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Join Steve Gregg on The Narrow Path as he dives into a deep theological discussion about the distinction between the Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel of Grace. Tackling various theological interpretations, Steve addresses these fundamental concepts, including how interpretations role in Christian faith and understanding today. Engage as he answers listener questions with clarity, delving into scriptural insights and historical contexts, establishing a foundation of truth sought after by seeking Christians.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon, including today. And during the live program, we invite you to call in with questions you might have about the Bible or the Christian faith that we can discuss together. Maybe objections. To the Christian faith, or at least some point that this host has previously made, and you object and see it differently. We always welcome argumentation from alternate viewpoints. That's the only way to be honest and to seek the truth. And so we welcome you to do that. What I'm looking at right now is an empty switchboard, which is, again, this has happened maybe once in the last decade. Month or so, but it hardly ever happens. Been doing this for 28 years. This is our 28th year this year doing this show. Anyway, it's a good time for you to get through because of that. Some of the lines are lighting up, but we've still got lines open for you at this number, 844-484-5737. That's 844-484. 5737. And so we'll be getting to your calls in just a moment. We, again, have some lines open for you at 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is going to be Shannon from Arkansas. Hi, Shannon. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, how you doing?
SPEAKER 01 :
Good. Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Good to see you. And I'll get right to it. Mark 4, 11, that Jesus said, the mystery of the kingdom of God revealed to the twelve about the kingdom. Could you explain that verse? I had a Mid-Acts guy tell me that's about a prophecy. That's about the prophecy in the Old Testament, which they would say that's a different gospel, you know, than Paul preached.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Can you go over that, please?
SPEAKER 01 :
Sure. I'll be glad to talk to you about it. The mid-Acts dispensationalists that you mentioned, they believe there's a different gospel that is to be preached today than the gospel that Jesus and the early apostles preached. They acknowledge that Jesus preached a gospel of the kingdom. They believe that the early apostles, Peter, James, and John, and those guys, they also preached the gospel of the kingdom. But that, in the middle of Acts, when Paul became an apostle and began to preach, he had an entirely different gospel, and it was the gospel of grace. So they'd make a distinction between the gospel of the kingdom, which they say Jesus and the early apostles taught, and on the other hand, the gospel of grace, which they say Paul taught. Now, they believe that for this present dispensation, the gospel of grace is the appropriate gospel. So we should be preaching the gospel as Paul did, not as Jesus did or the early apostles did. On this view, of course, nothing in the Gospels, at least in terms of instructions, are applicable to us in this dispensation. So the Sermon on the Mount, the teachings of Christ in general, are not directly relevant to us, and they're not for us. They were for the Jews who Jesus thought would welcome the kingdom. That's what they say. But the Jews did not, and therefore those teachings of Jesus were postponed until the kingdom comes at the second coming of Christ. Apparently the apostles in the early chapters of Acts are thought to have made the same mistake that Jesus made, that the gospel he preached was only going to be true if the Jews were receptive to it. I don't know of anything in the Bible, actually, that says that the truthfulness of the gospel has anything to do with any number of people accepting it, Jews or Gentiles. So this is an assumption they make, but it's an assumption based on, well, nothing in the Bible, at least. the idea of the gospel that Paul preached being different, they would say that this does not involve the kingdom. It's the gospel of salvation. It's the gospel of grace, and that we shouldn't preach the gospel that Jesus preached over the early disciples, because if we do, we're in the wrong dispensation. I would love to see some evidence that this claim has merit. I mean, I wouldn't love to see it because I don't like the idea necessarily, but I'm not, you know, if I could see the biblical evidence for it, I'd certainly be open to that. But it simply doesn't have any biblical evidence. By the way, I'll answer your question directly in a moment from Mark chapter 4, but I will say that for those who are inclined to think that Paul and Jesus spoke different gospels from each other, I would recommend a document that I have posted online that compares Jesus' teaching with Paul's on 15 of the major things that they taught about, side by side in two columns, and show that they taught exactly the same things on every subject that they discussed. Now, that online document can be found at Matthew713.com. That's Matthew713.com. And there's a choice of categories to look at, but one of them I think is called Charts. Charts is on there somewhere. If you click on Charts, there's a lot of different charts I've made and posted. I think the first one is the one I'm talking about. I think it says Jesus versus Paul or Paul versus Jesus or something like that. So you can find it at Matthew713.com. And you click on the thing that would take you to the charts. And I believe it's the first one. You can easily tell by the title of whatever is listed as the first one. Now, on the verse Mark 4, 11, this was an answer Jesus gave to the twelve when they had heard his parable of the sower. And they and the audience didn't understand it. And so it seemed to the disciples that Jesus was not speaking very clearly there. and was more or less too obscure to be understood by his audience, which doesn't seem like something a public speaker would want to be the case. And the reason it was obscure is because he spoke in parables. And, you know, these parables would begin with the words, you know, the kingdom of God is like this. But then what it's like would be something that was not obviously meaningful to the kingdom of God. You know, sower sowing seeds, a woman making dough, putting leaven in the dough. You know, the planting of a mustard seed that grows into a tree. I mean, what do these things have to do with the kingdom of God? Well, the disciples thought Jesus could be somewhat more lucid if he avoided being so obscure with his parables. And they said to him, why do you speak to these people in parables? And he said to them, to you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But to those who are outside, all things come in parables. Now, what he's saying is that he's not going to entrust the message with any clarity to people that he doesn't trust. He's preaching to multitudes. Now, the Jewish multitudes throughout history have shown themselves to be very shallow in their interest in the things of God. They had a few revivals in their history, but most of the time they wandered off into idolatry and whatever. whatever Jewish practices they conducted faithfully. They did it without zeal. They sacrificed inferior animals. God said that their love for him was like the dew on the grass that lasts about just as long when the sun comes up, it's gone. There are many complaints the prophets made, and Jesus made some of them too, about the Jews. He didn't trust them with the secrets. Now, he was bringing a kingdom... that was an invasion force into a world that was already occupied by the kingdom of Satan. And Jesus made that clear in what he was saying about it in Matthew 12, when he answered the Pharisees saying, you know, he's casting out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Jesus made it very clear, no, I've come, I've invaded Satan's kingdom, and he can't stop me because I've bound the strong man. I'm spoiling his house. So Jesus bringing his kingdom was invading an already occupied planet that by an opposing kingdom. Now, therefore, his ministry was doing something that was going to oppose and overthrow Satan. And he didn't want Satan and his loyalists to understand it. You know, Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 that the rulers of this world did not understand the secret wisdom of God in a mystery. Here, Jesus used the word mystery in this verse 2 that you're talking about. Paul said it's something revealed to the apostles by the Spirit, but he said, The enemies were not allowed in on it. He says, or else they might not crucify him. See, the secret plan was for Jesus to overthrow Satan by being crucified. But if Satan understood that, well, then Satan might not do it. So Jesus was basically keeping his cards close to his chest and not just explaining these mysteries to the crowds. He said, to them it is not given to know. The mystery of the kingdom of God. But to you it is given. Now, who's you? Well, it says specifically the twelve. The twelve had come to him and asked him about why he was using the parable. Well, you guys. I trust you guys. You guys have left everything to follow me. You guys have been vetted. You guys are trustworthy. And therefore, I'm letting you in on my secrets. In fact, later on, when they were in the upper room before Jesus was arrested, in John 15, Jesus said, I don't call you anymore servants, but friends, because a master doesn't let his servants know everything he's doing, but I've let you know everything that the Father has revealed to me. So he's willing to tell his friends secrets because he trusts them. He doesn't tell his secrets to people he doesn't trust. Now, by speaking parables... and saying the kingdom of God is like this, he makes it very clear that he has information about the kingdom of God, but it's not very clear to the average here what that information is. So people could just go home and say, well, I didn't get anything out of that guy. I don't know why everyone talks about him being so profound. Or others could say, he's talking about the kingdom. I want to know about the kingdom. I've been waiting for the kingdom. I want to understand this. And disciples would come to him and ask him, tell us the meaning of this parable. And it says in Mark chapter 4, just a few verses later, in verse 34, it says, but without a parable, he did not speak to them, meaning the multitudes. And when they were alone, he explained everything to his disciples. So he did want his disciples to understand the mysteries that he wasn't telling everybody. Remember in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, don't cast your pearls before a swine or give what is holy to dogs. They'll just abuse them and turn on you. Jesus was practicing his own policy. He wasn't sure who in the crowd was or was not comparable to a dog who would trample upon him or a pig. But he knew there were some people in the crowd who were potential disciples. So he threw the bait out there to the crowd and said the kingdom of God is like this. And there were people in Israel, the faithful remnant, who were faithfully looking for the kingdom of God, craving it. and could not be put off. They said, I want the kingdom of God. I need to find out more about this. The rest of the crowds would just go home confused and not think any more about it, perhaps. And so he's saying, to you disciples, and he means by that not just you 12, but anyone who's a disciple, because it says in verse 34, he explained all things to his disciples, and there were many of those besides the 12. But the disciples all had one thing in common. They had left everything to follow him. And therefore, they could be more trusted than the faceless masses. So this is what he's saying. It's not given to the crowds to know the secrets or the mysteries of the kingdom. It is given to you. Now, Paul also, of course, later became an apostle. And he said that he was preaching the mystery. The mystery was that Jews and Gentiles be joined together in one entity. And that is what the kingdom of God is. It's the kingdom of God is made up of all those who embrace Christ as their king and follow him. And that's not just Jews. The Jews thought they were the kingdom of God alone. And Paul said, no, this is more mysterious than they knew. This includes Gentiles, too. You'll see that, for example, in Ephesians 3, verses 1 through 7. But Paul frequently talks about the mystery. And so does Jesus. It's a mystery to people who don't have any right to know it, basically. But the disciples of Jesus are the ones who do have the right to know it. That's what he's saying. And that's why he spoke that way to them.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, thank you so much.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Shannon, great talking to you, man.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, bye now. Let's see, Zachary from Maui, Hawaii. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, Shannon, good talking to you, man.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, you got to turn your radio off. Turn your radio off. We're hearing what we heard a minute ago. Yeah. Okay. Hi, Zachary. Are you there? Hey, Zach.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey. Hey. Yeah. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. I have been... Can you hear me? Yes. But you haven't heard me until now. Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
Go ahead. Okay. Hey. So this is my dilemma. So I... I made a pact with God. I know that's not something necessary, but God and I have always had this understanding with each other, as far as I know, that if I behave a certain way, if I stay away from certain things, that good things will happen. And it always worked that way throughout my life. And I recently did something that I said I would never do again, and if I do do it again, my tenants would be going to hell. And I did what I said I wasn't going to do, and now that I repent for what I did, usually when I repent when I do something, I... I feel a presence. I feel a warmth come over me. I can feel the Holy Spirit's presence within me. Right now, when I repent and pray, I don't feel any type of warmth or any type of... Okay, okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, let me just say there's a number of things that you've said that I would like to respond to. One of them is that feeling warm is not one of the ways of knowing whether you have repented and whether God forgives you or not. I'm not saying that people never do have such a warm feeling when they know they're forgiven, but feelings have nothing to do with it. The faithfulness of God to forgive, as he said he would, is what determines whether that's happened or not. Whether you feel it or not, you can trust that God is telling the truth. But you also have kind of a sub... Christian concept of what it means to have a relationship with God. You feel like you can bargain with God. You say you and God have an understanding that if you avoid certain things, things will go well for you. I'm not sure that that's God that you're dealing with, because God doesn't really negotiate that way, as far as I know. And frankly, God doesn't promise that things will go well for us. As a matter of fact, Jesus said, in the world you will have tribulation. And Paul said the same thing. In fact, the Bible says it throughout. If you follow God, there's going to be possible persecution. Some people are broke because they follow God. Paul was. Paul said that he was homeless and naked, meaning he didn't have much clothes. He's hungry. And this is all because he was obeying God. And, you know, not everyone experiences the same trials, but certainly there's not anything in the Bible that suggests if you do the right thing, things will go well for you. What is said in the Bible is that if you do things that God is pleased for you to do, well, eventually, in eternity, it will certainly go good for you. But in this life, God doesn't make promises in this life other than that he'll take care of you as long as you need to live. In other words, he'll provide all your needs. But, of course, when it's his time for you to die, then your needs do not include anything. You know, you're going to die. It's your time. But providing your needs isn't often what people understand it to mean. It certainly doesn't mean making you wealthy. It doesn't even mean preventing you from being sick or from being rejected by society or other things like that. All those things happen to people who are pleasing to God, as well as good things. God has a plan that he works for your life, and it includes some trials and probably some blessings, too. But this life is not all there is. And Paul said, our outward man is perishing. He's talking about all the suffering he's going through as a Christian. He said, though our outward man is perishing, our inward man is being renewed day by day. And he says, while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. That's over in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, I think it's like verses 17 and 18. So, he's not, you know, you don't make a deal with God that if I obey you, I'll expect you to give me good things and do good things in my life and have good things happen to me. Now, obeying God is what we're all obligated to. It's not like, hey, God, I'll do you a favor if you do me a favor. Now, when you obey God, you're doing God no favor. You owe that to him, you know. It's like if I lend you $100,000, And you come to me and say, you know, if I pay you back that $100, I expect you to do such and such for me. Or rather, if you do certain things for me, I'll give you back the $100 I borrowed. No, no, you owe me the $100. You need to pay that back in any case. And we owe God our lives. We've been bought with a price. We're not our own, the Bible says. Jesus died for us to purchase us. And our surrender to him and our trust in him and our living under his lordship is what he requires. And those who actually do those things are not in a position to ask for special bonuses. It's failing to do that that puts you below the waterline, puts you underwater. If you do everything God said, you know what Jesus said? Jesus said this over in Luke 17.10. He said, so you also, when you have done all things that you've been commanded to do, say, We are unprofitable servants. We've done only what was our duty to do. In other words, if I do everything God wants me to do, then my position is I don't have any special claim to privilege or congratulations. I'm a servant. Servants are supposed to obey their masters. So I've done nothing more than that. So your idea of working things out with God where you'll do certain good things that he wants you to do. By the way, doing good things aren't that good if he doesn't want you to do them. So the only thing that's really a good thing you can do is whatever God wants. Jesus said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father in heaven. So doing what God wants is the Christian's duty. Now, A lot of listeners are going to want me to tell you this, and I will, that you can't earn your way to heaven anyway. You can't earn favor from God. That's what grace means. Grace means that God gives good things to those that he chooses to give them to, not based on how they earn them, but on his good pleasure. And he gives grace to the humble. He gives grace to the repentant. And the Bible says that. So when you turn to Christ, which is, of course... The first thing everyone needs to do, because he's the Lord of all, God has given him authority over heaven and earth and everything in it. So, you know, you are under his authority whether you live like it or not. But when you repent of not doing so, when you surrender to his lordship and willingly live as he wants you to, you are accepted. And you're accepted because you have surrendered and because you do believe in him. That's what believing is. Some people think you just have to believe Jesus existed, and that's how you're saved. The Bible knows nothing of that kind of faith. The only faith the Bible knows that saves anyone is one that changes their direction and their life, a faith that says, I trust in Christ, and that means I'm going to follow his way. Why? Well, because I trust him. He wouldn't tell me wrong. If I trust him, he wouldn't give me an inferior way to live. If I really believe in Christ, it means I'm going to live the way he said to live, or else I'm saying I don't believe him. I believe I think I have a better idea than he had. That's not being a Christian. Now, it's when you recognize what the Bible says about Jesus. He's the king. He's the Lord. He has bought us with a price. I believe that, and therefore I live as though that is true. That means I'm obedient to him as a servant to a master. I'm not trying to gain brownie points with him in any way. I'm just living my role. It's like a child obeys his father in a good parenting situation, not because he's hoping that that way his father will still accept him as his child, but he obeys his father because that's what children are supposed to do with their father. He doesn't do it, he shouldn't have to do it because of fear of punishment or a carrot on a stick of some reward. He should do it because that's what children are supposed to do. That's what the role is of being a child in a household. Submit to your parents. So, you know, I think people who think of God as someone who's out there making some kind of a transaction with people who will do enough good deeds, that's not even taught in the Bible. The Bible does teach that when you turn your life around to be a follower of Jesus, that dominates everything about you. And, of course, as a result, you will do what pleases him. You'll do what he asks. but you won't be expecting special treatment that you wouldn't have had otherwise. You don't expect bonuses for obedience, because obedience is simply what comes with the territory. It's part of the definition of submitting to someone who's a Lord. And if you don't think of him as your Lord, then you don't think of him at all, because there is no Jesus in the universe who isn't the Lord. So some people say, well, I believe that Jesus is my Savior. Well, fine, but the only Jesus I know of that's a Savior is also a Lord. If you believe he's Savior but not Lord, you don't believe in the Jesus in the Bible. The only Jesus in the Bible and in the universe that can save is the one who's the Lord. And if you believe he's your Lord, that'll show in the way you behave. But you won't be doing it hoping to get special treatment from him and bonuses. That's just something employers do with their employees. You don't have an employment system. arrangement with your father in heaven and with Christ. So that's the whole area where I think your whole approach to God is wrong. The fact that you don't feel anything, the fact that you don't feel forgiven or whatever, it doesn't matter how you feel because, again, we're talking about trusting. We're talking about faith. If you have faith in Christ and he says, listen, I'll forgive you. You know, the In 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So if you trust in Christ, then there is a promise that he forgives your sins. What if you don't feel like it? Well, is God's faithfulness dependent on your feelings or does it depend on who he is? Well, the answer to that is that's a rhetorical question. Of course, it's based on who he is. He's faithful because that's what he is, faithful. And therefore, you don't have to worry whether you feel it or not. You take it by faith. I would anyway, and I recommend you do too. I need to take a break here. Appreciate your call. You're listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. We have another half hour coming up. But at this point, we'd just like to make sure our listeners know we are a listener-supported ministry. And you can write to us at thenarrowpath.com. 1730 Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can do so from our website where all the resources are free for download at thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Don't go away. We're only half done.
SPEAKER 02 :
Everyone is welcome to call the narrow path and discuss areas of disagreement with the host, but if you do so, please state your disagreement succinctly at the beginning of your call and be prepared to present your scriptural arguments when asked by the host. Don't be disappointed if you don't have the last word or if your call is cut shorter than you prefer. Our desire is to get as many callers on the air during the short program, so please be considerate to others.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we're live for another half hour. Right now our phones are, all the lines are full, and there may not be a chance to take more calls than those that are waiting, so I'm not going to give out the number at this point. But for those of you who are waiting online, let me instruct everybody, as our former caller needed to be instructed, when you get on Don't leave your phone somewhere and just listen to the radio hoping you'll notice when I call your name. The problem is the radio broadcast is delayed by maybe as much as half a minute. So when I actually in real time call your name, you'll hear it if you're on the phone because your phone and I are connected in real time. But if you're away from the phone listening to the radio, you won't hear me call your name until half a minute or so has gone by, in which time we've used up over $50 of airtime because you weren't there. And so we'd love to have you on, but please stay near your phone if you're online waiting to talk. All right, we're going to talk next to, looks like it's going to be Anna from Petersburg, New Hampshire. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi. Hi. You heard me, okay. How are you today?
SPEAKER 01 :
I'm fine. How are you?
SPEAKER 04 :
I'm good, thank you. Happy New Year. Thank you. My question is, and I'm so humbled because you have such a wealth of knowledge, but people have touched on this before, and I wanted to be sure, but let me just come out with it. Okay, so God created Adam and Eve, right? And the... It says, and I got all the days that were of creation, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and some day rested, right? But in those days, it says he created man and women, and he said be fruitful and multiply. But then when you get into the second chapter is when he starts forming Adam, and then he puts, takes Adam out he takes Adam and puts him in the garden right and now Adam names all these animals and everything and he names all the plants and everything and he gets bored and then God makes him a woman for a helper someone to love right but where are you your voice disappeared hello well you seem to have gotten cut off I didn't cut you off
SPEAKER 01 :
Anyway, I will answer your question because I think I understand what you're getting at. And that is that in Genesis chapter 1, we have the creation of everything, including man and woman, recorded in a chronological sequence of six days. And then on the seventh day, God rested. That seventh day is mentioned in chapter 2 of Genesis, verses 1 through 3. Although the chapter divisions are not in the original. Those were added centuries later. So, The story of the seven days of creation really goes from Genesis 1-1 through Genesis 2-3. But at the next verse, Genesis 2-4, you begin to have a story of creation again. It kind of sounds different in some ways. It starts at a different place. In fact, it starts with the creation of man. Well, it not quite starts because it mentions there was ground, there was no rain, a mist rose up from the earth and watered the ground, which I presume means rain. for the plant's sake, which must have been there. But what mentions that God made man from the dust of the earth, and then later he brings the animals to him, and Adam names the animals. He puts them in the Garden of Eden, as you said. He makes a wife for him and gives them instructions. Now, because you read chapter 1 first and chapter 2 second, it seems like maybe you've got two events, the creation events of chapter 1, which then were followed by the creation events of chapter 2. But this is not how any Bible scholar would understand it. And frankly, we need to be careful not to do that because there are times when the same story is repeated in the Bible from a different angle or giving different details of the story. For example, if you read of the birth narrative of Jesus in Matthew chapters 1 and 2, And then you read of the birth narrative of Jesus when you get to Luke in chapter 1 and 2. You say, wait a minute, was Jesus born on earth twice? I read about this two books ago. Back in Matthew, we had the birth. Now it looks like he's getting born all over again. No, you understand that Matthew and Luke are both telling about the same story, but they're giving different details about it. And that's true of also the first two chapters of Genesis. The first chapter is told as a broad overview of without laying much emphasis on any one thing. It's six days, and at the end of the sixth day, everything has been created. Among the things that are said to have been created are man and woman, who, like the animals before them, are given instructions to be fruitful and multiply, though they're also given instruction to have dominion over everything else. Now, then the story ends. But in the first chapter, the creation of man and woman aren't given that much... focus, not as much as humans deserve in terms of the creation of everything else, in terms of trees and rocks and distant planets, man's creation is much more significant. So there's a second account of the creation of man and woman, which Of course, it doubles back and retells the story of the sixth day, or at least part of it, where man and women were created. See, in Genesis 1, it kind of just says, he made man his own image, male and female he made them. Well, in Genesis chapter 2, it's going to go back, take that more slowly, and say, okay, he made man, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, and then he made the woman. Now, you wouldn't know that from reading chapter 1, It just says he made man, he made male and female. Well, that's true. That's not disputed, even in chapter 2. It also says that God made male and female, but it gives lots more information of things that happened, for example, between the creation of man and woman. And then what happened, it gives God's instructions about the trees. So what we have in chapter 2 is a second account which focuses in greater detail on one point in the first account. It's like, you know, I don't know if anyone reads magazines anymore, but back in the day when these news magazines like Time and Newsweek were around, they'd have a story that ran several pages long about some event going on in the world, some war or something. But then they'd have what they called a sidebar, a little block on one of the pages, kind of in the midst of the story, that went into more detail on some issue that was covered over very quickly in the general story. They covered over it quickly in the general story because they didn't want to interrupt the story with all this extra information. They wanted to get through the story. But then they thought, well, some people may not know much about this point. So they'd have what they called a sidebar on the page where they had a lot more information on one point. And that's, I think, the way we're supposed to look at Genesis 2. That's like a sidebar. Genesis 1 kind of gave the sweep of the creation of everything from zero to the end in six days. But then... Realizing that the creation of man and woman has only been passed over in a few sentences in the first account, just like the other things in the other days were, the writer gives us a second look at that. And it's more of a microscopic view or a magnifying glass view of the creation of man and woman, giving many more details. So the second account is not contradictory or it's not an additional creation. The man who is called Adam in the second account and the woman who is called Eve in the second account are the same male and female that were mentioned without naming them in Genesis 1, 26 and 27. So that's something that you're not the first person to have misunderstood that, but that is a misunderstanding some people have. All right, let's talk to Thomas from Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Thomas.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, Steve. How are you?
SPEAKER 01 :
Good, thanks.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, thanks for taking my call. Okay, so I guess I'm just looking for some biblical direction and reassurance on something. I've asked a lot of questions, and not just in your show. You know, I've heard a lot. I've heard a lot of Bible shows throughout my life, and I'm getting to the point where I'm kind of asking, what is the You know, like, there's so many answers that even you or a bunch of these other people basically say, like, well, we don't really know, you know, a lot of things. I mean, obviously there's some clear-cut things in Scripture, but, like, I hope you see what I'm trying to ask here. At what point should we just stop trying to figure out every little nuance of Scripture, or is that just something I need to push past?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, let me say this. There's no point of Scripture that I would not be interested in understanding correctly. But there are many points of Scripture that I realize I don't have sufficient data provided to know exactly what something means. Now, my commitment in reading the Bible is to find out what God wants me to know. I don't read it just out of general curiosity, or just to say I read the Bible through so many times, I read it because I consider it to be God's word, his revelation to me about the things he wants me to know. But when I find things that are obscure enough, that there just isn't enough information to make the decision up, I have to assume, okay, this must be something that God didn't really care that much for me to know, because he would have made it less obscure. Now, many things in the Bible are, you know, very obvious, that Yahweh is the one true God who created all things, that he made us, that he has an interest in our behavior and in a relationship with us, that he called a people at one point through Abraham to make himself known to them through prophets and through the law. And he told them he's going to send a Messiah. And when the Messiah would come, he'd be the true king, not only of Israel, but of the whole world. And then, of course, we see Jesus coming as the Messiah. And we have Jesus teaching about how to live. And then we have, after he left, he authorized the apostles to continue teaching the church how to live. And so we find that kind of teaching in what the apostles wrote, what we call the epistles, the rest of the New Testament, in other words. So, I mean, there's a storyline. There's a narrative here which has the main features. No one can read the Bible trusting it and miss it. But, of course, there are hundreds of things that are passed over without much description. Yes, like I was saying to that previous caller earlier, We don't have a sidebar on everything, but the story, the grand narrative of human history mentions certain things in passing that simply aren't part of the main story, at least not enough to give a whole sidebar and explain it all. So we're reading ancient history here. We're reading the history of ancient Mesopotamian and Semitic and Middle Eastern people and their customs and traditions. We read about the kings and the nations and the wars that were going on around Israel. Some of them involved Israel, some of them not so much. But, I mean, we're reading ancient stuff that we don't naturally understand or know. And fortunately, some of the information that we don't know much about, and the Bible doesn't say much about, can be discovered and has been discovered through archaeology and other studies. But the point is, If God didn't make it clear in his word, I think it's his way of saying, move along, nothing to see here, you know, nothing to worry about here. Now, if you say, but I'm very curious, well, you can read books about archaeology and other things and find out some of those things. Can't find them all out. But I think our problem is we have perhaps lost the instinct. of recognizing the difference between the essential things and the peripheral things. We just like to know everything. I do. I'd like to know everything. But I'm also realistic, and I realize that, you know, not everything is equally important. And the things that are essential, I think God has made clear. The things that are not as essential are not as clear. Now, among those things that are not essential, there's two categories. There's those things that there just isn't enough information given to us, to know exactly what they are. And they're apparently not important at all. But also among the non-essential things, there are some things that there's a lot of information about, but people misunderstand or misinterpret parts. So you've got different theories. You've heard on this program people talk about dispensationalism and in contrast to, say, amillennialism. Or you've heard people talk about Calvinism in contrast to Arminianism or whatever. These are subjects where there's a lot of information in Scripture But people, somebody is misinterpreting some information. You know, on one side of the aisle, someone's getting it wrong. They can't both be right on both sides because they have, in many cases, conflicting ideas. But this being the case, we can argue that this is not crystal clear. If it's not made crystal clear, it's not one of the essential things. God's not trying to hide himself from people who are seeking to follow him. He's trying to reveal himself to those who are seeking to follow him. You know, if something is obscure enough that people who've studied the Bible a great deal cannot really decide which side of the aisle, you know, the Bible really supports more, then it must be that the Bible doesn't make that the central issue. And so, for example, dispensationalism. That has a lot to do with end times prophecy and stuff like that. I'm not a dispensationalist, so I disagree with dispensational views. But I hardly think it matters much. I mean, there are some aspects that do. But the end times stuff doesn't. I mean, what do I care? What do I care if the dispensations are right or wrong about end times? I'm not living with a focus on the end times. I'm living with a focus on Jesus. And that's the point. The essential thing is, who is Jesus? Who is he to me? And what does he want me to do? I believe the Bible gives all. more than adequate information for that. And in the course of reading the story, of course, we recognize we're reading ancient Middle Eastern literature. It had to be written by somebody in some culture, in some language. But we just happen to live in a different culture, a different time, and speak different languages than they did. So it is possible to become a scholar and to learn those languages or to learn a great deal about their culture, and it will fill out a lot of interesting stuff. That would not otherwise be clear to us. But we have to assume it's mostly clear to the people who lived in that culture and spoke that language. And we have to access things that they knew just from living at that time. We don't. So we have to learn those things by special scholarship or not at all. And some of those things, the not at all is just fine because to get all tangled up in controversial things that aren't essential can simply be a distraction. And it is for many people. Now, I've spent lots of years teaching the Bible, and I'm very interested in almost all the controversies, and I've studied both sides of almost all of them, too, because I'm interested. I'd like to know. But having done so, I've come to the conclusion that many of the things that people have controversy over, I think I know what the Bible does say on it, but it doesn't matter much. I mean, I'm not emotional about it. I don't care if someone agrees with me or not. And many other things I've looked into, okay, we just don't have any information on that. Even from archaeology or anything else, we just don't have currently any information on that. So I don't have to know that. So we just kind of have to read the Bible for what it is and recognize it's a set of ancient documents written in a culture that we have very little familiarity with unless we study it specially. written in languages that are now dead languages, which we'll never know unless we study them as an academic pursuit. And, you know, so I think we have to take an attitude that I trust God to make clear to me the things that he wants to be clear to me. The other things I'm still interested in, but at a much lower level of interest. And I'll still study them because if I can learn more about them, I'm I want to, but I'm not going to worry about them too much. So, I mean, when you hear all kinds of different subjects and you hear me saying, yeah, it doesn't really matter, it doesn't really matter, I don't care if you agree with me or not on this subject, those are subjects that can become distractions from the main subject. And when I say I don't care if you believe it or not, I would like it if everyone saw everything just the way I do. I think it would be a better world, a better church, if everyone just saw things just like I do. And the people who disagree with me think the same about their views. But the truth is, in most cases, if someone puts too heavy an emphasis on one disputed subject, they're going to be distracted from the main subject. And it's more of the attitude you have to have toward the Bible, I think. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
That was awesome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you. Okay, Thomas. Hey, good talking to you, brother. Thanks for your call. All right, our next caller is Scott from Detroit, Michigan. Scott, thanks for waiting so long. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, hi. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, hi, Steve. I appreciate you and your ministry and your understanding of the Word of God. I've listened to you for some time, and I had a time when someone was calling in about the millennium, or the millennial period, and I just want to ask you some questions on those. I think I actually attend a church and part of the denomination that does is non-millennial, if you will, but I just can't stomach it personally myself, and it's not, again, a huge issue, but it's just something that I wonder why people come to a different conclusion than what I would assume or would say is fairly clearly stated in Revelation 20 that it is a period that happens after Christ comes back and isn't something that's going on right now.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. Well, there's a lot of people who agree with you about that. For those who didn't understand, he's saying he attends an amillennial church, but he doesn't believe in amillennialism. Now, I do, and so I understand why Revelation 20 can be seen the way that amillennialists see it, because I see it that way myself. I can also see why someone might have trouble with it. I think the one thing you said I'd like to respond to is you said it looks like it's pretty clear in Revelation 20. Well, I don't think anything in the Bible is pretty clear, unless you really compare the visions in Revelation with other material throughout the Bible, because nothing in Revelation is given in very literal terms. Jesus is not described as a human being or as God. He's described as a lamb with seven eyes and seven horns. That's not literal, but he's called that about 27 times in the book of Revelation. The enemy of God is seen to be a dragon with seven heads and ten horns, which is obviously supposed to be Satan, but Satan is not a reptile with seven heads and ten horns. That's a symbol of him. Likewise, the evil rulers of the world are described as a beast with seven heads and ten horns with the mouth of a lion and feet of a bear, you know, and other characteristics. And, you know, no one believes that that's a real animal. No one believes that. So we realize that the whole book is written in symbolism. So we have to be careful about saying, I think it's clear. Now, I'll tell you, you said it seems clear that the thousand years in chapter 20 comes after the second coming of Christ. Let me just tell you why it's not all that clear to me that that's the case. One is, Revelation 20 is a standalone vision. It doesn't necessarily have to have any chronological relationship to chapter 19. There are many times that a vision in Revelation will come to its proper end, and then a new vision will come that covers the same territory. For example, in Revelation 11, when the seventh trumpet sounds, it sounds like it's the judgment of the world on the last day. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he'll reign forever, and it's the time of the judgment. So that's chapter 11. But in chapter 12, it goes back to the birth of Christ again and tells the story another way from another angle. So this is, you know, so chapter 19 could bring us to the end of the world at the second coming of Christ, and chapter 20 could start it at the beginning again. I mean, we can't say until we know what chapter 20 is saying whether that's so or not. But it's not, it wouldn't be a strange thing. We have to be, we have to ask that question. Is that what's happening? Now, the other thing is you probably assume that the second coming of Christ is described in chapter 19, which is why the assumption would be that he's on earth in chapter 20. But many people see Jesus riding on a white horse, smiting the nations with the rod or the sword from his mouth. is not a reference to his second coming, but is a description of the gospel progressing, the word of God coming out of his mouth like a sword, conquering the nations through the missionary efforts of the church. Now, it doesn't seem like that to you or me, probably, but it can be seen that way. I mean, there certainly are similar images here. making that kind of a point in Scripture. So, in other words, it may be that what you naturally see as the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19 isn't even about that. Now, when you get to chapter 20, it's interesting that Jesus is not mentioned as being on earth. Now, if he came back and set up the millennial kingdom on earth, you'd expect him to be there. But there's not one reference in Revelation 20 to Jesus being on earth, nor even does it mention the saints on earth, although I think there are no doubt are saints on earth during the period of time. But it describes saints in heaven, seated on thrones in heaven, reigning with Christ. He sees their souls, not their bodies. So the resurrection has not happened yet, or else he wouldn't see their souls. He'd see them in resurrected bodies. So, I mean, there's some things. Now, I was taught, as you are, that we've got the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19, then we've got the millennium comes after that in chapter 20. But the more you study the book of Revelation, the more you realize that what is intuitive to you upon a first or second reading, because of the symbolic nature of the book, because of the non-chronological nature of the book and so forth, there's simply no reason to insist, and maybe not even a very good reason to suggest, that Revelation is describing things that happened after chapter 19. It is certainly a position that can be taken, but it's not at all something that's obvious when you take all the factors into consideration. Brother, I need to take another call, but I appreciate yours. Oh, no, I'm running out of time. I may not have much time for another call. You've been waiting a long time. Craig from Washington. If you've got a real quick one, I'll take it. Otherwise, we're probably not going to get through it. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it's not very quick, but anyway, I've been doing some research on the millennial reign, and some people, some Christian people are looking into it and thinking that he came physically and the reign is over. And why do you think that he didn't come in a physical form and that you think he's like this?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I think he hasn't come in a physical form yet because he still is going to. Now, people who say that the millennial reign is over and that Jesus already came are probably what we call full preterists. They believe everything predicted in the Bible was fulfilled no later than A.D. 70 when Jerusalem was destroyed. I don't agree with them. I think that's really an irresponsible way to look at the Scripture, but there's a lot of people out there, especially online, who are full preterists, and that's the view they take. They don't believe there's a future second coming. They think Jesus came back in 70 AD, though they wouldn't say physically. They would say he came back spiritually in 70 AD, and they would say the millennium then was the period between Jesus' death and his coming in 70 AD. Now, I don't consider that this has good arguments in its favor at all, but that is the view that some take. Now, as far as you believe Jesus will come back physically, so do I, But he hasn't yet. That's why we can't see him anywhere right now. He hasn't come back yet. When he comes back, every eye will see him. But the book of Revelation does not necessarily describe Jesus as coming back before the millennium. That's what I was saying to the previous caller. I have lectures on this. I don't have much time right now to go over it deeply. But if you go to thenarrowpath.com, look under topical lectures and find the series that's called When Shall These Things Be? I have very thorough lectures on the millennium and other topics like this at thenarrowpath.com. We are listener supported. You can donate there, too, if you wish. But you don't need to. Just take the stuff.
In this episode of The Narrow Path, host Steve Gregg takes us on an enlightening journey as we explore various complexities of biblical teachings and Christian faith. Starting with an in-depth discussion on Matthew 16:24-27, Steve elaborates on the multifaceted reasons why one might choose to follow Christ, referencing rational minds and eternal consequences. Each reason presents a unique perspective and understanding of what it means to live according to Christ's teachings. The conversations further dive into the Apostle Paul's predictions of the great apostasy as penned in 1 Timothy 4, offering listeners a comprehensive view of potential misinterpretations and the implications on both historical and future events.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live Monday through Friday at this same time and we take your phone calls during that time. So that's what we're doing today. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or you have a disagreement with the host and you'd like to say so and say why, you're always welcome to join us here. So the number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Excuse me. I was distracted by something going on on my computer as I'm rebooting something here so that I can actually function. And we see we have a couple of lines open right now. But you can still fill those. Actually, one of them is now taken. I've been saying this week that I'm setting up some speaking itineraries in various areas. And those areas are increasing. And so if you're interested in my speaking, if you live in any of these areas and you'd like to book me to speak in those areas, I will be glad to. give you the dates relevant to my presence in those places, and we can set something up. You can contact me. One of them is going to be in Tennessee. I'm going to be in Nashville in early March. I'll be in the Fresno Sacramento area in early April. I'll be in Texas in late April. And I'll be in the Seattle area in mid-May. Now, specific dates will be posted actually at our website and at our Facebook page. But if you're in those areas, if you're either in Tennessee, Texas, Central California, or the Seattle area, and you want to set something up, we will be glad to put that on the calendar. All right, just so you'll have that information in the back of your head, and you can be thinking about that. We will post at the website the dates and also at our Facebook page. If you're not familiar with our Facebook page, on Facebook, just look up Steve Gregg, The Narrow Path. The reason it's Steve Gregg, The Narrow Path, is because it's not the only The Narrow Path. There are other Narrow Path ministries and so forth. So my name's Steve Gregg. The Narrow Path would be where you look on Facebook. And enough on that. We're going to go to our phones now, and we're going to talk first of all to Mark in Mission Viejo, California. Mark, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, thank you. Hello, Steve. I hope you're doing well. And so it was a month ago, December 30th, that we were last talking about Matthew 16th 24 through 27. And my understanding of the text is that Jesus as Lord is giving the benefits of choosing to follow him and the reasons why we should follow him. So how I see it, he's appealing to our rational minds, giving compelling reasons in order to motivate us to action. So, you know, I like to keep in mind that since he created us, he knows how we work, and that we should, and as such, we respond to or should respond to the strongest motivation or most compelling reasons at any given time. And so, you know, he's just not simply saying that he is the Lord, therefore... what I say, but he's working with us, appealing to us, giving us reasons. And so my simple question is, do you agree that the Lord himself, as Lord, in this particular text, is giving his reasons why we should follow him?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, he has definitely given a reason. Yeah, he's given a reason. It's not as if there's only one.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, there's many valid reasons for following Christ. One is that he's the Lord, that he's the king, and people should follow their king. That's a very good reason. Another reason is that it's good for you. Those who live according to the way Jesus dictates that we should live, live better lives. They're more fruitful, more productive, healthier in general. It's just a good way to live, and even if there was nothing else about it than that, that would be a good reason to follow Jesus. Then there's also, of course, consequences later on, because God's going to judge every work that people do. And that's what, of course, verses 27 and 28 that you're referring to are saying, that he's going to judge everyone. So those are like three very good reasons. You could probably think of more, too. But the fact that Jesus gives this one reason in this case... does not suggest that this is the primary reason or that it's even the most frequently mentioned reason for it. So, yeah, I don't have any problem with that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, yeah, I appreciate that. You know, I guess I just wanted to confirm that we at least have common ground that in this particular text, regardless of the other reasons one might find in Scripture or based on their own theological beliefs, belief systems, whether it's you or me, but that in this particular text, the only reason, and I'm not saying it's the exclusive reason of all the reasons he could give. Of course, I agree that he is Lord, and as such, we should obey him. But in this particular text, he's giving us reasons why we should follow him and not seek to save our lives. but rather to lose it for his sake because we'll gain it. And then, of course, there's a judgment, like you said. And to me, those are compelling reasons in this particular text. So you agree with that part anyways.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I think I answered you already, didn't I?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate that. Yeah, you do. Okay, good. That's all I wanted to confirm to make sure that we agree, at least on this particular text. Okay, thanks, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, Mark. Thanks for your call. Okay, our next caller is Hank from Youngsville, North Carolina. Hank, welcome.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hello, Steve. Thank you very much. I would like to, my question relates to 1 Timothy chapter 4. In my Bible it says the great apostasy. Many of us are not, my friends as well, We want to know all about the end times, and I know that it's not something that we really should be focused on all the time, but in 1 Timothy 4, my specific question relates to the Spirit which especially says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, and then things like forbidding to marry. Now, my question is, has any of these things which are listed here happened before, or will it happen in the future? Also, the context in which the readers read 1 Timothy 2.6, the people who read it read it the first time. How did they view that, do you think?
SPEAKER 06 :
In 1 Timothy 2.6, where it says that Christ gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time, that verse?
SPEAKER 11 :
No, sorry, it's 1 Timothy 2.4. The whole thing relates to 1 Timothy 2.4.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, he desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth?
SPEAKER 11 :
1 Timothy 2.4 says, now the Spirit expressly says.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, no, that's actually in chapter 4. Yeah, chapter 4.
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, okay. It's chapter 4.
SPEAKER 06 :
You said 2-4. You said 2-4. So that would be chapter 2.
SPEAKER 11 :
Sorry, I made a mistake there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. So you're saying do these have to do with the future or have they already been fulfilled? That's what you're asking?
SPEAKER 11 :
That's actually what I'm asking, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Well, let me read it for those who don't know it. Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times, or in latter times, which means later than Paul's times, Many will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron or cauterized. Their conscience is no longer sensitive to right and wrong. more like sociopaths, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. So what he predicts is people will depart from the pure faith. They'll be deceived by evil spirits, doctrines of demons. They will be hypocrites, and they'll speak lies, and their conscience will not bother them about that. And as far as what they would teach, he specifically mentions people forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving. Now, you ask if this has already happened. It certainly has, but it may not be the only time it would happen. Paul said this would happen later, in latter days, which simply is a phrase in Scripture that means sometime after this, sometime after Paul was writing, there'd be a time when these things would be taught by people who were led astray by demonic powers. deception. Now, has anyone ever taught that people should not get married? Well, yeah, there are some who have. There's been monks, even the Roman Catholic Church forbids marriage of priests, which is interesting in view of the fact that the previous chapter, 1 Timothy chapter 3, says that church leaders should be married, should be the husbands of one wife. And now he says some will come and say they'll forbid marriage. I don't know if he means they'll forbid marriage to church leaders. If so, that certainly has happened in the Roman Catholic Church. But also, he could be referring to Gnostics and ascetics who taught that sex is evil and that being single is the only way to stay pure. There certainly have been plenty of those. There's been a lot of monks and ascetics of different types who swore off marriage and saying it's not okay to get married. We should stay celibate. You've got those kind of people in different religions. And, of course, as far as forbidding to eat foods that God has said are okay to eat, well, yeah, lots of people have done that. For one thing, I think Paul may be thinking of Judaizers. Judaizers were trying to keep a kosher diet, and yet Paul says every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused. It's sanctified by the word of God and prayer. So Paul's against those who would enforce a Jewish diet. Seventh-day Adventists would be among people today who teach that you should keep a vegetarian diet. There are lots of false religions, especially Eastern religions, that would argue that it's better to be vegetarian or even mandatory to be vegetarian to be spiritual. So these are things... that have been taught by many false religions, and even some that regard themselves as Christians have taught some of these things. So is this saying something that will happen in our future? Well, I don't know of any time when it's predicted to stop being the case. Every kind of deception has arisen in church history and still is with us and will probably continue to be with us into the future. I don't know if they'll continue until the coming of the Lord, but they might. But is he speaking specifically of the times before Jesus comes back, the last days, as some people call them, the very end times? Not necessarily. When he says in latter times, it's more generic. It's a generic state, but it means times after these. And that was written 2,000 years ago, so there's been a lot of times after those. And there's been a lot of the very occurrence of the things he predicted. And we should say that when we see these kinds of things taught today, we should probably recognize that these simply are errors that Paul predicted would come, have come, have come a long time ago and are still with us, and are probably still to be regarded as doctrines of demons and the seduction of evil spirits that Paul says. But I don't think it's specifically mentioning the end times as we use that term.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay. No, thank you very much for that. I understand it much better. Thank you. Great talking to you. Bye now.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right, we're going to talk next to Colin from Vancouver, B.C. Hi, Colin. Hello. Hi.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hello, Steve. My name is Colin, of course. I appreciate you taking the call. I've never called before. Anyway, first of all, thank you. I listen to you from time to time, and I appreciate your program, and frankly, I I really learned quite a bit, you know, and, of course, it's challenged some of my thinking. So I really appreciate what you do. I don't necessarily agree with everything you say. However, I really love being challenged, and it really helps me grow. So I really do truly appreciate your program. Thank you. However, there's one thing a few months ago you mentioned, and please forgive me for being nitpicky. However, it kind of disturbed me, and I probably – took it wrong, but I'd just like to clarify it, and I don't think you really meant it, but I'd just like to mention it. Go ahead. You mentioned something about us being like sheep, and of course Jesus is the great shepherd, and sometimes he'll do whatever he wishes with the sheep, and then I think you mentioned in some cases the shepherd eats the sheep, and of course you made some sort of commenting on that. And quite frankly, that kind of disturbed me. And I'm sorry to say it, but it was difficult for me to listen to you after that for a little while. But I just realized I have to resolve it and just get your take on that. And I'm sorry for even bringing it up. Well, no.
SPEAKER 06 :
No problem. No problem. I'm glad you brought it up because it was definitely a misunderstanding. I've never suggested that Jesus eats us or Jesus would ever eat us. What I was pointing out is that when Jesus talks about the motivation for God seeking out sinners, it's for his benefit to get his prodigal sons back. It's the shepherd's benefit. It's the shepherd's benefit to get his lost sheep back. It was the woman who lost the coin. It was to her benefit to get the coin back. It was not It was not to the coins, but see, Jesus gives all three of those parables in Luke 15. And the chapter is pretty much dominated by those parables. They're all about lost people being saved. And the point I'm making is that in the Bible, salvation is not primarily said to be for our benefit, but for God's. It's about God. It's about God getting what he deserves. It's not about us escaping what we deserve. or getting something. We do get something, but the focus of the gospel is what Christ deserves and what we need to stop depriving him of. Now, those parables all give examples of God seeking out the sinner. And the point I've made is, you know, it may be that the sinner benefits from being found, but the sinner may not benefit. specifically benefit primarily, I mean, as much as God does, because like the woman searching for the coin, the coin didn't get any benefit out of it. It's the woman's retrieval of something she lost that is the focus here. Likewise, the lamb. The lamb may not benefit from it, you know, because it may eventually be eaten. In other words, the retrieval of the coin and the lamb, and even of the lost son, are not primarily focused on the benefit to the one found, but to the one finding. It's always, in every case, those parables end with, you know, he finds it or she finds it, and she rejoices and tells all her neighbors, you know, I've lost, I've found the coin, my sheep, I've found my sheep, you know, my son has come home. It's the pursuit of the sinner is primarily God's interest, because he has lost something that he values. Now, When I point out that the shepherd might even eat the sheep, I'm not saying that Jesus eats the sheep any more than I believe that we are literally coins or that we're literally children in a pigsty. These are parables of how the finder is rejoicing to have found what was lost. It does not focus on, none of these parables really focus on the benefit to the one found. And it might not even always be the case that a sheep is benefited by being found. That's the point I was making. It doesn't benefit the coin. It may not benefit the sheep. It certainly benefited the prodigal son. And that's the only one of the three parables that even mentions a benefit to the thing found. But even that is subservient to the larger point of the prodigal son story where the father says, my son was lost. and has now found my son was dead. He is now alive. And the father rejoices to have back the son that he loved. So, you know, it would be a strange thing for me or anyone else to try to make the point that Jesus might eat us. And I think it's a little strange for someone to think I would make that point. But I see you've misunderstood, and now I'm glad to be able to clear that up. I was not saying that Jesus eats us. I'm saying that in a real case of a sheep being recovered, It may or may not benefit the sheep. He may be eaten. So the focus of the story is not on the benefit to the sheep or to the coin or even to the son, although he does benefit from it. So that was the point I was making. I was saying the stories of God finding what was lost always focus on the benefit to God himself, that he retrieved something that was of value to him, which he had been deprived of before. But he gets it back. All right. Yeah. Understand? Yeah, I do. I do.
SPEAKER 09 :
Can you hear me? Uh-huh. I can. Yeah. Okay, yeah. I just wanted to make a quick comment. And, again, I would agree with what you just said. And I appreciate you clarifying what you were meaning because you didn't really elaborate it too much at the time, at least not when I was listening at that particular time. But, anyway, yeah, I agree because, you know, it's clear that God, after all, created us. us for his benefit. I mean, I don't want to lose sight of that. For his glory, yeah. The heart of what you're talking about. So I totally agree with what you're saying. So again, thank you for clarifying what you said. It just kind of hit me the wrong way.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right, Colin. Well, I appreciate you calling about it then.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, thank you so much.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, God bless. Bye-bye. Okay, our next caller is Joe in Seychelles, B.C. That last caller was in B.C. too, I think. Joe, welcome. Hi, Steve. Can you hear me? Uh-huh.
SPEAKER 13 :
All right, yeah, it's Joe. I'm in Seychelles, B.C., Sunshine Coast here. We're right across from Vancouver. Appreciate your ministry, wonderful words of wisdom. I have two situations I'd like to talk about, and they're related to a Catholic lady that I meet once in a while on my travels here. And from two different conversations, it was around Easter time, and we were talking about Stations of the Cross. And I mentioned how I had gone to Jerusalem, and I remember walking the Stations of the Cross. And she says, oh, come and see at our Catholic church here where we are practicing the same thing. And she was saying that we practice plenary indulgences and praying for dead relatives. And she had a question mark about that. And coming across this lady recently, we had another conversation as we – came by a cemetery, she mentioned, let's stop here so that I can pray for souls to go from purgatory to heaven. Now this is kind of blowing my mind away, being a Protestant, I'm just trying to grasp my mind around these concepts. Can you define for me what is the biblical scriptural basis for a Catholic seminary? Belief in plenary indulgences and this concept about praying for souls to go from purgatory to heaven.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Yeah. Well, first of all, it's really not my place to provide a biblical support for a non-biblical doctrine. That's their problem to do. But they don't even care that much because they don't believe that you have to have Scripture on your side in their doctrines. You have to have either Scripture or traditions. That is, Scripture and tradition to the Roman Catholic are equally authoritative. So, you know, if they believe that Mary ascended into heaven or was assumed into heaven, you know, you don't need any kind of Bible verses for them to believe that because the Bible doesn't say a word about that, but they believe it. And so that's their tradition. And to them, their tradition is as good as if the Word of God had said it. Likewise, there are doctrines about the perpetual virginity of Mary, never mentioned in Scripture. The sinlessness of Mary, certainly never mentioned in Scripture. But these are their traditions. Likewise, purgatory is never mentioned in Scripture. Though they do have the tradition that most people who die are not good enough to go to heaven, but not necessarily bad enough to go to hell. So they go to somewhere in between called purgatory. And there they are purged. which is the basis of the word purgatory. It's a purgation or a purging process. And they will eventually go to heaven. Now, those who are living can pray for those who are in purgatory to try to shorten the time it takes for them to be released from purgatory and go into heaven. Indulgences, I don't know how the Catholic Church practices them now, but back in the time of the Reformation, indulgences were, referred to a living person making a donation to the church in order to shorten a relative's or maybe their own time in purgatory. So you'd be buying your way out or buying somebody else's way out by giving money to the church that shortens the time in purgatory. Well, of course, the Bible, first of all, doesn't say anything about purgatory, so the whole idea is unscriptural, but even if the Bible mentions something about purgatory, it would certainly be against scriptural principles, think that people could pay for their sins with money, or that you could pay for someone else's sins with money. That's obviously absurd, contrary to all scriptural teaching. The stations of the cross, there's no mention of them in scripture. There's certainly no suggestion in scripture that if you pray for someone while you're at one of the stations of the cross, this is somehow more effective than or gets more done with God than if you pray for that same person at any other spot. But, of course, praying for the dead is never recommended in Scripture. The Bible does not indicate that praying for the dead does a thing for them. So it's a practice that's strictly Catholic tradition. But, again, that's not really a criticism in their minds because they think tradition is as good as Scripture. So if a Protestant says, well, they have no Scripture for that, just tradition, they think, yeah, so what? But to a Protestant, that's kind of an important fact. Listen, we need to take a break, but I hope that's helpful to you. You're listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming. Do not go away. We're not finished. But we do like to let you know at the bottom of the hour that we are listener-supported. And being listener-supported, we pay bills from gifts from people like maybe you. If you'd like to write to us, you can write to The Narrow Path. P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds, so don't go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
We highly recommend that you listen to Steve Gregg's 14-lecture series entitled, When Shall These Things Be? This series addresses topics like the Great Tribulation, Armageddon, the rise of the Antichrist, and the 70th week of Daniel. When Shall These Things Be? can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com. Music
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, I'd be glad to hear from you. You can call to disagree with the host if you wish. You're always welcome to do so. Nobody is obligated to see anything the way I see it. So you can use this number to reach me. The number is 844- 844-484-5737. We used to mention that that's a toll-free number, but with cell phones now, it doesn't matter if it's toll-free or not. All calls are free, and that's kind of nice. But it is a toll-free number if you happen to be calling from a landline. 844-484-5737. We're going to talk next to Jackson calling from Japan, and I know a man named Jackson who lives in Japan, but I've not seen him for like 40 years. Hi, Jackson.
SPEAKER 07 :
I'll bet you who I think you are. I don't think I'm who you think I am. There's another Jackson, but I'm nowhere near 40.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, well, I'm sorry. It's a huge coincidence that I know somebody in Japan named Jackson, and you're there and you're named that. It's an uncommon name, isn't it? Okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, well, thanks for taking my call. I was wondering about what you think the role of AI in apologetics could be, specifically some sort of system that's able to, you know, take a question from someone and then look up sources that could be, you know, from your website, your lectures, your calls, other people's similar apologetics going forward. back throughout history and the scripture itself, of course, and kind of provide all that and potentially, you know, summarize, like, different viewpoints and that sort of thing automatically. I'm wondering, like, what you would think of something like that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Do you work in that technology?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, I do.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Well, I think it can be very useful and has been already. I know nothing about AI except how to go on chat GPT and ask a question. I'm so non-techie. I'm amazed I even know how to do that. And it's even intimidating to me because the technology is so new. So I'm not a very good expert at saying how AI can be used in this way. But there are people who have worked in AI who have actually used it in various ways before. There's a website called OpenTheo, that's OpenTheo, OpenTheo.org, which has used AI to make transcriptions of like 1,500 of my lectures. And so people can, you know, and they can search them. You know, they can go there, pick them up, open the lecture transcript and search for whatever they want there. Now, this other website isn't really using AI, as far as I know. Maybe it is. But there's another website called Matthew713.com, which has taken 25,000 of the questions that have been asked on the air here over the decades and made a topical index of them. So a person can look up any subject and find and immediately go to a hyperlink to a call where that question has been answered on the air here in the past. Now, the first of those websites I mentioned is called OpenTheo.org, and the other one is Matthew713.com. Now, I'm sure that it's not impossible or even difficult to make some kind of AI website that would answer apologetic questions. I think that would be fantastic. some of which, of course, would already be found in our topical index of calls, this program, at Matthew713.com. But, you know, just going to chat GPT, if you say, you know, did Jesus rise from the dead, or, you know, things like that, many times it gives a pretty good answer. I mean, I've looked up some of that stuff, and... I've been surprised. It gives an answer that's pretty responsible in most cases. But I'm sure there'd be many apologetics questions that chat GPT would be biased in another direction from. So having a Christian site that does would be obviously different, more reliable maybe in that respect. So have you been toying with the idea of starting something up like that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, it's been something of Been interested in, like, I'm aware of the OpenSEO site and actually downloaded a lot of their documents to basically create into an index that an AI could, you know, be able to look into and answer questions from. And then I'm wondering, do you have, like, ideas on other sources? You know, I'm sure you're an expert on your opinion, but it would be beneficial to list out potentially many different sources. sources of different perspectives. I was wondering if you just have some ideas on, like, what you would expect to be a top thing to consult.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, that's online?
SPEAKER 07 :
Online or in print, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Well, there's tons of stuff in print. I've got shelves full of apologetics-related books and so forth.
SPEAKER 07 :
Maybe online then, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. You know, there's a website I've only been to a few times. I hope I remember it. I think it's just called, is it ask.com or answers.com, something like that. And it's Christian. It may be ask.com. I'm not sure. But on occasion, I've tried to see how they would answer certain questions, and I thought they were pretty responsible, pretty good. And, you know, there's, of course, Hank Hanegraaff's ministry called equip.org. Equip.org has a lot of apologetics stuff. I have no idea what format they have it at their website because I actually don't go there. But, yeah, I would just say, see, I don't look at apologetics websites very often. I like books, and I've got gazillions of books, and I like turning the pages and finding stuff. But, obviously, the younger generation, well, first of all, people can't all afford to buy a bunch of books and also – It takes longer, so people like a faster access. I'm sure that many of the resources that are out there, you could exploit in some way and reconfigure according to something that's more convenient. But I'm not that familiar. First, I'm not that familiar with what AI does that can't be done otherwise. I know some of the things. I mean, it gets answers awfully quick on chat GPT. But... On the other hand, there are a lot of websites out there where you can look up apologetic stuff. So I'm not going to be able to know how to steer you on that. I'd like to, but you're certainly welcome to access all my material that's online. It sounds like you're already kind of doing that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it's good to get your blessing before I go any further, certainly.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, yeah, that's the questions I had for you. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. And Jackson, if you ever meet another person in Japan named Jackson, it's probably my friend. How many Jacks are there to be?
SPEAKER 08 :
I'll keep an eye out, yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Hey, great talking to you.
SPEAKER 08 :
You as well.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thanks for joining us. All right. Let's talk to Gary from Halley, Michigan. Either Haley or Halley. Hi, Gary.
SPEAKER 12 :
Thank you, Steve, for your program. Last year, Iran was shooting missiles at Israel, and I know that God loves Israel. And that part's not in the Bible, but there are other things. I believe you said you knew about the heavens, the lightweight planet Earth.
SPEAKER 06 :
What was that? What about the lightweight planet Earth? Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
Did I know about it?
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yeah. I read that back in 1970. I could repeat it by heart mostly back then. Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
It says many days they shall be visited in the latter years. They shall come upon the land and brought back from the sword against the mountains of Israel, which have the ways of ways.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, that's Ezekiel 38. Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
30 38 says thou shalt come up against my people of israel as a cloud to cover the land it shall be in the latter days and i will bring thee against my land that the heathen may know me so then anyways it tells you in verse 19 for my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have spoken surely in that day there should be a great shaking in the land of israel do you believe these events are already taking place
SPEAKER 06 :
I think it is probable that they have. It's spoken of as an ancient battle. It's not described as a modern battle at all.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, I believe it's later and it's coming up.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. You take it literally. So you believe that the armies that invade Israel will be on horseback and they'll be using swords and spears and bows and arrows?
SPEAKER 12 :
Yes, let me give you this. In the southern part of Europe, They have calvaries, and they have all those armaments. I think when Gog attacked Israel... Wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER 06 :
You're telling me there's a modern army in Europe that uses bows and arrows instead of firearms and missiles?
SPEAKER 12 :
They have those forces.
SPEAKER 06 :
I don't believe that. I don't believe that. Can you give me some documentation for that?
SPEAKER 12 :
Are you sure there are?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. I asked if you can give me some documentation. I certainly don't believe there's any modern troops... who have forsworn gunpowder and are now using bows and arrows and swords and spears instead and running on horses.
SPEAKER 12 :
No, what I'm saying is God is Russia, and they have their armies behind these others. They're going to bring these forces on horseback to scare Israel on the mountains of Israel.
SPEAKER 06 :
Don't you think tanks would be more scary?
SPEAKER 12 :
No, it's going to be a time. The time that they're going to attack will be a time that they will not be able to use them. Why do you say that?
SPEAKER 06 :
What would make it impossible to use tanks?
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, the first part, they want to scare Israel.
SPEAKER 06 :
Who says?
SPEAKER 12 :
They said they'll be on the mountains of Israel.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, who says that?
SPEAKER 12 :
And they're going to come with their cavalry first. When they come on the mountains of Israel... Okay, I don't believe that. Okay, well... Why should I?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, I reject Hal Lindsey's entire eschatology, but...
SPEAKER 12 :
I believe in what he taught.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, that's fine. But the point I'm making... Okay, the point I'm making... Okay, yeah, my point is... But I do believe... No, I get to make a point, too. I just put you on hold. I'll put you back on in a minute. But I do get to speak once in a while on my show. I believe that people can make any kind of claims about what's going on in the world... And they can tailor these claims to what they think the Bible predicts is supposed to happen. And people have been doing this for a very long time. Hal Lindsey was the most guilty of this back in 1970. I don't know if you were around in 1970. I read his book when it came out. I heard him speak publicly. You know, I'm very familiar with it. And many copycat books were written that said the same thing Hal did. And, in fact, my own pastor was an expert on these things and said the same things. I've rejected all that because simply... I've learned that's not what the Bible teaches. And you really can't understand the Bible simply by saying, I understand it this way, and I can make up these facts, alleged facts, that correspond to it so it proves that my interpretation is correct. I do not believe you can find any documentation of any modern army that is using bows and arrows instead of guns, or any major power, that would send horsemen with armor and spears and swords in a major battle against Israel, which is a highly technological military, that is, Israel has. I mean, how quick would it take Israel with machine guns or missiles or anything like that to take out an army on horseback? Come on. I mean, you want to document that for me? you know, be careful about repeating things that you haven't documented because it's very important not to lie and not to misrepresent scripture. Now, when you said they're going to send the horses first to scare Israel and then back it up with Russia's armies, where's that? That's not in Ezekiel 38. There's nothing there about they're going to scare them with these things. I think you're making this up as you go along or else somebody you heard it from is because it simply isn't a fact. It's not in the Bible and it's not in reality. But I appreciate your call. And you've been calling me for many years with similar kinds of things. Okay, Robert in Sacramento, California. Welcome. Hey, how you doing, Steve? Fine, thanks.
SPEAKER 04 :
I called because, you know, I was reading in Zechariah 414 the other day, and me, you have this thing going about God favoring Israel. If God does not favor Israel, why does he come and destroy all the nations that have come to battle against him?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, he did. He did favor Israel. They were his chosen people.
SPEAKER 04 :
In the Battle of Armageddon, he's coming back to Israel.
SPEAKER 06 :
There's no mention of the Battle of Armageddon in Zechariah 14. There's no mention of Armageddon. The word Armageddon is found only once in Scripture, and that's in Revelation 16. And it's not talking necessarily about It could be talking about the same thing as Zechariah 14, but there's no reason to say so. But I will say this. The assumption that the Battle of Armageddon in Revelation 16 is a future war is simply an assumption that is made by dispensationalists. There's no obligation for biblical students to be dispensationalists, so we don't have to see it that way. But I don't mind someone seeing it that way if they want to defend that. In other words, let's just say I think Zechariah 14 occurred back, you know, those early verses occurred in 70 AD. You and many other people think they're going to happen in the future. Fine. Okay, well, I believe the most natural way to understand it is, that Zechariah, who lived to see the second temple built, in fact, his ministry was during the time the second temple was built, that if he talks about the destruction of Jerusalem, as he does in Zechariah 14, more likely than not, he's talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple that existed while he was prophesying. But if he's talking about some future Jerusalem, then we have to assume that Zechariah didn't say anything about the destruction of the Jerusalem he was living in, but he skipped over that. It was destroyed in 70 AD, but he looked way off thousands of years ahead to a different Jerusalem being destroyed. That, to my mind, is very counterintuitive. I would have to have some evidence for that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Pardon? Nor will he. Nor will he.
SPEAKER 06 :
The Bible doesn't say he's going to return and split the Mount of Olives. The Bible doesn't even mention Jesus. No, no, in Zechariah 14, where it talks about his foot shall stand on the Mount of Olives, it doesn't mention Jesus. It mentions Yahweh, and that's not the first time in the Old Testament that we read of Yahweh standing on the Mount of Olives. So who do we assume that Yahweh is then? Pardon?
SPEAKER 04 :
I thought Yahweh was another way to say Jesus is.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yahweh is the word for God. I don't know why your phone is garbly. I'm having a hard time understanding, but let me just say this. In Zechariah 14, it says, I mean, the only person who's been mentioned previous to that verse in Zechariah 14 is Yahweh, which is God, which is what God has called throughout the whole Old Testament. And it says his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, okay? Now, the idea of Yahweh's feet standing on the Mount of Olives, happened once before Zechariah's time, and he's saying it's going to happen again. Well, when did it happen before that? Well, in Ezekiel, which was before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Ezekiel 11.23, he says he saw the glory of Yahweh going up from the midst of the city of Jerusalem and standing on the mountain, which is on the east side of the city, which is the Mount of Olives. There's no question about that. Every commentary would agree with that. The mountain on the east side of Jerusalem is the Mount of Olives. So he saw the glory of Yahweh leave the city out the eastern gate and standing on the Mount of Olives. What did that mean? It meant that the city was no longer protected from the Babylonians who were now going to come and destroy it. God had been in the temple. He had been in Jerusalem. But because of their abominations, he left. He went out the gates. He was no longer there. He was standing nearby on the Mount of Olives, which means far enough away to watch what would transpire when the Babylonians came wiped out. Now, there's no question. No commentator would ever disagree that that's what Ezekiel's talking about. Now, that happened in 586 B.C. Zechariah lived after that. Zechariah came at the time that it was time to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and so forth, and that happened in his time. But he prophesies in chapter 14, there's going to be a replay of that, just as the Babylonians wiped out the temple when God left the city and stood on the Mount of Olives outside, leaving it undefended. So the temple that was built in Zechariah's time would also suffer the same, and it did in 70 AD. So he says in verse 4, Zechariah 14, 4, And in that day his feet, now the only his, the only one, you know, the person that could refer to, mentioned earlier in the chapter, is Yahweh, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Okay, again, just like he did in 586 B.C., he's going to do that again in 70 A.D. He says the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall split in two. Now, the splitting in two of the Mount of Olives is figurative, just as Zechariah 4 figuratively speaks of a mountain being removed before Zerubbabel, as he said about the task of rebuilding the temple. God said, who are you, O mountain, before Zerubbabel, you'll become a plain. Well, that's not literal. There's no mountain standing before Zerubbabel. It did not become a plain. This is a figure of speech. In fact, Zechariah is written almost entirely in figures of speech. It's an apocalyptic book, which has almost nothing literal in it. And, you know, you should study the whole book before trying to decide what any given passage in it means, because you'll find that Jerusalem, for example, is not a burdensome stone that the nations cut themselves onto pieces, although that's the way it's described in Zechariah 12. So, I mean, this is very common in chapter 13. On that day, a fountain shall be opened for the house of David. That's in Zechariah 13. And for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. Okay, is there a fountain opening up somewhere out of the ground and water pouring out to clean them of their sin? No. We could say, well, that's the blood of Jesus, and I believe it is. But the blood of Jesus isn't a literal fountain. These are figures of speech. It's a fountain for cleansing, like the pool of Siloam or something. Now, here's the thing. When people do not study the book of Zechariah, or do not know what it is, do not recognize apocalyptic imagery, and take literally, kind of randomly, whatever parts they want to take literally, while recognizing symbols throughout the other parts. It's not going to be a good approach to trying to understand any given portion of it. I do have lectures, verse by verse, through Zechariah, as the rest of the Bible. I have at our website for free. You can listen to verse by verse lectures I've given on the whole Bible, and some of my favorites are on Zechariah. If you just want to listen to my lecture on Zechariah 14, you'll understand it a little differently. than the way that is popularly presented. All right. I appreciate your call. Thank you. We're going to talk next to Susan from Booth Bay, Maine. Hi, Susan. Welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi. I keep hearing about this. What do you make of Matthew 24, 22? How would the days be shortened? What do you think about that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Jesus said if the days were not shortened, there would be no flesh that would survive. Now, he's talking about the Roman armies coming against Jerusalem and destroying the city. And I think what he's saying is this is such a fierce and bloody battle that it's easy to imagine that if it went on long enough, every last Jew in Jerusalem would have been slaughtered. But God doesn't want that to happen, and therefore he shortens the days. He prevents that from happening. The idea being, you know, a few more days, maybe considerable more days, but given enough days, everyone would be wiped out there. But God doesn't allow that to happen. He shortens the time by allowing the Romans to break through the walls and capture the city.
SPEAKER 01 :
Do you feel like that has anything to do with our time here right now, like something that's going to be done to help us believers?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, I don't think it's about now. Jesus said, you know, later after this point, he said, this generation will not pass before all these things are fulfilled. So everything he's talking about there, he says would happen within that generation. And it did. He was speaking in 30 A.D. It happened in 40 A.D. I mean, 70 A.D., and that was 40 years later. So that's a generation. So I think that I don't think we have any reason to look for, you know, a fulfillment again because he doesn't mention any further fulfillments of this after that. He says it would happen, all of it would happen within that generation. And since it did, I think we should say, wow, that's a fantastic example of Jesus hitting it in the bullseye as far as prophecy is concerned. It all happened exactly as he said. but it happened in that generation. Anyway, I have lectures on that, too. By the way, when I mention my lectures, these are all free to listen to at my website, thenarrowpath.com. So it would be good to check it out if you're interested in these things, because I can only give brief answers on the air because of the number of callers waiting. But I would love to give you more information, and it is available at thenarrowpath.com in these various lectures. Adam from Cortez, Colorado. You're our last caller, and we only have a few minutes. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, Steve, so I'm stuck when it comes to how to view the patristic fathers. It seems like most would say that they were great men of faith. Obviously, some were martyrs. But what I found is that as Protestants, we often refer to them to support orthodoxy when it fits our views. But when you look at their views as a whole, you find that they taught Roman Catholic doctrine, so forth. It seems like either there was a great apostasy one generation after the apostles or these men did have the continuation of the truth. But it just seems like something's off because it doesn't seem like there's much gray area there, you know, unless I'm wrong. So I was wondering if you could add to that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Obviously, there's like 30-something volumes of the writings of the church fathers. I'm looking at them right now. They're on my shelf, and I haven't read them all. That's like bigger than the Encyclopedia Britannica to read all that stuff. But the ones I have read, and I have read from the church fathers a great deal, including when Catholic authors are quoting them to support their doctrines, I don't find that the early fathers did support the Catholic doctrines. I mean, the Catholics will quote the church fathers saying that they taught the Eucharist and the transubstantiation, or that they taught infant baptism, or that they taught that Mary... you know, was sinless or something like that, then they'll quote someone from the church fathers who doesn't actually say that. It's like if you agree with the church that those doctrines are true, you can interpret the church fathers' statements through that lens just like you can interpret Scripture through the lens. The trick is to get past your own prejudices and to recognize what kind of a grid you're reading through, whether you're reading Scripture or anything else. Now, I will say this. I don't put a lot of stock in the church fathers because they didn't even agree with each other about many things. But it is, I will sometimes quote them when they are saying something they all agreed on or something that, you know, I'm trying to point out that this was a very early position of the church. Now, if something is a very early position of the church, it doesn't mean it's right. But if in all other respects it is supported by exegesis and other things, it's also sometimes interesting or helpful. to recognize that not only are we seeing the Scripture that way, it turns out all Christians saw it this way at one time. So there is a place for citing the church fathers, but I don't cite them as an absolute authority, but as an illustration of what the historical teaching was, insofar as it resembles what I think the Bible says. True, sometimes they say things I wouldn't agree with, Sometimes they say things the Catholic Church wouldn't agree with. For example, the Church Fathers were pre-millennial. But the Catholic Church isn't. So the Catholic Church doesn't follow them either. They just do when they want to. Hey, I guess that's all we can do. We've got to go by Scripture, first of all. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. You can donate there or just take stuff for free. thenarrowpath.com
This episode of The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg tackles an array of intriguing topics that bridge ancient biblical principles with modern-day dilemmas. As listeners call in with questions, Steve unpacks the complexities of dreams and their potential messages from God. Delving into the Bible's take on tithes, offerings, and giving, the discussion shifts gears to explore how Christians can navigate societal pressures while remaining steadfast in their faith. Additionally, the conversation touches on controversial topics like Calvinism and predestination, encouraging listeners to consider varied theological perspectives. The episode concludes with a thoughtful reflection on how personal convictions should guide our actions in a way that aligns with our beliefs and spiritual values.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon to take your calls if you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith or you have a different view from the host and want to present that. There's a phone number you can call to get on. We have actually a couple of our lines are open at the moment. They may not be for very long. You can call me at this number, 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Now, I've been getting a lot of emails from people asking if the debate in April with Dr. Michael Brown is still going to happen. We've certainly not announced anything else, and we have not expected anything else to happen. We there erupted, I guess it was near the end of last year, some issues in his personal life that raised questions as to whether he'll be available. And we weren't sure, but we've talked to him. At least some of the people intending to organize the debate have talked to him, and it looks like he's still going to be available. for the dates that we had in mind, which is the first weekend in April. And I think it'll be in the Fresno, California area. So that'll be confirmed. Actually, the location may be a different one than what we had planned on. We're looking for the best possible location. So we don't have that posted. We don't have that information out yet. It's still not until a while from now in April. So anyway, for those wondering, at this point, it looks like the debate will be going on, debating about the subject of Israel. And not just one debate, possibly three. I think we're talking about a Friday and a Saturday. So it should be an enjoyable weekend for anyone who comes, including Dr. Brenner and myself, I hope. Now, a couple of other things about where I'm going to be coming up. I am going to be in Texas. I've been saying that all week, and that's true. I'll be in Texas April 18th through the 28th, and there's still plenty of spots during that week. I don't mind speaking every day and every night. When I'm out of town, I don't like to sit around twiddling my thumb. So if I have a day off, it's not my favorite situation. I'd rather be busy. So if you're in Texas, anywhere in Texas, but especially anywhere like Dallas-Fort Worth or Houston or San Antonio, those areas, and you want to set something up, let us know. You can get in touch with us through the website if you want to. That is to say there's an email address there for me. Let us know that you have something in mind that we're talking about any time between the 18th and the 28th of April in Texas. Now, there's one other thing that has come up. And that is, it looks like I'll be in Nashville speaking on the second weekend of March. We're looking at March 7th and 8th. Now, once again, whenever I go to Tennessee, I don't mind being very busy. And we've got me booked for the 7th and the 8th of March, the week leading up to that or the week following that. are all possibilities if you want me to come to any place we're on. I think we're on four different stations, at least three different stations in Tennessee in different areas. So, again, you can get in touch. We're talking about essentially the first week of March we're looking at, or the second. March is pretty open, and so we'll determine whether we fill in the week before the 7th or the week after the 7th, depending on what kind of time people are asking for. So anyway, those things are happening. March and April, we're talking about Tennessee and Texas. And of course, at the beginning of April, we're talking about a debate in the Fresno area. So These are the things that are coming up, and if you want to book something, get in touch with us soon because the time slots do fill up. It costs nothing to have me come. Sacramento, I guess with the Fresno thing, I'll be possibly close enough to take something in Sacramento, too, although the weekend will be taken in Fresno. But anyway, these are places that I go regularly or at least try to go once a year or something like that. And these are the dates we're looking at right now in the next few months. All right, enough of that information. We will hope to hear from some of you. Let's talk to Patty in Carmichael, California. Patty, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for coming.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you, Steve. I want to thank you for finishing answering the question on Exodus 4 after the break the other day. That was very good.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, thanks.
SPEAKER 07 :
My question today, another little weird thing. On Ezekiel 13, 18 and 20, when they're talking about sewing pillows to armholes and then I'm against your pillows, what are they talking about?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, well, if you look at commentaries about that, they'll say that has something to do with the worship of Tammuz, a pagan god, that women, it was mainly women that worshiped Tammuz. And they sewed pillows onto their arms, I guess it is, for purposes that no one to this day understands. Oh, of course. Yeah. I mean, this was going on, you know, 2,600 years ago in a land that is very far away from us and culturally very different. Right. and worshipping a deity that isn't worshipped anymore. So we don't know all the reasons for these things, but that's what it is. So those are the kind of things that you kind of read over and you scratch your head and say, well, I guess Ezekiel and the people in his day knew what this was about.
SPEAKER 07 :
Guess we'll find out when we get to heaven, huh?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, if they're talking about that up there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, thank you. I appreciate your time, and God bless you for all you do. I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, Patty. God bless you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 02 :
Bye now. All right. Our next caller is Dennis from Bloomfield, Colorado. Hi, Dennis. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi. Thank you. I'm a long-time listener, first-time caller.
SPEAKER 02 :
Great.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I have a quick question. I know in Catholicism, they believe in mortal sin, and they believe if you don't go to church on a holy day obligation, if you die in that sin, you go to hell. Obviously, it's following the Jesus. We don't believe that, you know, Protestants, whatever label you want to call it. Right. So what is truth? It's for them. Is that true for them? And for us, not Jesus followers, but don't believe in Catholicism. So I have a hard time understanding what is the truth about stuff like that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Well, there are corruptions of the simple Christian message, which involve obligations that the Bible never places on people. And certain religions, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and many forms of Protestantism, they have some kind of rules that are not in the Bible that God never cared about and never commanded. And yet they become not only expected, they become required. You know, if you neglect them, they call it a mortal sin. But this is the authority of man, not God declaring it. God never said anything about that. You know, when we stand before God, we'll be judged on the basis of what we did in response to the light that God gave us. Did we obey Christ as best we understood from his word? Did we trust in Christ? If so, then all will be well. Now, the legalistic rules and so forth that certain religious sectors have invented, are not required by God. Now, I will say this, though. Paul did say that people should follow their conscience about things. It doesn't mean their conscience is always right, but it's not safe to go against your conscience. And the reason is your conscience... is that part of you that tells you that something is right or wrong. It may be itself mistaken, because some people think, for example, it's wrong for a woman to wear pants. There are churches that think that, or that it's wrong for a woman to cut her hair or something like that. So, I mean, when groups have those kinds of convictions, and if you're raised with those or indoctrinated with those, then it'll be in your conscience. Your conscience will make you feel guilty if you violate those rules, even though God doesn't make those rules and God doesn't care. But you do. That's the thing. If your heart is telling you you're doing the wrong thing and you do it anyway, this suggests that you are willing to go against what you think is right, even if what you think is right is mistaken. It's your orientation toward God and toward obedience to him that God's looking at. And that's why Paul said, you know, in 1 Corinthians chapters 8 through 10, he has a long discussion about this, how that it's not really wrong to eat meat sacrificed to idols, but some Christians thought it was. And he says, well, if you think it is, then it's wrong for you to do it. Now, he doesn't mean that there's different moral standards that God imposes on one group than another. He's saying that if you can't get free in your conscience about this, if you feel like you're not supposed to do it and that it's bad to do it, then don't do it, because doing what you believe is bad to do is simply showing a willingness to do what you think is wrong. Now, if you're more enlightened and realize that it's not wrong, more power to you. Paul said, blessed is the man whose mind does not condemn him in the thing which he does. Now, some things are right and wrong, but then there are personal convictions and religious convictions that some people hold which they think are right or wrong and to violate the conscience. is never a safe thing. Now, does that mean that a Catholic should live in bondage to rules and so forth that aren't in the Bible? No. But a Catholic should not violate their conscience. As long as they are convinced that these are things that God wants them to do, they shouldn't stop doing them until they can become righteously convinced that it doesn't matter to God. And that can happen. Your conscience is not static. It's dynamic. It can become corrupted. For example, people can do things they know are wrong enough that later on they don't feel that they're wrong. Their conscience has been corrupted. It's been cauterized, the Bible says. On the other hand, a person's conscience might be too sensitive about things. Well, it can be changed too. Your conscience should be educated by the Word of God. And so, you know, if I think it's wrong for a person to smoke cigarettes and then I'd better not smoke them. If I see someone else smoking them, I'm not allowed to judge them about that because the Bible doesn't say it's wrong to smoke cigarettes. But if I think it's wrong, I shouldn't do it. And if I do it, I'm doing the wrong, I'm sinning. I'm sinning against my own conscience. And that's something that we're not allowed to do. So if a Catholic thinks that they have to do all these things, observe the, you know, festal calendar of the Catholic Church and things like that, and if they don't, They're going to hell. Well, I'm not saying they'll go to hell if they violate those things. But I will say they can't just ignore what they believe to be required. But they can change their mind about what is required. They can educate themselves and discover. And this would happen to Luther and many people who were once Catholics and came out of that. They realized that the rules they were keeping were not in the Bible. The church taught them to do things that weren't required. And once they realized that, they were free to not do them. But as long as you think you have to do them, then you'd better not violate them. Because the main thing is that you make sure you do not violate your conscience. And so I think many Roman Catholics would be of the view that that they have to do those things. But the Bible doesn't say it. I don't think it's so. And so the question is whether you think so or not. So that would be the main concern. Okay. Teresa from San Francisco, California. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Teresa. I've been listening to you for a year now, and your words are really magnificent for me to go on throughout the week. So I have two questions that have been bothering me for years. Dreams. Where in the Bible does it actually let us know that Jesus is talking to us or warning us or communicating to us through our dreams? Where can I find that at? For instance, I have dreams. Sometimes they're a death of a certain person, and it may not be of that person. It's the next person to them. Or it's something's about to happen or has happened. That person came in my dreams twice, and I wake up with that specific thought, and it's there as if it happened yesterday. So where in the Bible can it speak about the talk of dreams? The second question is tithes and offerings. of the church. How often do we actually pay into it, and when is it too much of a stress on our own home that we have to be obligated to pay our tithes and offerings in church?
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. All right. Well, thank you for that call. I'll address both those things. When it comes to dreams, dreams are mysterious things, don't you think? I think everyone will have to agree it's very mysterious. Sometimes you'll have a dream at night, and there'll be elements in it of things you were talking about the previous day or something that's happening to somebody else that you know about that's on your heart. Or it may be a strange mixture of different aspects of things. And you think, well, where did that story come from in my head? And it's mysterious. The mind is a mysterious thing. And I think dreams are among the most mysterious functions of the mind. Now, the Bible, of course, records God speaking to people through dreams. You know, Joseph famously said, had dreams. Daniel had dreams. In fact, many prophets had dreams. Zechariah had dreams. In the New Testament, Joseph had dreams where an angel appeared to him and told him on one occasion to go ahead and marry Mary who was pregnant and on another occasion he was told to go to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. Paul had either visions or dreams too. It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between a vision or a dream in the Bible because In either case, it is God giving somebody a message supernaturally. And if it's in a dream, it's when they're asleep. If it's a vision, I presume it's when they're awake. In fact, in the Bible, an inspired dream seems to be no different than an inspired vision. except in one case the person's awake and the other case they're asleep. And so you could get the impression from reading the Bible, because it never records other dreams that are not prophetic. You get the impression, oh, the Bible teaches that dreams are God talking to you. And yet the Bible doesn't really say that. The Bible simply gives examples of people who had dreams where God was giving them a message and a dream. However, some people dream every night. And certainly it would be crazy to suggest that every night they're getting prophetic messages from God, especially given the craziness of some of the dreams that people have and the unedifying types of dreams many people have. Fear-inducing or lustful or other kinds of dreams that you couldn't really attribute them to God. Sometimes it seems like they may come from the devil. And I suspect sometimes they may. I believe that God may give dreams, or I think the devil can give dreams, but I also think just your brain or your mind can produce dreams. Now, I don't know where they come from. Again, I don't know how all the stuff tangled up in your experience somehow gets processed into a weird story in your sleep. That's very mysterious. But my suspicion is about dreams, and the Bible doesn't tell us this per se, but I think just from experience, and there's nothing against this in the Bible, I think most people's dreams, most dreams are just a natural function of the mind, you know, processing or regurgitating thoughts, and emotions from real life into really fantastic and fictional and weird contraptions, strange stories. But I also believe, and I think this would be much less frequently, a dream may be something that the devil gives somebody. Now, this would be the kind of dreams that are perhaps temptations to sin or terrifying dreams. which God is not in that case trying to terrify you. It's just an intimidating and terrifying thing. I would not be surprised if the devil gives those kinds of dreams. The Bible doesn't say so. The Bible doesn't talk about the devil giving dreams. So I'm just speculating here. But I think the majority of dreams are either just from your own mind or sometimes from the devil. And then from time to time, God does give inspired prophetic dreams. Now, I don't know that everyone has those. In the Bible, God said to Moses that if he calls a person to be a prophet, he will speak to that person in a dream or a vision. And he was basically saying that it's different with Moses because Moses was, you know, greater than most prophets. But let me find that passage for you. It is... Chapter 12 of Numbers, in verse 6, God said, So, he says that he does speak to his prophets in dreams, and we have examples of those, as I mentioned earlier. But even those people didn't have prophetic dreams every day. I mean, Daniel was remarkably inspired in terms of both having dreams and interpreting other people's dreams, as was Joseph. But we only read of them having a few such cases. We don't read of them doing that kind of every week or every month or every year. So I think it's a rare thing when a dream is actually a word from God. Now, how would one know if it is, you ask? And I'm not sure exactly how to say, but I will say this. And this is I can say with a measure of confidence, but not with certainty. When Pharaoh had dreams that were from God and he called for Joseph to come interpret them. And indeed, they were prophetic dreams that Pharaoh had. And likewise, Nebuchadnezzar, when Nebuchadnezzar had dreams and he needed Daniel to come interpret them. In both cases, these these guys woke up unsettled. I mean, they had dreams, and they woke up disturbed. Like, I mean, something in their spirit told them, this is not just another weird dream because I had anchovies on my pizza. This is something that needs an interpretation. They had a strong conviction that God was speaking to them, and they're very emotionally disturbed by what they'd seen. I think that was no doubt disturbing. God letting them know that this was something special, something unusual. Now, I myself have had a couple of dreams in my life, which I, in retrospect, believe were from God. And there was information in those dreams I needed to know, but I couldn't know naturally. And I woke up in both cases that I can think of very disturbed, feeling very disturbed from the dream. And then I later would check up on things that I didn't know and found out they were confirmed. So I personally think on a couple of occasions, maybe three, that I have had dreams that were something I needed to pay attention to more than just an ordinary weird dream. And they turned out in each case to be giving me information that was important for me to know. And in each of those cases, I didn't wake up feeling normal. I woke up with a strong sense that this was something other than just a normal dream. Now, that sounds so subjective, but hey, sometimes when God is doing stuff, revealing stuff, I'm sure there's a strong subjective element to that. But I'm not telling you that every time you wake up on Easter Eve that you've had a prophetic dream. This is just something that it's going to have to be God who lets you know in some way. God will somehow let you know that this is something you need to know. But I'm not of the opinion that most people have prophetic dreams at all. And if they do, not very often. So, you know, there's no teaching in the Bible that tells us how to necessarily recognize if a dream is from God or not. And I think it's, I guess... It's up to God to give you the strong sense that he's trying to tell you something. Now, you asked about tithes. How often do we have to tithe and so forth? Well, tithing is not something that is, as far as we know, practiced in the New Testament. It's an Old Testament practice. It was a law that all the tribes of Israel, except the, well, including the Levites, had to take a tenth of the produce of their farms, and 11 of the tribes had to give that tenth to the Levites. Then the Levites had to take a tenth of that, of their income, and give it to the priests. So everyone was giving away a tenth of what they got. That was called tithing. The word tithe means tenth. That's an old English word for tenth. So the giving of 10% to the priests was called tithing. Now, we don't have any priests like that. We don't have a tabernacle. We don't have Levites today. And we don't have any command in the New Testament to pay a tithe to anyone. We are, of course, to be very generous with the money that God's given us because we're stewards of whatever we have. If God has blessed us with enough and more than what we need, we should recognize that what we have extra is an opportunity to help somebody else who needs it. Now, among the needs that the New Testament tells us are important for us to be mindful of are the needs of the poor, especially the poor. That's what Jesus said to the rich young ruler. Sell what you have and give it to the poor. He didn't say give it to the church or give it to the temple or give it to me. He said give it to the poor. That's how you lay up treasures in heaven, he said. And then, of course, the Bible also says that people should help with their finances, the support of the ministry of the word. So people who are preaching the gospel, pastors, teachers, people who their whole livelihood is made in sharing the word of God, making sure that they are supported is one of the other priorities that the New Testament mentions. So the two primary things that money is for, besides meeting your own obligations, but giving is for, is to help the poor and to help promote the gospel. Now, giving 10% is not required in the New Testament. You might give less, but you very well might give more. I've never felt that giving 10% for me was enough. I didn't think it was giving enough. I thought I should give more than that, and I do, but I've never looked at the tithe as a standard of how much to give, but rather, how much can I give? How much can I... How inexpensively can I live so that I can give to people who don't have enough? That would be the way to think about such things, I believe. And so... Don't worry about tithing. The New Testament mentions no obligation to tithe. It's an Old Testament obligation. All right. I appreciate your call. We're going to take a break here, but we're going to come back, obviously, and have another half hour. You're listening to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener supported. If you'd like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California. You can also donate to the radio ministry from the website, which is thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds, so don't go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
toward a radically Christian counterculture, as well as hundreds of other stimulating lectures can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from the Narrow Path website, www.thenarrowpath.com. There is no charge for anything at the Narrow Path website. Visit us and be amazed at all you've been missing. That web address, www.thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. Our lines are full at the moment. So I'm not going to bother giving out the phone number, but if the lines are opening up and we have time for more calls, we'll give out that number. Let's see if there's anything else I need to say. That's all I'll say right now. We need to get to the phones and take as many of these calls as possible. Our next caller is Terry in Fort Worth, Texas. Terry, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, hello, Steve. Thanks. I've called in before, and this is my second time calling in, second time I got on. So I'm so proud. Great. Why did Jesus say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me when he was up on the cross dying?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that's a good question, and different people give different answers. The most obvious thing that can be seen right away is that he was quoting from an Old Testament passage. He was quoting Psalm 22, verse 1, which has those very words. David, writing perhaps of his own anguish, says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But the New Testament treats many of the Psalms of David as if they are the Messiah speaking. That's because even though the things that David said about himself were true of himself, he was also seen as a type and a figure of the Messiah. The Messiah was going to be his offspring. David was a prototype of the Messiah. And the New Testament sees concealed in many of David's words about himself, rather hidden identification with the Messiah and the words of David then are taken in the New Testament as if they are the Messiah's own words. This is something that I think the apostles saw as a result of Jesus, as it says in Luke 24, opening their understanding of so that they might understand the Old Testament scriptures. I think they saw Jesus in the Old Testament places where maybe another person might not see him. But Jesus was speaking as David did at the beginning of Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now, there's a number of reasons that people have suggested that this could be so. One of them, and I've heard this a lot since my childhood... is that Jesus at that moment was indeed forsaken by God at that moment, briefly. The story goes that the sins of the world were laid upon him, as in the Old Testament sacrificial system, when the priest would lay hands on the animal before it was sacrificed and confess the sins of the people so that, symbolically, the sins were transferred from the people to the animal. Then the animal was symbolically treated like the sinner and the sinners themselves were treated as innocent. It's sort of like there's a transfer of status from the people to the animal and vice versa. So as the animal was in fact an innocent party, so the people then were treated as innocent parties. And as the people were guilty of sin, so the animals treated as it was guilty of sin. Now this is all very symbolic in the sacrificial system, but Christians tend to believe that this animal represented Christ and that Christ had our sins placed upon him. just as it says in 2 Corinthians 5, that he who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So some feel that what Jesus is doing is actually speaking a reality, that as the sins of the world have been placed upon him, and he was now suffering the penalty of sin, the penalty of sin includes God turning his back on sin, on the sinner, and that now God was turning his back on Christ, and that Christ was experiencing the emptiness and the absence of God's presence with him. And so when Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's not that he was looking for an answer, more of a rhetorical question, more of a statement, really, that God had, in fact, forsaken him. Now, this is a very common way of describing what Jesus did, and and explaining it, and it could be that this is the correct explanation, though it's not the only one, and so it may be that some other explanation works. Now, one thing that people have sometimes said is that at certain ceremonies, and this was the Passover when Jesus was crucified, the high priest would utter the beginning of some passage of Scripture which was familiar to the people, And he'd maybe recite the first part. And then the people were supposed to be mindful of the rest of that passage, even though the priest didn't quote it. Now, of course, Psalm 22 is a psalm that describes... the Messiah being crucified. He talks about how they pierced my hands, my feet, all my joints, my bones are out of joint, you know, my tongue cleaves the roof of my mouth. He says they cast lots for my clothing and they divided among themselves, which all these things happen to Jesus on the cross. And so the passage, as you read through Psalm 20, you find there's a description of of what was actually going on, being fulfilled right there in their presence was Jesus on the cross. And that Jesus was simply, this is one theory, quoting the first verse of Psalm 22 so that the people might become mindful of the whole chapter. Which, if you go further in the chapter, it describes the Messiah essentially crucified. So that he was pointing out to the crowd, by the citation of that one verse, that this was what David predicted was happening before them. Now, that's another common explanation. Now, there's a third, and it's much less profound sounding than those, but it could be true. And that is that he was simply speaking out his anguish, his agony. And that he wasn't really saying that God had forsaken him any more than David was saying that God had forsaken him. David uttered those words first, but David knew that God had not forsaken him. In fact, if you read further into the psalm, David actually mentions, you know, you won't depart from me, God. You know, you alone are the ones who stands with me, you know. So, excuse me. So I think that, you know, David might be simply speaking hyperbole. just saying that I personally feel that you've forsaken me, but I know that God really won't forsake me, but I feel like it. And he's expressing that feeling. And that Jesus was doing the same thing. Jesus was just expressing the anguish of feeling God forsaken, even though he didn't necessarily mean that as a literal reality. So there's a lot of ways to look at that. I think the one I'm most familiar with from my childhood is that he actually was forsaken by God briefly on the cross, and that was because our sins were transferred to him. But there are other possibilities. And since the Bible doesn't explain for us, it doesn't really champion one or another of those views, I think we can consider more than one possibility.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, Terry. Thanks for your call. Let's see here. We've got next, looks like Kevin in Northford, Connecticut. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Kevin.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it. I was just calling because I had a very strong impression before the election, and I was very serious and devoted to asking for God to have mercy on this country. And to me, that manifests in having Trump come into office. He's not our savior, but it's just the way he has more traditional values that are certainly Christian-friendly. But I believe that he's given us, like, maybe two years before the midterm elections, and that if the church, not the government, not Trump, but if the church doesn't get its act together... there's a very good chance that, you know, the evil spirits that were kicked out, they're going to come back, they're going to bring seven more with them, and we're going to be in a worse condition than we were before that. And one of the main things that concerns me is how people can say that they're christian and believe that abortion is okay i think to me it's very very offensive to god one of the main things that's offensive to god and one of the main things that he would like us to uh work on rectifying the having the um the church be willing to have the courage to speak up in love but to speak up and speak the truth and and i and like my church it's very hard to and i think it's true of a lot of churches I can't really say for sure, but it's my impression that people don't hear that in order to abide in Christ, we have to pick up our cross and bear it. So if you have an unwanted pregnancy, you have to pick up that cross and bear it for nine months. You can give the baby up for adoption if you needed to. If you are gay and you really want to have sex with a person of the same sex, but you believe in Christ, then you pick up your cross and you bear that. And the same thing for if you have a strong compulsion to you feel like you're a man trapped in a woman's body or a woman trapped in a man's body. All these things, if you're Christian, to me, you have to abide in Christ and you do that by picking up these crosses and bearing them. And I don't think that the church preaches that anywhere. And I think that the... the result of that for our country can be quite devastating fairly soon. And I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I don't know about the two-year limit. It certainly could be true. Obviously, there's going to be some change in the Congress in a couple of years. And if the Democrats take over the houses there, then it does strongly inhibit the reforms that Trump is trying to bring about. So I think you're right. It could be, it could be that there's only, uh, two years before things could go sour. And I agree with you too, that it's not, it's not the society, uh, or the government in general, that's going to decide whether we come under God's judges. It's the church. Uh, it's the church's responsibility to stand, especially in a country like ours, where it's got the largest number of professing evangelicals per capita of any nation, I think in the world, probably, um, if not in the world, certainly of any major nation. So, yeah, we definitely have a responsibility there. I agree with everything you said, and I think the reason that the churches fail is because the churches don't preach the gospel. Now, I'm sure they preach what they think is the gospel, you know, come to Jesus and go to heaven. That's not the gospel in the Bible. The Bible doesn't ever mention that. you know, accept Jesus and go to heaven. It's not part of the message that any of the apostles or Jesus taught. The gospel is, of course, that Jesus is king. Jesus is Lord. There's a kingdom, and he's ruling, and we're supposed to come under his authority and live to obey him. And as you said, Jesus said, if anyone comes to me, they need to deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Now, churches do not preach this, partly, I think, because the ones preaching often aren't doing it. It'd be rather embarrassing for for a pastor who's got a fat salary and living super comfortably, maybe more comfortably than a lot of people in his congregation are, to be saying, oh, you need to take up your cross and deny yourself and forsake all that you have to be a disciple, like Jesus said. You know, that's going to be awkward if the pastors aren't living that way themselves. And I really think a pastor has an awful hard time preaching from the pulpit, that people should do things that anyone can look at him and say, well, why don't you start? Why don't you do it first? You go first, you know. And so I think pastors have – now, some pastors really have it hard. Some really are denying themselves. Some are really making sacrifices to serve God in the pulpit. I'm not broad-brushing all pastors. But a lot of the biggest churches and the biggest denominations really – they've got a pretty cushy gig. They're pretty cushy. And I'm not saying that a Christian can't be comfortable if they're doing everything God tells them to do and not neglecting anything. But I think that the gospel is not preached today very often the way that Jesus preached it or the way that Paul or Peter preached it. And that's partly because people are not looking for a gospel that makes any demands of them. They're looking for the easiest access to heaven when they die. You know, they want to live their life how they want to live it now, but they want to be with God later. I don't know why they think they'll like being with God after they die if they don't like being with him now. If you live with God now, you live under his lordship. You live convicted of your sin and repentant and living an obedient, holy life. And you don't want to do that now. Why would you like doing that in the next life, you know, forever? Well, I guess a lot of people would answer, well, it's better than going to hell. Yeah, but if you don't want to live with God now, I'm not sure there's any assurance you won't go to hell. I mean, why should God think that you're on his side after you die? when your life shows you're not really on his side now. You might say you are. You might have said a little prayer, which is not something the Bible says to do to become a Christian, but a lot of churches do. And so what churches are doing is they're giving away real cheap tickets to heaven. The problem is that many people who've got these cheap tickets, as Jesus said, will find out at the gate, oops, this one is not validated. Jesus said, many will say to me in those days, Lord, Lord. We prophesied in your name. We cast out demons in your name. We did many great works in your name. And he'll say, I never knew you. He said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of God, but he that does the will of my Father in heaven. And that means someone who's living obediently to God. That's what being a Christian calls us to, not just to have a ticket and live the way we want to. It means we surrender to God as our total ruler. And if we find out that he says, listen, I want you to carry that baby and don't murder it, then you do that. If he says, I want you to live a clean and holy sexual life, well, then you do that the best you know how. And if you fail, you repent and seek to do better, you know, because you're committed to following Christ. But many churches never talk about that because, first of all, that's politically wrong. unpopular position, but also it's just unpopular with human nature. Human nature does not want to be told that they are not allowed to take the easiest route, but the most obedient route. And I've never understood, like you said, you don't know how anyone who could be a Christian and could be pro-abortion, me either. It's like if we were at church and right outside the church parking lot, someone was regularly dismembering toddlers and cutting their heads off and their arms off, and injecting living toddlers with poison that kills them. I would think it very strange if the pastor didn't say anything about that. What kind of Christian can tolerate that? And there's no difference between doing that to a toddler. And somebody who's a baby inside a womb. It's still the same person, just at a different stage. You know, when a person is an adult, they're the same person they were when they were a toddler. They're just at a different stage. And when they're a toddler, the same person they were when they were inside the womb. They were a person there, too. They're the same person. So, I mean, Christians simply are not thinkers. And I think they don't want to think about some things because it's something they don't want. to have to submit to. They don't want to submit to God about something that they know he requires, but they're looking for pastors to give them permission to do the wrong thing. But you know what? If pastors give you permission to do the wrong thing and you do it, that pastor, yeah, he's going to answer to that, to God. The Bible says teachers will receive a stricter judgment from God. So I wouldn't want to be one of these pastors who gives people permission to do evil, especially to murder. But I wouldn't want to be the murderer either because you still are responsible for what you do. The pastor may give you bad advice, but your conscience tells you what's true. And many, many women who get abortions, even though someone told them it's okay, they know as soon as they've done it that it wasn't okay. Your conscience will tell you that. So anyway, it's a sad state the church is in, and I do think the church has to repent. I think Christians have to start being actual followers of Jesus, or else stop calling themselves Christians. Why take the name of the Lord in vain? The Bible says that God will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. And if you say, I'm a Christian, but you don't make any effort to follow Jesus and obey Jesus, you're taking that name Christian, the name of Christ, in vain. And God won't hold you guiltless for that. So I'm on your side about that, Kevin, and I hope we do turn around. I think some good things are turning around, and some of them are in the church, but there's always those progressive churches that are a lot more interested in pleasing man than pleasing God. And Paul said in Galatians 1.10, if I was speaking to pleased men, I couldn't be the servant of Christ. I think it's a lot of men in pulpits and women, unfortunately, who are not seeking to be servants of Christ, but rather to please the congregations. Or even to please people outside the congregation, to please the world. Rashad from Brooklyn, New York. Welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. It's Rashad. How are you?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good, good. Hey, so this is my question. And just tell me if I have it wrong. As far as caverns are concerned, there's some people that are elect and some people that are not elect, correct? Yes. Okay. Now, is this a good analogy? Because I was thinking about this the other day. I was thinking, you know, how they say that God, you know, doesn't elect some people. So I thought about it like this. It would be like a scientist making a robot that kills programs it to kill, the robot kills, but it still blames the robot for killing. Now, is that a good analogy for what Calvinists think about the unelect, where God says, you're not elect, but I'm going to still blame you for sinning, even though you have no choice but to sin, because that's how I created you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I see it the way you do. Calvinists may not feel comfortable with that. They don't like us saying that God makes people to be robots. because they would say, well, technically we're not robots, we have a lot of freedom, but they would say that people do not have the freedom to do what's right unless God has elected them to be saved. And if they're not saved, if they're not elect, then they are elected to be evil. And so the point you're making is, well, if you made a robot and you programmed it to only do evil, When you could have programmed it to do good, you know, and then it goes out and does evil. Why blame the robot? It didn't program itself. You programmed it. So it seems to me that the person who programs the robot to do evil has got to take full responsibility for the evil done by the robot. Now, again, Calvinists don't like the comparison of people with robots, although that is true. You know, to demonstrate that there's any significant difference between their idea of people and the analogy of a robot that's been programmed to do things and can't do anything other than what's programmed to do. You know, they don't like it, but they can't really explain their theology in a way that sounds different than that. And this is something I find about Calvinists a lot. They'll say, no, you just don't understand. That's not what we mean. You don't understand. But then when they tell you what they mean, it sounds like that's what they mean. And I've always thought this about Calvinists because I've read their books and I've debated them. They say, well, you just don't understand. Well, if we don't understand, could you say it in a way that we do? How can it be that almost everybody who's not a Calvinist hears what Calvinists say and say, it sounds like you're saying that people are programmed like robots or puppets, that God's pulling the strings. Oh, we don't mean that. Well, if you don't mean that, why don't you tell us your theology in a way that doesn't convey that notion? Because I can't see a dime's worth of difference between those analogies and what Calvinists actually do say. They just don't like those words. But it's like I think they just don't like the implications of their actual theology. They hold the theology because they think the Bible teaches it. And it's refreshing when you study the Bible. It doesn't teach that. The Bible doesn't teach Calvinism, which is why no Bible teacher or theologian ever believed in Calvinism until about 400 A.D. You know, we've got thousands and thousands of Christians in the world before 400 A.D., and not one of them was Calvinistic. And then Augustine comes up and invents it, and then it becomes, you know, Augustine's the most influential theologian, and the Protestant reformers were Augustinian in their theology. So, you know, it's not in the Bible. It's just in Augustinian theology. But, yeah, thankfully the Bible doesn't teach those things. But if it did, it's hard to know how Calvinists could escape the analogy. I appreciate your call, brother. Thank you. All right. Good talking to you. All right. That's it. You too. Bye-bye. Okay. Mark from El Dorado, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. I didn't really agree with your... Oh, by the way, your phone sounds really weird.
SPEAKER 02 :
Are you talking through a speakerphone?
SPEAKER 05 :
No. I'm on a traffic street here.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now you're saying... Unless you need to let me go.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, I don't want to let you go. It's a lot louder now. Just go ahead and give your question, then we'll talk about it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Sure. Matthew 16, 27, 28. I completely agree with you that verse 27 is second coming. Verse 28, there are those standing here who will not taste death until they see the coming. Wouldn't it logically follow that It would be, there are some people that the fact is standing there who will face death prior to the coming of the Lord. And it says, wouldn't that negate the common thoughts about 2018, the transfiguration, ascension, or the
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, I don't know what is wrong with your phone, but it is the most difficult thing to listen to of any call I've ever received, probably. Listen, let me talk about those verses. But, yeah, you're not in a good place to be talking on your phone right here because it's just not coming through very well. But you're talking about... Matthew chapter 16, verses 27 and 28. And what they say, they're both talking about judgment. And verse 27 says, For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward each one according to his works. Okay, I believe that's talking about the second coming. You said you agree with that. Now the next verse says, Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death, until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Now, Jesus said, whatever he's talking about there, some of them would still be alive when it happens. He said, some of you here will not taste death until you see this. Now, because both verses talk about the coming of the Son of Man, it is sometimes assumed that both these verses are about the same thing. I think in verse 27, he's talking about the ultimate judgment. But in verse 28, he's saying that within your lifetime, there will be a precursor of his judgment in the destruction of Jerusalem. I believe that the Bible teaches there's going to be two judgments. One came upon Israel. Paul said the Jews first and then the Gentiles will be judged. The Jews were judged, I believe, in A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 02 :
And the Gentiles will be judged when Jesus comes back. And I think the story in Matthew 22 says, The wedding feast is a good illustration of that. The judgment on Jerusalem came in verse 7 of Matthew 22 when the king was angry and burned down the city. And then there was an influx of Gentiles and a later judgment in that parable of the Gentiles too. And I think there's two different judgments. And Jesus, that's just too complicated to get into right now because I have five seconds to get off the air. You're listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com.
In a vibrant exchange on faith and understanding, this episode unravels various theological and philosophical questions. From the nature of divine favor in Romans and the possible interpretations of spiritual blindness, to contemplating the historical roots of Christianity as an extension of Judaism, listeners are guided through enlightening discussions. The podcaster delves deep into debates on biblical interpretations, lift veils of confusion, and lays bare the heart of Scripture that is relevant both today and throughout history.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon. Taking your calls if you have questions that you'd like to ask on the air about the Bible or Christianity or anything related thereto. If you have objections or disagreements with anything the host has said in the past, we always welcome you to call to balance comment. We've been on the air for 28 years. As a daily program, and I used to say this all the time, but I haven't said it for a long time, though it's still true. The purpose of this show is not to highlight the personal opinions of the host, but to discuss Scripture in an open forum and seek truth and so forth. I mean, my opinions obviously do come across, but there's no suggestion here that my interpretations or that my opinions... are sacrosanct. So if you think I see something wrong, you're always welcome to call and to correct or to at least share another viewpoint. The number to call, by the way, I will say this, most of our lines are open at the moment, not all, but if you hope to get through in this hour, this is a very good time. We've got quite a few lines open. That will change quickly. The number to call is 844- four, eight, four, 57, 37. That's eight, four, four, four, eight, four, 57, 37. And, uh, before we go to calls, I'd like to just remind you that we're setting up an itinerary for me to be, uh, I'll be speaking in Texas and we have a lot of listeners in Texas. Um, And if you say where in Texas, well, kind of almost anywhere. I'm scheduled to speak in Dallas. Texas but I also have friends in Houston and San Antonio and other areas in Texas anyone who wants to schedule something when I'm in Texas I usually make myself available to all those areas and of course we have to put together a rational and organized itinerary to do that so if you want to set something up where you live either in a church or a home group or some facility you want to schedule a meeting feel free to get in touch with us. You can email me at thenarrowpath.com, the website down at the bottom of the main page. You can see my email address, and you can email me and say, hey, how about here? Now, the dates we're looking at are going to be anywhere between almost any day, between April 18th and April 28th. So keep that in mind, April 18th. And April 28th, I think I'm speaking in Dallas on the 27th. So the whole week before that and one day after that, we're seen as flexible. So give us a shout if you want us to consider putting you on the itinerary. That's, again, April 18th through the 28th, any of those dates. should be fine at this point because we've just begun setting it up. Okay, we're going to go to the phone lines now and talk to Kevin from Baytown, Texas. Speaking of Texas, Kevin, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hello, Steve. I have a question. I just finished listening to your Romans series, and I really enjoyed it, got a lot out of it. I'm still wrestling with how God views people that have Semitic or Jewish DNA. When I listen to Paul, it seems like sometimes he's making the point that DNA is not the issue. God does not favor DNA. God favors faith. People who have faith are accepted with him. People without faith. And then there's other times it seems like Paul is making a division and saying, well, Here's the vine, the branch has been cut off, and God is able to graft them back in chapter 11. And so at some point, it seems like he's saying, there is no Jew or Gentile. And then it seems like in the next moment, he's drawing a distinction again. And so... You know, I don't, in my heart, feel that God is a racist. I can't understand him favoring somebody or anybody based on what their genealogy is.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, and he doesn't. Even in the passage you mentioned, he doesn't. He said that the tree, the olive tree, this is in Romans 11, verses 16 and following, the olive tree, which represents Israel, has had a change in its constituent branches. Initially, the Jewish people were Israel. In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was the tree, and the branches were the individual Jewish people. Now, what he says is that some of those original branches, that is some Jewish people, have been broken off the tree because of their unbelief. He goes on to say it's possible for them to come back if they don't stay in unbelief. He doesn't say they will come back. He just says, you know, anybody can come in. Anyone's welcome to be part of Christ, including those who have been cut off. If they want to, if they want to come to faith, they can. But he said also Gentile branches, because of their faith, have been added to the tree. So the tree has Jewish believers as branches and Gentile believers as branches. So the tree is made up of Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ. We also call that, of course, the church. And that is what he's calling Israel here. That's the olive tree. Now, when he says that the branches that have been broken off can be put back on, he's simply saying, you know, if somebody isn't a believer right now, that doesn't mean that that condition is terminal. Many Jewish people have become Christians. Paul had, and many other Jewish people have throughout history. There's There's tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who believe in Christ and have been grafted back into the tree. Paul's simply saying the fact that they were unbelievers and broken off does not mean that there's no possibility for them. Now, when we say them, we're talking about individually, not as a group. He's never saying that the whole group of the branches that were broken off, that is the unbelieving Jews, are somehow going to be rejoined to the tree as a group. He never suggests a thing like that at all. He never speaks to them as a group. He's talking about there is a plurality. He uses the word plural because there's many people who fit into that class. There are many Jews who are not believers in Christ. But he says those same Jews who are not believers in Christ could become believers in Christ. We could say the same thing about Christians. about Chinese people or Japanese people or Nigerians or Irish or Scottish people. Many don't believe in Christ, but they could. They could come to believe in Christ. This is not being racist. This is the opposite. He's saying that anybody who comes to Christ is welcome. And that includes Jewish people who currently don't believe in Christ.
SPEAKER 08 :
So when he says blindness in part has happened... unto the Jew. Israel. Israel. So what is he referring to there? Is there still a blindness? He's not saying there's blindness on part on the church.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, he's not saying there's blindness on all Jews either. In part means part of them. Some Jews have been blinded, and some Gentiles have too, by the way. I mean, people who aren't believers are blind. And so he's saying there's part of the nation of Israel is blind. But that's not the first time he says it. He says it there, of course, in verse 25 of chapter 11 of Romans. But he already said it earlier. He said in verse 7, Romans 11, 7, What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks, but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. Okay, so part of the Jewish people, have come to Christ. The other part are blinded. And so when he says a few verses later, less than 20 verses later, he says, so blindness in part has happened to Israel. Meaning part of the race are blind. And many Gentiles are blind. Anyone who's not a believer is blind. So he's saying that part of the Jewish people are blind right now. But he doesn't say whether they'll stay blind or change or anything like that. He's simply pointing out what he said earlier. Israel, and this is the point he's been making from chapter 9 and 10 and 11. Israel does not refer in God's reckoning as far as his promises to Israel are concerned. It does not refer to every person who's Jewish. Now, Jewish people still exist today. as a race, it's as if, you know, let's just say let's just say we're talking about other races. Let's say black people and white people. And let's just say there was one group, say the white people, felt that they were superior to the black people in the sight of God. And Paul wrote and said, listen, white people are not superior to black people in the sight of God. You know, it may be that there's maybe there's more white people in America than black people, but any black person or white person can become a Christian. Now, in that discussion, we still recognize we're calling some people white and some people black because there are people who are white and there are people who are black. But what we're saying is it doesn't matter what color they are. And that's what Paul's doing with Jews and Gentiles. There are people who are Jews. There are people who are Gentiles. And he speaks of them as groups when he's talking to their group or about their about their category. But his point is, though he has some things to say to Jews, and some things to say to Gentiles, he's saying Jews and Gentiles really don't have any different status in God's sight. Some Jews and some Gentiles are blind. Some Jews and some Gentiles are believers. And God doesn't care what race you are. He only cares whether you're believers or not. And those who are not believers, Jews and Gentiles, have the possibility of becoming believers and being joined back in. That's what Paul says.
SPEAKER 08 :
So is the veil that he talks about being upon them, is that the same identical thing as the blindness in part happening?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it's no doubt related. The veil he talks about over the minds of the Jews when they read the Scriptures, he mentions that in 2 Corinthians 3. He says even to this day when the when the Old Testament is read, there's a veil over their heart, so they don't understand it. But he says, but when they turn to the Lord, he said this veil is taken away in Christ. He says when they turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away. So he's saying these are people who, because they don't receive Christ, they don't see clearly when they read the Scriptures. They don't recognize the Old Testament's talking about Christ. And therefore, they read it with kind of a veil over their eyes. They kind of read it, but they don't see it. Seeing they see and do not observe. Hearing they hear and do not understand, as Jesus said in Matthew 13. So, you know, he's talking about Jewish people who don't believe in the Messiah. They obviously do not, when they read the Old Testament, they don't see Christ there as the Messiah. But he says when they turn to Christ, they see it clearly enough. Now, I don't know if this is the... In one place, in Romans 11, I think Paul's talking about their blindness to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. They're blind to that fact. They don't see it. In 2 Corinthians, I think he's more talking about because they don't see that Christ is the Messiah, they don't see what the prophets in the Old Testament are actually saying. So it's kind of similar. It's part of their blindness, but Because they're blind about who Christ is, they're also blind in terms of understanding their own scriptures. That's what Paul is saying in 2 Corinthians 3. Hey, brother, I need to take another call because we're going along here. I appreciate you joining us. Let's talk to Dana from Mount Lake Terrace, Washington. Hello, Dana. Welcome. 2 Corinthians 3. You need to turn your radio off. I need to take another call because we're going along here. I appreciate you joining us. Okay, your radio is not off. I'm hearing your radio.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hello, Dana. Welcome. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you for taking my call.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
I have a question about a passage in Numbers. I've been going to a Bible class here at the plaza where I live now, and the leader said that these words were the first prayer blessing that God gave to his people. And you must know them. It says, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Now, the question I have about this is, when I read this in the New, this is something King James I just read. If I read the NIV on verse 26, The Lord lift up his face upon you. So he mentions the word face twice. Is that what the word countenance means?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. So he mentions, make your face shine upon you and be gracious to you. And then the Lord looked up his face upon you again and give you peace.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Yeah. Countenance is just an old English word for face.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Okay. That's the only question I had, but it's been a blessing to me because I had trouble sleeping when we were going over this passage, and she said it was the very first prayer that God gave to his people. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I don't know if it's the first prayer. It may be. It is definitely what's called the Aaronic Benediction there in Numbers chapter 6. verses 23 through 26. This is what Aaron is supposed to say. I don't know if it's the first prayer. It's a blessing. It's a blessing, yes. It's a pronouncement of blessing. Again, I don't know if that's the first one. I don't know of any earlier, so it could be. The first blessing. Yeah. I don't even know why it would be any more or less important if it was the first or the second or the third.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, it is a blessing that Aaron was supposed to pronounce on the people, apparently daily or regularly when they gathered for worship.
SPEAKER 02 :
And many churches still use it today as a blessing. It's helped me to sleep. If I say this before I go to bed, I seem to be able to sleep better.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don't know, but it's helpful. Okay, yeah, I know of churches that either begin or end their service with this benediction. By the way, the reference to his face shining upon you and lifting up his face upon you, these are Hebrew expressions for him showing you favor, smiling upon you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, thank you so much. That's all. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Dana, thanks for your call.
SPEAKER 02 :
Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 04 :
Bye now. All right, Deborah from Fairfield, California, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, hello. Yes, I just have two questions. It's not really a scripture, it's just traditional. I was wondering why Trump did not put his hand on the Bible during his inauguration.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, from what I understand, is that Melania had gone to get the family Bible, the house Bible from the house to use. And they were running late on the inauguration date. there had been some delays earlier, and legally they're supposed to do the inauguration, I guess, at 12 o'clock. And it had already gotten to be 12.02, which seems kind of legalistic to be worried about it, but they were kind of in a hurry to do it. And so the Supreme Court justice who was doing it just had him put up his hand and do it. And Melania didn't get back in time with the Bible, from what I understood. This is how I read it. Anyway, so they didn't use the Bible. Now, using the Bible, I'm not sure how far back that tradition goes, but there are Christians who feel that you shouldn't swear on the Bible because of Jesus not taking any oaths at all. I think that, too, is a little bit legalistic. I think to show respect for the Bible, that's not a problem when you're taking your oath of office, but Anyway, that's what I heard. I don't have all knowledge about those things. I wasn't even watching the inauguration, so I only heard about this later on. So I'm not the authority on this. I just know what I've read on the subject. And so that would be your answer. Did you have a second question?
SPEAKER 06 :
I did. I did. I was just going to also add to that. Was there a Bible, though? Was the Supreme Court justice holding a Bible?
SPEAKER 04 :
I don't think so.
SPEAKER 06 :
Because I didn't look at it. I mean, he was not.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don't think so. I don't know. I think not.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Because I didn't look at it either. But I just saw excerpts on TV with his hand up but not putting it on the Bible and everybody was talking about it. My second question was, do you think everybody seemed to be offended by the pastor buddy that was asking Donald Trump to have compassion on people? and they shouldn't be offended by that. Do you think that was a bad thing for the pastor's buddy to ask something that Jesus would ask? Jesus was very compassionate.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I thought it was a little inappropriate simply because she was addressing it to Trump, and he had no chance to answer. If I had been sitting in his seat, and she had said it to me, and I was given a chance to answer, I would have said, yeah, I agree. We should have compassion on people. For example, when people are mistaken about their gender identity, we should have the compassion to set them straight about that, just like we would anyone else who's living in a delusion. It's a loving and compassionate thing to disabuse people of the delusions in their mind. And as far as the people breaking the law, frankly, I think compassion on their victims would be more important. The violent criminals that Trump was determined to remove from the country, If she said, why don't you have more compassion on these, you know, illegal aliens? I don't know. I mean, she shouldn't have said that in a case where she's saying something controversial and not very well informed. Because she said, these people, these transgender people are terrified. They're afraid for their lives. Well, I'm not sure if I've ever met a transgender who's afraid for their lives. And if they were, someone should have cleared it up for them. Their lives are not in danger from any policy that Trump's made, nor anyone else. I don't know of any laws... that prosecute people for being transgender. I think the only reason people would be afraid if they're children is because their parents are telling them they should be afraid because there's no actual danger to them other than that they're living in a delusion, which someone should help them with. But there's no one threatening to arrest them or hurt them. So, I mean, the woman was simply, she was stepping out of her role as a representative of Christ and speaking to one person in order to promote a political agenda, which I think was poorly informed. I think she was repeating a narrative that is not a true narrative, namely that it's cruel to not give special privileges to transgenders that others don't have. For example, allowing a transgender woman a woman, let's say a man who thinks he's a woman, to go into a woman's bathroom. Is that compassion? To whom? To him? No? I mean, he can go into a men's bathroom. Why not? He's a man. It's easy to say any man can go into any bathroom, no matter what he thinks he is. If he thinks he's Napoleon, if he thinks he's a dog, if he thinks he's a woman, he still goes into the men's bathroom because he is a man. How is that not compassionate? So and nowadays, so many places have, you know, any gender kind of restroom. So, you know, it's not a crisis. And I don't really believe that either of the groups that she spoke of, which was transgenders and illegal aliens. I don't think either of them are threatened in any way with any harm unless they're criminals. Now, of course, she did say many of these illegal aliens are not criminals. Well, I'm not sure how she defines criminals, but if you're breaking the law, that's what a criminal is, someone who breaks the law. And somebody who's here illegally, illegally means against the law. So, you know, the president and, frankly, the government and the courts of law are not commissioned in Scripture. And Jesus never spoke to them. Jesus never spoke to courts of law or rulers about this kind of thing. but the government, according to the Bible, according to Romans and Peter, 1 Peter, the government's role is to enforce the law and to protect innocent people. Now, Trump happened to have been in church when this woman said this to him, but he was the president, and she is addressing him as president, and the president has got to protect the public from violent crime. Now, maybe I, as a Christian... It's not my place to go out looking for violent criminals and hunting them down and giving them retribution. That's not my role. But it is the role of the government. So I think that she... I think she simply misrepresented things. She gave a very woke talking point sermon. Now, I don't know what the rest of her sermon was like, because we only get really a few minutes of her statements played again and again and again on the news. So I only heard the one part. But I thought, you know, to say, have mercy, have mercy, have mercy. Well... Yeah, okay, fine. But you are assuming, she was assuming, that having mercy means let the criminals stay and let them run free and let the children who are being misguided about their gender and who are confused stay in a delusion and live it out for the rest of their lives. Maybe even be mutilated by surgery. This is what the transgender agenda is. And I don't think any Christian should support it. That's just me. That's because I think we should have mercy. I'm in favor of having mercy. But letting people be totally deluded and let them go on their way to hell without addressing their delusion, that's not my idea of mercy. I'm not sure why anyone would think it was. Hello. Hi. Thanks for joining us. Okay, Douglas in Los Angeles, California. Welcome. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Were Adam and Eve apes?
SPEAKER 04 :
No.
SPEAKER 09 :
Why?
SPEAKER 04 :
Why would they be?
SPEAKER 09 :
Doesn't evolution say that apes evolved into humans?
SPEAKER 04 :
No. No, it doesn't. At least modern apes didn't. Evolution, if we believe that's true... tells us that apes and humans evolved from different branches of the same tree, but not that humans evolved from any creatures we today call apes. But I don't believe in evolution. I don't believe in human evolution. But even if it was true, it would not be the case. Evolutions do not believe that humans evolved from apes. They believe humans evolved from the Australopithecines.
SPEAKER 09 :
When Adam and Eve and humans come from the same root,
SPEAKER 04 :
Adam and Eve were the first humans.
SPEAKER 09 :
But didn't apes and humans have a common ancestor?
SPEAKER 04 :
I don't think so.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Thanks for your call. All right. Now, by the way, there are many Christians who do believe that God used evolution in the production of various species, but I'd First of all, I don't think the Bible leans that direction at all. It may be possible to take Genesis 1 in a non-literalistic way, and some Christians would, and to then allow evolution to be in the picture. But you've got another problem, and that is fossil evidence. You know, it's not only that the Bible doesn't seem to support evolution. But the scientific evidence doesn't seem to support, at least the fossil evidence, which is the record in the rocks that tells us what lived and what did not. And there were no transitional forms of any significance in the rocks, so they probably didn't live. At least that's the way that I think about it. Not everyone does. Some Christians see it differently. I need to take a break, but we have another half hour coming up, so don't go away. You're listening to The Narrow Path. We are listening to support it. If you'd like to help us out, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.org. And it will show you how to donate if you wish. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Don't go away.
SPEAKER 03 :
In the series, When Shall These Things Be?, you'll learn that the biblical teaching concerning the rapture, the tribulation, Armageddon, the Antichrist, and the millennium are not necessarily in agreement with the wild sensationalist versions of these doctrines found in popular prophecy teaching and Christian fiction. The lecture series entitled, When Shall These Things Be?, can be downloaded without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you are interested in calling in with any questions you have about the Bible or the Christian faith, or maybe you disagree with the host and want to say why, I'd be glad to hear from you. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Now, it looks to me like our line's just filled up, just as I was saying that. So if you call now and get a busy signal or something, just call back when you can, and lines will be opening up. The number is, again, 844-484-5737. All right, we're going to talk next to Albert from Walnut Creek, California. Hi, Albert. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Hello. Hello, Steve. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 04 :
I can. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
I have a question. In the first century, were the people who were living in Jerusalem, were they practicing Phariseeism or were they practicing Judaism?
SPEAKER 04 :
That's the first part of my question. Okay, well. They were practicing Judaism, but there's many branches of Judaism. One branch was the Pharisaic branch. There were only about, I think, 3,000 Pharisees, something like that. It might have been 6,000. I forget the exact number, according to Josephus. But the Pharisees were a minority party, but they were more influential than any other party. They were more respected as spiritually important. uncompromised by many Jews. They kind of looked up to. Now, there was the Sadducee party. That was another branch of Judaism. There were the Essenes out in the Dead Sea area. And then there was a more militant party called the Zealots. And these were all different parties who practiced Judaism. It's a little bit like, you know, today, if you say Judaism... We don't know which branch people are talking about because there's Orthodox Judaism, there's Conservative Judaism, and there's Reformed Judaism. And then there's, of course, Nazarene, Messianic Judaism. So there's different branches of Judaism. But Pharisees were one of those branches. And, yes, that's what they were doing back then.
SPEAKER 05 :
The reason I ask that is because I was visiting a church the other day, and I was talking to one of the members, and he says, oh yeah, Christianity is an extension of Judaism. Well, he brought up it. Is it an extension of Judaism, or is it an extension of Hebrewism?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Hebrew is simply a race, a race of people who are descended from someone named Eber. The Ebrites, that's where the word Hebrew comes from. So it's like saying, you know, Irish or something like that. You know, Hebrew is not a religion. It's a language and it's a race of people. At least it's a racial term. So... They weren't practicing Hebrewism. They were Hebrews. They were Hebrews. That's their race. Just like I'm mostly Irish, but I don't practice Irishism. I just happen to be more than half Irish. So that's not a valid question.
SPEAKER 05 :
So what religion would we say King David was? Did he practice Hebrewism or did he practice Judaism?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, there is no Hebrewism. No such thing as Hebrewism, okay? So, I mean, that's not one of the options. He was a Jew, so he was part of the Jewish religion.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Okay, I can work on that.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you for your show.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, and Christianity did arise out of Judaism. Jesus was Jewish. He was circumcised, like all Jews. He was raised in the temple, worshiped. He was the Messiah of the Jews, okay? And his initial followers were all Jews, too, because his ministry was conducted in Israel and among the Jews. So the first believers in Christ, and we called it the first Christians, were Jewish, Jewish believers in the Messiah. But then after Jesus was gone, thousands of Jewish people began to be followers of his, but they weren't part of Judaism anymore, per se. They were now Christians. followers of Christ, Christians. But they were Jewish by, they were Hebrews, which is their race. And so that's, you know, they were Hebrew Christians. Later on, Gentiles were added to their number. Eventually the gospel went out to the Gentiles. It didn't initially. So what we call Christianity is simply the messianic faith of those who believe in Christ. Okay, that's a good perspective. All right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thanks for having the show. Love it. Okay, Albert.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Thanks for your call. Bye now. All right. Bill from Vancouver, B.C. Welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi, Steve.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi, Steve. Yeah, I just had two quick questions in regards to race or whatever. Correct me if I'm wrong. I thought when Jesus created man, he created one race, but a bunch of nationalities. And my second question is, what happens to me if I was to die right away today, and I'm a believer in Jesus and saved? And I'm going to go now and take the answer. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Thank you for your call. Yeah, well, of course, there's only one human race because everybody came from the same couple. Adam and Eve were just one human couple, and everybody's descended from them. Now, you distinguish between that and nationalities. Nationalities have to do with people forming different nations. Now, after Adam and Eve had thousands and thousands, if not millions, of descendants, the flood came. And after the flood, there were just the family of Noah again, his wife and his three sons and their wives. And so the world began to be populated again from that stock. Again, they're all one race. But then sometime after that, they tried to build the Tower of Babel. That is not just those few people, but their descendants did. How many people were there? We don't know. But there could have been thousands or millions. We don't know. And they started building the Tower of Babel, and God divided them up. He confused their languages so that they couldn't complete the project. and the people scattered around and formed national entities, which would just, of course, grow out of a tribe or a people living together in a society, forming some kind of government among themselves and rulers of some kind, kings perhaps usually. And then these would make up different nationalities as they began to have generations of offspring. those people, their offspring would be of each different nations. So God didn't really make nationalities, but kind of. I mean, he did so by scattering them and confusing their languages. And so I guess we could say God eventually created nationalities. But that wasn't original. God didn't originally create nationalities. He just had one big family, human family. But when there were millions of them, they, of course, didn't all live under one roof. And so they... They scattered and formed different societies, which became nations. And their offspring were of whatever nationality their nation was. Now, you said if you died today as a Christian, what would happen to you? Well, I believe that your body, which is what dies, will be buried and be decomposed until the time that Jesus comes back. And then he'll raise the dead. Your body will come back. immortal and glorified this is the doctrine a key doctrine of the Christian faith in the New Testament is the resurrection of the dead that will happen when Jesus comes back now the question of course from the time you die let's just say you or I would die let's say today someone's going to die today it could be me it could be you but Jesus doesn't come back and raise the dead until let's say a couple centuries from now that's a possibility well where am I in between Am I, you know, from the time I die until the time Jesus raises me up? Now, there's two views on that that Christians hold. Some believe that you're nowhere, that when your body is dead, your mind shuts off, your soul, you know, is no longer alive. conscious of anything, and this is called soul sleep, though one could call it soul death if they wanted to. Such people believe that when you close your eyes in death, you do not know anything. You're aware of nothing, like when you're under anesthesia, you know, for an operation or something like that. You just don't, you're not aware. of the time going by. And then they believe when Jesus comes back and raises the dead, then you wake up from that. So that from the time you die till the time you're raised from the dead, you're nowhere. You're nowhere. You have no consciousness of your own existence even. But you'll be raised from the dead. And when your body rises from the dead, so will your mind and your soul. Now that's one view. A view that I think is probably more scriptural is that there's two parts of us. Our body And our inner part, the soul or the spirit, maybe spirit and soul might not be the same thing, but there is that inner man Paul talks about. It's the spiritual aspect of our existence. That's our consciousness and so forth. And so when we die, our bodies go into the ground and they deteriorate until Jesus comes and raises them up. But what happens when we die is our spirit leaves our body and goes to be with the Lord if we're Christians. And we are with the Lord. until he comes back and brings us back to re-inhabit our glorified bodies when he returns. That, I think, has more actually in favor of it than the other view, but there are Christians on both sides of that. Paul spoke about death in terms of departing from his body or being absent from his body. In Philippians chapter 1, he said that he had a desire to depart and to be with Christ again. but he says because God wasn't really finished with him, he thinks he's probably going to have to remain in his body for a while more. So he saw dying as leaving his body and going away to be with Christ. That's in Philippians chapter 1. In 2 Corinthians 5, He talked about how as long as we are at home in this body, we are absent from the Lord. And he says we're looking forward to being absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. So, okay, when we're alive, we're in this body. When we're dead, we're absent from this body but present with the Lord. That seems to be Paul's understanding in both those passages that we talked about. So what is present with the Lord? The body isn't. The body's in the ground. You can dig up the bodies of anyone who's died, even Christians, and find their bodies, what's left of them, still there. Their bodies didn't go to heaven. But is there another part of us besides our bodies? Do we have a soul, a spirit? that lives on and goes somewhere else to be with Christ until the resurrection of the body. I think Paul does argue that that is so. Though, again, there are Christians who see it differently. It wouldn't really matter. I mean, as far as your subjective experience, if you were put under with anesthesia and you're not aware of anything until you wake up again, and therefore if it was like that, If you die and then you know nothing until you rise, it would be like instantaneous in your own subjective experience. You die and then you're instantly alive again in the resurrection. So I don't think there's anything more or less desirable about one of these views. I think they're both fine. But I think that Paul's argument is that when we die, we leave this body and we are with the Lord until we come back to be in the body again when Jesus returns and raises our bodies from the dead. That's at least how I read the New Testament. Okay, Eddie in Sprague River, Oregon. Welcome. Hello, Steve.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi. Hey, my questions were pertaining to Daniel 9, particularly verse 26 and 27. I've heard you mention that they somewhat mirror each other. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 04 :
I believe so. I believe that verse 26 mentions two things, and verse 27 mentions the same two things. So the two things are the death of the Messiah. That's the first thing. And the destruction of Jerusalem is the second thing. Jesus died around 30 A.D., and Jerusalem was destroyed around 70 A.D. So I believe those two points... are found in chapter 9, verse 26, and the same two are mentioned in verse 27. So in verse 26, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
I also heard you talk about how the end of 27, it kind of coincides with Matthew 23, the end, and I had mentioned something about this once before. But my question was concerning the people that, well, actually, it mirrors being cut off in 26 in the same lexicon, basically, is saying that he's passing through flesh, or it's a covenant. So I take the cutting off as that, a covenant. And then for, not for himself, and then it goes on, but after himself is a colon. So the next part of the sentence would be complementing what took place to begin with, which is the cutting off. And I view that as a coming of the people at that time, was the High Sabbath, which brought a lot of people to that area. And they all, you know, welcomed him with the triumphal entry and all. And then, you know, he went to court and they turned on him. You know, so there's several of his people coming to him, you know, and he is their Messiah, whether they like it or not. And so that's where I'm seeing... the discrepancy with my thinking and your thinking as far as the Prince, because through the whole thing, it's the Prince, it's talking about the Messiah, it's talking about our Christ. They had a Christ, you know, like I was taught. And my eyes were so blind to that understanding that I had to dismiss the whole thing altogether because it didn't make sense.
SPEAKER 04 :
So you think the people of the Messiah destroy the city and the sanctuary?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, it's what they did. It's their rejection of him.
SPEAKER 04 :
But if the prince who is to come is a reference to Jesus, as I think you're suggesting, then the people of the Messiah would be the disciples of Jesus, would they not?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it would be, but also the Jews, because at the triumphal entry, they welcomed him. They said, Hosanna in the highest, and there were lots of people there. But then, you know, when he was brought before Pilate, they totally turned against him. And most, even his disciples turned against him, Peter, and they all stood their distance. Okay, let me put it this way.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I don't mind if you see it that way. You're not the first person I've met who sees it that way. My understanding is that the people who met him in the triumphal entry and said, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, blessed is the kingdom of our fathers, David, that comes in the name of the Lord. And Jesus said, if they wouldn't say that, the rocks themselves would cry out the same words. I don't think those are the same people who called for his crucifixion. This was a week earlier than that. These seemed to be the people who received him. Whereas his crucifixion, as near as I can tell, being almost a week later, was called for by the people who were against him. I believe that throughout his ministry there were people who were for him and people who were against him. And I think there were great crowds of both. so the Bible doesn't tell us that the crowd at Pilate's house who were calling for his crucifixion were the same crowd that had been seeing him during the triumphal entry and calling him the king on the other hand we don't know who was in those crowds so if that's how you want to see it you can I personally think that it's more natural to say for those who aren't aren't looking at Daniel 9 and don't even know what we're talking about. There's a prophecy about the Messiah coming in Daniel chapter 9, and verse 26 says, after the 62 weeks, we won't go into that right now, Messiah shall be cut off. Now, the word cut off is an expression that usually means killed or die. He's murdered. Now, you said it means something like making a covenant. There is a covenant that's true. And there is an expression in the Hebrew that talks about the forming of a covenant. It's called cutting a covenant. But I don't think the word cutting off is used for that. It's simply a figure of speech that when people made a covenant, it was said they cut a covenant. It had a lot to do with cutting an animal in two and passing between the pieces and things like that. The expression cutting a covenant was a Hebraism. But we don't have that exact expression here. We simply say he'll be cut off, which is also a Hebraism. for being killed throughout the Torah. It continues, it says, you know, if a person commits this abomination, he should be cut off from the people. In most cases, it meant stoned to death. So just because the word cut is used for covenants, it's also used other ways. And I think here the wording is more favorable towards seeing it as the Messiah is killed. And it says, and the people of the prince who is to come, I take this to be the Romans saying, The people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The Romans did come and they destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the temple, the sanctuary. This happened. And so I think it's more natural to see the people who destroyed the city and the sanctuary as the Romans rather than the disciples of Jesus themselves. Or even the Jews. We could say, well, the Jews did it because they're responsible for it. Well, okay, there's a sense in which that's true. It's not as directly true as it is to say it's the Romans. And I personally think that seeing the Romans that way would be, I guess, have the fewest difficulties. There are ways to look at passages like this and accept greater difficulties and still say, okay, despite the difficulties, I see it this way. And, you know, frankly, everyone's at liberty to do that. I myself would rather take the position that I think has fewer difficulties, but that's everyone's prerogative. Thank you for sharing that. Larry in Joshua, Texas. Welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you very much. This kind of goes along with three or four calls before me regarding evolution. It took me back to, do you remember the first miracle that Jesus was recorded as ever doing? The water to wine? Yes, the water to wine. And do you remember what the master of the ceremonies who knew what his business was, he said that, in fact, he stopped. the ceremony and said, this is the oddest thing. Most people, you know, serve the best.
SPEAKER 04 :
We're running out of time here. So he said, you saved the best for the last, right?
SPEAKER 10 :
He saved the best for the last. Okay, well, here's Jesus. It took him. A guy used to work for me and bought a vineyard. And he gave me a history on And there is a forensics way of getting to the first part of the growth all the way to the end of it and knowing some things about it. That person that was talking about, you know, we evolved from apes or, you know, what about the fossils? Well, the wine that Jesus created was complete and perfect. And had they have had the forensic capability to determine that and to verify, they would have found all of those steps that was within. But Jesus did it in a nanosecond.
SPEAKER 04 :
I hear you. I hear you. So it sounds like you're saying that when you look at creatures that are fully developed, although you can imagine or postulate creatures, you know, less fully developed, in a trail going back to some earlier kind of creatures. And you can therefore postulate that the modern creatures developed from the others, just like you can see with the fermenting or the development of the grapes normally. But Jesus could make the grape juice instantly wine, or the water wine. So God could make instantly wine. Fully developed people, as opposed to bringing them up from apes. Yeah, I mean, that's what I take from your analogy, and of course that's true. I believe that God could make a fully functional Earth and a fully functional biosphere in an instant if he wants to. Now, he took six days to do it for reasons we don't have time to get into right now, but he could do it any way he wants to. He could even do it with evolution if he wanted to, but I don't think he did. Because if he had used evolution, or if evolution had occurred at all, we would see it in the fossil record. We would simply see there's not only fossils of fully developed creatures, highly differentiated from each other, there would also be a lot of intermediate forms. If these creatures evolved from one another very gradually, then, for example, a reptile evolving into a bird over millions of years would have to go through stages where it was part reptile, part bird. And at some points it would be nearly half of each. And, you know, that's simply the way it would work. It's like if you're watching a film and there's two ends of a strip of film, you've got a person. The first trip he's on one side of the room. And the end strip, he's at the other side of the room. You expect to find all the intermediate steps on the film of him passing from one side of the room to the other and progressing and being at a different position each time. I mean, if that's how evolution happened, we should see this kind of thing not once or twice. We should see this kind of thing with every two species, any species that evolved from another species. And according to evolution, since there are millions of species, there should be millions of ancestries from one creature to another kind of creature. And you should be able to trace all of these step by step by small stages unless it happens suddenly, in which case most even scientists would say it would take a miracle for that to happen. And Christians believe, or at least the Bible seems to teach, it was a miracle and that God could certainly do it instantly. And then there'd be no transitional forms found in the fossil record, which is exactly the case. We don't have any real transitional forms. Now, we do have creatures, strange ancient creatures, that have some characteristics of one kind of creature and some of another kind, but they can't really be said to be, you know, they don't fit some kind of a smooth line from one creature to another. For example, if you found a whale or something like a whale that had, you know, nubs from its pelvis that we think, well, that's where legs could have been if it was once a land animal. We could postulate that's so, but it's a far cry. from a smooth transition from any land animal that we've known to a whale. We do know there are lots of creatures that have strange, unusual characteristics. The duckbill platypus, which obviously lives today in Australia and New Zealand, it's a mammal, but it lays eggs. It's a very weird thing because mammals don't lay eggs. It's almost the definition of a mammal, that they give birth to live young. There are exceptions. This one lays eggs. It also has a fang on its back foot that shoots venom into an enemy, like a snake. It also has a pliable, hairless bill, like kind of a duck bill. I mean, but it's not transitional between anything. It's just an unusual animal, and God made a lot of those. Hey, I'm sorry I'm out of time. I'd like to talk about this more. I do have at our website a series of lectures called Creation and Evolution you might want to look into. It's at thenarrowpath.com, which is where all our stuff is found for free at thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
