Join Steve Gray as he addresses intriguing questions from listeners on topics ranging from the role of angels and the Holy Spirit in guiding us on the narrow path, to a biblical perspective on environmental stewardship. Each conversation provides a deep dive into scripture, offering insights into complex theological issues with practical implications for believers today. Whether you’re curious about the interpretation of prophecy or the responsibility of Christians towards the environment, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded. Narrow Path Radio
SPEAKER 02 :
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 from Steve Gray and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 06 :
Our first caller today is Clark from San Diego, California. Clark, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, good afternoon. My question is, All this talk in the news about moving the capital of Israel from Haifa to Jerusalem, does this tie in any way, or am I way off base, with some of this dispensationalist teaching?
SPEAKER 06 :
Dispensationalist? Yeah. Well, first of all, I haven’t heard very much about the news. What I did hear, If I heard it correctly, and I don’t consider myself to be an expert on current events. I listen to the news somewhat, but I’m not an avid follower. But I did hear something about our current president wishing to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv, I think, to Jerusalem, which would be a way of kind of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital. But I don’t know if the nation of Israel is moving the capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I haven’t heard that. If they did, I don’t know what it would matter. I don’t think this would be necessarily influenced by dispensationalism because many of the Jews, of course, look to Jerusalem as their holy city. Of course, Muslims do too. And there would be something of a tension over that decision if it was made. Do dispensationalists claim that this is going to happen? Something like this, anyway. They do believe that the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem. I suppose that it would be a part of that belief that probably the center of civic and political life would be moved there as well. I think that dispensational eschatology always just kind of presupposes that Jerusalem is going to be the center of activities there. I don’t know if they specifically say that the capital will be moved there and the Knesset meeting there and so forth. Since the Bible says nothing about any of those things, you probably will find some dispensationalists who say one thing and some who say another about it. Because when the Bible is silent, many times prophecy teachers like to fill in the details with their imagination. But there’s really nothing in the Bible that speaks of Jerusalem being the capital of the modern state of Israel in the end times. At least not the way I understand scripture. Now, of course, those who think me wrong are always invited to call in and we can discuss it. I’d love to see especially any scriptures that people feel. may teach something other than what I’ve said, because I would wish to be corrected if I’m wrong. But I’m not unfamiliar with the prophetic books of the Bible. I just would remind you, I’ve taught verse by verse through all the prophets about more than 16 times when I ran a Bible school, and so I’m pretty familiar with what’s in there. That doesn’t mean I understand everything. I don’t know everything. But I don’t think there’s anything in there. And there certainly is nothing in the New Testament about Jerusalem becoming a capital of anything. So is that what you’re asking about? That’s it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Thanks for your call, Clark. Good talking to you. All right. We have several calls from Southern California. Clark was calling from San Diego. Timothy is calling from Ontario, California. Timothy, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. My question also has to do about Israel, but the Scripture says, all Israel will be saved in Romans 11. I listened to your four lectures on it and also on Romans 11, the commentary on it, and it was extensive. It was great. I really enjoyed it. My question is, when they use that as all Israel will be saved, it’s kind of like carte blanche, the dispensationalist. What scripture verses do they have to back that up? Because to me it’s like, just thinking off the top of my head, The scripture says, I think Paul says in one of his letters, women will be saved in childbearing. So if all women have children, they’ll be saved. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I think maybe what you’re pointing out is that the word saved or salvation in different contexts can mean different things.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. Yeah, I understand that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. Obviously, when Paul says that women will be saved in childbearing, in my opinion, he’s not talking about saved in the same sense as when the Bible says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you’ll be saved. Correct. I think in the latter case, I believe being saved means being fully restored in your relationship with God, including justification, sanctification, and glorification ultimately. Yes. Whereas a woman being saved in childbearing, it’s an ambiguous statement, but many people whose views on it I think are reasonable have suggested that this is speaking of sanctification, that a woman will experience a sanctifying experience through childbirth, which is a different thing. Now, to say all Israel will be saved raises questions. In what sense has that meant? Because in the Old Testament, salvation… is very seldom a reference to what we think of as salvation in the New Testament. In the New Testament, we are aware that we need to be saved from our sins, and also from consequences of our sins, which have to do with the afterlife. In the Old Testament, there’s almost nothing said at all about the afterlife. And salvation from sins… is certainly not the primary thing that the people have in mind when they talk about God saving them. They’re usually trying to be saved from an invader, an army that’s invading them, or even saved from captivity. The word salvation, whether it’s used in the Old Testament or the New, is a term that has a broad range of meaning. It can mean deliverance and rescue, or it can mean, well… to save, you know, as we think of. But I think in the Old Testament, when some of the people in the Old Testament talk about being saved, they were wishing to be saved out of Egypt or out of Babylon or out of their captivity in some sense. Now, if Paul means it that way, then we would expect that Paul is saying all Israel will be saved, meaning they’ll all come out of captivity. But that doesn’t make very much sense if it’s talking about modern times, because the Jews are not in captivity in modern times. They have a free and democratic state in the Middle East where they can live if they want to. Any Jew almost anywhere in the world can go there. There are a few communist countries maybe that have sealed borders and so forth. But even the Jews who have been scattered in places where they’re not really able to go back to Israel, they’re not exactly slaves. They’re not exactly in captivity any more than everybody else is in a country that doesn’t allow slavery. people to cross the borders easily. Salvation of that sort is not really required for Israel. The salvation that Israel requires, especially since Jesus has come, is to be saved from their sins and to be saved in the sense of having their relationship with God restored. And that’s what Paul is talking about when he says all Israel will be saved, although I don’t think he’s talking about ethnic Israel only. In the context, he has just finished talking about the olive tree, which in the Old Testament was Israel. Right. Especially in Jeremiah 11.16, it talks about Israel as the olive tree. And Paul says the olive tree has had some of its branches broken off, which means some of the Jews who did not believe are no longer part of Israel, as far as Paul is concerned. And then he says, and some Gentiles who were from a wild olive tree have been grafted in, and they’ve become part of the tree. So Gentiles who believe in Christ have become part of Israel. The olive tree is Israel. And the Jews who believe in Christ and the Gentiles who believe in Christ are part of this tree. The Jews who don’t believe in Christ and the Gentiles who don’t believe in Christ are not part of the tree. He says, if the Jewish people do not remain in unbelief, it is possible for them to be grafted back into the tree. So certainly that would be what we’d expect. Salvation would be restoration to the tree. But the problem here is, when he says all Israel be saved, what does he mean? Does he mean the entire tree with all its branches? Or does he mean an ethnic Israel? And the reason there’s a difference is because Paul has just described the tree Israel is made up of Jews and Gentiles. It’s believers. Believers, exactly. Jewish believers and Gentile believers are attached like branches to this tree. Jewish people who are ethnic Jews but are not believers, they’re not attached to the tree. They’ve been broken off, Paul says.
SPEAKER 09 :
And that’s my question because when I talk to my dispensationalist friends, it seems like, no, all of them will be saved after the rapture. And I ask them, I go, well, what other scripture… If scripture is to interpret scripture… What other scriptures can you show me to support that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, even this one scripture. I mean, you don’t need other scriptures. I mean, it’s great to have other scriptures, but you don’t need them because this scripture itself doesn’t support what he’s saying. Paul has just argued that Israel, the olive tree, has Jewish branches and Gentile branches. And by the way, that was true in the Old Testament, too. Jews who were faithful to God and Gentiles who became proselytes. And got circumcised. They were faithful to God. They were part of Israel, too. So even in the Old Testament, Israel was part Jewish and part Gentile in terms of its racial composition. The definition of being part of Israel, according to the Old Testament, is that you keep God’s covenant. And so a Jew who didn’t keep God’s covenant was cut off from Israel, and a Gentile who did keep God’s covenant was included in Israel, in the Old Testament. And Paul says it’s the same now, of course. The difference is there’s a new covenant, and the covenant you have to be faithful to is that which is mediated by Christ. And faithfulness means that you are faithful to Christ. So some Jews are. They have become Christians, and they are faithful to Christ. Some Gentiles are faithful to Christ. So the faithful Jews and Gentiles, which we would refer to that collective as the church, they are the olive tree now. And Paul can’t be referring to ethnic Israel as Israel, because he’s just said that some of the ethnic Jews are no longer part of it. He does not say they will come back. There are some statements in Romans 11 that some people have interpreted to suggest that the Jews will all come back. But Paul doesn’t say that. Paul says if they do not remain in unbelief, God is able to graft them in again. So that’s a big if. And, of course, that’s not true. That’s not speaking of eschatology. That’s not talking about the last days. That’s talking about now, today.
SPEAKER 09 :
You’re right. You covered that so well and extensively. I just loved how you tied everything together. For me, it was about six to eight hours of listening and about nine hours of listening. of just taking notes and stuff, and I just appreciate your work and thoroughness on that. How old was that lecture that’s on your website?
SPEAKER 06 :
You were listening to four lectures? That must be an older one. I’ve more recently redone the series, and it’s more lectures than that. I don’t remember how many are there now, and maybe the new series isn’t posted yet, but I just finished the series last month. So I think it’s not posted yet. It’s a longer series now. Oh, okay. I think it’s 12 lectures.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s new and improved.
SPEAKER 06 :
It is, definitely new and improved. I think it’s 12 lectures now, but that has not been posted there at the website yet.
SPEAKER 09 :
Is there any way I can get any of your stuff in written form?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, not that I know of, unless you want to hire somebody to transcribe it for you. Actually, a few of my lectures have been transcribed by listeners who just decided to do it. And they’ve sent them to me. But it’s a miscellaneous selection. It’s not, you know, I have some, a few here and a few there.
SPEAKER 09 :
It sounds like you’re giving it, the lecture, you’re obviously in a classroom setting, so they must have some type of syllabus or something. I thought maybe you had that available or something.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, that, yeah, that must be the series I taught at the Great Commission School back, which I ran from 1983 to 1999. So, obviously, that series. Wow, that’s how old that is? Yeah, that series would be earlier than 1999. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow, your voice hasn’t changed.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it’s gotten more weary. It’s gotten more worn out.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, you sound the same. It’s great. But anyways, I don’t want to take up other callers’ time, but I just appreciate your work, and I’m so blessed by your teaching.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, thank you for your call, brother. And someday maybe I’ll write it up as a book, then you’ll have it in written form.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’d be great. Thanks, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. God bless you. Bye now. All right. Our next caller is William from Irvine. All right, William, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you, Steve, for taking my question. And I was reading this morning Hebrews and especially dealing with Hebrews chapter 1, verse 7 and verse 14, understanding angels and ministering spirits and so forth. I don’t know if I’m off base or whatever in trying to think about this. I never looked at it before like this. But my question is, yes, the Holy Spirit dwells within us and so forth. But what about ministering angels? Who actually guides us and leads us in that narrow path? Are they the same in a way?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, no, they’re not the same because the Holy Spirit is actually God himself. And the angels are created beings. And that’s certainly something the writer of Hebrews is emphasizing in that first chapter especially, how that the angels are inferior. To Christ, for example. So the angels are not God. They are servants. That’s what he says in verse 14. Are they not ministering? That means serving spirits. And sent to minister to those who are the heirs of salvation. But as far as what do angels do for people? Well, the main thing that they are said to do in the Bible… is provide physical protection now when it comes to our spiritual protection we have God himself living within us we also have the armor of God and we have other resources that God has given to us we have the name of Jesus and other very potent resources to keep us safe from spiritual harm but the angels primary care seems to be on the physical level when you think about it back in Psalm 34 it says that God that the angel of the Lord encamps around about them that fear him and delivers them and we see that illustrated for example the story of Elisha in the city of Dothan which is in I think 2nd Kings 6 if I’m not mistaken and And, you know, he’s surrounded the city. He’s surrounded by Syrian invaders that want to come and kill Elisha. But he sees in the spirit angelic armies surrounding him and protecting him. And he was protected. Likewise, when Jerusalem is surrounded by the Assyrians under Sennacherib and Rabshakeh, You know, Hezekiah the king prayed and God sent an angel who killed 185,000 of the Syrian troops and delivered Israel. Again, this is a physical deliverance. It says in Psalm 91, verses 11 and 12, He has given his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. And in their hands… They will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. So, again, your foot, your physical injury, you’re protected from. Jesus himself, when he had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and was hungry, and when his temptation was over, the angels came and ministered to him. We have reason to believe they came and brought him food or did something for his physical advantage. And even when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane and Peter tried to defend him, Jesus said, put away your sword. I could call 12 legions of angels and they would come and deliver me. So the angels always seem to have a function of fighting or protecting on behalf of the believers. And we don’t ever read of the angels providing spiritual protection. assistance because we have God for that and we’re strictly forbidden to worship angels or to attribute to angels any of the functions that would be strictly God’s but God ministers to us physically protects us and so forth by dispatching his angels to basically I think protect us when Satan complained to God in Job chapter 1 that Satan was unable to hurt Job physically in any way because God had placed a hedge around him and all that he had. I suspect that hedge was a ring of angels protecting Job. And, of course, when God gave permission, then Satan was able to go and afflict Job, but only physically. So we don’t ever pray to angels.
SPEAKER 07 :
We pray to the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us. And are you saying then that the Holy Spirit would send angels to watch over us?
SPEAKER 06 :
If that’s what’s needed. If that’s in his will. You know, the angels already… protect us when God wants us protected, whether we ask for it or not, because the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them. But there are times when, of course, God intends for us to go through trials, and those trials could take the form of us not being protected from the malice of men or some physical harm, like Job. In which case, of course, although the angels could protect us, God… In a sense, it tells them to stand down and allows a test to come. We see that in Job’s case. So we find Jesus saying to Peter, he says, Satan has requested of God that he might sift you, that he might try you. And basically, Jesus implies, and you will be tried. God’s going to let the devil try you. But Satan had to ask God’s permission. And so, I mean, angels, I think, are the means by which God defends the righteous when the enemy wants to attack. But in a physical way. Our spiritual well-being depends very much on our seizing the armor of God and walking in the Spirit. and relying on Christ, which is, in other words, is our responsibility. Our responsibility is to maintain spiritual purity and obedience. It’s God’s and the angels’ responsibility to attend to our physical well-being. And so that would be the difference I would say.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you, Steve. That was wonderful. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, William, good talking to you. Thank you for your call very much. All right, we’re going to talk to another caller, and that’s going to be John from Garden Grove, California. John, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 10 :
Good morning, Steve. I wanted to ask you about the environment and what the Bible has to say about the environment, because I’ve noticed a lot of Christians are kind of just… Take the earth for granted. It’s ours to destroy if we need to or whatever we need to get out of it and not really take care of it. I was just wondering what your point of view is on that through the Bible.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, the Bible says that when God made the earth and put the creatures in it and the plants, he then put man in charge of it to dress it and to till it, that is to cultivate it. This is sometimes called the cultural mandate that God gave to man, and that is to be a steward of the creation, to act as if it’s our home. Now, some people don’t take very good care of their own homes, but if they don’t, I would say they’re not very good stewards. If you are given a home, let’s say you inherit a beautiful home, and you don’t keep it up, you don’t keep it painted, you don’t repair the windows when they break, the leaks in the roof and so forth, the place eventually becomes a shambles. That’s because you’ve been a bad steward of something that you were given. Now, the earth is the home that God gave us, and he gave us the responsibility to take care of it. If we abuse it, then we are bad stewards. And I believe… But every decision should be made with the awareness… that the world we’re in is the only one that we have until Jesus comes back, and it’s the one we’re going to be leaving to our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. So we ought to treat it well. It’s the heritage we’re leaving to our children. In Revelation chapter 11 and verse 18, when it’s talking about, I believe, the second coming of Christ here, it says the nations were angry and your wrath has come. the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that you should reward your servants, the prophets and the saints, and those who fear your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth. So part of the judgment is coming on those who destroy the earth or the land.
SPEAKER 10 :
How about that? I didn’t know that. Interesting.
SPEAKER 06 :
Now, unfortunately, a lot of environmentalists are somewhat pagan people, in their worldview, and they see the earth almost as a goddess, and they are pantheistic, and they almost worship the earth and nature. And this mentality has caused a lot of Christians to sort of distance themselves from the environmental movement because it is pagan in many respects, but there is certainly such a thing as a godly form of environmentalism, which is simply taking our stewardship seriously. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s really interesting. I never really looked at it the way you were explaining about the house and taking care of your home and stuff like that. That really helped a lot. I really do appreciate that, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. And especially if it’s a house that you’re going to leave to your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. It’s pretty selfish to let it fall apart.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, that’s true. Very good. God bless you, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you, John. Good talking to you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Bye.
SPEAKER 06 :
Bye now. Let’s talk to Marty from Spokane, Washington. Marty, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, Steve. Well, thank you. See, a question to do with the Lord’s Supper. Here locally, there’s a professor in the class my sister sat in on, and he posed the question, can we basically use Coca-Cola instead of wine and chocolate instead of bread, but And possibly more disconcerting is that the fellowship that this man founded here recently, they just started using popcorn in place of the bread. And I just thought you might have some feelings that you could share on that as far as the symbolism and things like that, just how far we can deviate from what we consider to be the norm.
SPEAKER 06 :
The main thing is that when Jesus instituted the Last Supper, it was at a Passover meal. And that meant there was bread and wine as a main part of the meal. And it was a ritual bread and wine. It was bread and wine which the Jews were accustomed to participating in to represent something, specifically the problems they had had in Egypt. and their deliverance. Now, Jesus took the same bread and wine, and he imbued them with different meaning. He said, this bread is my body, and this cup is my blood, and you do this in remembrance of me. Basically, he’s saying the Passover, which has been celebrated for 1,400 years by the Israelites, is now to be celebrated with a different meaning by the Christians. But, of course, the assumption was they would still be using bread and wine. Now, he didn’t say how often to do it, and he didn’t indicate necessarily that we were, you know, supposed to keep it as a Passover. Some people think that Jesus just meant when you eat and drink, you should remember that I’m the bread of life and I’m the water of life and so forth to remember me. But there’s nothing that would forbid necessarily using other elements, but I think the decision to do so is probably a little rebellious. I’m not sure. I don’t know what’s really the reason for the person doing it. I would say if you’re going to follow it, Why not follow the biblical way? It seems gratuitous to do something else. Just to show that you’re not stuck on tradition, I suppose. Listen, I need to take a break here just for 30 seconds. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. We are a listener-supported ministry. And if you’d like to help us pay the bills, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. And you can donate from there or find an address there where you can send help. That’s thenarrowpath.com. Some of our stations are leaving the network now, but we’ll be back in 30 seconds for those who are staying tuned.
SPEAKER 01 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. Welcome to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today but everything to give you. When the radio show is over, go to thenarrowpath.com where you can study, learn and enjoy with free topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings and archives of all The Narrow Path radio shows. We thank you for supporting the listeners supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. See you at thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 02 :
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 06 :
We had been talking to a brother who, just before the break, had asked how I felt or if there’s any biblical implications that would… give us a way to assess a decision made by a man in his area who’s starting a church and they take communion with, I think, popcorn and something else, Coke or something. And he was wondering if that’s okay. I guess I had to interrupt because we had a bottom of the hour break. I had to interrupt myself. But my thought on it is that I always feel better doing things the way the Bible says to do it. When Jesus said, when you eat this bread, and drink this cup. But on the other hand, this bread and this cup specifically referred to the Passover meal. And Christians don’t really keep the Passover in exactly the same way. Some do, but I mean, we’re not required to keep it with all the rituals associated with Judaism. And it’s very possible that this man is trying to get across the idea that maybe we don’t always eat a lot of bread and drink wine, but whatever we eat or drink It should be able to be something that reminds us of the body and blood of Jesus. I really don’t know. I think the last thing I said before I took the break was it kind of sounds almost a little rebellious on his part. Why not just do it the biblical way? I always prefer to do things the biblical way. But I need to moderate my statement somewhat because I would just say it really depends on what his motive is and what he’s trying to get across. I would not… I don’t think I would ever exchange the elements of communion for anything other than bread and wine. Well, I take that back. Some churches use grape juice, and that’s a substitution already. So already some people who think they’re following biblical patterns have already eliminated the wine, and now they’ve got grape juice. That’s a substitution. So to how far you can go with those substitutions would be perhaps wrong. you know, anyone’s guess to argue. I think probably what’s in the heart is more important. Now, if I held a view, as some do, that there’s something sacred about bread and wine that is used in the communion, and that it actually has a, you know, something happens to it, that the bread actually becomes the body of Christ and the wine becomes the blood of Jesus. Now, I don’t believe that, but some Christians do. Then I might have more reasons to be a stickler for sticking exactly with bread and exactly with wine. However, even those who observe communion that way, or the Eucharist, as they may call it, they’re not doing it the way Jesus did because they’re not doing a Passover meal. They’re not eating a loaf of bread. They’re eating a little host or wafer. So already, you know, there have been changes, even in the most sacramental churches. To use grape juice instead of wine, which many Baptists and so forth do, is already to change the elements that Jesus used to something else. Although we can say, well, wine is simply grape juice that’s fermented. But that’s true. Fermented grape juice is a different thing than unfermented grape juice, and therefore it’s different than what Jesus did. Likewise, I mean, taking a prefab host or cracker and using that as a substitution for from using a loaf of bread or matzos. Very few churches are using matzos bread, which the Jews did. So, I mean, substitutions have been made throughout history. It’s just that when a guy moves to using popcorn and Coca-Cola or something like that, if that’s what he’s doing, it’s a considerable change because, well, at that point you’re changing the very nature of the elements in a more radical way. But whether that’s sacrilegious or not, I guess would depend on the degree to which you see something as specifically sacred about bread and wine. And there are a lot of views about the meaning of the Eucharist, the meaning of Passover, the Christian communion, and really depends on which paradigm you impose upon the whole ritual. That would determine the degree of sensitivity you would have about changing things. the elements from one thing to something else. So I can’t really answer that completely because I don’t, frankly, the reason they’re different opinions is because the little bit that we’re told in Scripture, and there is really only a little bit, is capable of being understood differently by different people. And I don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s terrible. I just think that’s ambiguity that God didn’t mind leaving in there. Our next caller is Kevin from Sacramento, California. Hi, Kevin. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 12 :
How are you doing, Steve? This is my first time calling. Well, thanks for calling. I got a two-part question on 1 Samuel 2 and 27.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, 1 Samuel 2. I’m turning. I use a real Bible. I don’t go online for a Bible here, so I have to turn the actual pages. 1 Samuel 2, 27, you say? Yes. Okay. Okay. Then the man of God came to Eli and said to him, Thus says the Lord, did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house? That’s what the verse says.
SPEAKER 12 :
Now, this is the only place in the Bible that I can find that he told them that they were priests before the priesthood was established by Moses. Now, I’m trying to find out who were these priests that Moses took up to the mountain with him if the priesthood hadn’t been established.
SPEAKER 06 :
I don’t see him saying that they were priests before the time that the Aaronic priesthood was established. He said, did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your father, which would be Eli as a priest, so the house would probably be the tribe of Levi’s. And God said he revealed himself to the tribe of Levi back when they were slaves in Egypt. I believe the tribe of Levi and all the 12 tribes had God reveal himself to them through Moses when they were in Egypt, through the miracles and so forth, the plagues. But I don’t see anything here saying that they were priests at that time.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, when Moses was going up to the mountain to get the law, he took the priests with him.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, he took elders. The Bible says he took 70 elders up with him, not priests.
SPEAKER 12 :
It said elders and priests.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, okay, Aaron and his sons were priests. That’s true, but it was 70.
SPEAKER 12 :
Aaron and his sons?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, he had four sons. Aaron had four sons. There were five priests, but 70 elders, and I guess including the five priests, were taken up there, yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, so he had called them priests before the priesthood was established?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it was… That’s a good point. I mean, I think that it could be that they are being referred to as priests proleptically, which means, if I would say, President George Washington, in his youth, chopped down a cherry tree. Well, I’ve just said that President Washington… chopped down a cherry tree in his youth, but he wasn’t President Washington when he was a youth. He was later known as President Washington, but he’s the same man who in his youth is alleged to have done this. But to say President Washington as a boy did such and such, well, President Washington wasn’t a president as a boy. So calling him President Washington in that kind of a situation would be using his later title proleptically, knowing that the reader… the reader or the listener knows him as President George Washington and knows that I’m saying something about him before he was really president. But we still know him historically as that. So it’s very possible that when we talk about the priests, it means the men who were later known as the priests. I mean, Aaron and his sons and others were perhaps among the elders that went up there. And later on, some of them were recognized as priests, not very much later, almost immediately afterwards they were made priests. So it could be just that he’s calling them the priests proleptically in that sense.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, and the pre-rapture, the pre-rapture thing, the argument is way too long.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’m sorry?
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. On the question they had about the pre-tribulation, that argument is way too long.
SPEAKER 06 :
Which argument is? The one I gave?
SPEAKER 12 :
Pre-trib, post-trib, that argument is way too long.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’m not sure what you mean by way too long. You mean that I addressed it more at length than you wish I had?
SPEAKER 12 :
No, no. I’m talking about when people talk about it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, people have argued about it for too long. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I’ll tell you what, they haven’t argued about that as long as they’ve argued about things like Calvinism, because Calvinism has been argued for hundreds of years. The pre-trib rapture wasn’t even on the radar until about 200 years ago, and it’s been argued about since then, yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, you quoted a scripture that said, when Jesus said, he’s going to raise up my people on the last day.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
I look at it at another view. I think in that context, I think he’s talking about the Jews. Because if you look in Daniel, the Old Testament saints are resurrected days after the saints that died in Christ. So I’m thinking he’s talking about the Jews when he’s saying, my people.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I paraphrase him as saying my people. He didn’t use the term my people. Here’s what he said in John 6, 39. He said, this is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I paraphrase him as saying my people. But he said all that he has given me, I should lose nothing but should raise him up at the last day. And the next verse, and this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him, so that would be Christians, may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day. And then in verse 44, And then in verse 54, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood, that would be Christians, has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. So he’s not really making a prediction about the Jews. The way I paraphrased it, I paraphrased all four of those verses together saying, I’ll raise my people up on the last day. But by my people, I was summarizing those who eat his flesh, drink his blood, those that the Father has given him, those who see the Son and believe in him. So all these different ways he spoke about his people. But, yeah, he didn’t speak about it so nebulously as to raise the possibility that he’s talking about the Jews instead of the Christians. He’s talking about those who are eating his flesh and drinking his blood and so forth who believe in him.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. Well, I listen to your program all the time. This is just my first time calling. Well, I’m glad you did. And you usually give correct answers from what I’ve studied. But the only thing I don’t agree with you on is amillennialism.
SPEAKER 06 :
Uh-huh, uh-huh. Well, I am amillennial, unashamedly.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
I appreciate that.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right. Thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. God bless you, Kevin. Good talking to you. Bye now. All right, let’s talk to Georgia from San Fernando, California. Georgia, welcome to the… Oh, hi.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, thank you very much. I love your show and I contribute regularly. I have a question about what exactly is Armageddon. I have a girlfriend that tells me terrible things are going to happen at Armageddon. And I don’t know what to tell her.
SPEAKER 06 :
There’s only one verse in the Bible that mentions Armageddon. And it’s in Revelation chapter 16… And it’s simply referred to as a place where it says in verse 14, the spirits of devils working miracles go forth to the kings of the earth and the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. And then it says, and they gathered in verse 16, he gathered them together to a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. Now, Armageddon is a word in Hebrew that means mountain of Megiddo. It means the mountain of Megiddo. Now, there isn’t actually a mountain called Megiddo in the world today. There is a valley of Megiddo. And there is a mountain that overlooks it. Mount Carmel overlooks the valley of Megiddo. So some people think it’s referring to Mount Carmel. But it’s interesting because Armageddon is not really the name of an actual place, not the proper name. The Valley of Megiddo is. Now, this is referring to a great battle that is fought. And I guess the popular view of it today is that Armageddon refers to the next world war or maybe at least the last world war that will ever happen. We used to say World War III today. maybe it would be World War IV or V or VI, who knows? Yeah, yeah. Most people consider Armageddon to be the last great battle which occurs at the end of the world and which will be interrupted by the second coming of Christ. Now, let’s face it, war is awful. War is hell. And therefore, it would be an awful thing to be involved in a battle of any kind, even if it’s a small war. If it happens to be in your neighborhood, it’s about as bad as a big war. you know, if you happen to be where the bullets are flying. But I don’t know of any specific description of Armageddon in the Bible that would indicate that horrible things are going to happen that don’t happen.
SPEAKER 03 :
She has this idea that we’re going to fight monsters and demons. I had to get some information from you because I don’t know exactly how to talk to her about it because I never really fully understood Armageddon myself.
SPEAKER 06 :
Has she listened to some teachers who told her that or is she just getting that from reading the passage?
SPEAKER 03 :
Somebody has told her that. Somebody has actually told her that. And I told her, I said, I don’t believe that’s the way it is, but… I don’t have a book, and I don’t have my computer, so I thought I’d check with you and see. I think that’s imaginary.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think all those things that she’s expecting are imaginary. There’s no evidence in the Bible that anyone should be fighting demons or giants or monsters, but there are some teachers out today who make a big issue out of what they call the Nephilim, and they believe that the Nephilim… are going to be a factor in the end times, in the conflict between good and evil. Now, the Nephilim is a reference to the giants who lived in the days before the flood. They are mentioned in Genesis 6. And there were also giants living after the flood in the land of Canaan before the Israelites conquered it. But they’re not monsters. They were just big people, apparently. I mean, giants. So… But there’s no reference in the Bible to these giants coming around again in the last days or there being a battle with them or anything like that. The giants lived in the world before the days of the flood and lived in Canaan before the days of the conquest. But we don’t have any prophecy about these giants doing anything in the end times. So I think that what your friend has become familiar with is some sensationalistic Bible teachers. And there are Bible teachers who make almost their whole career teaching sensational things about the end times. And in order to do that, they have to make up most of it. And those points that she believed, someone made those up. The Bible doesn’t say a word about that. There’s no reference in the Bible to special battles against Nephilim or even special battles against demons in the end times. The Bible just, I mean, we are always involved in battles with demons. Our warfare is against the principalities and powers and so forth. Our next caller is Marilyn from Spokane, Washington. All right, Marilyn, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 13 :
Thank you for taking my call. Do you ever come to Spokane, by the way, to speak?
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, I used to live in Idaho, and I went to Spokane from time to time, but I’ve never been there to speak. We’ve only been on the air in Spokane for a relatively short time. I think, what, less than a year? Am I mistaken?
SPEAKER 13 :
Yes, you’re right. I mean, I’ve been watching or listening to you from the first time.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, you know, for me to come speak someplace simply means that there’s a group of people that want me to do it and they ask me to. So what happens usually, once we’ve been on the air in an area long enough that there’s a lot of listeners and they want me to come, somebody arranges for it. And arranging for it just means they find a place for it. It might even be a living room. and then we announce it and we get together and talk with people. Wonderful. I’ll come to Spokane, yeah. I’ve got friends living in Coeur d’Alene and things like that, so it’s pretty close by.
SPEAKER 13 :
Great, great. Well, I’ll work on that. I do have two things I wanted to ask you about. Are all the prophecies fulfilled for Christ to come? I hear two versions. One that it’s not. The temple has to be built first? And then others that say, no, all the prophecies have been fulfilled and he can come any minute.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. Well, as far as my understanding of prophecies about the second coming of Christ, I don’t know of any geopolitical event, no event that could be read about in the news or whatever that has to happen. Before Jesus comes back. There are a couple of things that God has been working on ever since Jesus left. And he might not be done with these things. If not, Jesus might not come back until he is done. But we don’t have any way of measuring or quantifying the progress of this. One of those things is the preaching of the gospel and the discipling of all nations. That’s been going on, and certainly all over the world there are people making disciples, and so nations are being discipled, or people in nations are being discipled. But to what degree that’s going to reach a completion… or God intends for it to reach a completion before he comes back, I can’t say. Like I said, it’s hard to quantify. Have the nations all been evangelized or not? God would know to what degree he wants that to be the case. We won’t read about it in the news. And the other thing is the maturing of the body of Christ. Paul in Ephesians 4 talks about we have to all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Well, it’s hard to know how far the church is from that, because Christ might not be talking about the institutional church. He might be talking about his true body of true believers who follow Jesus. There may be a much higher level of unity among those who are true believers in Christ and followers of his than is perceptible in the institutional churches. So both of those things are kind of processes that are a little bit invisible sometimes. Not entirely, but it would be very difficult, I think impossible, for us to say, well, we’ve reached the point in both of those processes where Jesus can come back today. But it would be also impossible to say that we haven’t, in my opinion. And so I don’t make any predictions on near or far it is. But when it comes to building the temple or things like that, which would be things that you could read about in the news or something, I don’t think there’s anything in the Bible predicted like that, which has to be fulfilled before Jesus comes back.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, then the temple doesn’t necessarily have to be built.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, not biblically in my opinion. The temple has already been rebuilt. You see, the temple was destroyed in 586 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar. It was rebuilt again in 520 B.C. So the temple was rebuilt. There were predictions the temple would be rebuilt, and it was. Then it was destroyed again in AD 70 B.C. And after that, there were no predictions made of the rebuilding of the temple. So all the predictions about the rebuilding of the temple were made prior to the time it was rebuilt in 520 B.C., 516 to 520.
SPEAKER 13 :
The Antichrist is supposed to stand in the temple and consecrate it, isn’t he?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, that is certainly the dispensational view of the thing. They base that on two passages, which you can… Study yourself. One of them is 2 Thessalonians 2, which says that the man of sin will put himself, sit in the temple of God, claiming that he is God. That’s one of the two passages. However, Paul uses there the expression, the temple of God, which he uses in two other places. One’s in 1 Corinthians 3, and the other’s in 2 Corinthians 6. And in both places, he refers to the church as the temple of God. He says, do you not know that you are the temple of God? The church is the temple of God. So the third time he uses the expression is in 2 Thessalonians 2, where he says that the man is to sit in the temple of God. Well, if we let Paul interpret what the temple of God is, we don’t make that up to be a Jewish temple, but the body of Christ is what Paul calls the temple of God elsewhere. So that doesn’t really make the point. Then you’ve got Revelation 13 where there’s an image of the beast that is made and it says that all people are required to worship it. It does not mention in Revelation at all that it’s in a temple or in Jerusalem or in any particular place. It just mentions the making of an image that people have to worship. There’s no suggestion there that it’s in a temple. So these are the two passages that they use, and really neither of the passages makes the point they’re making from it.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. Well, my second question is about Planned Parenthood and abortion, of course. Now they’re saying 60 million babies have been killed, at least.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 13 :
And it’s so gruesome and awful. But I think people tend to look at that as a bulk issue. like $60 million, you know, gosh, that’s too bad. But I think God looks at that as individual little victims.
SPEAKER 06 :
Of course, yes.
SPEAKER 13 :
And he’s very, very sad about that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it’s definitely a massacre. It’s a massacre and a Holocaust, no matter which way you look at it. When we say that six million Jews were killed by Hitler, well, like you said, the number six million just boggles the mind. But when you think about it, every one of those was an individual Jewish person who suffered as an individual and who had family and loved ones who lost them and so forth. I mean, when we think of big numbers like how many children are starving or how many people are killed, in you know hiroshima or how many jews were killed by hitler or those kinds of things or how many people were aborted humans aborted in this country uh the big numbers are there for impact but sometimes they don’t make the same impact as remembering we’re talking about individuals here we’re not talking about a mass we’re talking about real people yeah well i’m i’m my question is um
SPEAKER 13 :
Christians who call themselves Christian organizations, whatever they might be, I’m thinking of the education community now, have opened doors to Planned Parenthood. And to me, this is horrible. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t think kindly of everyone if they want to change their minds about becoming Christians.
SPEAKER 06 :
Let me just say this because we’re going to run out of time here, but I can’t imagine that a Christian organization would link arms with an abortion mill like Planned Parenthood. Now, they say, well, they do a lot of health services for women. Well, then let them do health services for women, but don’t let them kill babies. The truth is they’re one of the biggest, if not the biggest, abortion provider in the country. And abortion, for the most part, is not a health issue. It’s not a women’s health issue. Women who are pregnant are not sick. Babies are not viruses. Babies are human beings. And having a baby in you doesn’t make you a sick person. And therefore, having an abortion is not a health issue. It’s not a medical issue. It’s a murder issue. And sure, once in a while, an abortion is done in order to protect the life of a woman. And there are a few cases, extremely few, where pregnancies could endanger a woman’s life. But for the most part… Abortion is not done to keep women healthy. It’s done to keep them, you know, irresponsible for their babies, frankly, and allow them to kill them instead of raise them or even get them up for adoption. Sorry we’re out of time, but I appreciate your call. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. We are a listener supporter. We have no paid staff. No one here gets paid, but we do pay for the time on the radio, and it’s thousands of dollars a month. Actually, it’s over $1,000 a day per show, and it’s all supplied by listeners like you. 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 the website thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
