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In this episode of The Narrow Path, Steve Gregg delves into complex theological debates and clarifies common misconceptions. We begin with a thought-provoking discussion on whether God favors Israel in today’s context, analyzing historical and biblical events. Steve unpacks the role of divine discipline, exemplified by the striking story of Ananias and Sapphira, and how such instances shape the church’s approach to fear and reverence towards God. These narratives underline the importance of authenticity in faith and challenge listeners to examine their own lives through a biblical lens. Listeners will also find intriguing insights into the doctrinal schism between
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. This hour we have uninterrupted except for a bit of an announcement at the bottom of the hour every day and we have no commercial breaks so we’ve got a lot of time to talk to you. I’ve been a guest on other people’s talk shows and especially when I’ve been on secular talk shows. It’s amazing how Frequently they break for commercials, like you get six minutes to talk before you have another three-minute commercial break or something. And you get very little talking in, but we’ve never had any commercial sponsors or anything like that. We just want to talk as much of the time as we can with you. And so if you want to call and talk to me, if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, maybe you disagree with the host, we want to talk about that. You may call. Now, the number, I should say, the lines are full at the moment, but don’t let that stop you. I mean, let it detain you a few minutes, but if you call in a few minutes, lines will be opening up. The number is 844-484-5737. Again, that number is 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Robert, who is calling from Sacramento, California. Hi, Robert. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, Steve. I’m calling because I disagree with you. You said that you don’t think that God favors Israel.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
And many times in many places in the Bible, God said that his name will be there forever.
SPEAKER 02 :
Your voice is fading in and out, so it’s kind of hard to hear. Are you on a speakerphone or something?
SPEAKER 06 :
I’m on an earpiece. It says if anybody touches Israel, then they have touched the apple of his eye. Yep, yep.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, what do you make of the fact that God himself brought the Assyrians and then the Babylonians and then the Romans to destroy Israel? Would you say that that was God favoring them?
SPEAKER 05 :
I would not. I would not say that that’s fair. I think that when God chastises us, he allows certain things to happen to put us back in order.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, yeah, I think he does that, too. But, I mean, Israel… For example, when the Assyrians came, they were brutally slaughtered. And same thing with the Babylonians and later when the Romans came. You know, there were like a million people, I think if Josephus is correct, who were killed in AD 70 when the Romans broke through. That’s pretty harsh discipline. But you’re right. I mean, God does discipline people, but he also judges people and he also rejects people. Do you think Caiaphas and Judas Iscariot were rejected by God?
SPEAKER 05 :
I believe Judas Iscariot was definitely rejected of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, how about Caiaphas?
SPEAKER 05 :
I don’t really know the story of Caiaphas, sir, so I can’t tell you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Caiaphas is the chief priest who condemned Jesus and bribed Pilate to murder. And yet he was a priest. He was a Jew. In other words, there’s a lot of Jews that God does reject, right? Right. Okay, so which one does it go? I do remember. I’m not done here. I’m not done asking this. Okay, let me ask you this. What Jews did God not reject?
SPEAKER 06 :
Those who were obedient to the gospel. Right, exactly.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly. That’s my position, too. So what do we call those who are obedient to the gospel? What group is obedient to the gospel? I would say Christians.
SPEAKER 05 :
There would be fellow Christians, yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, so I agree. So those are the ones that God favors, right? The ones who are obedient to Christ. Now, the ones who crucified Christ, would you say they’re favored by God? I don’t know.
SPEAKER 06 :
Jesus said, forgive them for they know not what they do.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. Well, even if God did forgive them, it would not have been without their repentance, right? I mean… I mean, would you say that people who crucified Christ are favored by God above, say, other people who didn’t?
SPEAKER 05 :
I would not say that. I would not say that.
SPEAKER 02 :
See, I think you and I agree in a very important thing, and that is that many people in Israel throughout history have hated God, have worshipped Baal, have worshipped Moloch, have sacrificed their babies to demons, as the prophets said they were doing. have crucified Christ and killed the apostles. Now, this being so, I’d have to say those Jews are certainly not favored by God. Now, there are Jews who have been favored by God. They are the faithful remnant. And Gentiles, too. There are Gentiles, even in the Old Testament, that favored God, and God favored them, and likewise in the New. So the people who favor God, he favors. In fact, he made this statement once. to Eli, the priest, in 1 Samuel 2, in verse 30. He said, I told you, he said, I said that you in the house of your fathers would walk before me as priests forever. But then he said, however, now be it far from me. For those who honor me, I will honor. And those who despise me will be lightly esteemed. Now, there’s an interesting thing. He said, I said that your family, the priest’s family, would be favored and walked before me forever. That’s kind of the same kind of statement he made about Israel and some other things. And the temple. And the temple, right, exactly. And yet he says, yeah, but let me make this clear. Those who honor me, I’ll honor. And those who don’t, I won’t. So even though God did honor Israel, he didn’t honor those in Israel who rejected him. He honored those in Israel who honored him. Now, when the Messiah came, Those who honored God came to Christ. Remember, Jesus said, if you don’t honor the Son, you don’t honor the Father who sent him. The Father, right. Yeah, I think that’s in chapter 7, if I’m not mistaken, of John. But he says, he that does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. So God honors those who honor him. And in this case, it means those who honor Christ. Now, the people who do that, we call them Christians. And it doesn’t matter if they’re Jews or if they’re Gentiles. because in Christ there’s no Jew or Gentile. So who does God honor? He honors the people who honor Christ. That would be the disciples of Jesus, the ones that the Bible refers to as the true church. And it’s made up of Israel. The faithful remnant of Israel became the church. On the day of Pentecost, 3,000 people were saved. They were all Jews, and they all came to Christ. So they’re the faithful remnant of Israel. And the church in Jerusalem grew to many, many thousands before any Gentiles became part of it. So they were the faithful remnant of Israel, and they’re also called the church. Now, just as in the Old Testament, faithful Gentiles could be added to Israel, so in the New Testament, faithful Gentiles who come to Christ are added to the church, the faithful Israel, and that’s what the church is. The church is comprised of the faithful remnant of Israel and the Gentiles that have been faithful along with them. So Paul describes it as an olive tree, you know, with faithful Jews are on it as branches and faithful Gentiles are on it as branches. So that’s Israel. Now, when we talk about Israel, I think where you disagreed with me was that when I said I don’t think God favors Israel. I mean, I’m talking about not the true Israel. I’m talking about the. God doesn’t have any special favoritism toward a race of people because many people in every race, including the Jewish race, reject Christ. So he doesn’t accept anyone on the basis of their race. He accepts people on the basis of their receiving of Christ. Now, the nation of Israel is another matter because that’s a political entity. It’s not even religious. American Christians may not know this, Israel is not a religious country. They don’t even follow the Jewish religion. It’s a secular country. And less than one Jew in Israel out of five even practices Judaism. So, four out of five Jews in Israel don’t even practice the Jewish religion, much less Christianity. And about the same number, about 20%, are atheist Jews in Israel. So, So if someone says, well, does God favor the nation of Israel? I’d have to say, well, in what way are you talking about? God doesn’t favor atheists. God doesn’t favor people who reject Christ. But the real Israel, the true Israel, is comprised of those who do receive Christ, who are faithful.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. So that’s my position.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you very much for clarifying that for me, sir.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Robert. Great talking to you. Thank you, sir. Okay. God bless everybody. Okay, Michael from Everett, Washington. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks so much for taking my call. Yeah, my first question is a short one. I remember you referenced a very excellent verse where Paul was saying, any sin I amend on earth, God will not hold against me in heaven. I’d love to know that verse. No, Paul never said that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Paul never said that. I think you might be thinking of something Jesus said. To the apostles. Paul was not yet an apostle at that time. But to the apostles in Matthew 16 and also in Matthew 18, twice Jesus said to them, whatsoever things you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven. Whatever things you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. That’s the actual statement you’re probably thinking about.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. I thought there was something that Paul was talking about things, and he says, you know, if I fix it now, I won’t have to deal with it later.
SPEAKER 02 :
I think maybe you may be referring to 1 Corinthians 11, and maybe you’re referring to a comment I made about it, because Paul doesn’t say it like that, but I do comment on it in something of a way like that, because Paul is in 1 Corinthians 11… rebuking the church of Corinth because of their sacrilegious practices at the communion meal. And he said in verse 30, For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep or have died. He says, For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned of the world. Now what he’s saying there is that the church has actually so profaned the Lord’s Supper that God has brought judgment on the church. Many have become sick. Many have died. That’s the judgment of God. But he says when God judges us, he’s chasing us to get us to repent so that we won’t be condemned with the world. But if we would judge ourselves, God wouldn’t have to do that. If we just look at our own behavior and say, oops, I’m doing the wrong thing and correct ourselves, then God wouldn’t have to bring that judgment. That’s what Paul is saying to the Corinthians there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, thank you. That’s excellent. It’s so helpful. Steve, my last question is I have a longtime friend. He’s a believer. And he, for years, decades, has engaged in addictive personal sexuality, not necessarily porn, not with other people, but privately. And he knows it’s an addiction, but he says things like this. Hey, God doesn’t see my sins anymore. I’m in Christ. So God doesn’t see those sins. He’ll also say my sin isn’t hurting anybody. He’s married almost 50 years. And my question to you is, what’s going to happen to him, and what do I tell him scripturally to say, we cannot, you know, John, 1 John, John says, you know, we don’t, true believers don’t continually sin. What should I tell him scripture-wise in response to his position?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you know, he obviously seems to be enslaved to a practice. Now, I almost said a sinful practice. Most Christians, I don’t know what most Christians think. I’ve found pastors and teachers on both sides who think that that particular practice is sin, and some think it’s not. But let’s argue that it is, just for the sake of argument. So if he thinks it’s wrong… Paul said it is. He said whoever thinks it’s unclean, it is unclean to him. So if he’s saying, okay, it is a sin, it is unclean, but it’s okay because all my sins have been forgiven, that’s not the attitude that a person who understands the gospel properly would take toward any sin in their life. If I’m doing something that I know is a sin, or at least I think it is, then I have to realize, okay, I’m falling short. I need to repent. I need to do better. God didn’t redeem me so that I could live in sin. He came to die to redeem me from every lawless deed and purchase for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good works. Now, even people who are zealous for good works sometimes stumble. And Yet, if they truly are zealous for good works, they’re not going to be happy that they stumbled. If I’m eager to do only what’s right, and that is pretty much what the heart of a born-again person is. They’ve had a change of heart. They really want to do right in the sight of God now. And if they really are zealous to do right in the sight of God, and they do what they now believe is wrong and what is wrong, let’s say, well, then they’re not going to say, well, okay, it’s okay because I’m forgiven. Right? Well, it is true that we are forgiven. I mean, it does say in 1 John 2, verse 1, little children, I write unto you that you do not sin. And if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he’s the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. So, He said that we’re not supposed to sin. If we do sin, it’s not the end of the world because Christ has made a propitiation for our sins. But that’s not given as an excuse not to sin. He said if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father. We have a propitiation. But I’m writing to you so you don’t do that. So in other words, a person doesn’t, if they’re really a Christian, they don’t say, well, it’s okay if I sinned. because I have a propitiation in Christ. Well, John didn’t think it was okay if they sinned. He said, we do have that propitiation in Christ, but we’re supposed to be living a life that glorifies God. We’re supposed to be obeying Christ. Jesus said, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don’t do the things I say? So a person who’s really born again, they know that they fall, but they don’t want to. They hate it when they do, and they want to do better. I mean, I think one of the true marks of conversion is, true conversion, being born again, is that your heart no longer can approve of a life of sin. Your heart wants to be holy. You want to be holy before God. Now, it may be that your long-term friend that you’re talking about really has it in his heart that he wants to be holy, but he’s struggled with this particular behavior so long that he’s given up on being able to ever beat it. He may have even convinced himself, you know, maybe God doesn’t have a problem with this And frankly, there would be preachers who would agree with him that God doesn’t have a problem with it, but that certainly is not unanimous. The point is, if he says, I am sinning, but it’s okay that I’m sinning, if that’s the attitude, then it’s hard to believe that person has been regenerated. But if he’s saying, I’m sinning, and I don’t want to sin, but I just can’t seem to stop, but I do repent… And I believe that God forgives me when I repent. And I do want to do better, but I still fall. That would be not, he wouldn’t be wrong about that, I think.
SPEAKER 07 :
Very, very helpful, Steve. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, brother. God bless you. You too. All right. Bye now. Okay, a Slavic in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Welcome. Slavic, are you there? His line is activated, but he’s not there. Okay, we’ll move on. Let’s talk to Derek in Compton, California. Hey, I think – hi, Derek.
SPEAKER 04 :
Eric, Steve.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, Eric. I’m sorry. My call screwed up.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I tried to catch him, but he hung up. Hey, can you – somebody sent me a video, and I never heard of this guy. His name is Aaron – Abke, I think you pronounce it.
SPEAKER 02 :
How do you spell it? Have you heard of him? A-B-K-E. A-B-K-E. No, I’m not familiar with his name.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, he seems to be a New Ager. I was wondering if you knew anything about it.
SPEAKER 02 :
I don’t. I don’t know him. I know something about the New Age, but I don’t know what this man is teaching.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, well, I had never heard, so he was taking stuff out of context and stuff. But then when he started quoting… from the book A Course in Miracles where I had a better idea where it was coming from.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, A Course in Miracles is demonic.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Okay, that’s it. Thank you, buddy.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. God bless you, Eric.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Bye-bye. Bye now.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, John from Orlando, Florida. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Steve. How are you doing, brother?
SPEAKER 02 :
Good.
SPEAKER 08 :
Good, good. See, I have a bit of a layered question for you. I’ll try to keep this organized here. I’m wondering, A, how familiar are you with the doctrine of the filioque? B, the place that it was that it held in the schism of the Church of the East and the West, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Church. And C… how crucial or important that you think it is or isn’t, for that matter.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m going to have to say I don’t know much of anything about it. I’ve seen the word, but that’s all I can do. I can’t associate anything, any significance or detail to it. Why don’t you talk to me about it? Tell me what you know, because I know you’re a… Okay, I’m sure you’ll have some thoughts.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m sure you’ll have some thoughts on it as far as the importance of it. But, yeah, I was really surprised to see just how crucial… how at the center of the schism this was. There was a papacy, but this was right next to it. And filioque is a Latin term that means and the Son. So the Church of Rome says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
And it was the Church of the East that said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And the darndest thing, man, I tell you what, the Church of Rome, they got so dogmatic about that thing that in their council they said that anybody who affirms or teaches the heresy of the filioque, saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, they’re just anathema.
SPEAKER 02 :
Isn’t that something? Yeah, I mean, this is the kind of stuff that divisive people… like to divide over. Okay, so does the Bible say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father or from the Son? Well, in John chapter 14, Jesus said, I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit. So he said the Father will send the Holy Spirit. Now, on the day of Pentecost, when Peter was describing what was happening, he said the This Jesus, whom you could have thought is now ascended, you know, he’s at the right hand of God, and he is the one who has poured out this, which you see in here. So he’s saying that Jesus poured out the baptism of the Spirit on the church. So it sounds to me like it’s the Father and the Son, but why would anyone get alarmed about that? I mean, let’s just say you were of the side of that question that believed it was just the Father and not the Son who poured out. Well… What’s at stake here? You know, what exactly is problematic? Suppose one side is correct and the other is incorrect, which is no doubt the case. How is the one that’s incorrect somehow morally compromised in their faith or anything like that, you know, by being incorrect, you know?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. I hear the proclamations of anathema, and I’m like, hey, calm down there, Sparky.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know.
SPEAKER 08 :
We’re all just trying to do the best that we can. trying to understand divine truths here. Let’s just relax a little bit.
SPEAKER 02 :
I know. I mean, suppose someone didn’t think all that clearly and got the wrong answer about that. So why would God be offended? Is God offended by that? Is Jesus offended by it? I mean, what is the problem here? Now, and what I said, this is exactly the kind of thing that divisive people like to find to distinguish themselves from people they don’t agree with. And It’s the opposite of the Christian spirit. But, of course, when you read medieval Christianity an awful lot, actually not even medieval, back into the beginning of the third, fourth century, you begin to have some really behavior that’s contrary to the spirit of Christ. And the church has not shaken that off yet, especially the institutional churches. But, yeah, it’s an amazing thing that they would divide over there. Now, I could see dividing over the papacy. Because, you know, if someone says, well, we got the papacy is infallible. He’s the head of the whole church. I say, wait, I thought Jesus was the head of the church. Who’s this guy, you know, who’s said to be the head of the church? And, you know, to say, no, I’m not going to follow this guy. I’m going to follow Jesus. I mean, that to me would be a moral and important choice. But an opinion about whether, you know, the spirit comes from the father only. or from the Father and the Son, is, I mean, it seems to me the Scripture supports Father and Son, which I guess is what the Eastern Church took, right?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
And, of course, I believe that you can find Scripture to support that. But I can’t find any Scripture to support the idea of dividing over that question.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, what you’re saying about the intensity of that, the medieval ages, I’m just starting to realize just how intense it really got over things like that. And another one, whereas I sided with the East on that, then in their sixth council, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but it’s almost like the East said, hey, Rome, hold my beer. We’ll step up on this, that when they were talking about the veneration of icons and And their safe counsel, they said that if anybody doesn’t affirm the veneration of icons or if they were iconoclasts, that they were anathema. And not only that, but if you associate with anybody that doesn’t approve it, then you’re anathema for that.
SPEAKER 02 :
I saw that video you posted on Facebook about that Protestant guy who was addressing those matters.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, he does some good work.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, he does good work. I don’t remember his name, but they, you know… Those, you know, anathematizing other Christians for anything other than their rejection of the lordship of Christ is unbiblical itself. It’s itself sinful. It’s dividing the body of Christ. You know, a person is not part of the body of Christ because they believe the last decision, that’s the last council decided everyone has to believe, or the last creed that a bunch of bishops wrote. That’s not what makes you a Christian. You’re a Christian if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, and he’s your lord and savior and king, you know. The other things, most of the other things, can be negotiated. Of course, moral things are key to whether you’re following Christ or not. If someone says, well, I’m a follower of Christ, but I’m going to divorce my wife and marry this other person. Well, no, you’re not following Christ, because Christ said don’t do that. I mean, those kind of moral issues certainly are something for church disciplines. to be practiced over, but opinions about esoteric things are never made the issue for separating from brethren in the Bible. That’s a wrong attitude the church picked up pretty early on and hasn’t really gotten over very well. Well, it’s getting over a little better in modern times. Hey, John, I’ve got to take a break here. I appreciate your call. Hey, thanks a lot, bro. Thanks for bringing that up. Good talking to you. Bye now. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming, so don’t go away. The Narrow Path is listener supported. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, we pay a lot of money to radio stations, but we have no sponsors and we sell nothing. If you’d like to help us, you can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can do so from our website, which is thenarrowpath.com. Stay tuned. I’ll be back in 30 seconds for another half hour.
SPEAKER 09 :
If truth did exist, would it matter to you? Whom would you consult as an authority on the subject? In a 16-lecture series entitled The Authority of Scriptures, Steve Gregg not only thoroughly presents the case for the Bible’s authority, but also explains how this truth is to be applied to a believer’s daily walk and outlook. The Authority of Scriptures can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, 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 again, but if you want to take this number down and call in a few minutes, there’s a very good chance a line will be open. Obviously, there will be lines opening up throughout the half hour. The number to call is 844- 484-5737. Our first caller in this second half of the program is Brock from Scottsdale, Arizona. Brock, welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Steve. How’s it going? Good. Quick question. So in Acts 5 about Ananias and Sapphira, so I’m just kind of wondering, obviously they were – killed or they died because of their um you know their lie about their donation to the church um is that something that god did to them or you know it’s something that’s always kind of confused me i was just wondering if you could just provide a little more insight about that because i’ve always just been confused about you know if god was the one that initiated that death for them does that go against his kind of forgiveness and mercy. So I was just wondering if you could just clear that up and explain it a little better to me.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. You know, that kind of ties in with what we were talking to an earlier caller about, about 1 Corinthians chapter 11, where the church was, some people were doing blasphemous things, sacrilegious things at communion. And Paul says, well, God has brought this on you. That’s why some of you are sick and some of you have died. He said, because you’re being disciplined by God. Now, discipline is intended for correction, but of course the people who died are not the ones who are likely to correct themselves after they’ve died, but the church is supposed to correct itself when they have loss of members. Paul does not suggest that the people who died or that were sick or who were under, you know, who were the sufferers in that discipline, he does not say they weren’t saved. Now, maybe they weren’t. I don’t know if they were or not. He doesn’t really say much about that, but Likewise with Ananias and Sapphira. Yes, I think we’re to understand that God struck them dead. And, you know, that would be a discipline upon the church. That would be something to make the church more, as it says afterwards, the whole church feared, you know, they feared God more after that. The church should fear God. And sometimes the church gets a little sloppy about that. Now, you know, how do I know that it’s God who struck them down? Well, First of all, the story is told among the very many stories that could be told and are not. I mean, the book of Acts is extremely selective in the stories it tells, but it tells that story as if to be an example of how God started the church and disciplined the church and so forth. It doesn’t say God struck them dead, but it’s too coincidental to think, well, they just had a heart attack. What happened, for those who don’t know the story, this is a married couple. And at a time in church history when people were typically selling extra properties they had and so forth to help the poor and bringing the money to lay at the feet of the apostles, this couple sold some property and they kept some of the money for themselves but pretended they were giving the whole amount. Now, Peter didn’t care if they kept some for themselves or not. It was a pretense. Peter said, you didn’t even have to sell it. You know, it’s not like it was required of you. And once you sold it, the money was yours to do with what you want to. So, in other words, it’s no problem that you kept some of it. You weren’t obligated to give it all. But what’s the problem is you lied to us about it and, you know, pretended to be making some big, you know, sacrifice and try to get yourself some religious cred, you know, which you don’t deserve. And that’s hypocrisy, and God doesn’t like that. But when Peter told them that, Well, it was first the husband was there and the wife was somewhere else. And the husband dropped dead. He just dropped dead when Peter rebuked him. Peter didn’t say, die. He didn’t say, you’re going to drop dead. He just rebuked him and the man dropped dead. Now, people who say that God doesn’t strike people dead, the same people who say that God didn’t strike, you know, Onan dead for his indignity in Genesis or Uzzah who touched the ark, and was struck dead. They say God didn’t do that. They don’t think God does that kind of thing. There are people who say that. I’ve debated some of them. And yet, what are we supposed to understand? Well, he just had a heart attack, they say. Oh, okay. Well, I guess there is a remote chance that this guy was, you know, he had very bad heart problems, and he was very fragile, and just being confronted and told he did something unacceptable was more than he could bear, and so he had a heart attack. But like a couple hours later, his wife, who had been somewhere else, had came in. And Peter just asked her, is this the amount that you sold your property for? And she said, yes. And he said, well, why have you and your husband conspired together to lie to the Holy Spirit? And she dropped dead. Now, you know, I guess we could imagine that two people with very weak hearts, prone to heart attacks, you know, married each other and were in the early church. And just being confronted about something they did wrong was enough to kill them both. And God didn’t do it. It was just their weak hearts. You know, that would be an incredible coincidence, it seems to me, since most people can be criticized without that kind of thing happening. And the fact that Luke records it, among the few stories he does record about the things that God was doing in the church, strongly suggests that he didn’t see it as a coincidence. He saw it as God striking him. And if we wonder, well, does God do that kind of thing? Well, a little later, it’s unambiguous. In Acts chapter 12, it says that God was angry at Herod Agrippa II because he was… No, he’s the first. No, that was the second, I think. No, the first. Herod Agrippa I. Because he was given a speech, and people praised him as a god, and he didn’t give God the glory. And Luke tells us, the angel of the Lord struck him and he was eaten by worms and he died. By the way, that story is also told by Josephus, the non-Christian Jewish historian. He doesn’t mention the angel of the Lord, but he does mention the man just being smitten while he was standing there speaking. He just doubled over and he died. But Luke tells us the angel of the Lord struck him and he died. So God does strike people dead. It doesn’t happen very often, thankfully. Because most of us would be dead if every time someone did something that offended him. But in the early days of the church, God was sometimes demonstrating where his standards were going to be. No one knew because the church was brand new. And so, okay, this kind of line is not tolerable. I’ll show you. Boom, you’re dead. Now, did they go to heaven or did they go to hell? Well, that depends on whether they were Christians or not. I suspect they may have been Christians because Christians can be tempted to boast about their virtues Christians can be sometimes susceptible to seeking religious rank and religious respect which they don’t fully deserve and therefore there’s no reason to assume that this couple weren’t among those they could have been Christians who did a wrong thing now if so then I believe when they died, they went to heaven. Now, Herod, I don’t think he did. But the point is, if people die under the discipline of the Lord, God doesn’t do it because he doesn’t love them. Whom he loves, he chastens. And sometimes that chastening goes all the way to taking them home early. Now, some of you might say, well, killing them is pretty severe. Well, killing them is a severe discipline. But we have to remember, These are people who would be dead thousands of years ago now anyway. People die. Everyone dies. And God has every right to say, you’re going to die in this situation or that situation if I see fit to make a point. I may want to make an example of you. That’s his prerogative. If he hadn’t slain them there, they’d be dead within a few decades of that anyway, and he wouldn’t have made the point. So God’s prerogative is to do that. I figure he can strike me any time he wants to. I certainly deserve it. I’ve had plenty of sins in my life. I could never say, you know, God, how dare you strike me down? I’m a reasonably good person. I’ve done bad things. Everyone’s done bad things. And therefore, God, I acknowledge, has the right to kill me anytime he wants, if he wants to. And I apply that reasoning to everybody else, too. Anyone who’s a sinner, the wages of sin is death. They’re just on death row, and God has the choice of when it’s going to pull the plug on them. In this case, he did it in order to make a point to the church. Okay, these people went to heaven early. Well, we don’t know they went to heaven, but they might have. They went to heaven early and didn’t get to do much more with their families and things like that because they did something that God is not going to tolerate. Now, the big question is, why doesn’t he do it more? I don’t think there’s any question as to whether God’s justified this. If someone sins and does blasphemous things against him, if he drops them, he could do it even if they didn’t do those things. People die all the time who haven’t done those kinds of things. The real question is, if he’s going to do it to them, why doesn’t he do it to everybody? Aren’t there an awful lot of Christians who’ve done even maybe worse things, who’ve lied to the Holy Spirit worse than they have? I mean, if their sin was they claimed to be giving more money than they really were giving, And that was their lie. Well, what should we think of those who read, who sing the song, Take My Life and Let It Be? Consecrate, Lord, to you. Take my silver and my gold. Not one mite would I withhold. Well, how many people have withheld more than a mite, more than a penny, more than a dollar of what God’s given them? Well, should they be struck dead? Well, let’s just put it this way. You know, anyone who’s a hypocrite like Ananias and Sapphira certainly can deserve it. But, I mean, God doesn’t do it every time someone deserves it. What we see is that God occasionally will do this kind of thing to make a point for the rest of us. We might get away with the same kind of thing, or think we’re getting away with the same kind of thing, and he doesn’t kill us. But that doesn’t mean he feels any better about us doing it than he feels about them. The fact that he demonstrated his… disfavor and wrath over this. In that one case, it’s an example to us all. It’s like what Jude said about Sodom and Gomorrah. It said they suffered the violent, I think it’s verse 9 of Jude, no, I think it’s verse 6, somewhere around there. It says they suffered the judgment of eternal fire and became an example to those who afterwards would live ungodly. In other words, God hasn’t sent fire and brimstone on every society that was as evil as they are. But he’s given an example to the world of what he thinks about the way they were behaving. And there will be a judgment. And if he doesn’t judge us now, we’re all going to stand judgment anyway. And we have a good example of how God feels about that kind of hypocrisy. So I don’t know if Anna and I somehow were actually Christians, but they could have been. I mean, Christians have done worse things and are, I believe, still Christians, but But we don’t do those without giving great displeasure to God. And we’re going to have to answer unless we repent, obviously. All right, let’s talk to Cheryl in Sacramento, California. Cheryl, welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi. Hi. I want to start with this. My brother broke away from the family recently. years ago, so I have just reconnected with him, and I haven’t seen him for about 20 years, and he, we talk about the Bible a lot, we, you know, talk on the phone now, and I’ve listened to you, and I know that the Jehovah Witnesses have a different belief, so I asked him, I said, I understand that you don’t believe in the Trinity, and then he explained why, partially why, and He said that God doesn’t die, and I should backtrack. He knows I was just baptized last year, and I don’t know how to answer him because he has studied the Jehovah Witnesses for years now, and he always has an answer, and I don’t know how to talk with him about it, but I know that I won’t become a Jehovah Witness. I know enough about what they believe that I could never believe.
SPEAKER 02 :
So his argument is that Jesus can’t be God because God can’t die, and Jesus did die. Is that correct? Right. Okay. Well, that’s an interesting argument. By the way, if you’re interested in knowing more about the Trinity, I do have a lecture on that at our website at thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says… Topical Lectures, there’s a series called Knowing God, and there’s a lecture called The Trinity. And I would recommend, if you’re interested in a much more biblical analysis of that doctrine, you might want to listen to that at thenarrowpath.com under Topical Lectures, under the series Knowing God. There’s a lecture on the Trinity there. Now, as far as, you know, God can’t die. How could Jesus be God because he died? That’s a really interesting point and an important one. The Bible doesn’t just tell us that Jesus is God. This is something I think Christians have been very careless about. Jesus is God in the flesh. That’s what the Bible says. God among us in the flesh. Now, flesh can die. If God had not come among us in the flesh, he would certainly be invulnerable to death. He’s immortal. He would also be invisible, tireless, all-knowing, you know, omnipresent, because God is all those things. But when God becomes flesh and dwells among us, that manifestation of him is not everywhere at once. And Jesus himself claimed he didn’t know everything. He said there are some things only his Father knew, and he didn’t know, he said. He got tired. God doesn’t get tired. The Bible says he doesn’t become weary and doesn’t sleep. But Jesus got real tired and fell asleep more than obviously just about every day. And and then, of course, you know, God can’t be tempted with evil. But Jesus was tempted in the wilderness in all points like we are yet without sin. And, you know, God can’t die like your brother said, but. And Jesus did. So what do we make of that? Well, I think he misunderstands what Christians have believed about this. Christians don’t believe that Jesus was God unaltered. We believe that God entered our world in history in the form of a man. But he wasn’t confined to that. That’s why Jesus said the Father is greater than I. Jesus was a human being. in which God visited us in a human form. He came through the human family. He was descended from Adam. He was descended from David and Abraham through a human mother. So he had a human DNA. He had a human body. And he had all the limitations that a human body has. The difference was he was God in a human body. He was God in a human form. And, you know, what does that mean? Well, whatever it means, it doesn’t mean that he was invisible because people saw him. It doesn’t mean that he was omnipresent because he said he wasn’t. He said, I’m glad I wasn’t there when Lazarus died so I can go there and raise him. And, you know, he didn’t know everything. So things that are true about God, that is God throughout the universe, were not necessarily true of the manifestation of God in a human being. Now let me just say, there are examples of this in the Old Testament. And your brother, I don’t know if your brother recognized this or not. I’m not sure what Jehovah’s Witnesses think about this. But the Bible says Jacob wrestled with a man all night. The man did not prevail against him and touched his thigh and shriveled his thigh. And he asked Jacob his name. And when he was told, then he said, your name will be Israel from now on. And when it was all over, and Jacob hobbled away on his shrunken thigh, he said, I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. He named the place Peniel, which means face of God. Now, okay, so God wrestled with Jacob but couldn’t beat him? You know, didn’t know his name, had to ask? He obviously was supernatural because he was able to touch him and cripple him, and Jacob said that was God, but… I think theologians have to conclude that this was God manifested, in that case very briefly, in a human kind of form. But God hadn’t become a real human being because that human form had not been born of the family of Adam and so forth. He just kind of appeared. He just came in a human form. with human limitations. For example, he was there and not everywhere. Now, while the man was wrestling with Jacob, that is, while God, manifesting in a human form, was wrestling with Jacob, God was still everywhere else in the whole universe. God didn’t kind of leave the rest of the world to itself and come down to spend the night wrestling with Jacob. We call that God’s manifest presence. When he manifests himself in some form or another, Like when he was in the burning bush, that was God in the burning bush manifesting himself to Moses. There’s lots of times God manifests himself to people, but his manifest presence does not cancel out or is not contrary to his universal presence. God is not physical. God is spirit, and he fills the whole universe. Heaven and the heavens cannot contain him, Solomon said. God is everywhere. That’s his universal presence. But on occasion, he has been known to manifest himself among human beings in a human-like form or some other form, like a fire or a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire over the tabernacle. There’s different ways that the manifest presence of God has visited a localized people, but without in any sense changing the fact that the universal presence of God is still everywhere else. Now, when God… manifests himself in Christ, and that’s exactly the term that’s used, for example, in 1 Timothy 3. I think it’s verse 15. It might be verse 16, but it says that God, or he, was manifested in the flesh. It’s as great as the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh. So Christ, God, was manifested among us in the flesh, just like he was manifested when he wrestled with Jacob, or he was manifested to Abraham and ate meals with him in Genesis 18.1. And following, God came like a traveler with two angels with him. They all looked like men. And they sat down and had a meal with Abraham. But we’re told it was God and two angels. So God can take on, you know, a physical localized appearance in some local, you know, manifested way. But that doesn’t, there’s no suggestion at all. That he’s not also present everywhere. This is just a manifestation in this locality. Now, the Bible indicates that Jesus was God manifest among us, too. But that doesn’t mean God wasn’t everywhere else, too. The one that Jesus referred to as his Father, who is greater than he, is a reference to God everywhere, apart from that local manifestation, which had its own identity, its own personality, too, which was Jesus. And he’s called the son of God. But he was what happens when God comes to be a human being through the human family. So that’s what I understand to be the case. So, yeah, God can’t die, but a man can. And when God takes on a human form, he takes on the ability to be limited in time and space, in knowledge, and even in longevity. He made himself immortal. It says he became lower than the angels for the suffering of death. The Bible doesn’t indicate that Christ has always been lower than that. Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christ has always been above the angels. They believe he’s the first and greatest creation of God, and the angels were made by him. The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christ or the angels were made through him, but they don’t believe he’s God. They believe he is the first created thing of God. Well, okay, so they would admit he’s not lower than the angels. But Hebrews tells us in chapter 2, he was made for a little while lower than the angels for the suffering of death. And in doing so, of course, we have no problem saying that God, taking on a human form, took on a form lower than the angels for the suffering of death. But it didn’t mean that God in heaven died. It’s the God-man on Earth died. And so, is that mysterious? Well, I would say so. Do I understand it completely? I don’t see how I possibly could. Could I be expected to? It’s like a unique thing that has to do with the eternal God. I don’t have any frame of reference in the natural world to compare it with. People try to make things to compare it with, but who knows if they’re trustworthy. The point is… I suspect that I may never understand that, at least in this life. But I’m just trying to say what the Bible actually says is true. The Jehovah’s Witnesses reject this whole idea because they say they can’t understand it. I’ve talked to Jehovah’s Witnesses all my life, in their home and in mine. I’ve had dozens of conversations with them. And I know if you say, okay, here’s this scripture, this scripture, this scripture, they all say the Trinity is true. So why don’t you believe it? And the answer I’ve gotten many times from them is, well… Because I can’t understand how God could be three and one at the same time. And God wouldn’t want us to believe something we don’t understand. And I think God wants us to believe a lot of things we don’t understand. Even they believe that God has always existed. But who could understand that? Who can understand infinity and eternity at all? And yet we believe those things about God. So, you know, the question is not can I explain it? Can I understand it? Probably not, not adequately. But the question is, does the Bible teach it? If the answer to that is yes, then Christians are to believe it and shouldn’t be surprised not to fully understand it. There’s many things I can’t. I don’t understand how God does most of the things he does or how he even exists. But since he does, I guess I’m going to have to either, you know, be mortified and frustrated my whole life because I don’t understand it, or else I can just live with the fact that it’s true. You know, little kids, there’s lots of things they ask their parents that their parents do understand, but the kids don’t. And sometimes it’s just above their pay grade. The parent says, you’ll understand more when you get older. And that’s true. And the kid doesn’t have to live in continual torment because they don’t understand everything their parents understand. And we don’t have to live in that mindset simply because there’s things God understands and we don’t. Let’s just humble ourselves and say, hey, who am I that I would understand everything the infinite creator understands? I should be happy just to understand what he tells me. Not how it works, but what he says and believe it. And that requires maybe a little more humility than a lot of people want to have when they’re forming their theology.
SPEAKER 01 :
Can you just clarify this part of that question? Because when we started talking about it, I was taken aback by this comment. He said, yeah, we don’t believe in the Trinity. They believe that Jesus was an angel.
SPEAKER 02 :
They believe he was the Archangel Michael, yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, and so if he never comes to believe that Jesus is God, are you saved if you believe there is a Jesus, but he’s just not God?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I can’t be the judge of that, because the Bible says everyone will be judged according to his works. And we’re told in 1 Corinthians 4, therefore judge nothing before the time. Until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of the darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. And then each one will receive his praise from God. That’s 1 Corinthians 4, verse 5. In other words, I’m not a judge. I wouldn’t want to believe something untrue if I had the opportunity of believing what’s true. On the other hand, probably there are some things I do believe that aren’t true. I don’t know it. Nobody’s omniscient except God. We’ll have to let God be the judge. But on the other hand, anyone who loves God would want to be right about God and not misrepresent him. So I’ll let God decide how much your brother’s being honest and how much he’s just following a cult. But I can’t really make that judgment. We’re out of time. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
