because they're violating basic interpretive principles. Now does it mean though that God doesn't have a plan for us? Well of course he does. What is that plan? Is it really nice all the time? No it's not. No it is not. Sometimes you've got to go through some pretty bad stuff. And we have to understand as Christians that God is sovereign and that the sovereignty that he exercises upon us is for our shaping and the sanctification of our souls to be made more like Christ. And sometimes what it takes for people is to go through trauma, to go through tribulation, to go through death, to go through sickness, to go through bankruptcy, to go through challenges. And sometimes it means God blesses your socks off and he has The right to do that and present you with great wonders and blessings, you can do that as well. God does both of these. And we have to understand that as Christians, we're receiving both of these from God, and we must receive both of them with gratitude and appreciation. Christians too often want to say, I need to be blessed. I need a big bank account. I need me, me, me. But when I look back on my own life as an example, and I look at the times when I was blessed the most, it was when things were the worst. When my child died in our arms, my wife and I's arms, after being born. We had the presence of God and the love of people there. I can't go into details right now, but it was miraculous. When we didn't have enough money for rent and we just prayed and just trusted God, and miraculously, to the penny, the exact amount of money we needed came in at our need. You don't experience these things sometimes unless you go through the difficulties. And people are too ready to say, no, I don't want any more difficulties because God's promised me health and wealth and blessings. Maybe, maybe not. Let's go to Jeremiah 29, 11. See, that's where it is. That's not what it is. It's more Christian. This big creeping into the church. Okay. Right. Yeah. I lost my mom at 11 to cancer and saw God work through that and a number of other things in my life. So I totally get what you're talking about regarding, you know, God working in the hardest times, right? Yeah, He does. And that's what makes us stronger, right? That's why we get tested. That's right. In fact, Jesus went through some incredibly difficult times. We're to be like Christ, but people don't want to be like Christ. They want to be like the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian surfer dude dressed in a Roma's nightgown. Yeah. Right. So, one other quick question. Are you familiar with the study experience in God? No, I don't think so. Okay, and I can't think of the author. I want to say Blackburn. I'm driving now, so I obviously can't look it up safely right now, but I think the last name's Blackburn. And I'm about a third into it with another Christian brother. It seems very solid, biblically. Really enjoying the study. I'd love to, maybe I can shoot you an email. I'd love to get your feedback and get a chance to check it out. Well... Experiencing God. Experiencing God. Well, send me some information, maybe I can take a look at it. I have... I only have over 800 questions to get to, and that's not even counting the videos. Yeah, I heard you mention that the other day. So, yeah, I guess I won't hold my breath. So, that's all right. I understand. I appreciate your ministry and just the dedication that you put into apologetics. It's really impressive. Well, God gives, gets the glory. Okay. He receives the glory. Amen. God bless you, man. Thanks for your time. Okay. All right. So I just looked at my list of how many questions and it's 880. At the beginning of the week was like 874. Hey, there's the music. We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. All right. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, and welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. Let's get to Kenny from Tennessee. Kenny, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, how you doing, Mr. Slick? Oh, I'm hanging in there, buddy. Nice Friday, hanging in there. Can you hear me? Yeah. Can you hear me? All right. Sure. No problem. Are you great? This is, this is kind of, this is kind of an uncomfortable question. Um, so I am a believer and I've had Christ in my life for a long time. And, uh, but I continue to, uh, I've always smoked weed and, and then when I quit that, um, I moved over to the pills and it's been 15 years and even right before I do a pill or something like that I'll think I know it's not right and I know God doesn't want me to do it and I still do anyway. Do you think that if I died right now today I'd get the pill? Alright, this is a tough question. I need to be careful how I answer it publicly, so I'm going to go through this slowly. First of all, you need to be involved with the elders of your church. You need to talk to them about this, and you need to get their help and work through this. That's what you need to do first, after praying and talking to the Lord Jesus about this. One of the things that's interesting about Christianity is that we can be saved at different levels of purity, different levels of sanctification. How do I say this? Because I don't want to encourage anybody in sin and have them say it's okay. But I want you to know that if you're a true Christian, the Lord Jesus will never abandon you. He will never give up on you. He always will be with you. Hebrews 10.5, he says, He will never leave you or forsake you. There can be Christians who are still enslaved to various sinful passions, who are warring against it. and want to serve God but often fail to. An illustration I give is you're out in the ocean and you're cruising around, it's a great day, and you notice in the water are two men and they're struggling. You throw a life preserver to them with a rope and you're yelling, you know, come on, grab it, grab it. And this one man is reaching for it and he's struggling and he's not doing very well. And the other man is face down in the water and he's not struggling. The question is which one of those two is alive? The one who's struggling is alive. Dead men, dead in Christ, don't struggle against their sin. If you claim to be a Christian and you're struggling against your sin and you're failing, it doesn't mean you're not a Christian. It means you're a Christian struggling and failing. It means you haven't learned yet how to have that victory over particular sins. Something you have to understand is Jesus saves you, but your salvation is not based on your goodness. It's based on His goodness. It's not based on how good you are, but how good he is. Now we are to turn away from lying, and drugs, and porn, and coveting, and anger, and all this stuff. But sometimes people, they're bound by them, and they struggle, and they can struggle for a long time. Another illustration is there's a man who has a particular sin and he falls into it periodically and every time he does afterwards he goes to the cross and he asks for forgiveness. He trusts in the Lord and he trusts and he trusts. And I am right now. There you go. Okay. And he does this his whole life, and he's never had complete victory over this sin. Every now and then he falls into it, goes to the cross. Then he dies. Does he go to heaven or hell? Well, he goes to heaven. He goes to heaven because he's saved. Because he's seeking Christ. Because even when he fails, and in his sin, he turns to the cross. And in that he's glorifying God. He didn't have victory. but he's glorifying God because he's depending on God. He's depending on the work of Christ, not his own goodness. And so, I'm not saying it's okay to sin. I don't want anybody to get that idea or take me out of context. Oh, Matt Slick said it's okay to sin as long as you believe in God. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that true Christians war against the sin of the flesh and the habits that have us captured and this is why you need to go to the elders and friends you can trust and you talk to them and you become accountable to them and you work through it and if and when you fail you continue at the cross and continue working with those people to help you. That's Christianity. Do you think it's demonic or is it just in nature? Well, it could be both. Undoubtedly, it's your sin nature. I'm not, trust me here, I'm not pointing fingers at you, just you, because you remind me of me. I got some stuff, you know, I'm still working on in my life, okay? So, I'm not just pointing things at you and go, hey, I'm fine. So, is it your sin nature? Absolutely. Okay, it's absolutely sin nature. Could there be demonic influence? Well, sure there could be. So this is why I need to be involved with the elders of your church. And good elders will be patient with you and loving with you and stuff like that. But I want you to understand something. I want you to understand something. The love of Christ is greater than your sin. The blood of Christ is greater than your sin. His commitment to you is greater than your sin. And if you've trusted in Christ, you truly have, and you're struggling against your sin, welcome to the club. You need help. You can have victory. You go to the elders and you lean on those who are gifted in varying areas. But it does not mean that you're not saved. And if you were to die right now, in my opinion, provided you believe in Christ as God in flesh died on the cross, salvation by grace through faith alone, all the basics. which I assume you do, if you were to die today, you'd go to heaven. You'd go to heaven. Don't let people say, don't let people say, oh, you don't have victory over this in your life, therefore you're not a true Christian. No, that's not how it works. We struggle against our sins as a sign of regeneration and life in us. And even if we don't have victory, and I'm 67, there's some areas I still want to have victory over. And I struggle with them. It doesn't mean I'm not saved. Yes, sir. And also, this doesn't have to do with what we were just talking about. But say there's a You know how pastors say, uh, you know, well, I think scripture says to just, um, to repent, to do I have to repent to someone and God, or would I be all right if I just repented, told God and asked him for forgiveness of a certain sin to be, I mean, I know God ultimately forgives me, but Depends on what? Depends on what it is. Let's say you're married and you lied to your wife, let's say. Well, then you need to go to her and confess it to her because you've offended her. And she doesn't know it, but you confess it. But let's say there's a woman that you've lusted at and you'll never see her again. Well, you can't go and make it right with her. You talk to God. And you make it right there. The general idea is, if you've sinned against an individual, generally speaking, you go to the individual and make it right with that person. I've got memories of things like that, too. We do those kinds of things. It just depends on the circumstances, and it depends on stuff. This is why you've got to talk to the elders. Hopefully you're going to a good church. Yes, sir. All right, well, I appreciate it. I've been contemplating for a while on calling you and talking about that, talking about it. Good. I'm glad you did. I figure Friday would be a good day to do it. So look, brother, um, The fact that you're calling your concern is good, and that you want to have victory, this is a sign of Christ in you. What you need to do is learn how to live in that victory He's already given you. And sometimes He doesn't give it to you quickly, because He wants you to learn. And sometimes, in that learning, you're being prepared for something later on that He has for you. So get involved with your church. Yeah, because when I'm, when I'm, because I do go through spiritual where I don't do the things I'm talking about, and I'm on fire for the Lord during those times. But I feel when I'm using them, there's a sense of guilt, and I feel like, you know, I can't be that close to the Lord. We got a break coming up. I'll call you back. Okay, brother. Sorry, there's a break. All right. Oh, you're good. You're good. All right. OK. Yes. Hey, folks. Haney's prayer for me. 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, we have three open lines, 877-207-2276. Let's get on here with Chad. from charlotte north carolina chad welcome you are on the air and i have a show for you and family every day uh... quick question i'll take it off uh... off the air basically just want to know what's going to keep up from sending them have it uh... i know it's people so we'll have to meet you with god but we have that in the garden there's still managed to screw that up so what can be different habit Well, there's different ideas about it. An analogy I use is if you have a room with objects in the room and there's a single light source, there's shadows. But if the light is everywhere, the shadows don't exist. In heaven, we'll be living in the light of God's glory everywhere with no shadows. And what I mean by that is, could it be then that because God is so pervasively good and wondrous that though we might have the capacity to sin, we never will because we're in his presence? It's just a theory. We don't know. Another theory is that we'll be changed and this carnality of our physical body Whatever that nature is in the depraved sense will be removed by God in the resurrection. And then we will not desire to sin anymore. It won't be part of our nature and our fallenness. So these are some of the basic ideas that are dealt with in that, okay? All right. Well, thank you very much, Matt. I appreciate it. Well, okay. Well, thank you. All right. God bless. All right. Hey, folks, we have wide open lines. If you want to give me a call 877-207-2276. So there's a question that just came in. Where is the article on would you vote Democrat? I don't know what article that is. I did write an article a few weeks ago, what political party might the Antichrist belong to? Which principles? of a political party would most align with the Antichrist. You know, he'd be pro-LGBTQ, he'd be pro-abortion, he'd be anti-Christian, he'd be pro-socialism, pro-control, oppressive, you know, things like that. And you can fill in the blanks there. So I don't know what the question really is there. Let's see, here's one, another one. I was told that God's sovereignty extends to even our body composition. Yes, it does. Could this mean that for whatever reason, if God doesn't want you to lose weight, then under His sovereignty, you won't lose it? If God desires specifically that you not lose weight, and He's working to keep you from losing weight, then there's nothing you can do about it. But such things like this, when we talk about this, God works all things after the counsel of His will, Ephesians 1.11. But it's also true that you can lose weight by following certain regiments and certain plans and certain things. It's a fact that if you go in and do zero carbs input, you're gonna lose weight. It's a fact if you fast, you're going to lose weight. These are just necessities. This is why I tried the carnivore diet for about a month. I lost like 15 pounds. and felt fine, you know, and so tried different things. So it's just what it is. And so I know that some people struggle more than others. My wife, she struggles to gain weight. She really does. She struggles to gain it. And she has a friend, and years ago they went out and did something for an entire weekend, and the friend struggles to lose weight. And the friend only ate exactly what my wife ate. Ordered the exact same thing, the exact same amount, and ate everything. She gained weight. My wife didn't. She goes, that's not fair. I remember that. But still, people's metabolisms are different. I'm 67. and I need to lose 20 pounds, but I'm not fat. So it just happens. So what do you do? You use discipline, you use what capabilities you have, you work with it, and you give it a go. And when people tell me, you can't lose weight, that's not true. You can. You stop eating, you lose weight. You reduce your carbs and calories, you lose weight. It's just facts. So it's up to you, okay? It's up to you. And unless there's a super weird medical condition, you know, then you go to see a doctor, stuff like that. So I hope that helps. Let's see. Here, let's see. We'll go to some other questions. Question. Hi, my friend is saying that Christian gospel says guilty until proven innocent. Well, that's kind of interesting. The Christian gospel says guilty, that's true, that's right, you know, or something to that extent. He found a problem in this kind of idea and he said that he'd rather seek salvation anywhere else at other gods but at Christianity. Okay then, then I say to people like that, go ahead. See if you can find salvation anywhere else. And I ask people, are you guilty of anything you've done? Have you lied, cheated, stolen? Yes, you're guilty. So you don't like the idea of guilty until proven innocent. Actually, it's you're guilty until granted being innocent. You're just by that nature a child of wrath. You're guilty. You know, it's like the guy says, you know, I don't like this. I'm going to go someplace else. Well, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not true. deeper so I don't you know it's ridiculous anyway he goes on I have heard that at least with judicial system of Jews in Old Testament New Testament is actually the way it is the United States yeah that's different you see with in a trial of people and this comes out of the Old Testament law you had to have witnesses to establish someone's guilt but when he says in the gospel this is the solution to your guilt before God which is automatic what you have because you you've lied you've cheated you stole them that's different okay different things He goes on, um, let's see, I'd like to find anything that supports the innocent until proven guilty in court. Let's find the Bible. What do you say? That's a dream. Maybe I'll write an article on something like that. Uh, that'll be good. That'll be good. Oh man, look at all this stuff. Let me get over here to radio questions. We have nobody waiting. Uh, let's see. Uh, I'm an overthinker. Is there a minimum amount of knowledge people need to be a Christian? Uh, minimum amount of knowledge, it's not an issue of knowledge, it's an issue of faith and commitment to Christ and God grants that you have that faith and so what faith do you have and who's it in? Those are the real questions. Anyway, is trusting Romans 10, 9 sufficient? Believing Jesus is Lord, God raised from the dead? Yeah, normatively speaking it is, that's what the Bible says. For example, what if someone trusts in Christ as Lord, but doesn't learn that he's born of a virgin until later? Not a problem. Or doesn't know he's a trinity until later? That's not a problem either. We're not saved by doctrine. We're not saved by knowing that Jesus has two distinct natures, the hypostatic union, and that the attributes of both natures are ascribed to the single person, the communication of the properties, and that the actions of all members of the Trinitarian being in the economic and economic sense of the ontological economic sense is due to inseparable operations. You don't have to know all that kind of stuff. What you need to know is Jesus died for my sins. You believe that he died, he rose. You have an innocent and sincere faith in who he is. And then you learn the rest of these things later on. So don't worry about having perfect doctrine. We're not saved by doctrine, we're saved by faith in Jesus Christ. In God's grants we have faith, Philippians 1.29. The work of God is that we believe in Jesus, John 6.29. And we're saved by grace through faith without any works, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. The one who does not work but believes in him who justifies him godly, his faith is credited as righteousness. That's Romans 4, 5. So I hope that helps. Let's see, we've got a few minutes. Let me try this. I've been a regular visitor to your site for almost 15 years now, and it's been an amazing resource. Thank you for your faithfulness, praise God. I belong to a Facebook group, apologetics group, and recently got in a conversation with a guy who seemed right along the line of JW, but then I looked in his profile and found this. So it's got a link. I'm not going to tell you what it is. Ooh, that's interesting. And it's a link that goes to a page. I could describe the page dark. It's dark and has silver lights and stuff like that. And it's hard to read because the words aren't white against the dark, but it's kind of like a beige against the dark. Tsk tsk and it says Jesus is not the logos So right there. It's another one says Jesus is not God. So Right there. It's a cult. Ooh interesting Yeah. Oh, an organization dedicated to blah, blah, blah. I don't want to read too much because I don't want you to find the heresy. This is a heresy fest right here. Oh, look at that. Let's see what he said. I want to read something. Nobody waiting right now. Let's see. The breath of his mouth alone. What? He said Jesus was a man. Yes. Jesus is not a spirit. Oh, boy. I'm looking, scanning, and I am concluding that the people who wrote this don't understand basic logic, don't understand what they're criticizing, could not argue their way out of, everybody say it together, a wet paper bag. All right, so there's that. Let me try better. It'll get that over there. How can we have two of those going? I'm going to, um, that's interesting. Oh, I messed up. Okay. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to read another hate. I mean, not her email. Okay. Let's get to the email. Let's see. We'll do a quick one. I'm a former born-again evangelical Christian. I'm now an advocate for science. Ooh, good. And a non-supernatural worldview. Ooh, science. Non-supernatural worldview. Hey, what's your science based on? It's based on philosophical assumptions. Anyway, I've developed what I believe to be the best method to defeat... Oh, I think I read this before, but I'm gonna check it out. the evangelical arguments of christianity let's see i'm going to open this up you don't get time drum roll this is uh how many pages is it it's four pages conclusion he says that the evidence for the resurrection of jesus is very strong as strong as not stronger than evidence for But no one who believes that Caesar crossed Rubicon believes that the spirit of Caesar dwells within him. They need lessons in thinking, in logic. That's a big word, logic. Sometimes I talk to atheists. I shouldn't still be dumbfounded by the inane perciflage offered, but that doesn't make sense. And I show them why it doesn't make sense, and they say intelligent things like, you're wrong. I'm right, you're wrong. That's what they do a lot. And I say, no, you committed a fallacy of whatever it might be, a fallacy of division or conflation or things like that. No, I'm right, you're wrong. Yeah, so that's how it goes sometimes. And sometimes, however, they are intelligent and polite, but generally, when they give me arguments like the ones presented in that article I just looked at, it's not very good. Not very good. All right, now we've got about 15 seconds. I just wanted to say, hey, everybody, hope you had a good time listening. And may the Lord bless you. And I hope that by His grace, we're back on the air on Monday. And I hope you have a great weekend. Please pray, tithe, give to the church, support people, go to church, listen, learn, have a great time with your family, pray for people, and I just hope that the Lord will bless you greatly, and that by his grace, he'll allow me to be on the air again on Monday, and we'll talk to you then. God bless everybody. See ya. Another program powered by the Truth Network.