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Steve Gregg takes listeners on a compelling journey through Scripture, addressing both time-honored traditions and contemporary moral dilemmas. From the divergent interpretations of Revelation to the implications of indulgence versus charity within Christian practice, this episode invites believers to reflect deeply on their faith and actions. Additional topics include the mystery surrounding Jesus’ hour not yet coming at the wedding in Cana, and how that extends into our personal callings and divine timing. This is a must-listen for anyone grappling with complex theological concepts while seeking practical applications to their spiritual lives.
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. And we’re taking your calls, as we usually do. And if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, we take your calls. We talk about them on the air. Right now, the lines are full. But you can call in a few minutes and almost certainly find a line open sometime before the hour is over. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. If you’d like to call the program today, we’d be glad to hear from you. This Saturday we have a couple things going on in Southern California. One is in Temecula. The other is in Buena Park in Orange County. In Temecula we have a men’s Bible study in the morning Saturday, 8 o’clock. That’s a men’s Bible study. And we’re in the book of 1 Timothy. In the evening in Buena Park, we have a study through the book of 1 John. It’s going to be an extensive overview and introduction to the whole book of 1 John. And that’s this Saturday night in Buena Park. If you’re interested in joining us for any of those gatherings, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. and look under Announcements, and there you’ll find the time and place of those gatherings. That’s only once a month we have these meetings. So if you’re interested, that’s this Saturday morning and evening, two different meetings. You can look at thenarrowpath.com under Announcements. And with that, I have nothing else to announce except that we’ll go to the phones and talk to Ryan from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Hi, Ryan. Welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I understand that you have a view of abolition, that most of it has taken place in the past. And that was kind of counter to what I had been taught as a kid all my life. But I guess the place I was wondering… if that’s true that most of Revelation has already taken place since John had the vision, what is left that has not yet taken place and still would need to occur?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, that’s going to be a matter of opinion among different interpreters, and there are almost as many interpretations as there are interpreters. My own view is, that the primary subject of most of Revelation is the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 01 :
I believe that up through about chapter 9, it’s pretty much focused on that. And then also from chapter 14 through 19, I believe it’s focused on that. That’s my opinion. Now, in between those two sections, there’s chapters 10 through 13. Now, there’s a reason to, I won’t give it now because it’d take too long, but my lectures certainly do give my reasons for this. I believe that those are not specifically about 70 A.D., but I think that they talk about the period after 70 A.D., the present age. of the church symbolically. And likewise, I see the same thing about chapter 20 and following. So I’m thinking that, you know, the second coming of Christ, which is, of course, still future. is seen in chapter 11, in my opinion, when the two witnesses are dead and they rise to their feet alive and they’re caught up into heaven. I take that to be a picture of the rapture of the church. And then I believe that the second coming of Christ is seen also in Revelation 20 and verse 9, when fire from heaven comes down and destroys Satan and all of his confederates. And those passages coincide with other passages about the second coming of Christ and lead me to believe that’s what what that’s talking about. I personally think that the new heavens and new earth in chapters 21 and 22 are essentially a future new creation, though I do believe that, as the writer of Hebrews says, we have already tasted of the powers of the age to come, and that in some senses, those chapters depict, in a spiritual sense, the experience of Christians who, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, and therefore the new heavens and new earth, the new creation, in some sense has happened already, in our lives, but there is, in my opinion, a literal new heavens and new earth also coming when Jesus returns. So, now that’s me. You’re going to find lots of different interpretations of Revelation, but you asked me my opinion, and I’m the world’s greatest authority on my own opinion. So, I do see some references to the second coming of Christ in a couple of sections, in the middle section and in the end section of the book.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Thank you, Steve. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Ryan. By the way, if you’re interested in my reasons for these things, obviously at thenarrowpath.com under verse-by-verse lectures, you can listen to my verse-by-verse lectures on Revelation, and you’ll get a very full explanation of the reasons for all those things. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, Ryan. God bless. Okay, we’re going to talk next to John from Dearborn, Michigan. John, welcome to The Narrow Path. Hello, Steve. Hello.
SPEAKER 02 :
I am interested in gaining some perspective on what the lesson is from the story in the Bible of the woman who brought expensive oil to be used on Jesus and the criticism that was made by certain people regarding… All right. the use of that oil rather than selling it and feeding it and fostering the welfare of poor people and I’m thinking of this in terms for instance of expensive cathedrals such as Notre Dame being built to glorify God and at what point is that a waste and at what point is it justified as a The glorification of God.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Well, in the future, you might want to turn your radio down on the phone because I’m sure it confuses you to be talking in real time and hearing the radio, which is, of course, a delay of something like 30 seconds. So anyway, I’m glad we got through your question. So there was this time when Jesus was about to be buried and Mary, Bethany came and he was sitting in the house with the disciples and with Mary and Martha. And Mary came in with some very expensive oil or perfume. The estimated value of it was like a year’s wages for a working person. And she broke the container and poured the oil over his head and possibly his feet also. There’s some different Gospels that give some different details. So The gospel tells us that the disciples complained about this. And one of them, I think it was John, tells us specifically that Judas complained about this. And said, what a waste. That oil was worth a lot. Now it’s worth nothing. I mean, it’s been poured out. You can’t regather it. While it was in its bottle, you could have sold it, gotten a lot of money for it, and given it to the poor. Which sounds like a good thing. But the Bible tells us that Judas didn’t care about the poor. He was the guy who carried the bag of money for the disciples, and he was, I guess, like their treasurer. And he pilfered from the bag. So he would have loved to have all that money in the bag to pilfer from. So we’re told he didn’t really care about the poor at all. Now, Jesus did care about the poor, but he said, the poor you have with you always, and you can do good to them whenever you want to. Frankly, some people have mistakenly said, we don’t have to help the poor because Jesus said, the poor you have with you always. And their reasoning seems to be, well, you know, you can’t eliminate world poverty, so why try? You know, which is ridiculous. Jesus didn’t say, because you’ll always have the poor, never help them. He said, because the poor will always be there, you’ll always have opportunity to help them. And you can help them all the time, anytime you want. And certainly he believed that was a very important thing to do. But on this occasion, he defended the woman for what seemed to be a waste of her, probably her, life savings, and, you know, it didn’t really accomplish anything except, you know, to make Jesus smell like perfume, which I’m not even sure he wanted to smell like perfume. So, you know, it does seem like she made kind of an extravagant, almost silly waste of that perfume. And yet Jesus defended her because he knew her heart. And he said, don’t criticize her. You can give to the poor whenever you want to. If that’s really what you’re concerned about, Judas, you can go out and give to the poor any day you wish. But this woman was doing something unique. Now, what he said was that she was anointing him for burial. Now, when people were buried, they would be sometimes anointed with perfumes or spices and things like that, just sort of as a final honor to the corpse before it is put in the grave. And Jesus was saying she anointed him for burial. Now, he was going to be dead within a few days. This was just a few days before he died. So he was saying that she was doing something appropriate for someone who’s going to be buried shortly. Only you usually do it after the body’s dead, not while they’re still living. Now, it’s not clear whether she understood that’s what she was doing. She may have just seen it as an act of lavish affection on Jesus, and Jesus appreciated it for that reason. But she may have understood that he was going to die. And she may have been, in a sense, doing this to honor him before his burial. Though it doesn’t seem likely that she knew that. That would be actually pretty premature for anointing a body that’s not dead yet. Jesus may be simply saying, this works out fine because I’m going to be buried and this is anointing me for burial. In other words, he might be saying that she understood this to be the case. If she did, she was way ahead of the disciples because they didn’t understand it. They didn’t understand he was going to be buried. He told them, but they still didn’t understand it. But she might have. You know, Mary is the one who sat at Jesus’ feet listening when Martha was serving in the house. Mary may have been perhaps a more sensitive person than the disciples, picked up on things that Jesus was saying that they didn’t pick up on. So we don’t know if she deliberately was doing it for his burial or if he just said, you know, this is going to work out this way because I’m going to be buried. And, you know, this is, of course, you anoint the dead. So this is a previous to my burial. And that might have been perplexing to her. She might not have even known what that meant. We don’t know. But you’re asking, well, there’s been a lot of lavish and expensive projects that have been dedicated to God. which could have, the money could have been used to feed the poor, should we think, how should we think about them? Should we think, as Jesus thought about this, that this is a good use of this perfume? Well, I mean, Jesus can think whatever he wants to and say whatever he wants to and evaluate however he wants to any given act of generosity. And I know he certainly saw this as an act of love from this woman and thought that was a very good thing. Now, people who design sculptures and cathedrals and all kinds of elaborate, expensive, you know, worship art and architecture, that’s very expensive. And we might say they’re doing it out of love for Jesus. And maybe they are. Or maybe they’re doing it because they’re commissioned to do it and they’re getting paid to do it. I mean, a lot of times I don’t think that the Sistine Chapel ceiling was painted for free. I think these artists were, they made their living at this kind of thing. So they may have loved Jesus or they may not have. The thing would have gotten done anyway because it wasn’t specifically a project necessarily done out of the love for Jesus by the artists. Though it could have been. I’m not saying it wasn’t. I mean, Bach wrote his music to the glory of God. No one can know what was in the hearts of an artist or a composer who wrote or drew something or built something for the glory of God. We don’t know how good their motives were or were not, and God will evaluate that. We might ask, though, whether the whole project even makes sense in a world where there’s so much poverty. Why would you spend that much on that? I know people used to say that when a rocket was sent to the moon and they brought back moon rocks. People thought, well, there must be valuable rocks to have because they cost billions of dollars to get them. And that money, many people said, could have been given to the poor. And that is true. It could have been. I personally, the way I understand stewardship, would not lavish any funds that could be used to help the poor on a merely religious structure or piece of art for the simple reason that I’m not sure that that’s right-headed. I mean, it was a tremendous expenditure of perfumes. that this one poured out, but it was directly on Jesus. It was directly, obviously, an act of love for him. She didn’t plan to get anything out of it. She wasn’t paid for it. I mean, Jesus recognized that as a true act of worship and a very expensive one for her. And God’s going to have to evaluate, you know, these other things. Notre Dame, Sistine Chapel, you know, all the religious statues and all those things. I don’t know how God feels about those, and it’s because other people’s money were used for it. If someone took my money and used it for that, I would say, well, I’d rather use my money for the things of God the way I value them. And I value the lives of people, like poor people, for example, or the souls of people who could be evangelized, more than I value it. pretty buildings and paintings and such. But that’s me. I mean, it’s not like God is against art. And as I understand it, in the Middle Ages, a lot of people believed that these buildings did really glorify God and help the people, help elevate the people’s minds in a time where they’re in grinding dirt and poverty and so forth to kind of go into one of these cathedrals and kind of have their thoughts lifted to heaven and because of the beauty and so forth, this is something that wouldn’t work for me, but I’m not saying it wouldn’t work for anyone. So, you know, I never will, well, I won’t say never will, but generally speaking, I do not judge another person’s stewardship. Now, if a television evangelist says he needs, you know, $50 million to get his third jet, private jet, I’m critical of that because he clearly doesn’t need three private jets. He probably doesn’t even need one. if he thinks he needs one, then one should be enough. Why does he need two more? And these are $50 million, $30 million jets. I think, okay, listen, that’s a lot of money. That’s money that could really do something good besides give you the status of owning three jets. And, you know, I will judge that kind of thing because there’s no possible excuse for it. But when people do things and say, this is for the glory of God, and I look at it and say, well, I would have never used the money that way. I would have used it to help the poor or get the gospel out or do something else. I have to say, well, if they’re doing it for the glory of God, who am I? I don’t know. God’s going to judge their heart. Maybe he’s pleased. Yeah, it depends on what their motives were. And they are definitely in a different place mentally than I am about such things, so I’m not really in the position to judge their hearts because I don’t understand that particular priority. I don’t even particularly care about architecture at all, whether church or otherwise, but But some people do, and it’s an art. I mean, God did create art. He made us artists. And so I’m not going to say people who do that are all bad or doing the wrong thing. But I will say I would prioritize differently if I had that kind of money to invest in something. But God will judge. And each one obviously needs to answer to God for their own stewardship. But I understand you asking that question because it does seem a little strange to spend that kind of money on a church or something when there’s thousands of starving people living around it in the neighborhood. Let’s talk to Alice from San Francisco, California. Hi, Alice.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi. I’ve never called in before. Nice to talk to you. I met you a long time ago near San Cruz. You were over there. Anyway, I was wondering if you could possibly tell the man that called in and said that he has ALS. to get retested again because he might have long COVID. So ALS is a, you know, deadly disease, but long COVID is not treatable. And so thank you for letting me.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Alice, I appreciate that info.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, it could be long COVID. It’s treatable. I hope he’s listening. Anyway, I’m wondering about John, too. Verse number four. Why does the Lord say, Woman, what does your consent have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. What does it mean that his hour has not come yet?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, you know, the expression that his hour had not yet come, that phrase occurs several times in the book of John. And in all the other times, in the book of John, it’s talking about the hour of his death. But in John 2, it’s not obvious that he’d be talking about the hour of his death because that doesn’t seem to be in the context. She’s telling him that they’ve run out of wine. She’s not asking him to do anything, but she’s certainly implying could you do something about this? She’s kind of trying to send him on an errand of some kind, go get some wine for him or something. She’s not Not specifying, but she’s clearly implying that she kind of would expect him to maybe step up and do something. And by the way, I think this is probably how she was used to relating. He’d never done miracles before. He just left home. This is one of the first things he did when he left home. And he’d been living at home, you know, for 30 years. Joseph had died recently. sometime in the previous several years. And so probably Mary had gotten used to coming to Jesus with problems. Hey, you know, the kitchen sink has a leak. You know, that kind of stuff you go to your husband about. Well, she didn’t have a husband, and Jesus was the oldest son. So probably they had a relationship all their life, all Jesus’ life, where he was called upon by Mary to step up and do the kinds of things that, you know, a man might be asked to do. So she was accustomed probably to approaching him with this kind of thing. Some people think she wanted him to work a miracle, but he’d never worked any miracles. It’s not clear whether she even knew he could. He’d never done it before. She’d lived with him for 30 years, and he’d never done any. So I don’t know that she was saying, please do a miracle and make wine. But I think she was concerned this wedding was some relative of theirs, it would appear. And Mary was obviously directly concerned with the catering in some way. And they’d just run out of something very vital. You need a lot of wine at a wedding, especially since the weddings in those days went on a week or two long. And you couldn’t easily predict how much wine you’d use. So they ran out. And so she doesn’t make any specific suggestion, but she does come to Jesus as if she’s kind of laying this burden for him to handle. Now, he did handle it, you know, but he first tells her, woman, now, the fact that he called her woman, in our English usage, sounds a little harsh. Like, it doesn’t sound affectionate. However, throughout the Gospels, we find that Jesus always addresses women as woman and men as man. Man who made me a judge over you, he says in one place. And, you know, this is the way people address each other. You know, just man, woman. It’s like us saying sir or madam. And it is interesting that he used a word for her that might be comparable to us saying madam. Because you don’t usually say madam to your mom, though it’s not disrespectful to you. Madam is a respectful term. But it might be a way of distancing himself from the previous way their relationship was conducted. You know, that is to say, he had always been a son in the house, the oldest son in the house, the go-to guy. When mom needs something done, she comes to him. And he’s saying, not anymore. I’m on another mission now. My hour is not, I think what he’s saying is my time is not at my discretion. I’m not available simply to jump whenever you have something you want me to do, as we have always done in the home previously. I’ve now left home. I’m now on my father’s schedule. I have to do what he says. And I think when he says, my hour has not yet come, I think it has the implication of, you know, I’m not really – I don’t sense my father telling me to do anything right now about this. But hang around. Maybe something will change. And it did. Sometime later – Apparently, he did receive instructions from his father to do something about it. But he couldn’t move just because his mom wanted him to anymore. He had to act on his father’s instructions. And he finally did act, but not because Mary told him to. But obviously, as Jesus said, I can do nothing but what my father tells me to do, what I see my father do. So I think my hour has not yet come with just simply saying it’s not time yet for me to do anything about this. I’m not sure it will be. But it’s a way of saying, my time is not at my discretion, and I have to move on the schedule that God gives me. I think that’s what he’s suggesting. Now, all the other times in John’s Gospel, when it talks about his hour had not yet come, and there are several others, it is specifically referring to the hour of his death. So it’s kind of strange that in John chapter 2 it would be used in some other way. And I’ve read some commentators try to use it even in Chapter 2 to kind of connect it to his death. But I’m not seeing it. I myself have not seen it. I think that he’s just telling his mom, you know, I can’t just do things whenever I want to. I’ve got to do things on God’s schedule. And I think that’s what that phrase is communicating there.
SPEAKER 06 :
What about when he or the Apostle Paul were trying to escape persecution? They were going to stone them. And doesn’t it also say that their hour hasn’t come or something like that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, that wasn’t said of Paul, though there was a time when people did stone Paul. And there was a time when they plotted to kill him and God spared him. And we could say his hour had not yet come. But there were a number of times in the Gospels where they took up stones to stone Jesus because they didn’t like something he said. And it says, you know, he passed through them unharmed and went away and hid himself or something because his hour had not yet come. In other words, they were about to kill him. But it wasn’t time for him to die yet. Like I was saying, most of the time when the Gospels say his hour had not yet come, it means the hour for him to die. And there’s a very strong temptation to give it that same meaning in John chapter 2 simply to be consistent with the usage of that term throughout the book. But I’m not seeing an easy way to make it mean that in chapter 2 in the context. So some commentators have tried to do that, but to my mind when I read it, I thought they were being a little strained. So I think it is just another way of saying it’s not my… I’m not on my own time schedule here.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Thank you. That’s what I do.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Great talking to you. Thanks for your call, Alice. All right. We have some more calls waiting, and we have another half hour coming up. We’re kind of at the end of our first half hour. There’s a couple of lines that have opened up. If you want to get on for the second half hour, you can call right now, the number 844- 484-5737. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. And each half hour of it, you see we go through. It’s commercial free. We don’t have any sponsors. And we don’t sell anything. So we don’t have any promotions for anything for sale. But we do promote our website, which is free. And everything on it is free. Thousands of lectures. MP3 files you can download. Lots of other resources there that you can have for free. And we recommend you check it out. But we are listener-supported. And if you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. You can donate there, too. I’ll be right back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 05 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. We’re proud to welcome you to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today but everything to give you. When today’s radio show is over, we invite you to visit thenarrowpath.com where you’ll find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and the archives of all the radio shows. Study, learn, and enjoy. We thank you for supporting the listener-supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg.
SPEAKER 01 :
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’d like to be on the program with any questions you might want to raise about the Bible or the Christian faith, feel free to do that. And the number to call is 844-484-5737. It kind of looks to me like the lines might be full, so if you don’t get through, just call a few minutes later. Lines are continually opening up. And by the way, we get more calls every day in most cases than we can put on the air just because there’s too many and we have too little time. If you can’t get on the air, feel free to email me. And say, you know, I have a question I’d like you to answer on the air. And I can get to it that way. If you have difficulty getting through or even if you have difficulty speaking on the radio, feel free to write to me, email me. My email address is at our website, thenarrowpath.com. And you can go there and see where to email me and just send me a question that way. All right, let’s talk to Mickey from Everett, Washington. Mickey, welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. I have two questions that stem from Revelations 9, 20 and 21, but starting with Mark 9, 14 through 29. And so my question there is how might unclean spirits or demons possess young children? Because I think the father’s response was, that he had been like that since he was a child. And then, yes, my other question is, most of the demon possessions or non-clean spirits that Jesus addressed, they were doing self-harm to the individual. I don’t recall, and my question is, do you recall where there are individuals who do harm to others because they’re In my professional work, I’m seeing that happen where people are doing harm to other people. For example, the nurse that did harm to the babies in the NIC tube. And then my last question is when it’s referencing Revelations 9, 20, and 21, because I’d like to believe that we all have an innate ability or sensitivity to harming others. So when I read Revelations 9, 20, and 21, and murders are accepted, sexual sins are accepted, pornography is accepted, dishonesty is accepted. So is this like some kind of spell that Satan has over all of us in the last days?
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, thank you. Well, as far as the first question from Mark 9 about the boy who was demon possessed, it does appear that children can be demon possessed. In fact, I’ve heard of cases where children appear to have been born demon possessed. Now, one case I knew of, both parents were Satanists and the child was, was seemingly born demon-possessed. At least that’s what she said when I met her. And she had crazy problems, I mean, until she became a Christian. And that really totally, she got delivered. But as far as demons making people do harm to other people, we don’t really read about that too much, except when Saul was possessed in the Old Testament. He hurled javelins at David, so we can see that he wasn’t just doing self-harm. You are right that most of the people in the New Testament who are demon-possessed seem to only do things harmful to themselves or just things that are kind of crazy. But there is an exception, the man of the tombs in the Gospels, the man who could break chains when they tried to chain him up and so forth. It doesn’t really tell us that he hurt anybody else, but it does that people were afraid to go by there because he was so fierce. So I don’t know if he was just so fierce that he cursed people and shot at people and, you know, intimidate them, or if he was so fierce that he would attack them. It may be that nobody got close enough to ever try to find out. We don’t have any example of even him hurting anybody, but if his fierceness caused people to avoid him for the most part, it may be that because sometime earlier he had hurt people. I’m not really sure. But the case of Saul in the Old Testament hurling a spear at David when an evil spirit came upon him does indicate that they may do harm to other people. Now, I personally think that those who deal with the demon-possessed are vulnerable to any kind of crazy or harmful behavior that the possessed person does, I would take it as an exception that a Christian who’s walking in the spirit of God and trusting God and trusting Christ would be, I would think, exempt. But I’m not sure. But I have heard of many cases of Christians dealing with very ferocious, demon-possessed people and even being threatened by them and so forth, and yet not anyone laying a glove on them. I remember when I lived in Santa Cruz, a really whacked out, demon-possessed guy was outside our Christian coffee house there, and I went out to talk to him. And he picked up a rock from the ground and was kind of menacing with it. He said, this is my magma. You need to respect my magma or something. It’s just kind of nuts. And, you know, the way he was acting and holding that rock, it looked like he might strike me with it. And I just figured, well, he might. But I don’t think God would want me to run away from it. I mean, this man is a man in need. Not that I was able to help him. He didn’t seem to want help. But I just thought, well, I can trust God for my safety. And it didn’t do anything to me, though he seemed like the type of angry guy who might do something. He just didn’t. And so I don’t know if I was just protected because I’m a Christian or what the reason was. In any case… I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a strong Christian being physically hurt by somebody who was demon-possessed. That doesn’t mean it never happened. Now, as far as the demons coming, I believe the locusts in Revelation 9, I think they represent demons. However, the verses you mentioned where the people did not repent, it says, of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts, It does not necessarily say that these are the demon-possessed people. The previous verse, verse 20, says, “…the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of their works, of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, and stone, which can either see or so forth, and they didn’t repent of their murders, sorceries, or sexual immorality of their thefts.” It does say that these people had been worshiping demons. It’s not clear, however, whether this is simply referring to the idols as demons. It says the works of silver and gold, the works of their hands. In the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy, Moses said that those who worshipped idols were worshipping demons. And Paul said the same thing in 1 Corinthians. I think it’s chapter 10, verse, I don’t know, 20, if I’m not mistaken. He said the sacrifice that the heathen offered to their idols, they’re offering to demons. So, Idol worship is demon worship in a sense, though worshiping demons hasn’t always led to people being demon possessed. So it certainly makes, they’re certainly taking a risk of that because I think worshiping demons can definitely open you up to demon possession. But people who worship demons are not necessarily demon possessed and therefore these people who had all these bad behaviors mentioned are not necessarily said to be demon possessed people. I believe that No matter how badly a person can act when they’re demon-possessed, I think people can act just about as badly just from their own native evil, their own evil hearts. The evidence of demon possession would not be seen specifically in really, really bad behavior because undemon possessed people, people who are not demon possessed, can do just about as much bad behavior as anyone else. But I think demon possession would be noticeable more in, let’s just say, paranormal behavior. You know, just clairvoyance, you know, just things that are really, you know, showing some kind of supernatural evidence of something. Not that this is the only thing, but that’s where I would have some confidence. I’m dealing with a demon-possessed person if they’re doing like paranormal type things. Anyway, there are mysteries about demon possession that the Bible does not explain. I think that when we encounter demon-possessed people, we need to be led by the Holy Spirit, and that’s going to be the only hope we have of knowing what to do. But as far as your other questions, I hope I’ve answered them. Some of them are a little hard to answer, but children can be demon-possessed, and it would appear that demon-possessed people on occasion can hurt other people, or at least can try to and want to. So people who’ve murdered their children and so forth because they said God told them to do it, You know, almost certainly they’re listening to demons. Probably they’re demon-possessed, so it’s, you know, I’d have to know more about each case to be sure. Marina in Detroit, Michigan. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi. Would you please share your thoughts and some scriptures about the topic of slavery, scriptures that support God allowing slavery in the Bible? And I understand a bond slave, what that means, but maybe other scriptures that were supported. I don’t know if there were brutal slaves that were treated brutally. So what scriptures can you share to support that? Why was it permitted?
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, yeah. Well, first of all, treating slaves brutally was not permitted. Those specific instructions in the Bible tell people who happen to have slaves that to treat them fairly and like brothers and so forth, and not treat them brutally. It’s actually forbidden to do that. It says, let’s see here. I’m trying to figure where Paul talks about that. He talks about Ephesians 6, among other places. He talks in Colossians also, but let me take you to Ephesians 6 and 4. and read what he says to them there. He writes to slaves, and he writes to masters. And after he writes to the slaves, he says this in verse 9. This is Ephesians 6, 9. You masters do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own master also is in heaven, and there’s no partiality with him. There’s a few places in Paul’s letters that he talks to masters about slaves. And that’s what James is talking about. James is not talking about having faith plus works. He’s talking about having a faith that works. The works are what is generated from faith, like fruit is generated from a fruit tree. If you say, that tree in my front yard, that’s an avocado tree, but it doesn’t ever bear any avocados. In fact, maybe it bears something entirely different. Maybe it bears oranges. Well, then you’re going to say, well, that’s not an avocado tree. And if someone says, well, you can make it one by stapling up some avocados on some of those twigs there, then you’ll have an avocado tree. No, you don’t. You don’t add fruit to the tree to make it a fruit tree. If it is a fruit tree, it produces the fruit. You don’t make your faith genuine by adding artificial works in a legalistic way to your life. If you have a genuine salvation, those good works will be generated from your life. Because you will have a new life, and a new life is, you know, God says he writes his laws on your heart and in your inward parts so that your heart is emanating obedience to God. See, Zane Hodges and Charles Ryrie and a few others like them have argued that you don’t have to have any good works to be a good Christian. And that just doesn’t agree with any writer of scripture. It certainly doesn’t agree with Jesus. Jesus said, he that hears these words of mine and does not do them, is like a foolish man who builds his house on sand.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 01 :
But he that hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who builds his house on rock. And what happens? The man who builds his house on sand, it collapses in the judgment. The man who builds his house on rock, he survives the judgment. What’s the difference between building your house on sand and building your house on rocks? It’s when you hear what Jesus said and you do it or you don’t do it. Jesus never gave instructions just to interrupt the silence, just because he thought it was too quiet, and so he thought he’d give out a few commands. He gave commands to be obeyed because he’s the Lord. St. Hodges doesn’t insist that people must recognize Jesus as Lord, in which case he teaches a gospel that’s contrary to anything Paul or Jesus or Peter or James or the writer of Hebrews or any other biblical writer. No biblical writer teaches that you’re saved by faith apart. from any kind of change in your life. Faith that is a saving faith changes your life. A faith that doesn’t change your life is not a saving faith. That’s why James says, you know, the demons also believe and tremble.
SPEAKER 04 :
What he’s saying is… Like James says, what good is that faith?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, what good is that faith? He’s saying the devils have a certain kind of faith too. Obviously, it’s not the kind that saves anyone because it doesn’t change the way they live. And anyone who says they have faith and the way they live hasn’t changed doesn’t have that faith. Now, if Zane Hodges says, well, now you’re adding works as a necessity. No, I’m not adding any works. I’m saying you need to have that faith. If you have that faith, those works will be there. Just like if you have life, you’ll be breathing and your heart will be beating. I mean, there will be the evidence of life. There will be vital signs. Good works are the vital signs that show that a person is saved. They don’t save them. One could argue that breathing and heart beating makes people alive and therefore generate life, but I don’t think so. I think it’s the fact that we’re alive that makes the heart beat and makes the breathing take place. Obviously, if you stop breathing, your heart stops beating, you’re going to die, but it won’t start up again unless you come alive again because presence of life in you has evidence. Presence of eternal life has evidence too, and that’s in person’s works. when Zane Hodges says, but then that’s not sola fide. Well, where in the Bible does it say we’re supposed to determine who’s right and wrong by some appeal to some Latin phrase, sola fide? Sola fide says faith alone. That is, we’re saved by faith alone. Well, maybe we are saved by faith alone.
SPEAKER 04 :
That James contradicts. If you interpret it the way what you’re saying, then it contradicts what Paul is saying. By faith alone it saves us. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, no, no, no, no, no. I just showed you. Paul said the same thing.
SPEAKER 04 :
I agree with what you’re saying. I’m just bringing up their argument because I’ve been dealing with both of these elders and I’m trying to sort through their arguments and I am leading toward what, I mean, it makes sense what you’re saying, you know, and I want to know how to, and you’re bringing up a lot of good points for me to talk with this elder.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, so if they think that faith without works will save, then they’ve got to go against what James said and against what Paul said and against what Jesus said and against what the writer of Hebrews said. Look at Hebrews 11. It talks about all the people who had faith and who were saved by faith in the Old Testament. It says, by faith they, what? By faith Noah built an ark. Why? Because God told him to. He obeyed God. By faith, Abraham left his homeland. Why? Well, because God told him to. By faith, these people obeyed God. That’s the point. As you go through the Old Testament hall of faith in Hebrews 11, what you see is these people who had faith, it says, by faith they did something. And what they did happened to be what God told them to do. So because they had faith in God, they obeyed God. And that’s the point the writer of Hebrews is bringing up. But there simply is no writer in the New Testament, least of all Paul, who says you can be saved by faith if you have no works. When Paul talks about works in a negative sense, he’s talking specifically about the works of the Jewish law. And by that he means the ceremonial law. He’s talking about circumcision. He’s talking about keeping festivals. He’s talking about keeping the ceremonies. Because whenever he’s talking against works, he’s talking against Judaizers. And the Judaizers were the ones who were trying to say, yes, okay, you can be saved by faith, but you still have to get circumcised. You still have to eat a kosher diet. You still have to keep the Jewish festivals. You still have to be a good proselyte to Judaism. And Paul said, none of those works matter. You’re saved by faith without any of those works. You know, that’s what Paul’s getting at in those few places where Paul seems to say something negative about works. He’s not talking about good works generally, which is basically a shorthand way of saying good behavior, good dealings. Listen, let me show you what Paul says in Titus. Take these verses down and show them to your friend. Paul wrote Titus, right? And it talks about certain wicked people. In Titus 1, 15 and 16, it says, To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Even their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works… They deny him. Okay? Titus 1.16? Well, yeah, that’s Titus 1.16. In works, they deny him. So by disobeying God, they prove that their profession of knowing him is false. But then look down in chapter 2, verses 11 and 12. It says, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us. that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. What teaches us that? He says the grace of God teaches us that. And then look at what he says about Christ in verse 14. Titus 2.14, he says that Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. Okay, doesn’t sound like Paul’s against good works there. Then in chapter 3, verse 1, Titus 3, 1, Paul says, Remind them, meaning the Christians, to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey and to be ready for every good work. I mean, it’s like Paul’s again and again saying that we should be, look at Titus 3, 14. Paul says, And let our people also learn to maintain good works. To meet urgent needs. So, I mean, Paul is not against good works. There’s six times in these three chapters Paul says that Christians should have good works and that people who profess to know God, but their works deny him because they don’t have good works. He says they’re deceivers. They’re wicked people. So, I mean, Paul never had a doctrine that you can be a Christian without good works. What he taught was you’re saved by faith, not by sin. having done enough good works, but that the faith that saves you is a faith that works through love. Let’s talk to Craig from Roseville, California. Hi, Craig. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks. I had a question on the amillennial view. How much time is there between the rapture, when the dead rise first and then the living follow, and the second coming, when… He comes in all his glory and sets his foot upon the Mount of Olives. How much time in between? Because on the dispossessional view, there’s basically the seven years. I was curious on the all-millennial view of how much time.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. The all-millennial view sees essentially no time in between. It’s the same day. Now, there might be minutes between or something like that. But Jesus said he will raise his people up on the last day in John 6, 49-50. excuse me, John 6.40, and also John 6.44, and John 6.54, and actually several times in John 6, Jesus speaks about his people and says he will raise them up on the last day. Now, raising them up, I take to mean the resurrection and the rapture, because Paul puts those in very close proximity in 1 Corinthians 15 and in 1 Thessalonians 4. Both places he speaks of the dead shall be raised, and then he talks about the living, being changed or caught up to meet the Lord in the air with them. That all occurs, apparently, on what Jesus called the last day when he raises them up. Now, there’s different theories of an alternative sort that have arisen in reasonably modern times. You’re right, the dispensationalist usually places seven years between the rapture and the actual physical second coming of Christ to earth. There are some mid-tribulations who place three and a half years as the interval between And then there’s pre-wrath rapture people who place a shorter time, shorter than three and a half years in between. But the Bible doesn’t really place any period of time in between, really. John 5, 28 and 29, Jesus said, The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth. Those who’ve done good to the resurrection of life, that’d be Christians. Those who’ve done evil to the resurrection of condemnation, that’d be the non-Christians. Now, the non-Christians… are raised on the last day also. According to John 12, 48, which says, you know, he that rejects my words has one who condemns him or judges him. The words that I’ve spoken unto you will judge you in the last day. So in the last day, the wicked will be judged by Christ’s words. And in the last day, the righteous will be raised, Jesus said. So we’ve got the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked on the same day. In fact, John 5, 28 says in the same hour. So, you know, I don’t know the exact number of minutes between, but anyone who places more than a day in between seems to be going beyond what the Scripture’s language would authorize.
SPEAKER 09 :
It doesn’t give you enough time to get your hair done or anything before coming back down.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t give us any time at all like that. Well, the idea of the rapture in the Bible, unlike that in dispensational theology, is of a meeting the Lord as he’s descending. As he’s descending… we go up like a welcoming committee from earth to meet him in the air and to descend the rest of the way with him. This is actually the word that is used in 1 Thessalonians 4, where it says, in verse 17, we shall meet the Lord in the air. The word meet is a word that’s used two other times in scripture. One is Matthew 25, 1. where it says the ten virgins went out to meet the bridegroom. Now, if you know the Jewish bridal customs, they were going out to meet him, to accompany him the remainder of his journey. He’s coming from wherever he is to the bride’s house. And these people are at the bride’s house, and they’re going to go out and meet him like a welcoming committee and accompany him on the last leg of his trip. And that’s what the word meet means. Also, we have the same word used in Acts 28, when it says that Paul, who was shipwrecked in Malta, actually walked north to Rome, and the Christians in Rome heard that he was coming, and they went out to meet him. Well, again, going out to meet him meant going out to welcome him and to accompany him on the final leg of his journey into Rome. So meeting, this particular word meet, which is used three times in Scripture, always means to go out as a welcoming committee, as it were, to meet somebody who’s on a journey and to accompany them on the final stage of that journey. So as Jesus is coming from heaven to earth, we, the church, will go up to meet him in the air and to continue with him on the final stage of his journey back here. Okay. Thank you. God bless you. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We’re on Monday through Friday at this same time. And we continue some of these discussions, and we have new discussions day by day. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, we are listener supported. We do buy the time on the radio stations that we’re on. If you’d like to help us pay for that time and stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. You can donate from there or take any of the resources that are all free at thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
