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Join us for a captivating episode where we unpack the enigmatic themes found within the Book of Revelation. Steve Gregg provides his insights into the often-debated scripture regarding lukewarm faith, and listener questions guide the conversation toward understanding the nature of sin against the Holy Spirit. This episode promises to shed light on complex theological concepts, offering clarity to those questioning the boundaries between spiritual belief and religious doctrine.
SPEAKER 06 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Program, hosted by Steve Gregg. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we’ve put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website. You can go to www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gregg and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 07 :
John from Corvallis, Oregon, is our first caller. John, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, thanks for having me. I’ll try to keep this real quick since you’ve got other people on the line. Last week I called in and we had a pretty good discussion about science and religion that got a little bit dicey towards the end. And I’m interested in Kong and eventually being able to talk about evolution, particularly some of the stuff that I found really fascinating with evolution, which with symbiotic relationships is where a lot of my studies have been, how those form and how those function. But first of all, I feel like it’s kind of important that we kind of have a, a basic common ground. We understand where we agree and disagree. And just kind of going over our conversations, you and I agree on almost everything having to do with science. We believe that we both agree that science does not disprove the existence of God. We both agree that when people like Richard Dawkins are teaching atheism, they’re not doing science. They’re simply teaching atheism. That Christians and religious people of all times can be perfectly good scientists. that science is not the only valid method of exploration. There’s art, there’s philosophy, there’s all these other things. And that science is extremely powerful. It’s helped explain many phenomena which were once believed to be supernatural. And our main disagreement last week, which clarified us a little bit here, was on the idea that the origin of life can never be understood through science. So you were saying that it can’t be understood through science because it’s a supernatural event, and that was bothering me. And the reason that those types of statements bother me is that if we accept those conclusions, then we give up trying to solve the puzzle before we even start it. So if you’re solving a crossword puzzle, you have to have faith that the puzzle is at least somehow solvable. Otherwise, you’re going to give up as soon as it gets difficult. And so that’s where a lot of statements that I hear coming from the creationist movement are just sort of naysaying statements.
SPEAKER 07 :
John, if the question, if the problem we’re trying to solve is where did life originally come from, and you say, if we say it’s supernatural, we’re giving up on the quest. No, we’re not. We’re saying we have found the answer. The answer is supernatural. If the answer is supernatural… You don’t have to look somewhere else for it. Like if I ask my wife if she’s seen my cell phone and she says, yes, it’s here in the living room, then I don’t have to look in the bedroom for it anymore because it’s been found. The truth is that life requires information, information in the DNA molecule, and it’s incredibly complex information. And many scientists, including atheists, have said this defies scientific analysis. We do know some things. This is not a God of the gaps. This is not saying we don’t know how science can explain this, so we’re going to stick God in there. This is not an argument from what we don’t know. This is an argument from what we do know. What we do know is that intelligent information comes from an intelligent mind. That we know. We’ve got like thousands and hundreds of thousands of examples of that. We have zero examples of intelligent information coming from anywhere other than an intelligent mind. So it’s not like there’s, you know, two camps on this. There’s only one camp that’s based on observation. Observation tells us that information comes from an intelligent mind. And science doesn’t have to keep looking for ways for information to not come from an intelligent mind. Why should they when we actually know of an intelligent mind from which it came? I mean, you could say, well, we don’t know that, so we’re going to keep looking, and you’re okay to do that. But I can say with confidence you won’t find it. It’s like if you find the Encyclopedia Britannica laying around, and I say, yeah, well, this is published by such and such a publisher, and these articles are written by such and such people, and you say, well, I’m not satisfied with that. I want to find a naturalistic way where no human mind was involved, and I’m going to keep looking until I find one. Well, you can keep looking, but we happen to know that you’re looking in the wrong direction. And scientists and philosophers, who are atheists even, have sometimes had to come to the point where they admitted this. That’s why Anthony Flew became a deist. He gave up his atheism. He was the leading atheist philosopher in the world for 50 years. And he, just before he died, actually said, well, this information, it just hasn’t, he had to admit it. Information comes from a mind. If you’ve got information, you’ve got a mind that caused the information. That’s just, It’s like if you see scratches on the seashore that were made by the random wandering around of seagulls. You can say that’s random. But if you find written in the sand a message, Mary loves John, you know a mind created that because there’s information. It’s not just scratches. Those kind of scratches would be simple enough. that nature could produce them. But nature couldn’t produce the information that they contain. That’s the thing. That’s how we know there’s a mind behind them. Same thing is true with the DNA molecule.
SPEAKER 09 :
So you’re right in several points there. There are a lot of people who have given up on the question, whether they’re religious or not, who have given up. There are other people who have given up on the idea that we’re on the right track. So there’s, like at Cambridge, for example, there’s another… Completely different study than what you typically see when you look at life origins. So the mainstream scientific idea is that life is an emergent property of matter, so that there’s some sort of self-assembling property of matter that can produce life. So that’s the major idea that most scientists are chasing right now, but there’s other ideas as well. Like you said, this guy in Cambridge is chasing after, he’s looking at something he calls morphic resonance, which is completely different than the mainstream scientists. And then there’s the intelligent design group that’s looking into, you know, where is the edge of evolution? Where do you actually need an intelligent mind in here? So there’s lots of different ways to look at it. And I’m not saying that one should be shunned and one should not be. But there are, as we continue to look into this question, we keep on finding stuff. We keep making discoveries. And that’s what’s so beautiful about science is that we keep on looking, we keep on searching, and we keep on discovering new things. So that’s why it bothers me when people say, we can’t figure this out. This can’t be figured out through science. Because we keep on, we keep hearing that, and then we keep figuring things out.
SPEAKER 07 :
But no, no, no, wait, wait. Scientism would say that we can explain everything through science and that it’s therefore foolish science. to reach a premature conclusion that something can’t be found out by science. But we don’t have these scientismists. A scientismist is a person who believes that science is all there is. But you already admitted at the beginning of your call that science isn’t all there is. There are other fields of knowledge that aren’t from science. And therefore, when we find something in nature that has a better explanation than a scientific one, it has a personal explanation. A person wrote this book. Therefore, we’re not going to look for a scientific cause that it arose just from paper and ink by natural processes. We’re going to recognize, okay, we’re not stupid here. We recognize that a book was written by a person. And if someone says, no, no, no, we need to keep looking for a way that this book was written not by the guy whose name is on it, not by the publisher whose publisher’s name is on the title page, but we want to find a way this book arose without any intelligence involved. Well, you can look there all you want, but you’re looking in the wrong area. And that’s simply what many people are pointing out. Now, to say that science, or you said the view of mainstream science is that life is an emergent property of matter, that is a religious statement. that certainly has never, there’s been nothing that science has ever discovered that would give that impression. Instead, it’s a faith statement, and it’s a faith statement of those who believe that science can explain everything. But if you don’t have that kind of a gratuitous faith, then you can make more sensible statements and say, life arose from living sources. That’s the only place life ever arose from.
SPEAKER 09 :
Emergent properties, we know about all sorts of emergent properties. We don’t have, you’re right, we don’t have a start-to-finish emergent property method for life, but we do have lots of emergent properties that we know of, and that’s what’s giving people this clue.
SPEAKER 07 :
John, I’ll tell you what, keep looking. You know, the scientists who want to keep looking for that, they’ve got my blessing. They can look and look and look all they want, And if they find something, they can tell me what they found. I’d be glad to hear from them. But it’s like looking for your cell phone in another room when your wife already found it in the living room. You can keep looking if you want to. There are better ways to use your time. You see, a person who is insistent that science can prove everything, that’s a person who believes in scientism, and that’s a religion. Science itself cannot tell you whether science can solve all mysteries. That’s a philosophical question and a religious question, not a Scientific question. So it sounds to me like what you’re in favor of is the idea that we should think that science can solve all the mysteries. And, okay, you know, we’ve got freedom of religion here. You can hold that religion. I’m going to hold a religion that actually makes some sense. At least it makes sense to me. Okay? You follow the one that makes sense to you. I do appreciate your calls. Now, if you want to, I need to take some other calls, but if you want to in the future call with a particular religion, I don’t know, a particular challenge, like an evolutionary point that you’d like to hear answered. I’d be glad to hear from that. It seems like when we’ve been calling, we’ve been kind of all over the place and haven’t really nailed down one particular concern.
SPEAKER 09 :
Next time, I feel like we have. I don’t know if other people feel like that, but I feel like we have. Hopefully next time I’ll prepare some, like a two-minute lesson on lichen, how fungus and algae form lichen. And we can discuss that a little bit. Okay, great. That’s okay. But I appreciate the time. It’s been nice chatting with you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, John. I appreciate your call. Have a good day. Bye now. Okay, let’s talk to John from London Grove, California. Hi, John. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. My question was on Revelation 3, 14 and 15. Uh-huh. I know your works are neither hot nor cold. I wish you’d be hot or cold because you’re lukewarm and neither cold nor hot. I’ll spill you out of my mouth. Is cold bad?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I don’t know that cold is bad. He says, I wish you were hot or cold rather than lukewarm. We have a tendency to think of hot as the good thing and cold as the bad thing, and he’d rather have you either all good or all bad rather than partial in your goodness. But he doesn’t necessarily say that. I think that’s the way we tend to think of it. He’s, of course, making an allusion to the water supply there in Philadelphia, the church he’s writing to. They got their water supply in that city from some hot springs in Denizli, six miles away. And it was purified aqueduct. Laodicea, excuse me. Yeah, that’s right. Philadelphia is the one before that. Yeah, Laodicea. Six miles away from Laodicea. they had these hot springs and they carried the water to the city from an aqueduct where it cooled down somewhat. It was lukewarm and it was rather nauseating to drink the water. And so Jesus uses that illustration. He says, you know, he may just be saying that cold water or hot water, is preferable to lukewarm water. He’s using the illustration of the water, of course. Now, it may be that he’s actually trying to be more specific and say being hot is all good and being cold is all bad. And that’s perhaps our tendency to see it that way, though it’s not necessarily to assume that. But he might be saying it’d be better if you’re all bad and didn’t even claim to be a Christian than to claim to be a Christian and be as bad as you are, because then you’re a bad testimonial.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s the way I’ve always seen it, and then I was at a study last Monday night, and the guy was telling the story about the two springs, like you just told me. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, well, he is referring to the water. He is referring to the water supply in Laodicea. It’s known for the fact that it was lukewarm because its source was six miles away from hot springs, and there were also chemicals in it. There were minerals in it that made it rather nauseating.
SPEAKER 03 :
If cold was good, then how would it be good versus hot?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, he didn’t say that cold is good. He says it would be better to be cold than to be lukewarm. Okay, let’s just take for the sake of argument the idea that cold means totally a non-Christian, totally against God even, and hot means totally on fire for God. I mean, the passage doesn’t say that this is true, but some people understand it that way. Right. Maybe that’s what we are to see it as. Well, then lukewarm would be what? It’d be sort of on for God and sort of not. You know, you’d be kind of half-hearted. And if Jesus said it’s better to be cold or hot than to be lukewarm, of course he’d prefer that you’re hot. But he’d even prefer that you’re cold rather than lukewarm because a person who’s completely… antagonistic toward Christ, their behavior is not going to reflect negatively on Christ like the behavior of a professing Christian who lives a carnal life does. A person who claims to be a Christian is wearing the name of Jesus on him. And if he lives unworthy of that label, of that name, then he brings reproach on the name of Christ. Whereas a person who is an atheist or of some other religion or has no interest in Christ Whatever sins they do don’t reflect on Christ. That just reflects on themselves. So, you know, the Bible says one of the commands, the third command in the Decalogue is don’t take the name of the Lord your God in vain. And that’s because God had his name upon Israel. And for them to claim to be his people, if they would behave unworthy of him, they would be dragging his name through the mud, his reputation. And it’s perhaps the same thing with a person who calls himself a Christian, but is not living like a Christian should. The world looks on and they think badly of Christianity, when in fact they should just think badly of that person.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, so it’s not really clear which way it can be, huh?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, if you want to take it that cold means non-Christian and hot means on-fire Christian, it makes for good preaching, but it’s not clear.
SPEAKER 03 :
I thought cold meant disobedience.
SPEAKER 07 :
In other words, it claimed to be… Well, I mean, again, the Bible doesn’t say that. The Bible doesn’t say anything about what it… The Bible doesn’t say what cold or hot represent. And therefore, like I said, a person could take it that way if they wished. Right. Okay. Thank you. Okay, John. Thanks for your call. I appreciate hearing from you. All right. We’ll talk to Dan from Santa Ana, California next. Dan, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, thank you very much. I had a question. I recently read the Bible, first time, cover to cover. And one of the things in the New Testament that I recall, or maybe I heard it in a sermon, where Jesus said that basically all sins can be forgiven. You can speak against Jesus and still be forgiven, but you can’t speak against the Holy Spirit. That’s the only one that wouldn’t be forgiven. I believe that’s what I read or heard. I just wanted to know if you’re familiar with that. And what does that mean?
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s Matthew 12, verses 31 and 32. It says, Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. Now, this passage has been oh, there’s a lot of different interpretations of this passage. A lot of people say it just means if you don’t become a Christian, you won’t be forgiven. Well, that is no doubt true, but he specifically talks about speaking a word against the Holy Spirit. My thought is, and boy, you’ll sure find a lot of other people with other thoughts, so I’ll just give you mine. My thought is that he’s saying, if you speak against me, that is, against the Son of Man, against Jesus, you can be forgiven of that. Why? Well, maybe because a lot of people were still unsure whether Jesus was a good guy or a bad guy. He seemed like a good guy because of what he was doing. On the other hand, there was some confusion over him because he didn’t seem to be towing the line with what people thought Moses taught. And there was confusion. There were people who were loyal to Moses who were speaking against Jesus. And they could be forgiven for that, because it might be an honest mistake they’re making. However, when the Holy Spirit would come, which would be at Pentecost, then the Holy Spirit would convict them of the truth. And if they continued to oppose even the Holy Spirit’s conviction, that is, if once they knew in their hearts, because of the conviction of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus is real, if they continued to speak even against the Holy Spirit’s testimony, then there’d be nowhere else, nothing else for them but to be lost. This is not necessarily saying that if you commit a certain act one time, that suddenly you’re in a category that God would never forgive you, even if you would repent. I think what he’s saying is this, that not everyone who was speaking against him at that point in time was necessarily hardened against the truth. Some of them were just mistaken about Jesus. But when the Holy Spirit would come, and convict them, then they would know. And if they continued to speak against him, then they would be, in a sense, exhibiting a hardness of heart, which means that they are indeed lost. And that is what I think Jesus is saying. But there are other views.
SPEAKER 12 :
So just to paraphrase, basically, if somebody who’s not a believer speaks against him, he can still become a believer. and he’d be forgiven, but somebody who knows that he is the Christ and still speaks against him, that person would be lost.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, the idea is the second part you just described would be hardening his heart against truth. Whereas a person can be mistaken about Jesus or ignorant about Jesus and not be a believer, but not be hardened, not be resistant to truth necessarily. But when a person knows that Jesus is real… that he is who he claims to be, and the Holy Spirit’s brought conviction about that, and they refuse to submit to the truth once they know it’s the truth, they do so at the cost of hardening their hearts. And a hardened heart is much more difficult to change and to bring to repentance.
SPEAKER 12 :
Would that maybe apply also to, say, like false prophets, people who add to or take away from the Word of God?
SPEAKER 07 :
I don’t think it’s the same sin. You know, certainly you don’t want to be adding to or taking away from the Word of God. But I don’t think it’s the same sin that he’s referring to here. It was good having you call, though. Thank you. All right. David from La Habra, California. David, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 13 :
Thanks, Steve. I’m one that likes to research things pretty much for myself, right? I like to dig in like Chuck Smith, Chuck Musler, you, pretty much the whole gamut, right? But I do like to take words right out of Christ’s mouth himself. And as far as false prophets go, Luke 13, 33, Nevertheless, I must walk today and tomorrow and the following day, and it cannot be that a prophet perished outside of Jerusalem. Now, is this a true statement or not?
SPEAKER 07 :
The statement that it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside Jerusalem?
SPEAKER 13 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s not a literal statement. It’s a hyperbole.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, then the next verse down, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that killeth the prophets. Okay, so I heard everyone always saying that Rome killed all these prophets. I don’t see that. Jeremiah didn’t die there.
SPEAKER 07 :
No. No, many of the apostles died in Rome or at the hands of the Romans. Peter and Paul, for example. But Jesus, of course, is talking about the Old Testament prophets. The Romans didn’t kill any Old Testament prophets. The Old Testament prophets, you mentioned Isaiah and Jeremiah, these guys, they existed before the Roman Empire even became dominant. No, what Jesus is saying is that Jerusalem… which is supposedly the holy city where you would expect to find them the most receptive to God’s prophets, ironically kills them so regularly that you could almost say, it would be a slight exaggeration, but you could almost say you wouldn’t expect a prophet to die anywhere else than there. It’s such a pattern. In Matthew 23, Jesus said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and those who are sent to you, how often I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wing, but you would not. And so Jesus said that Jerusalem was the place where most of the prophets died. But not every last prophet died there. Elisha didn’t. Elisha was up in Galilee when he died. The Bible records his death. And there were prophets who were not in Judah and who did not die in Jerusalem. But Jesus is speaking what we call a hyperbole. He’s making a statement that is slightly exaggerated to make the point that you can’t be that a prophet would die anywhere else than Jerusalem. He’s not making a prophecy about that. He’s making a criticism of Jerusalem in that statement.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well then, in Revelation 18.24, Mystery Babylon in her was the blood of the prophets. So to me, Mystery Babylon then is Jerusalem.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 13 :
Now, okay, now getting back to that one verse, you know, I don’t have the Greek translation where it says a prophet cannot perish outside Jerusalem. Could that possibly be translated murdered?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I think the word perish is good here as it is in the other places where it’s found. Okay.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, thanks, Steve.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, David, good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 13 :
Bye.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you for your call.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. Bye now.
SPEAKER 07 :
I only have about a minute before we’re going to have to take a break at the bottom of the hour. We have some of our stations leave the network at the half-hour point. The program goes on for an hour, that is, another half-hour. And if you are listening to a station that actually leaves the network at this point, you can hear the second half of the program by going to our website, thenarrowpath.com, where we stream the program live and we archive it for later. There’s also a podcast, and there’s also our telephone apps, which you can listen to the program all the way through on those apps. And they are free, so you might want to check those out. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry, and we pay for the radio time. We buy the time on the radio. There’s no one paid at the Narrow Path. I’m a volunteer. Everyone’s a volunteer. We’ve got a lot of people who volunteer, but nobody gets paid a penny. And no one receives any benefits. But we do take the money that is given and we give it to radio stations so that we can stay on the air. And that’s what we do. 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. You can also donate if you want to from our website, thenarrowpath.com. But thenarrowpath.com is a resource for you to take things for free. Everything is free there. Or you can donate at thenarrowpath.com. Please stay tuned. In about 30 seconds, we will be right back to continue the program for the second half hour.
SPEAKER 06 :
The preceding portion of The Narrow Path was prerecorded.
SPEAKER 02 :
You are listening to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. The Narrow Path is listener-supported radio. After the show, we invite you to visit thenarrowpath.com to learn more. There are topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and the radio archives of all our shows. So when the show is over, come on over to thenarrowpath.com. Learn, study, enjoy. We thank you for your support, and we thank you for listening each day to The Narrow Path. We now return you to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg.
SPEAKER 06 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Program, hosted by Steve Gray. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we’ve put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website. You can go to www.thenarrowpath.com where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gray and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 07 :
Let’s talk to Tim from Newport, Oregon next. Tim, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
I’m doing a personal study about the Sabbath.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I’m looking in Exodus chapter 16, verse 29, where Moses, or maybe it’s the Lord, is saying, let every man remain in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. That seems to me to be a Sabbath rule, along with no labor, no ordinary vocational type work on the Sabbath. But in chapter 16, verse 29, it says, let every man stay in his own place. on the Sabbath day. Was that rule ever changed in the Old Testament? Is there any indication? I know there are other Sabbaths. There are, of course, agricultural Sabbaths and feast Sabbaths, but this is apparently the weekly Seventh-day Sabbath celebration. Was it apparently Moses’ or God through Moses’ order to stay home on the Sabbath day?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, on that particular occasion. Now, this was simply given in connection with the collecting of the manna. The actual Sabbath command that people could do no labor of any kind of their ordinary labor on the Sabbath was not given until four chapters later. But this was sort of a precursor to the Sabbath commandment that came later at Mount Sinai. And it was to get them used to the idea that that the seventh day was going to be treated differently than other days. Now, the specific command to stay in your own place, I think, gave rise to the Jewish idea in later times, the rabbinic tradition, of what they called a Sabbath day’s journey. A Sabbath day’s journey was just as you could go a certain distance from your own house. And after that, you were no longer in your own place. And so a Sabbath day’s journey, as I recall, was about a mile. And so… Many of the rabbis believed that the command to stay in your own place included not just your house, but perhaps a perimeter up to a mile from your house. Now, this, of course, is entirely artificial, because there’s nothing in the Bible at all that talks about the Sabbath day’s journey in terms of God commanding there to be some limit to how far you can go from your house. It just, in this case, although this particular command, stay in your place, was not repeated in the Sabbath legislation that came later, If this was to be considered part of the Sabbath legislation that came later, then staying in your house appears to be what is required. Just as at the Passover, when the death angel was passing through Egypt, the people were told, don’t go out of your house.
SPEAKER 10 :
I’ve noticed that parallel. I think the Passover was a home and a family-oriented celebration. It was not a congregational type thing in the sense of a mass meeting. It seems to be family-oriented, home-oriented, where it even says, I think, somewhere that when your children ask you why do you do this, you can tell them such and such.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I’m wondering if maybe the Sabbath was intended to be a home- and family-oriented weekly celebration or occurrence.
SPEAKER 07 :
Probably. You know, I don’t know that, at least at first. However, later on, when the Sabbath law is being developed later in Exodus and in the other books of the law that talk about the Sabbath, they began to talk about having a holy convocation on the Sabbath. Now, a convocation is a religious gathering. So, although initially it does seem the Sabbath was to be observed primarily as a family gathering, yet later on there’s talk about a holy convocation that is a gathering with other people on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. But I’m wondering, were those associated with the feast Sabbaths? And if I’m not mistaken, the Sabbaths associated with the feast did not necessarily always fall on the seventh day because they fell on particular days of the year.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. There were Sabbaths that were not on Saturday because they would be the first and the last days of a week-long ceremony would be treated as Sabbaths. even though they would not necessarily be on Saturday.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, right. And I’m wondering, is that when those holy convocations were? I don’t know.
SPEAKER 07 :
My impression is, and I’m not looking at a particular passage right now, but having read through the law many times, my impression has been that the convocations were really for every Sabbath day. But, you know, what you could do is get a concordance and look up the word convocations. And, you know, you’d find the references in Exodus and the other books of the law that mention this, and you could sort of work out from the context which Sabbaths were in mind.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. And I know, of course, that, at least in my opinion, that Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. In my opinion, the Old Testament Sabbath was a physical picture of the New Testament spiritual fulfillment of the Sabbath.
SPEAKER 07 :
That is my understanding, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Steve. God bless you and good to talk to you.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. Kevin from Amity, Oregon is next. Kevin, welcome to The Narrow Path. Good to hear from you again.
SPEAKER 08 :
How are you doing, Steve?
SPEAKER 07 :
Good.
SPEAKER 08 :
On that millennium view, I think there’s a little bit more to it to why someone might interpret it as a literal thousand years as opposed to being symbolic of just a long time. And then first, when I look at it, I would think that if I’m going to make an interpretation in the New Testament a particular way, I would think that they would have something that was in the teaching at that time that a person would understand it as being a thousand years, being a literal thousand years. And, of course, you do. You have the oral teachings. You’re Orthodox Jews at the time, so rabbis. that we’re teaching regularly about the world would be 7,000 years old, and the seventh millennium would be the kingdom age. And so when I go into the New Testament, I’ve got good precedence to say that, not that they were right, but that’s what was being taught by the orthodoxy of that time, which would have been the Pharisaic rabbis. The other… would be that if that was true, then you would have the apostles teaching that. Of course, you do have that. John taught it, used a thousand years, and so did Peter. And if what they were being taught was accurate, or our understanding of them, of what they’re teaching, is a literal thousand years, then you would expect that the early church fathers that you would find teachings about that. And they also believed in the seven millenniums, in the last millennium, the kingdom age, as being a thousand years, and they interpreted revelation. So you do have first generation and second generation disciples coming out with that basic belief.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re right. You’re right. But let me answer that, and then we’ll dialogue some more, okay? Okay. Okay, so you say basically Revelation 20 should be taken literally as 1,000 years because A, the Jews, and B, the apostles, and C, the church fathers all taught a literal 1,000-year kingdom age. First of all, I would dispute that the apostles did. That’s what is, in fact, up for grabs here. That’s what we’re discussing is what did they mean. It’s true that some of the church fathers did. Some important ones did. Papias did. Justin Martyr did. Irenaeus did, Tertullian did, Hippolytus did. So you do have a number of important church fathers who did believe in a thousand-year millennium that would happen after the coming of Christ. Justin Martyr, one of the early ones of those guys, however, in his dialogue with Trifle the Jew, said that there were many good Christians who didn’t agree with him. He mentioned that. He says there are many good and faithful Christians, Orthodox Christians, true believers, who disagree with my views about this. So It was apparently not a universally held view, but you’re right. Among the few people that we have recorded opinions on it from, there were quite a number who believed in the premillennial view. I certainly wouldn’t dispute that. And it was, in fact, the view of many of the rabbis as well, although they didn’t get from Scripture. See, that’s the point. The Old Testament certainly doesn’t say a word about it. about a future millennium of a thousand years. And so the fact that the rabbis came up with it means they got it from non-inspired sources. And the likelihood that they would guess about a thing like that and be right, well, each one will have to judge the likelihood of that for his own satisfaction. But the question of the apostles, did they teach it? You said that both John and Peter taught it. Well, I know what you’re referring to. You’re referring to, of course, Revelation 20 for John. For Peter, you’re talking about 2 Peter 3. which I think distinctly teaches against it. But I think you’re going with 2 Peter 3 where he said, A day to the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day. And then he talks about how the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. You’re thinking, well, the day of the Lord is a thousand years. Is that where you’re going with Peter?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I think Peter gives interpretation to Psalms.
SPEAKER 07 :
See, I don’t think he does. I think that if you read his statement about a thousand years in context, he’s saying he’s answering scoffers. He says there are scoffers who will come saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning. And Peter says, well, they’re ignorantly, they’re willfully ignorant of the fact that God, you know, after he promised to send the flood, sent it and he wiped out the world with a flood. And the world that is now is being preserved by the same word from God to be destroyed in fire. But he says, but he said, God is not slack concerning his promises. Some men count slackness for a day to the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. Now, Peter is, I mean, if you wanted to, you can try to make him say this, but I don’t think Peter’s given any kind of a clue as to how long a day is to the Lord. or a thousand years is to the Lord, I think what he’s saying is this. Yes, they say the fathers have fallen asleep as our ancestors have died, expecting Jesus to come, and nothing has changed. He hasn’t come. But it doesn’t matter. God’s not slack concerning his promise. He’ll keep his promise. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a day or whether it’s a thousand years. No matter how long it is, God’s going to be faithful. So if he waits a day or if he waits a thousand years, it’s no different. He’s not slack concerning his promise. And so Peter, I think, is simply saying that to God, as far as God’s faithful is concerned, a delay of a thousand years is no different than a delay of a day. But he’s not setting up some kind of a paradigm where he’s saying, okay, from now on when we use the word day, we mean a thousand years. That would be, I think, a mistake because he’d also then be saying whenever we say a thousand years, we mean a day. You know, because he said it both ways. A day to the Lord says a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. So if he is saying now, in the next few verses, when I say the day of the Lord will come, the word day has to mean a thousand years. Well, then when John says a thousand years, he must really mean 24 a day, because it goes both ways. If Peter is giving us a code breaker here, I don’t think Peter is. I think Peter is simply saying these scoffers have run out of patience. God didn’t respond, didn’t keep his promise as soon as they thought, so they’re mocking. But it doesn’t matter how soon God does things. His promises are true. And the delay could be a day. It could be a thousand years. It wouldn’t make any difference. God’s promise is still lined up to be fulfilled because God can wait as long as he wants to. So I see that what you’re doing is you’re saying that Peter is somehow identifying a day as a thousand years. And then when he says the day of the Lord will come in verse 10, He’s saying, I mean a thousand-year day. I think that’s not following Peter’s train of thought very well.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, but here’s the problem. Take, for instance, that’s what happened, I think, where I would see the weakness in what you’re saying. Otherwise, I would agree with you. But this is the weakness. The weakness is there’s no doubt that the major teachers were the Pharisees. The Pharisees are the ones who controlled, developed, the oral law, which we have it written as atonement. It is, as you’ve already admitted, that the Jews, that was their active teaching at that particular time. So therefore, when Peter, who’s addressing Jews, teaches these things, there’s a common understanding. It’s like when we use the term Fourth of July. Well, in Russia, it means nothing, but here we know that’s Independence Day. So… To them, these things are just as familiar to them as we might consider using a term Christmas.
SPEAKER 07 :
First of all, I don’t believe, I don’t agree with you that Peter’s writing to Jews. I believe Peter’s writing to Christians, and the Christians he’s writing to, I believe, were like most Christians in Gentile cities, mixed racial, mostly Gentiles. He’s writing to the same people that he wrote to in 1 Peter, because he mentions in 2 Peter, this is a second epistle.
SPEAKER 08 :
I don’t have a problem. He says, you know, don’t have your conduct like the Gentiles.
SPEAKER 07 :
Like the rest of the Gentiles. But he calls them… That’s establishing that he is going to… Okay, listen, we don’t have the time with Other Calls Wedding to discuss all the evidence that Peter is writing to Gentiles, but I… If you listen to my lectures on 1 Peter, the introduction, I go over the evidence that people give that suggests that Peter is writing to Jews, and I deal with that point you just made, and I also make the points in 1 Peter that proves he’s writing to Gentiles.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, but if I’m right, all right, because I heard your teaching on this, but if I’m right, just to see why I believe what I do believe, That is, then there would be a precedence teaching. That doesn’t mean it’s right, but it does mean that when someone comes along and uses the same type of language, uses the same verses that the rabbis are teaching every year, several times a year on, then these people are going to interpret it that way.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, tell me what verses in the Old Testament were the rabbis… teaching on to say that there was a thousand year millennium and there would be seven millennia?
SPEAKER 08 :
One is their teaching on the seven day creation is how they came to. Now that doesn’t mean it’s correct. I know you keep saying that, but the point is… That’s where they got it. Where I say it is established as some of this stuff as being verified is that when the apostles come along and they teach using the same thing. And then, to capstone it, first generation apostles, disciples directly coming from John or a disciple of that disciple, so you’re talking about first generation, those people talk about it and refer back to it just because we know that there’s someone else that’s mentioned there, as you mentioned there, that there are believers who believe differently. There were believers who believed differently during the Bible times when you had the apostles. So that’s not… All we do know is the leaders, the leaders whom you mentioned, they taught these things, and quite emphatically. And as a result of that, I think that’s a capstone that I’m on better ground to believe in a literal thousand years… than I am to spiritualize it into a, you know, thing along.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Well, your objections are noted.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. Thanks, Steve.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Great talking to you. All right. Bye. Bye now. I won’t take the time to refute them. If you listen to my lectures on Revelation 20, you’ll know that I deal with all of the issues that are brought up here. We’re going to talk next to Kevin from La Cunada, California. Kevin, welcome.
SPEAKER 12 :
Good. When Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman, It appears that he is saying that there were individuals who were born again, worshiping the Father in their spirit prior to him being crucified.
SPEAKER 07 :
Is that right? Well, it doesn’t necessarily mean they were born again. Worshiping God in spirit obviously means inwardly as opposed to outwardly. There were spiritual people before the day of Pentecost. The giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and regeneration as we know it, I personally think did not occur until Jesus rose from the dead. I mean, I could be wrong, but that’s what I take from 1 Peter 1.3, which says that we’ve been born again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So I think it’s by the resurrection of Jesus Christ that we’ve been born again. And so being born again or being regenerated, as near as I can tell, was something that did not occur to people until after Jesus rose from the dead. And I think that that’s the main new thing about the New Covenant experience, as opposed to the Old Covenant experience of believers. But I do believe that there were people who were spiritual. And by that I mean that they were trying to listen to God’s Spirit, speaking through the prophets, speaking… through the word of God, through the law, and so forth. The law was inspired by the Spirit, and so were the prophets. And I believe the spiritually-minded people were tuned in. And I think when Jesus said you have to worship in spirit and in truth, I think in spirit, in this case, doesn’t necessarily mean through the power of the Holy Spirit in your heart, although for us we would have that advantage. I think before his death and resurrection, it just meant from your spirit as opposed to an externalistic, rather hypocritical kind of worship such as the Pharisees were doing. That is, God wants your worship to come from your spirit and to be spiritual rather than ritualistic and externalistic and hypocritical. And I believe that that’s the main difference he was referring to. He said in spirit and in truth. And truth would mean truthfully. The hypocrites were not worshiping truthfully. And the Jews largely were worshiping ritualistically, but not inwardly, not spiritually. So I think the reference to spirit there probably refers to the human spirit, the inner man, as opposed to a reference to the Holy Spirit, who is not yet given. Because John himself, three chapters later, in John 7, in verse 39, says the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
SPEAKER 12 :
But in John chapter 5 when it says that they had already passed from death to life, isn’t that a type of resurrection, and wouldn’t that be in the human spirit?
SPEAKER 07 :
It could be. I mean, one could argue that, and I could see that being sensible, although it could be that a person has passed to life in the sense that, though they don’t have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, since chapter 7 says they don’t yet, that it just means that they now have been granted the gift of eternal life, whether they’re living in the power of the Holy Spirit yet or not, I don’t know. I believe that there are people in the Old Testament who had life, and I do believe having life, you know, spiritual life, is different now that we have the Holy Spirit inside us. But I think there was a way of being spiritually alive as a believer before Jesus died. I just wouldn’t call that being born again yet. Fair enough. Appreciate your time. But you raise a good point. You raise a good point. It certainly seems in John 5 when he says those who have believed his words have passed from death to life that he would be talking about being born of the Spirit. But two chapters later it says that the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus wasn’t yet glorified. So I think we have to assume that there was such a thing as spiritual life that some people had with God which was not identical with having received the Holy Spirit which was not yet given.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hold on. Why can’t you have the spirit and then have an update like you get on the Internet? You get the main thing and then you get an update.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
Why can’t that be a head-on update?
SPEAKER 07 :
Maybe so. Maybe the operating system is updated at Pentecost.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you very much. Okay, Kevin. Thank you for your call. Good talking to you. All right. Bye. Bye now. Let’s talk to Rick from Seal Beach, California. Rick, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes, thank you, Steve. The other night I went out to dinner and we said grace and we thanked God for our food. And some of the food included shrimp and lobster. And I thought it was kind of hypocritical that we would thank God to eat something that he tells us not to eat. And I was just wondering, do you and your family eat that or pork? And do you recommend a vegetarian diet? And I will hang up and listen to you on the radio. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. All right. Well, first of all, as far as I know, the only major denomination of Christians that recommends a vegetarian diet would be the Seventh-day Adventists. And I don’t know if you’re a Seventh-day Adventist or not, but I don’t recommend a vegetarian diet, neither does the Bible. Jesus was not a vegetarian. He ate fish. We know that because he served his disciples fish at the Sea of Galilee in John 21. We know he ate the Passover lamb because he ate the Passover with his disciples and they ate lamb at every Passover meal. There’s no reason to believe that Jesus abstained from meat at any particular time, nor that the disciples did. And Paul even indicated that people who teach you that you should abstain from meat are teaching what Paul called doctrines of demons. In 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 1, Paul said, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. So Paul says that every creature is good for food. Now, of course, that doesn’t agree with Leviticus, where certain foods are forbidden to Israel to eat, but then lots of ceremonial laws are from Leviticus that are not carried over into the New Testament. Jesus said, once when his disciples were criticized for the way they were eating, over in Mark chapter 7, Jesus said, it’s not what enters a man’s mouth from outside that defiles him, it’s the things which come out of him. Those are the things that defile him. And actually, in Mark’s gospel, it actually says, he thus purged all foods, or essentially declared all foods clean. This is in Mark 7, 19. So Jesus said, unlike the law of Moses, where you would be defiled by eating the wrong things, Jesus said, nothing you eat will defile you now. It’s only what comes out of your heart that defiles you. And Paul, of course, said the same thing. Now, in Colossians 2, verse 16 says, Paul said, let no one therefore judge you concerning what you eat or drink, nor with respect to keeping festivals or new moons or Sabbath days. He said, these things were a shadow for the time present, but the body is of Christ. So people shouldn’t judge each other about whether they eat. They should judge themselves, I suppose, whether they’re eating too much or whether the way they eat is a bad stewardship of the health and body that God’s given them. There’s no doubt our sins related to eating, including gluttony, But eating certain foods, that’s not forbidden in the New Testament. In fact, Paul specifically said every creature of God is good and to be received with thanksgiving. So I wouldn’t think it to be hypocritical to thank God and eat foods that he’s given to be received with thanksgiving. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. As I mentioned earlier, we’re a listener supporter. We pay for the time on radio stations. We’re on quite a few stations, and it costs a lot of money. If you’d like to write to us, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California.
