Daily Radio Program
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, we’d love to hear from you. We’ll talk to you about your questions as you bring them up. If you have a different viewpoint from the host and want to bring that up, we’ll talk to you about that too. Right now it looks like all of our lines are full. If you call and get a busy signal, then that’s probably the way things are. However… You should not imagine that lines will be full throughout the entire program, continually. We talk to callers, they go away, lines open up. Some people get tired of waiting and just hang up, so lines are opening for various reasons throughout the hour. If you call randomly, you know, a few minutes from now, there’s a good chance you’ll catch an open line. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. We’re going to go to the phones. You know, yesterday, Ben in Detroit, Michigan, tried twice to get through, and there was some kind of mysterious problem. I’m suspicious it was on his end because the line he was on had other callers on it, and they came through. So he’s calling again, and we’ll find out what it is he was trying to get to us about. Hi, Ben. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Hey, no, not again. Ben, you might need to get a new phone or learn how to unmute the one you have. I’m hearing sounds in the background. Are you there? Okay, Ben, we can’t talk to you. Sorry. My apologies. Unless maybe you’re just doing this as a prank. Okay, let’s talk to Gary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gary, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. Hi, Steve. How are you doing? And I just called before about a subject that I was hoping you’d call me back about so we can discuss it because I feel it’s a controversial topic and I don’t really want to share it with the public, but I just know that you know a lot of stuff that you might’ve heard of this thing, but I, I’m not sure how. Why don’t you just ask the question?
SPEAKER 06 :
Just ask the question, okay, and then we’ll talk about it.
SPEAKER 08 :
I can’t because that would mentally hurt me to do it on the public. Okay, then why are you calling?
SPEAKER 06 :
What are you calling about?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I was hoping maybe if you gave me your phone number, I could text the question to you.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, you can. Why don’t you just email it to me? My email is at the website, thenarrowpath.com, at the bottom of the main page. You’ll find my email there. Okay, let’s talk to Bernardo in Oviedo, Florida. Hi, Bernardo. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, good afternoon, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. Question for you. I bought the 24-Hour Study Bible by Chuck Missler, and in the beginning of it, he states that the genealogy of Adam to Noah says a message that God is going to come down and teaching that his death shall bring the relief.
SPEAKER 06 :
The despairing rest, yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
But I also read on a website that that’s fake. I’m wondering what you think. Is that a real message, a hidden message in there?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I’ve never seen Chuck Missler’s Bible, but I did hear many years ago from another respected teacher – who’s now dead, I heard this, that if you look at the ten names between Adam and Noah, and there’s a genealogy of ten generations, each name, of course, has meanings, because the Hebrew names did have meanings in the Hebrew language. And, you know, he said that the ten names mean, if you read them in order, Adam appointed mortal man shall suffer. the mighty God came down teaching, his death shall bring the despairing rest, which is an interesting couple of sentences. And it does sound very much like it’s talking about the gospel. Now, I will say this. The teacher I heard it from, who was actually Ray Steadman, by the way, he said that he had not been able to confirm all of those meanings of those names. He had apparently gotten the list somewhere else before him, and I got it from him. He had not been able to confirm all those names. So I actually went to, you know, Hebrew concordance, Hebrew lexicon, and sought to find it. And I, too, could not confirm them all, but I could confirm some of them. What’s interesting is there’s probably – seven of the ten names. I’m just estimating just from what I remember when I studied this decades ago. It’s been decades ago I studied this. There were probably about seven of the names that were, you know, you could easily confirm that that was their meanings. There were probably three names, I’m estimating three, could have been four, that there’s some question about their meaning and it was impossible to confirm. So without being able to confirm all of those, you couldn’t be sure that you had that particular message. However, even those three or four, they were ambiguous, but they could have the meaning that was assigned to them. But I think in my own lectures on Genesis 5, I actually mentioned this. I mentioned just what I mentioned to you, that this has been claimed by It’s possibly possibly true. I don’t know it. I don’t know it to not be true, but I cannot confirm it to be true So I can’t I can’t give a solid endorsement on it You say you’ve read on websites. That’s not true. I have not read those websites But I certainly know that some of those words are true More than half, but I I honestly can’t tell you about the ones that I that cannot be confirmed so Yeah, I’d say maybe
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, Bernardo. Thanks for your call. Okay, Rob in San Diego, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Hi, Rob. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, hi, Steve. I’m a first-time caller and honored to speak with you. And I really enjoy your Q&A format. So I have a personal question concerning the family in-laws. It’s about our niece. who claims to be a Roman Catholic, and her boyfriend. They’ve been shacking up for a few years now. And she became pregnant. And they’re going to be having a party to celebrate. And all the guests are asked to wear white. So I’m just seeking some godly advice to see if I made the right decision. I decided to decline the invite. I’m a Christian. I believe it’s not the right thing to do. So what would you say about that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Did you say this was your niece?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, from my wife’s side.
SPEAKER 06 :
Are you very close to her?
SPEAKER 09 :
Not really.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, so, I mean, your absence would not be glaring.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it would be.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, it would be, okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
Because everybody in the family is going except me.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, I see. Well, I mean, I don’t understand why they want everyone to wear white. I’m not sure what that’s about.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m kind of thinking it’s about the purity of stuff, to make it right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, you don’t make things pure by wearing white.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right, exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, the Pharisees were whitewashed tombs, but they were full of dead men’s bones and all impurity. Right, yeah. You know, I had to respond to somebody by email yesterday, I think it was, who has a Catholic family, and one of the Catholic relatives was dying. And… and I think it was his sister or somebody, wanted to put a certain kind of Catholic garment on the person before they died, which had embroidered on it the words, if anyone dies wearing this, they will not suffer an eternal fire, or something like that, you know. And… The person who wrote to me knew that was wrong, but he was not sure how to speak to his Catholic family about that. He was against it. And it’s a shame that there are people who think that sin or rebellion against God somehow will be just whitewashed by something you put on the outside. The color of the clothing you wear or whatever, some kind of… Yeah, exactly what I’ve been thinking, too. Yeah, so, you know, on the other hand, you could wear white without implying that it was pure. I mean, anyone’s welcome to wear white whenever they want to. So, I mean, you know, you could go and you could wear white and so forth. And, I mean, are they of the impression that you approve of them living together unmarried?
SPEAKER 09 :
No. No. No, it’s between my wife and I. We talk about it, and she’s a Christian as well, and she knows that I’m against it. So I’ve never really approached it, or we never really talked about it to them.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Well, let’s put it this way. They’re celebrating the baby in the womb, right? Correct. Yeah. Well, you know, we would not celebrate the fact that This couple is living together unmarried, but we don’t think that the baby is tainted by this. At least I don’t. You know, the baby is innocent. I don’t believe so either. Yeah, the baby is the same baby.
SPEAKER 09 :
And with David’s baby, when the Lord took the baby.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and to my mind, the problem is between the parents, and it’s not on the baby. So I could celebrate the purity of a baby. I would, on a different occasion, speak to my niece, perhaps, although you’re not very close to her, so maybe that might be awkward. But I would speak to her about, you know, if she is a Roman Catholic, as she thinks she is, that what she’s doing is sinful in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church and of God. And I would want to know how it is that she regards herself to be a Catholic and or a Christian of any kind, if she’s living in disobedience to God. People who are Christians, at least in any sense that the Bible would recognize that term, are people who are trying to live in obedience to God. And nobody who knows better is trying to live in obedience to God if they’re living in sin, especially when it’s not necessary to live in sin. They could either move out from each other or they could get married. There’s two very easy things to do. Now, getting married is not very easy after the wedding, but it’s an easy thing to get married. But if they’re already living together, then the part that makes marriage hard is they’ve already bought that part. So it seems like they should do the easier part and go ahead and get married. So, I mean, I would speak to them about this privately or personally on another occasion. I don’t think that you need to imply anything. that there’s something wrong with the baby because there certainly is nothing wrong with the baby.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, yes. I never had that intention. I’ve actually, sorry to interrupt, but I’m actually going to write her a letter and then send that along. And it talks about that. And I don’t think it’s right for me to be there in person because I’d be kind of like agreeing with what they’re celebrating the fruits of fornication.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, you’ve got to follow your conscience, and if that’s how you feel about it, then, of course, let her know that. I myself, you know, I don’t know if I’d go anyway just because I don’t have time to go to those kinds of things, and I don’t consider it to be a special spiritual thing to do. But, you know, I don’t go to parties much. But the thing is that I would not feel that I had to promote the pregnancy, even though the pregnancy came about through sin. Once again, the pregnancy is what it is now. And, you know, so the baby exists. The baby’s a human made in the image of God. The baby’s innocent. So in my opinion, if we’re celebrating a baby… I could do that without feeling I’m celebrating the means by which the baby was conceived. That’s history. I’m not celebrating the history. I’m celebrating the person.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I’m kind of thinking, you know, before the baby, how about if a boyfriend, girlfriend move in together and then they decide to throw a party and say, hey, we want you to celebrate us living together. Do you think that would be okay?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, of course not. Of course not. You don’t celebrate sin. You don’t celebrate sin. See, I don’t quite understand the celebration. I would think that maybe when the baby’s born, if they’re going to have a baby shower, that would be the kind of thing that would be more normative in my experience. Not that I go to baby showers, but women usually do. The thing is that You know, it’s a celebration of what? I mean, I guess I’d be asking, what are we celebrating here? The fact that a baby is coming? Okay, I could celebrate a fact that a baby is coming. To me, I could make the distinction in my own mind between the fact of the baby and the fact of the illicit relationship, you know, that’s going on.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I’m just trying to be a witness, you know, to kind of stand for what is right.
SPEAKER 06 :
I realize that. And we do need to stand up for what is right. But we also have to be a witness in terms of not giving the impression that Jesus makes us ogres, because I don’t think he intends to make us ogres. You know, he ate and feasts with people who were involved in lifestyles that he did not agree with at all, that we would not agree with. tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes and so forth. Now, he wasn’t celebrating their lifestyle, but he was reaching out to them. And when he was accused of more or less being complicit with these people by eating and drinking with them, it was the Pharisees, of course, that accused him. He said, well, those who are well don’t need a physician. Those who are sick need a physician. I’ve not come to call the righteous, but sinners are. Now, I don’t believe that Jesus is giving us a mandate to just kind of associate on a social level with sinful people all the time. But there is an outreach to sinners that is legitimate and try to reveal Christ to them. And, you know, Jesus, the woman at the well that Jesus met was living in a sinful relationship, very much like your niece. And Jesus didn’t approve of that, but he didn’t say, I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you because you’re living in a way I don’t approve of. Jesus came into a world to associate with people who all lived in a way that he disapproved of. You know, we’re all sinners. Sure, yeah. You know, I don’t think that we would necessarily I feel like we’d be you feel like you’re being a witness for Christ by staying away. And I think there are things that you as a witness for Christ should stay away from if they were. Let’s put it this way. Let’s say one of them was wrongfully divorced from a faithful spouse and and and they weren’t trying to reconcile. And they decided to have a wedding for them and their partner. Now, their new partner. I wouldn’t go to the wedding because Jesus refers to that marriage as adultery. But you see, the reason I wouldn’t go to the wedding is because a wedding is a celebration of what’s happening there. And I can’t celebrate adultery. But to celebrate a baby is a very different thing than celebrating a sin, I think.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, well, to me, it’s not celebrating the baby, even though, you know, I’m happy for the baby. But it’s mainly the point of it. And like when Jesus went to dinner at Matthew’s house, the people were sinners. Obviously, they were pagans, but they didn’t openly celebrate their paganism. You know, Jesus kind of invited himself.
SPEAKER 06 :
You’re probably right. And I agree with you. I agree with you completely about that. What I’m not sure of is that this thing you’ve been invited to is a celebration of their fornication. I think it… I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t receive the invitation.
SPEAKER 09 :
They won’t say that because, you know, obviously it’s self-inflicting.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, but no, honestly, I feel like they are asking you to rejoice with them that a baby is coming. Now… you know, I feel like you can do that. But if you feel like you can’t, then don’t. I mean, don’t go if it’s going to go against your conscience to do it. But I’m just saying to give you some perspective, you feel like you’re taking a stand for God. But they may not understand that. They say, what do you got against this baby? You blaming the baby for something because the parents aren’t living up to your religious ideas? What kind of God is that? Well, I don’t think God is that way. I think I think God is against sin, but he’s not against babies. So, you know, that’s what I’d say. Now, I often think that a better witness for Christ, especially in a case where you’re not being asked to celebrate sin, is for you to be able to show that you’re not harsh and judgmental and mean about things. Now, I’m not saying you are mean, but they often will take it that way if they can’t imagine what it is you’re objecting to. Now, if you tell them, I object to the fact that you two live together in a sexual relationship, that’s fornication. Fornicators, the Bible says, will not inherit the kingdom of God. So, you know, that concerns me. I don’t approve of that. But I’m glad there’s going to be a baby. I mean, well, since the baby’s gotten started, I’m glad the baby’s going to be born. And we can celebrate that. But, yeah, you’d have to make your position known. I mean… I don’t say you can’t, you know, boycott the whole thing. You can. I’m just saying that the stand you think you’re taking for God might be, it might give the wrong impression about God. Because God loves sinners. He doesn’t love sin, obviously. But he loves sinners. And he was considered to be the friend of sinners. That was a criticism the Pharisees made of him. But he didn’t deny it. He’s the best friend sinners ever had. She said, greater love has no man than this. He laid down his life for his friends. He laid down his life for sinners, so he’s definitely the friend of sinners. And so there’s a sense in which we need to be the friend of sinners, but we have to be the friends of sinners in a way that we’re like a physician is going to a sick person. You love the person. His physician doesn’t go there to judge them. He goes there to cure them, to help them get better. And, frankly, a physician is a friend of the sick person. It’s a friendly thing to do. But if the doctor says, well, you know, I don’t approve of sickness, so I’m not going to go and have any contact that could help this person, I think that’s seeing it wrong. Anyway, Rob, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. Those are some of my thoughts on the subject. I appreciate your call, brother.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you, Steve. Thank you for the answer.
SPEAKER 06 :
God bless you. All right. Let’s see. Michael from Inglewood, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. I didn’t really mean to call because I’m starting to feel like I’m calling too much. But I did have a quick question about Exodus 3-2 where it says Moses saw the angel of the Lord, and it spells Lord in all caps. And I think it says Malak Hashem. But then when Stephen was speaking later in Acts 7.30, he says he saw an angel of the Lord. So I was wondering, those sound conflicting, do they not?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, first of all, in the Greek, and that’s the language that we have Stephen’s words reported to us in Acts, written in Greek. There is no indefinite article, which in English would be a. An indefinite article would be a boy, and a definite article would be the boy. You know, one is a definite boy, one is just a generic boy. So the letter A, whenever you find it in the New Testament as an indefinite article, is added by translators. Now, sometimes it makes sense to do that because in the Greek, because there is no indefinite article in the Greek language, the noun itself sometimes implies it. So… You know, the word for boy in Greek could mean boy or a boy. Either one. It depends on what the context would be. And sometimes that would be ambiguous. So, in Stephen’s speech, recorded in the book of Acts, it doesn’t say an angel. It just says angel of the Lord. Now, since there’s no definite article in this case, like the… the translators apparently figured they should just put in the indefinite article, which is, like I said, sometimes the indefinite article is implied simply by the presence of the noun itself. But there is such a thing as a definite article in Greek, which would correspond to our word the. And, you know, since the Greek didn’t use it in that particular passage, they didn’t translate it the angel Lord, though that very well may be what his words were suggesting. Certainly, he knew, Stephen knew the passage he was talking about. He knew that it was the angel of the Lord. And he may even have been speaking Aramaic in his speech and may have said the angel of the Lord. But when translated into Greek, you know, Luke writing it didn’t use the definite article. So I don’t know. I can’t say, you know, why. It doesn’t have the definite article there, but it doesn’t deny the definite article. It doesn’t suggest that this is not the angel of the Lord. It just, in the Greek, would say angel of the Lord and might imply the angel of the Lord, especially since he’s referring to a passage in the Old Testament that does use that term.
SPEAKER 03 :
And the New Testament just doesn’t do all caps for Lord?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, because Lord in all capital letters says, is the translator’s way of telling you that they’re translating what’s called the tetragrammaton. The tetragrammaton is four consonants. We might compare them to Y-H-V-H or Y-H-W-H in our English characters, from which the word Yahweh comes by adding vowels that aren’t there. In the Hebrew, Yahweh is simply four letters, and they’re all consonants. You can’t really pronounce them. a word without adding some vowels to it. So the Tetragrammaton is this four letters that refer to the divine name in the Hebrew. Now, that Hebrew Tetragrammaton is not found anywhere in the New Testament because it’s Hebrew, and the New Testament is written in Greek. So whenever the term Yahweh, or when the… The translators of the Old Testament in English just put it as Lord in all caps. Now, the reason they use the word Lord is because they’re following a convention that the Jews themselves followed when they translated… the Hebrew text into Greek in what we call the Septuagint, that the Jews who spoke Greek and were translating the Hebrew into Greek in the Septuagint, whenever they found the Tetragrammaton, the four Hebrew letters, they translated it as Kyrios in the Greek, which means Lord. And so, since the New Testament was also written in Greek, the New Testament writers also followed that convention using the word Lord. Now, uh, When you find the New Testament writers quoting an Old Testament verse that has the text requirements in it, they use the word Lord, but I don’t think they do it in all caps in our English Bibles. It would be up to the translators. It’s just their way of acknowledging that that’s the word in the original. I don’t know if our English translators do that. I don’t remember. I have to take a break, but I appreciate your call. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming up, so don’t go away. I’ll be back in 30 seconds.
SPEAKER 02 :
The Narrow Path is one feature of the teaching ministry of Steve Gregg. Steve’s philosophy of teaching is to educate, not indoctrinate his listeners. He believes that Christians should learn to think for themselves about the Bible and not be dependent on him or any other teacher for their convictions. We hope to teach Christians how to think, not what to think about the Bible.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. We have another half hour together for me to take your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, You could call at this time. We have some lines open. We have some calls waiting. We’ll get to those in a moment. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Now, I don’t want you to get confused. I’m going to give you a different phone number for a different thing. But if you want to call the program, it’s 844-484-5737. I was just handed a note that there are some people in Minnesota – that would like to find a venue to have a retreat for people who are our listeners and for me to come and speak at it in the fall, which is not very far off. I don’t know if they’re thinking a year off for this fall. But in any case, they are interested in people, I guess, in Minnesota communicating with them. Maybe somebody knows of a venue. I’m not really sure exactly. or just being interested in participating, if you’d like to do something like that. So the people who are doing it or who want to do it are the Olsons, and they’ve given a phone number. I’ll give you a phone number and an email. So if you’re in Minnesota and interested in something like that, write this down. The phone number is 612-387-4542. Again, the number is 612-387-4542. And there’s also an email if you want to contact them that way. It looks like it’s going to be Emily, E-M-I-L-I-E, Olson, O-L-S-O-N, Emily Olson, 50, the number 50, 5-0, at gmail.com. Okay, I’ve heard nothing about this until now, but if you’re in Minnesota and you’d like to maybe participate, help in the planning or whatever of a retreat for fellow listeners to this program and my coming to speak there, it looks like that’s the contact you need to make. And I did want to make another announcement very quickly, and that is that two weeks from tonight, there’s an event in Orange County that, you know, it may not just be a one-time event. There is a pizza parlor in Huntington Beach called Two Brothers Pizza. I think it’s called Two Brothers Pizza. And the owners are Christians, and they listen to this program, and I’ve been contacted to see if I would participate in a theology night. Theology Thursdays, I think they’re calling it. And this is Thursday, but the first one would be two weeks from tonight. That’d be Theology Thursday at Two Brothers Pizza. I believe it’s from 7 o’clock to 9 o’clock. And as I understand it, they want me to speak for about 20 minutes to 30 minutes. So if you’d like to see a miracle… and you’ve never seen a miracle, come on out and see if I can speak for 20 minutes or 30 minutes. It’s never been done before. But anyway, they want me to speak for 20 or 30 minutes on, I believe, on the kingdom of God and the reign of Christ. So that’s going to be subject. But the reason for this short lecture is, is to have dialogue with those who come. Now, by the way, the first hour of that time, people can order food. It’s a pizza place. So from 7 to 8, they’ll be serving food. And then from, I guess, 8 to 9, we’ll just be continuing. So we’ll have a two-hour gathering at Two Brothers Pizza, Huntington Beach, two weeks from tonight. Now, that’s posted or will be posted at our website. And just want to give you a heads up about that. Okay, enough of that. If you want to call the program right now, the number is 844-484-5737. We’re going to talk next to Alistair from Vancouver, British Columbia. Hi, Alistair. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, welcome. God bless you and your program. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I recall now about three weeks ago or so you made a reference. And it was part of another discussion with a person. But you made a reference to Christians bearing the cross. And that really intrigued me. You couldn’t elaborate on it because it wasn’t really part of his question. But you mentioned that if a person does that, then they’re picking up the cross and they’re bearing the cross.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s correct. Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
So can you elaborate on that, like the meaning of that or what it means?
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Yeah. I’ll go ahead and talk about that. Of course, we’re referring to what Jesus said in Matthew 16, 24. He said, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. So there’s three things there. You want to be a follower or a disciple of Jesus, you need to first deny yourself. Secondly, take up your cross. And third, follow Jesus. Now, the first of these and the third of them strike me as quite literal, though the second of them, take up your cross, is a metaphor. Simply because there aren’t crosses around, you know, for us to pick up and carry. Except for these little gold and silver ones people wear on a chain around their neck. But Jesus had nothing to, his statement had nothing to do with that. He’s not talking about jewelry. His comment was quite relevant, even if only metaphorically, in his own day and would have been better understood in his day than in ours, but it still is relevant. We need to just kind of understand what that meant to them and, therefore, what it should mean to us. What does it mean to take up a cross, to bear a cross? Now, we usually think of a person being crucified. The cross is bearing them. They’re hanging on the cross. They’re not under it. They’re on it. And so Jesus wasn’t specifically saying you have to be crucified. In other places, for example, in Paul’s writings, he does talk about being crucified with Christ. It’s a different concept. Jesus is not talking about if you want to follow me, you need to get crucified. True as that might be in a different sense. He’s saying you need to take up a cross. And to take up a cross and bear a cross was something that was not an unfamiliar sight to In the Roman world, the Romans crucified lots of people. Anyone who really displeased them really badly, they crucified them. And this meant they’d hang them on a cross. There were thousands of people hung on crosses in the time of Christ by the Romans. And so it was not uncommon to see people crucified. And prior to their crucifixion, often the Romans would require crucifixion. the condemned man, to carry his cross to the site where he was going to be crucified on it. And so you would find sometimes criminals, condemned criminals, with a cross on their shoulder, walking through town, you know, flanked by Roman soldiers, probably whipping them along the way to make them keep moving. people along the roads cursing them, throwing dust and dirt at them. And this was a walk of shame. It was definitely a walk of shame, at the end of which was death. Now, when Jesus said, you need to take up your cross and carry it, he’s basically saying you need to accept the walk of shame. That is, people are going to hate you. People are going to make fun of you. You’re going to have to have the attitude that a man has when he’s carrying a cross. It means that you know you’re going to die. In other words, you know that life is short. No one understands this quite so much, probably, as a man who’s making a 15-minute walk to the place he’s going to be killed. He knows life is short and eternity is long. When we’re in good health and when we’re not in danger, we don’t realize how short life is. We don’t feel that life is short unless we’re real old and sick. But younger people, even people as young as me, 70, I’m in my early 70s, I don’t feel like life is short. My life has been pretty long and I don’t feel I’m going to die right away. Though I might. I mean, I’m aware I could. But that’s not the point. The point is that a man who’s carrying a cross knows life. he’s going to die real soon. Life is definitely short. He’s not going to be thinking at this point of the plans and the dreams that he always hoped to realize in his life. He’s not going to be concerned about what people are thinking about him. Uh, he’s not going to be thinking about money. He’s not going to be thinking about fame. He’s not going to be thinking about pleasure at this point. All he’s thinking about is, yeah, life is short. And, uh, I wish I’d realized that earlier so I could have done more with it, you know. And so the idea of bearing a cross means that you are, in a sense, set apart from the crowd, probably going to be scorned by them, and that you see reality and you see life very differently than they all do. They all figure they’ll go home to their dinner and do the same thing the next day and the next day and the next day for years to come. You realize you’re not going home for dinner anymore. Your life is a vapor that appears for a little time and vanishes away, like James said. So I believe that taking your cross means you accept the mindset of a person that really would be applicable to everybody if they accepted it. And that is that, you know, you’re not here forever. You should be very much aware that life is short and eternity is long. And that, you know, all you have left… to think about is what’s going to be after that, pretty much. And so they live this life, what’s left of it, as somebody who’s in touch with eternal realities, oblivious to their former hopes and dreams, careless of what people think of them, willing to be scorned. What’s that matter when you’re going to be dead later this evening? So I believe bearing a cross means you’re accepting a view of life that is, frankly, in line with reality. It’s just most people don’t know it’s in line with reality. Most people listening to me right now do not think they’re going to die tomorrow or tonight. Some of them might. They might be in hospice or something. But, frankly, I would say 99.9% of the people listening to me do not expect to be dead before tomorrow morning. Some of them may, in fact, be. And if not, they may be within a few days or a few years. But we’re not aware of that. We don’t live as if that’s true. If you knew you had a week to live, if you knew you had a month to live, and you knew you were going to face God, how would you live? You’d live like somebody who didn’t take the world at the same value that others do. You wouldn’t be concerned about pleasing men. You’d be concerned about pleasing God. And so… I think this is the analogy. He’s not saying you have to literally carry a cross or literally have everything in common with a person who would be carrying a cross. After all, people who carry crosses were condemned criminals. Hopefully you won’t be a condemned criminal, though you may be. Many Christians have been condemned innocently and crucified or killed otherwise. That’s not the, I don’t think that’s the essence of what it means to take up a cross, but certainly is not absent from the idea. Most of the disciples he would speak to did die for their faith. Some of them were crucified. Peter, for example. So, you know, when Jesus says you need to take up your cross, he’s saying you need to live for another world. Because this world, you know, you need to live in this world for the values of another world. You need to figure that death is not far away from any of us. And therefore, whatever you have left of life, you should be living it for God, for doing what God wants. That’s what I think is kind of tied into that imagery. Jesus never explains that, but the other things he does teach would certainly be in agreement with that. All right, David? Thanks. Oh, I’m sorry. That was Alice there. Sorry. This is David from Albuquerque, New Mexico next. Hi, David. Hi, Steve. How are you? Fine, thanks.
SPEAKER 01 :
I just had a couple of questions. Number one, I was just wondering, have you ever spoken or do you ever speak in Albuquerque? And the main question I was going to ask you is, since Jesus redeemed us from the curse of sin, why is it that we still have to get sick and die?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I think that mortality is the natural plight of all living things, including humans. God did not make anything to be immortal in itself. It says in 1 Timothy 6.16 that God alone possesses immortality. When Adam and Eve were created, they weren’t created immortal, but they were created with the option of obtaining immortality. That’s why the tree of life was in the garden. And if they had eaten, the Bible says in Genesis 3, if they had eaten of the tree of life, they’d live forever. But they didn’t. They ate of the wrong tree, and they chose not to eat of the tree of life. They wanted the tree of knowledge instead, and therefore they were banished from the tree of life. And therefore, it’s not that God had to impose death as a penalty. He just left them without the benefit they could have had, which would have been immortality. But there is no immortality outside of God. And we can only have immortality in God. But we only have that in the resurrection. These bodies are mortal. They always were. And therefore, they will die. They are subject to the effects of the fall. We read in Revelation chapter 21 that in the new heavens, new earth, there is no more sickness, no more dying, no more pain, no more crying. In other words, when God has redeemed all the physical order, There won’t be these things anywhere, but they are part of the curse on the earth. And it says also in Revelation 22 about the same subject, about the new Jerusalem, the tree of life is there. And it says, and there’s no more curse. So the effects of the fall, the effects of the curse that came because of sin are reversed. But that hasn’t come yet. A lot of people think that God doesn’t want anyone to be sick. That’s a teaching very common in what’s called the Word of Faith teaching, that God doesn’t want anyone to be sick, which is what I would call an overly realized eschatology. Yeah, God doesn’t want us eternally to be sick. And the day will come when we will be in a world where there is no more sickness or pain. But until we’re in that world, there is sickness and pain and death. And our bodies are subject to that, just like the bodies of other animals. Even if we have everlasting life, that is spiritual life, this is not realized in our bodies until the resurrection, when we then will have our body will be sown in weakness, but be raised in power. It’s sown a mortal body. It’s raised an immortal body. So that’s why we suffer and die, because we don’t have Because we got kicked out of the garden. Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden before any of us were born. And all of us were born alienated from that garden where the tree of life was. That’s the only thing that could have kept them from dying. And they forfeited that by choosing to do the thing that God said would cause them to forfeit it. But Jesus is our tree of life. Jesus is the tree of life for us. Jesus said, whoever eats of me will have everlasting life. So as a Christian… I have eaten of Christ. I have spiritually everlasting life, which will manifest physically in the resurrection when Jesus returns to restore the physical creation. That’s at least how I understand it. As far as me speaking Albuquerque, I don’t think I have. I’ve traveled through Albuquerque. Did I speak in Albuquerque? Oh, yes, I did. I did. I went on a road trip a few years ago, and I spoke several places. We did go through Albuquerque, and I did speak there. I can’t. I have to say that of all the places I speak, I don’t remember sometimes where we are when it’s happening. Yeah, it sometimes happens.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. All right. The one thing I was just going to ask you in regard to the first comment that you made about dying and such, you know, I was thinking of the point of the wages of sin is death, but you said something interesting. You said that in the garden, obviously, there was the tree of life, And had they not eaten of that tree of life, would they have died then, even if they hadn’t committed sin?
SPEAKER 06 :
I believe that human beings, like all created things, were created with a shelf life, were created mortal. And so the Bible says, God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish. Apparently the default is to perish, the default of humanity. which essentially means to die, but shall have everlasting life. So everlasting life or immortality is a condition conferred or given to people because they meet the condition of believing in Christ. Adam and Eve would have had eternal life if they had eaten of the tree. So there’s a tree of life, of course, and there’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, God did not forbid them to eat the tree of life. In fact, he wanted them to. And I believe this was something they were to eat regularly, just like we eat food regularly to sustain our lives. I think the tree of life was such that if they ate it regularly, they would live indefinitely as long as they were eating it. And we see that in the fact that in Revelation 22, the tree of life is in the Garden of Eden and it brings forth its fruit 12 times a year. Well, why that? I mean, why would it have to produce more than one time? If you just ate it once and had eternal life forever, why would it have to produce fruit again every month? I think it suggests that there’s an ongoing consumption of this tree of life. Just like I think we have to continually eat of Christ to have eternal life. I believe we have to abide in him. and continually draw on his life. And so I think they would have had to, too. And there was nothing preventing them from it. Adam and Eve were expected to eat of the tree of life regularly, which would confer, you know, provisional immortality on them indefinitely. They could still be with us alive today if they had not been banished from the tree of life. But what God said is there’s this other tree. Don’t eat of that because the day you eat of it, you will die. or literally it says in Hebrew, dying you shall die. And so they did eat the wrong tree. They did choose to rebel against God. They did die, not literally that day, but that day they were cut off from the tree of life, which would have conferred eternal life to them, but they forfeited. So that’s how I understand it. Now, not everyone does, but, I mean, a lot of people think that God made Adam and Eve immortal beings, but there’s nothing in the Bible to support that. And, of course, the Bible does deny it in 1 Timothy 6.16. Only God possesses immortality. There’s no creature that does. We only share in his by being in him. And that’s what it says in 1 John 5, 11 and 12, that this is the message that God has given to us eternal life. Not to unbelievers. This is believers. It’s on the condition of having believed. It says, and this life, this eternal life is in his son. He that has the Son has life. He that does not have the Son of God does not have life. So this eternal life is not inherent in any human being. It’s inherent in Jesus, and if you are in him, that’s where the life is. This life is in Christ. So if you are in Christ, like a vine in a branch, I mean a branch in a vine, excuse me, a branch and a vine. If you abide in him, then you have, you know, unbroken, continual, eternal life. So that’s what I understand to be how things were set up. Listen, we’re almost out of time. Let’s see if we could talk to Doug from Southern California next. Doug, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hello. Doug, hi.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, um, I’ve been a Christian for over 50 years, and I’m a little confused about something, losing salvation. And I know Jesus said that at some point, if you keep on sinning the way I understand it, he’ll say, I never knew you. And so I’m just, It’s kind of why I’m calling about losing salvation, because many years ago, my boss, who I was working for, invited a massage therapist to our office, and we had a private room, and she was good, and she invited me over to her place, which I did, and then afterwards, she said, would you like a happy ending? I didn’t know what it meant, but I said, okay, whatever.
SPEAKER 06 :
So you’re saying you sinned, so you’re wondering if you lost your salvation? Yeah, because… Well, I have to jump in because we’re going to be cut off here. The program’s going to be over in a few minutes, so Is there something more I need to know before I answer you, or is there a detailed more that I need to know?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I’m still addicted to it, but not every time I get a massage because I like to work out and I like having massages, you know. But occasionally I screw up.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you. You know, those kinds of happy endings do not ultimately lead to a happy ending, you know, when you stand before God, I think. In my opinion, you need to gain control over that. The Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. If you give your life totally to Christ, and maybe you have. You said you’ve been a Christian 50 years. If you’re surrendered totally to Christ, you need to be filled with His Spirit and walk in His Spirit. And the Bible says if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. It says that in Galatians 5, 16. So now we don’t always walk in the Spirit. That’s what we need to do. Because whenever we do fulfill the lust of the flesh, it’s because we’re not walking in the Spirit. So this is our challenge. This is our warfare. The world and the flesh want to get us to walk in the flesh and thus continually indulge the lust of the flesh. And these things, Paul said in Romans 8, if we live according to the flesh, we’ll die. But if through the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live. So through the Holy Spirit, we’re supposed to be living a different way, not according to the flesh. Now, I will say this. Even Christians who are truly trying to follow God have their moments where they are weak, where they’re foolish, where they don’t walk in the Spirit and they do the wrong thing. That doesn’t make it okay just to say everyone does it. James said in James chapter 1, in many things we all stumble. And so I have to take his word for it. I think everyone must stumble sometimes. But you see that this is a particular problem you have. that’s been a bondage to you. You’ve become a slave to it. And you need to make that the principal enemy that you’re going to fight off. And fighting it means that you don’t give in to the temptation even to go. I don’t think you should go to a massage parlor. I’m not saying every kind of massage is an evil thing. There are massages that are simply, you know, relax your muscles. But obviously, if you’re going to massage parlors where you’re looking for happy endings, those are the kind you’re going to have to end your habit of visiting. I know it’s hard. I know it’s hard to give up whatever you’ve become accustomed to in that way. But Jesus said if your hand or your eye causes you to offend, causes you to not enter into life, well, get rid of it. It’s better to enter into life lacking that than to be cast into gain and with it. So I would just say, You’ve got to decide what your priority is going to be. And I would say choose holiness. Choose eternal life. Holiness without which no one will see the Lord, the Bible says. I’m out of time. I’m sorry to say, brother, God bless you. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com.
