The Mystery of the Wheat and the Tares-You’ve GOT To Listen to This

SPEAKER 1 : 0:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:36

Welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour as we usually are on weekday afternoons. And the reason we have a live program instead of a recorded program, though I should mention a few stations do play the program afterward in a recorded form, but the vast majority of our stations across the country are live broadcasts so that you can call in. And if you call in with questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or with some point of disagreement you have with the host, you’ll be welcomed here in this hour. I’m looking at two lines open right now. If you’d like to call, the number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. 484-5737. Just want to remind our listeners in the Midwest that I’ll be speaking this month, just about two weeks from today, actually, in Michigan. And I’ll be in several places in Michigan. I’ll be in Indiana also and Illinois. and that’s going to be an 11-day itinerary in the Midwest. If you live in those states and are interested in those meetings, they’re open to you to attend. You can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. You’ll find there a tab that says Announcements, and you’ll always find at that tab, under that tab, The locations and times of all the places that I’ll be speaking on my itinerary and so that’s coming up a week from two weeks from tonight But it’s coming up quickly. We’ve been planning it for a while. All right So that announcement is out there and our lines are full. So let’s talk to Shannon in Jonesboro, Arkansas Shannon welcome to the narrow path.

SPEAKER 04 : 2:34

Thanks for calling Yeah, thank you. Second McCall. Hi in Reference to once saved, always saved, Romans 11, 29, gifts of God are irrevocable. See there? You can’t lose your salvation because God’s gifts are irrevocable.

SPEAKER 03 : 2:52

You know, if Paul was talking about that subject, that would be a very good verse for it. What we have to do when we’re looking at theological controversies is that the verses that are used by both sides seem right. At least prima facie, they seem right. On the surface, they look like they are making the points that the people are trying to make from them. Then, of course, you have to ask, but is this just a matter of proof texting, or am I exegeting Scripture properly? Proof texting means you found a bunch of verses that sound like they support your point, so you don’t worry about what the context is. You don’t worry about what the author was really talking about. You just say, hey. This sounds like it makes my point, so I make it. That would be the case if somebody were to use actually this verse to prove that once saved, always saved. Paul is not, in Romans 9 through 11, which is one extended discussion, Paul is not discussing the security of the believer, though he does talk about such things in other places, but this is not his subject here. Here he’s talking about whether God has abandoned the nation of Israel or not, or his promises he’s made to Israel. You see, at the beginning of the chapter, he asks this question. I say that has God cast away his people? Certainly not. So he’s saying God has not cast away his people. And he points out as he goes through this that there are people who are Israelites who are not God’s people. Of course, he’s been making that point back in chapter 9 and 10 as well. But he’s still on the same subject. He’s saying the real people of God, as he puts it in verse 2, God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Now, by those whom he foreknew, he refers to, in verse 5, as a remnant. That is, a remnant of the Israelites have been preserved as the true Israel, while the majority of Israelites have rejected Christ and, of course, have died also. in their sin as jesus said they would he said if you don’t believe i am you’ll die in your sin he told the israelites and most of them did but some did not some have been saved and this paul says is proof that god has kept his promise because back in chapter 9 he says god promised uh something to israel but but by israel he doesn’t mean everybody who’s descended from israel He said they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. This is part of the same discussion. His argument is this. It looks like the Jews have been rejected by God because so many of them are unbelievers. And that would suggest to the minds of some that the promises God made to the Jews that they would be saved through the Messiah must not have been true. And Paul’s argument in chapters 9 through 11 is, ah, but God’s promises are true and he has kept them. He has kept the promises because the Israel that he promised them to does not consist of the entire nation of Israel, but, as he says in Romans 9, 27, only the remnant of Israel shall be saved, he said. And now he says that God has preserved a remnant, so that proves he has not cast off his people. The remnant are his people. And he has not cast them off. And Paul identifies himself as one of them. You know, in verse 1, he says, no, God hasn’t cast off his people. For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. And by implication, I obviously haven’t been cast off. I’m a Christian. I’m following the Messiah. I’m saved. So God hasn’t cast off. His people, he’s cast off those who are not his people, both Jews and Gentiles who are not. But he has preserved a people who are comprised of the remnant, the faithful remnant of the Jewish race. Now, in doing so, he has therefore kept his promise. He has not revoked his calling. He has not revoked his election. Those who he has called and elected… are in fact saved, and he hasn’t taken that from them. Now, he’s not specifically talking about the question of whether an individual believer, whether a Jew or a Gentile, can be lost. That’s not the subject Paul’s talking about. Because he says the gifts and the callings of God, and by this he means the promises God made to Israel. he said, are irrevocable or without repentance in the King James. Now, God has not, therefore, revoked his promises to his people. What Paul has done for three chapters before this is to point out who God’s people are and who they are not. And he’s made it clear from the very beginning in chapter 9, they are not the whole nation of Israel. They are not everyone who’s of Israel. They are not all Israel who are of Israel. But he has said in chapter 9, in verse 27, only the remnant of those will be saved. But he’s also argued that while the unbelieving Jews have been removed from Israel as an olive tree, there are believing Gentiles who have been added to it. And they are God’s people now. They participate in the same root and fatness of the tree, Paul says. So he’s been arguing that God has made promises to his people whom he called Israel. And he has kept them. He has kept them. But you have to understand, the ones he’s promised to are not the children of the flesh, but the children of the promise. He makes that point very early in Romans 9, verses 7 through 9. He says, you know, God made promises to the seed of Abraham, but not to the seed of Abraham who are merely of the flesh, which, I mean… biological Jews who are of the flesh, descended from Abraham, he says, but only the children of a promise. So what Paul is discussing through this whole section is that God has promised something to Abraham’s seed, namely the ones who are the children of the promise, namely the ones who are the faithful remnant, namely the ones who have received Christ, in other words. And he has kept the promise of saving those people through Christ. That’s Paul’s argument. And so at the end it says, for the gifts and the callings of God are irrevocable. The gifts and the callings that God is talking about are the gifts and calling of Israel as a nation or as God’s people, the faithful remnant of Israel. And he has not revoked those promises. He has, in fact, fulfilled them. So now, of course, if we could prove once saved, always saved on an individual basis, on the basis of other passages. Well, that would be fine if we could do that, but this one is not even discussing that subject. So I wouldn’t have any confidence in using this verse to prove that particular teaching. All right?

SPEAKER 04 : 9:26

Okay. Thank you, brother. I am glad you’re out there, bro. Thank you.

SPEAKER 03 : 9:30

I’m glad you called. God bless you. Bye now. Okay, our next caller is Judy from Nashua, New Hampshire. Or Nashua. I don’t know where the accent is. Perhaps I’m putting the accent on the wrong syllable. Judy, in whatever city this is, in New Hampshire, welcome to the Neuropath. Thanks for calling.

SPEAKER 01 : 9:51

Hi, Steve. Actually, it’s the Boston accent, even though I’m in New Hampshire. Oh, okay. Thank you for taking my call. I’ve been a Christian for over 10 years, and I’ve always wanted to be baptized. And I found a church to do it. Now, I was not immersed, but rather it was sprinkled. Now, I just heard recently that Christians can be disciples only if they have immersion as baptism, because that’s what the Bible specifies. All through the Bible, it states immersion only. And so I’ve heard that. All others who are baptized but with sprinkling are just merely believers and accepted as children of God, but only the disciples are only those who are fully immersed in baptism. Now, is that the case, or did I misunderstand you?

SPEAKER 03 : 10:54

No, you didn’t misunderstand. Let me try to put a finer point on it. The word baptism in English is simply a transliteration of the Greek word for baptizo, or that means to baptize or baptisma. That word in the Greek means to immerse. In fact, in the Greek, it was never really a religious word at all. It was the ordinary word in the Greek language to talk about immersing something. if you immersed a small vessel into a large bowl to draw out some water, that act of immersing that vessel was your baptizing it. That’s the Greek word, baptismo, or baptismo. It speaks of, it’s baptismos, I believe it is. I sometimes get confused between the verbs and the noun forms, but that’s in any case. The word means to immerse. If you were dyeing a garment and you dipped, The cloth into a pot of dye. The action you were doing was called baptizing. So the word baptizing simply means to immerse. It’s interesting that, you know, when the King James translation was made, the Church of England, King James’ church, they didn’t practice immersion. They practiced sprinkling instead. And when the King James was translated, King James actually required the translators not to translate. the word baptismos, because then they would have translated John the Immerser, believe and be immersed in the name of Jesus, all that kind of stuff. And since the Church of England didn’t practice baptism by immersion but by sprinkling, King James required that they only transliterate the word, that is, take the Greek letters and substitute them with the English letters without translating it into English. And that’s where the word baptism came into the English language from. Now, therefore, I think, excuse me, there is no case to be made for baptism meaning something else than immersion. Now, based on that fact, many people think that if you were not immersed, that you were not adequately baptized. I’m going to take issue with that only because I don’t think that God is legalistic enough and neither was the early church. Now, we have many writings from the early church in the first several centuries, but there’s like two in particular that come from the first century. in the generation after the apostles. One is the Clement of Rome epistle, and the other is the Didache. And the Didache has first century church instructions. It’s a manual for church behavior, and it has instructions in it about baptism. Now, this is not written by the apostles. This is not in the New Testament, but it reflects the generic teaching of the church in the generation right after the apostles. And it does require people to be baptized, but it says baptism should be done in running water, if possible. And if there’s no cold water, it can be done in warm water. And it says, and if there’s not enough water, then just take water in a pitcher and pour it over the head and say, I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Now, what’s interesting about that is that Christians in the first century believed that normative baptism required immersion. It was only if there wasn’t enough water for immersion that some other form could be done, pouring over the head in this case. Or we could say sprinkling. There are some groups that sprinkle. A lot of groups sprinkle. There are some groups, I think maybe the Mennonite brethren might be among them, who pour water over the head. And then, of course, there’s many churches, like all the ones I’ve ever been part of, that immerse people in baptism. Now, the point here is that being baptized is a ceremony of submission to Christ and of inclusion in his body and in his kingdom. I mean, this is its significance in the Bible. It is true that immersion was the way the early church did it, at least whenever they had enough water to do that. But they were not so legalistic. as to refuse a form of baptism that didn’t include full immersion. Because what was significant about the ritual is not exactly how wet you got, but exactly what you were doing. You were committing openly to being a follower of Christ, to being committed to him, to entering into that covenant. Many people have said, and I think they’re probably not far off the mark, that baptism is more like the wedding ring. Coming to Christ is like the wedding. You submit to him, you surrender to him, you give your life to him, and then baptism is like the open declaration to the world that this is what you’ve done. Now, in an era where people didn’t immerse, for example, during the Middle Ages when the Roman Catholic Church was you know, didn’t immerse anyone. And yet, you know, that’s generally how people could get baptized if they wished to over a period of about 1,000 years in Western Europe. They had to, you know, no one was doing it except the Catholic Church, except for occasions. There were occasions when branch movements would break off before the Catholic Church would kill them off, and they would do other things different. But most of the Christians in the middle part of the church age, 1,000 years in the middle of it, were not immersed. They were sprinkled. And technically, this is not doing it the way the biblical apostles did it. On the other hand, it’s clear from the Didache that the early Christians did not think that immersion was the essential part of being baptized. It was, of course, what being baptized literally means, to be immersed. But the significance of it is that you’re submitting to baptism as an act of submitting to Jesus Christ and being included in his community as a baptized member. And in an era or an age where the only baptism that was done was not by immersion, then a person baptized in that way, it seems to me, has been baptized. We could call it a subnormative baptism, but it was a baptism just the same. And if the church that baptized you did not understand it as submerged in water, and if you didn’t understand it but you were in your own heart saying, I’m committing to Jesus Christ, the Bible commands me to be baptized, I’m going to have these people baptize me, and they did it some other way, I mean, I can’t speak as a prophet of God, but my own knowledge of God himself and of the Bible leads me to believe that God’s not going to bust you for technicality like that. So I wouldn’t be worried about it.

SPEAKER 01 : 18:09

Okay. Awesome. Thank you very much, Steve.

SPEAKER 03 : 18:14

All right, but I will say this. If you ever feel convicted by the Holy Spirit that you should be rebaptized by immersion, do not ignore that conviction. I just, I don’t know that the Holy Spirit will convict you about that, because I don’t know that it’s going to be a matter of concern to God. But if it is, of course, follow that conviction.

SPEAKER 01 : 18:31

Okay. All right. Thank you for that. I appreciate your time.

SPEAKER 03 : 18:35

Okay, Judy. God bless you. Fred from Alameda, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

SPEAKER 06 : 18:40

Thanks. Hi. So, I want to see if you agree with this. I’m not sure what you’re going to say, but J. Vernon McGee was asked a question because J. Vernon McGee had some criticisms against Job. This guy asked him, if you look at Job 1.8 and Job 2.3, this guy who asked the question said, how can you criticize Job when God’s saying he’s a perfect man? did God make a mistake? And J. Vernon McGee’s response was, well, the word perfect is not what we would think as perfect. In these verses, the word perfect means in right relation with God. And then J. Vernon McGee said, Job was anything but perfect. He was a selfish man. Every word coming out of his mouth is I, I, I, I. So my question to you, don’t you think J. Vernon McGee’s being a little bit too conservative?

SPEAKER 03 : 19:54

Yes. Yes, I do. In fact, if he wants an issue of the meaning of the word perfect, it’s not going to even be applicable because the word perfect doesn’t appear in the description. What God said of Job in Job 1.8 is, The Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth? Now, by the way, if Job was an extremely selfish man, there’s plenty like that on the earth. And he said, he’s a blameless and upright man. That is, no one could lay any charge to him. No one could blame him with any fault. And he says, and one who fears God and shuns evil. Now, that sounds like a whole clean bill of health from God on Job. And it says in chapter 2 that God said to Satan, you know, he still holds to his integrity, even though you made me afflict him without cause. So it’s really important to note that God’s assessment of Job is that Job was not being punished or blamed. He said the man was blameless. The devil was trying to make Job do something wrong. And true, when you read the speeches of Job and his friends, he does get a little feisty with them. He doesn’t accuse God, but he does speak frustratingly. He doesn’t understand why God is doing what he’s doing. Both Job and his friends believed. that if you do well, God will treat you well. If you do sinfully, God will beat you up. And, I mean, these guys lived before there was any Bible. Not one book of the Bible was written in the days of Job. Even Moses hadn’t written yet. And so, you know, they had no scripture. They just had their ideas about a just God. And like many other people, frankly, even Christians are confused about this. They think that if you just be good, God won’t let any bad things happen to you. And if something bad does happen to you, it’s your fault. You’ve done something. That’s what Job’s friends thought, and that’s what Job thought until this happened, he said. He said, I thought the same thing you guys do about this. It’s just not, I realize it’s not true, because I haven’t done anything. Now, for a man to protest his innocence when he’s under false accusation, and by the way, the devil had falsely accused him, and now his friends were falsely accusing him. it may not seem very humble for me to say, no, I didn’t do that. I didn’t do anything. I’ve been obedient. I’ve been generous with people. I’ve done the things that people should do. A lot of people oppose even our right to make such a protest. I remember once I myself was being accused of things that I never did by people who didn’t know me. And then, you know, rumors that would come back to me. People said you did this. And so I wrote out an account of what the situation really was. And I remember many people said, you sound so defensive. And I said, well, I am. I am being defensive. If you are called into court and accused of murder or rape, By the way, those are not the things that I was accused of. But, I mean, if you were accused of serious crimes and you stood on this witness stand, are you supposed to not plead your innocence? Are you not supposed to give evidence? You know, I mean, how is this selfish? A person doesn’t want to be put in that place. At least a humble person doesn’t want to. I don’t want to talk about myself. Paul was that way. Writing to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 10 and following, he had chapters long defense of himself. And many people find him very unpleasant himself. in those chapters, because he’s talking about, you know, I have more to boast about than they do. I didn’t do anything wrong. And certainly Paul doesn’t seem humble. But he knows he doesn’t seem humble, and he’s very uncomfortable. He keeps interrupting himself, saying, I’m speaking like a fool. I shouldn’t have to defend myself. And, you know, Job was like that. He wasn’t a man who went around defending himself until he came under false accusation. And, of course, once you are under false accusation, you can say, well, I can just let this go. Or I can set the record straight. And in the case of an innocent man, setting the record straight means he protests his innocence and tries to say, you know, this is really the way it is. So, yeah, it’s always unpleasant to hear a man like Paul or Job or David protest, say, you know, it’s because of a perfection, you know, my perfect heart, you know, my heart’s been perfect before you got. People say, really? Can that really be true? I mean, isn’t that kind of arrogant to say that? But they don’t. Job is not arguing that he’s never stumbled in his life. He’s saying in the context of accusations that he must be a terrible man for God to allow these terrible things to happen to him. In that context, he’s saying, well, I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m a particularly terrible man. I think I’m a reasonably good man. And that’s, you know, of course, if you’re a Calvinist, you’re not allowed to say those kind of things. But in the Bible, people are described as good men, including Job. Job was described as a good man. A blameless man who avoided evil and feared God. That’s a good reference the man has. Now, I would also point out that other people are said to be good like that in the Bible. In Luke chapter 1, we have this description of John the Baptist’s parents. It says in Luke 1.5, There was in those days of Herod, king of Judah, a certain priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron. Her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. Okay, so this is the Scripture’s testimony with them. When someone says, oh, there’s no good men. You know, there’s that old book Rabbi Kirchner wrote called Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. Most Christians answered him and said, well, there are no good people. Well, that’s a strictly Calvinist way of talking. It’s not a biblical way. The Bible, if we let the Bible speak for itself, God himself says there are good people. There are blameless people. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. It doesn’t mean they’ve never sinned. It doesn’t mean they don’t need forgiveness. The best people stumble. And when we stumble, we all need forgiveness. Whether we’re good people or bad people, we need forgiveness of our sins. But if a person has chosen a way of righteousness and walks in that way, and rarely stumbles and repents when they do, that person the Bible would describe as a good person. And Job is that way. So, yeah, Job’s defensiveness, it might rub us the wrong way. If you were in his position, if J. Vernon McGee was in his position, he might answer similarly. I mean, if you’ve lost your family, you’ve lost your health, you’ve lost all your property, and someone comes along and says, you must be a very wicked person for all that to happen to you. You might be very strongly tempted. It might not be a sin to obey this temptation and say, no, I’m not guilty. And that’s what Job was doing. Hey, I need to take a break. We have another half hour coming. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour. Don’t go away.

SPEAKER 08 : 26:59

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SPEAKER 03 : 27:40

Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. If you’d like to ask questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, we’ll talk about them together. If you have a difference of opinion from the host, we’ll be glad to talk about that with you, too. The number is 844-484-5737. All right. Our next caller is Eli in Payetteville, Idaho. Hi, Eli. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

SPEAKER 10 : 28:11

Hey. So my question, well, two-part, I guess, is a Christian who refuses to get baptized after conversion, Is that a Christian living in sin and is continued living in sin or disobedience something that can lead to demonic oppression for a Christian?

SPEAKER 03 : 28:35

Well, first of all, it is a sin, of course, to refuse to be baptized. Now, some people say if you don’t get baptized, you won’t be saved. But the way I see it is many people who don’t get baptized and should, They have never been told that this is a command of God, and therefore, although they’re doing all they know to obey God, somebody who evangelized them neglected to tell them something they should have told them, and that is, okay, now you need to be baptized. I’ve met people who’ve been seeking to follow Christ for years and had not been baptized. I thought, why not? They said, well, I’m waiting for God to lead me. They obviously didn’t know that God had already commanded it. So depending on the ignorance of the person, like if they don’t know that they’re supposed to be baptized because no one ever told them and they’ve never read it in the Bible, then I guess, though it is a sin, or it certainly is a negligent sin, it may not be the thing that will send them to hell. On the other hand, if somebody is told that following Jesus begins When you get baptized, it’s the first step of obedience to the king that you now are pledging your life to obey. Now, if you say, yeah, well, I don’t do that. Well, then then you don’t obey Jesus. It’s just it’s that simple. And, you know, Jesus has commanded us to do some rather difficult things. But baptism isn’t one of them. Baptism is a very easy thing to do. And it’s the first step. it’s so much of an important first step Jesus himself who didn’t need baptism did it anyway at the beginning of his public ministry to set an example for us You know, we don’t really make this up as we go along. When you become a Christian, you obey Jesus if you know what he said. And everybody who does get converted should know what he says because Jesus told us to evangelize people and to disciple them, teaching them to observe everything he said. So if someone leads someone to the Lord and doesn’t mention, by the way, baptism is required. Let’s go out in the water right now. or as soon as possible, well, then shame on them. They’re not fulfilling the Great Commission. But I will say that sin, a rebellion against God, and this is what I think you’ve described, someone who refuses to be baptized, presumably that term is used to say they know that they’re supposed to, but they just won’t. Well, that’s rebellion against God. And, of course, no one can be in rebellion against God and be 100% secure from the attack of demons. Since the Bible says rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, we know that witchcraft and other occult things are the means by which many people do come under the power of demons by practicing those kinds of things. And rebellion against God is like the sin of witchcraft, Samuel said to Saul in 1 Samuel 15. I think it might have been verse 22. I’m not sure. Just guessing on that. 1 Samuel 15. I think it’s 22. Anyway, in addition to that, of course, the Proverbs actually says, and I’m afraid I can’t remember the reference on this one, but I know the Proverbs. It says, a wicked man seeks only rebellion, therefore a wicked messenger, in Hebrew the word angel, a wicked angel will be sent against him. Okay, so a wicked man seeks rebellion, and as a result of that, a wicked angel is sent against him. That sounds like a demon to me. Now, of course, Saul, the Bible, we read of Saul that when he rebelled, an evil spirit from the Lord was sent to him, and he was afflicted off and on for the rest of his life. by demonic power. So I’m just going to say the Bible doesn’t come right out. Oh, that’s Proverbs 17, 11. Wicked man seeks only rebellion, therefore an evil messenger, which is the Hebrew word for angel, will be sent against him. So the Bible does seem to teach that. That demon possession, we always probably wonder, how did this person get demon possessed? Why don’t all unbelievers get demon possessed? If some do, why don’t all? Can we be exempt from it? Is there something you do that makes you vulnerable? Well, there are things that can make you vulnerable. And certainly, witchcraft is one of them. And if God sees rebellion as being like the sin of witchcraft, that would apparently be one of them, too. If you know Jesus commands you to be baptized, yeah, well, I just don’t really care to obey the king anymore. See, this is the problem. People think Jesus isn’t the king. They think he’s their pal. My pal would like me to do it, and I’d like to make him happy, and maybe someday I’ll get around to doing that for him. Do him a favor and do the thing he wants me to do. Now, you’re not a Christian until Jesus is your Lord, which means he owns you. You’ve been bought with a price. You’re not your own. He’s your king. You’re his subject. Now, if that’s not the relationship you have with him, you’re not what the Bible calls a Christian. It’s just that simple. Now, a lot of churches may call you a Christian because you’ve done something other than submit to his Lordship, but the Bible knows of no Christian, no Christianity without the Lordship of Jesus. Paul said, if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, you’ll be saved. So you get saved upon acknowledgement of Jesus as your Lord. And Jesus said, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don’t do the things I say? Obviously he’s saying, I don’t think I am your Lord. At least I don’t think you know I’m your Lord if you’re not doing what I say. So, yeah, I mean, my answer to you is it does seem to be rebellion if you know that your king has commanded something and you say, if I get time, maybe I will do it if it’s convenient for me. No, there’s a difference between a king and another kind of person in your life. Your king is who you obey or else you’re a traitor. There’s not really a middle ground there. You either obey your king or you’re guilty of treason. And treason is a punishable offense in any nation. Okay, so, yeah, I think that when people are in rebellion against God, they have no guarantee of immunity at all from demon possession. And I believe that’s what you’re wondering.

SPEAKER 10 : 34:53

Yeah, I don’t know where I land on possession. I was asking more about oppression.

SPEAKER 03 : 34:59

Yeah. Well, I know where I land on it, but you don’t have to know where I land. I mean, it’s okay. You can land on it wherever you want to. But as far as I’m concerned, the Bible never mentions demon oppression. I was raised in a church that said anyone can be demon oppressed, but a Christian can’t be demon possessed. So they’d be saying that only a non-Christian can be possessed. but a Christian and a non-Christian are both vulnerable to being oppressed, which is, I think, what you’re suggesting. I was taught to say that. It’s a talking point of certain denominations. It is not found in Scripture. In fact, the very idea of demon oppression is never mentioned in Scripture. So all we know is that some people in the Bible are, as the Greek word is, demonized. And everyone in the Bible who is said to be demon-possessed is said to be demonized. And we don’t know of any other special activities of affliction that the demons do to us but that. But maybe there’s some other things, too. I mean, I’m not saying everybody who’s under attack from Satan is demon-possessed. That’s not my position. But I’m saying that since demon possession is a phenomenon, and it happens to people according to Scripture, who are, you know, compromised in certain ways, I would not wish to give any Christian a false hope that they can be compromised in those ways and be immune from demon possession. The Bible certainly doesn’t say anything that would encourage that idea. I know because I used to teach it, and I went looking for the scriptures to support it, and there are none. I appreciate your call, brother. Let’s talk to, let’s see, Jimmy in Staten Island, New York. Hi, Jimmy. Welcome.

SPEAKER 02 : 36:44

Hi, Steve. Can you hear me okay? Yes, sir. I got you on speakerphone. This is regarding election, and I just wanted to get your explanation of the tares and the wheat. It seems like there’s two definite groups, the tares and the wheat. The wheat was sown by the Son of Man, a definite group, and the tares were sown by the evil one. And this agrees with John chapter 8. Jesus said in John 8, 43, why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. And in verse 47, he who is of God hears the words of God. For this reason, you do not hear them because you are not of God. So I don’t understand how you cannot see that there’s two separate groups that, you know, the children of the kingdom were sown by the son of man. And the chairs were sewn by the devil. And I don’t understand if you’re sewn by the devil, we know who they are. We never give up on anybody, but they’re never going to become we. But I just want to get your explanation. I’ll take my answer over to you.

SPEAKER 03 : 38:03

Okay. Well, I’ll tell you, I do agree that there are two kinds of people. There are people who are God’s people and people who are not God’s people. I don’t really know of any other categories. I’m going to be with you on that point. I don’t see the word election in any of that. I see those passages indicating that some people are not of God. Now, what’s it mean to be not of God? Well, for example, I don’t know about your history, but there’s a lot of people walking around today who at one time were not of God. They were sinners. They were slaves of Satan. They walked according to the course of this world and the prince of the power of the air, right? And then they got saved. Paul wrote to people like that. In Ephesians chapter 2, he said that’s how his readers had been before they got saved. Now, that means they were children of the devil at one point, but then they got converted and now they’re children of God. And everybody on the planet, I believe, is either born of God or not. And if they’re not born of God… they may very well all belong to the category of the tares, or what is the children of the wicked one. Now, the parable of the wheat and the tares, of course, not everything about it is exactly parallel to what it illustrates. The same is true of all parables. All the parables are stories that are self-consistent on their own terms, but generally speaking, they’re making a particular point, and if you’d press every aspect of parables, of the points in the parable with the thing they’re describing, you’d get into craziness, I think. For example, when Jesus said we should persist in prayer because there’s a wicked judge who didn’t care about God or man and he was persisted in with the petitions of a woman that he couldn’t have cared less about. And this is a lesson for us to persist in prayer with God. But to say God is an unjust judge and he doesn’t care about us would be going far beyond what the parable is telling us, even though that would be pressing details of the parable into exact conformity with it. Now, that’s not what we do with parables. We recognize that parables are describing something, and the details are consistent with the terms of the story. And how many of those details conform with what it’s talking about, symbolically, would have to be determined on another basis. What Jesus describes is the fact that in this world, there are people who are the children of God, children of the kingdoms. They are the ones who are, you know, Godward, God-oriented. In those days, they were following Jesus because he was here. In earlier ages, they would have followed the prophets. These are people who are the faithful remnant. They’re unlike many others in that they love God. Now, there’s nothing said about this, about them being elect or made to be that way by God. We don’t know how they came to be that way. They may have made the choice on their own, for all we know. No information about that is in the parable. What he’s pointing out is there are mixed together in this world children of God and children of the devil. And they won’t be sorted out until Jesus comes back. That’s the point he’s making. Now, any other details, you know, we’d have to ask, are those really implied? Or is this just window dressing for the story? Now, when Jesus told the Jews, some of them, he didn’t say this to all Jews. He said it to the ones who were against him. In verse 43 of John 8, why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word. Okay, I could accept that. They’re not able to listen. There are people who have stopped their ears and shut their eyes, Jesus said, quoting Isaiah 6, so that they won’t hear and they won’t see. They don’t want it. You know, Jesus said to the Pharisees, if you don’t listen to Moses, you’re not probably going to listen to me either, right? Why? Because the fact that you’re not listening to Moses means you’re already rebelling and don’t want to hear what God has to say. So no surprise you don’t listen to me either. So he says, you don’t understand my speech because you’re not able to listen. He doesn’t say why you’re not able to listen. He doesn’t say God made you unable to listen. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. There’s nothing in this that speaks in any way about election. And then, of course, you know, he says, you can’t believe me or you don’t believe me because you’re not my people. Or later, you know, in chapter 10, he’ll say, you don’t hear me because you’re not my sheep. Well, who are the sheep? Well, he says, my sheep. He didn’t say my sheep are the ones who were elected before the foundation of the world to be my sheep. He said, no, my sheep hear my voice and follow me. Okay. So, fine. I think every Christian understands that. You don’t have to go anywhere near Calvinism to believe those kinds of things. You see, I was talking about proof texting earlier with a caller. He’s trying to prove something from a text. I was saying, if you simply find a bunch of verses that fit your paradigm well enough to encourage you that you can bring them up in proving a point, well, that’s called proof texting. It’s not called exegesis. You have to look at the verses that you use to support your argument and say, you know, does this really say the things that I’m trying to distinctly say in this argument? And in many cases, you’ll find not. You know, One reason I don’t teach the pre-trib rapture anymore. I used to have 20 proof texts for the pre-trib rapture. I could prove it. Men, can I argue that thing? If I still believed it, you would be impressed how well I could prove the pre-trib rapture. Even to this day, I could do it. Except on a certain occasion, I decided to look at those and make sure that they were really teaching that. And I realized I was just proof texting. I found verses that kind of sounded good. They fit well with the paradigm I was already accepting. But I also saw that none of them said a single thing about a pre-tribulation rapture when you looked at them in their context, which is why I gave the doctrine up, one of the reasons. But the point here is that when we discuss controversial doctrines, and we say, well, this scripture, this scripture, this scripture, well, we have to ask ourselves, Am I using the Scripture because it seems to fit the paradigm nicely, or am I using the Scripture because it actually teaches the thing I’m trying to prove? Because there’s a lot of paradigms that can accommodate Scriptures, but what are the Scriptures actually trying to say? That’s what we have to do if we’re going to exegete Scripture, and that’s what I recommend in any controversial conversation about things like that. Okay, Michael from Inglewood, California. Welcome. Welcome.

SPEAKER 07 : 44:45

Hi, Steve. I have two quick questions, and the first one is, have you ever taught from Insurach or Ecclesiasticus or any other apocryphal book? And my second question is kind of related to the person before the break talking about good, kind of with regards to Matthew 19.17. Why does the King Lemuel or his mom say in Proverbs 31, 29, there are many virtuous and capable women in the world, but you surpass them all. This is the NLT. But then Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 7, 28, though I have searched repeatedly, I have not found what I was looking for. Only one out of a thousand men is virtuous, but not one woman. It sounds a little contradictory, you know.

SPEAKER 03 : 45:35

No, no, I don’t think so. I mean, Solomon says among the women in his life, and he had a thousand of them, 700 wives and 300 concubines, he says, you know, among a thousand men, I find one good one. Among that many women, I don’t find any. He’s basically saying none of my wives are any good. Now, he’s being very cynical, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the wives had written something about him that they wouldn’t have thought very highly of him either. You know, we have him expressing his frustration. That’s what Ecclesiastes is, an expression of frustration with everything in the world, everything’s emptiness. This is his testimony to having sought for the man’s chief good under the sun, that is, apart from God. And he has found nothing good, and he hasn’t found any people he can trust. And that’s his statement. And he’s probably using hyperbole because he probably had met one or two somewhere. But in terms of, you know, Proverbs 31, which says, many women have done virtuously, but you surpassed them all. This is what the husband says to his wife. This is quoting him. It says, her children will rise up and call her blessed. Her husband will say to her, many women have done virtuously, but you surpassed them. It’s saying that a virtuous woman will have the praise of her husband and her children. And for a man to say that, the fact that it says a man will say that to his wife, isn’t contradicting Solomon saying that he had been very disappointed with the women he’d known. I’ve known both women. I’ve known both kinds. I’ve known women that were very great disappointment and some that were very virtuous. So I don’t see that as contradictory. As far as teaching from apocryphal books, no, I’ve never done it. I mean, I’m not an expert on the apocryphal books. I can’t say I’ve even read all of them. I’ve read some. But, you know, they’re just other books. They’re not Bible books. So they don’t have the same priority in my life to study them. But I can – the fact that you asked – It’s okay. I mean, it’s very possible you would have found that I had, but I haven’t. Okay, let’s talk to, let’s see, it’s going to be Charlie in Meridian, Idaho. A second Idaho caller today. Hi, Charlie.

SPEAKER 09 : 47:48

Hi, Steve. I just had a couple quick questions for you. One of them was about soul sleep, and I don’t think that’s in the Bible. I don’t think it’s biblical.

SPEAKER 03 : 48:01

Well, I don’t think soul sleep is true. I believe that when we die, our spirit remains conscious and goes to be in the presence of the Lord if we’re Christians. Now, non-Christians, I’m not so sure. But the Bible doesn’t really ever have any discourses about non-Christians after death. The story of Lazarus and the rich man is very probably a parable. But if it is not, it’s the only thing in the whole Bible we have about the fate of an unbeliever. in the next life and it doesn’t really go into too much detail except that it was very unpleasant and flaming Christians I believe Paul says we are dwelling at this present time present in our bodies but when we die we depart to be with the Lord he said in Philippians chapter 1 and in 2 Corinthians 5 he said while we’re in this body we’re absent from the Lord but he says we anticipate with eagerness to be absent from the body meaning to die and to be present with the Lord so I don’t think full sleep is top there The other question.

SPEAKER 09 : 49:01

Yeah, and then the other one was, so when a person passes and their spirit is with God in heaven, so they’re a believer, will they recognize family or friends that have passed away and they’re Christians?

SPEAKER 03 : 49:16

You know, I don’t have any information about that from Scripture. I will say that even when Jesus rose from the dead, which is a somewhat different circumstance than being disembodied in heaven, but when Jesus rose from the dead, even his close friends didn’t immediately recognize find it easy to recognize them. They eventually did, but there may be something different about us that makes us not so easily recognized. On the other hand, I don’t think we will be ignorant of who our friends were and so forth. You know, the Bible says that we now know in part But we will then, you know, know as also we are known. You know, now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. I think that what Paul is saying is at that time we will not be more ignorant than we are now. We’ll be less ignorant than we are now. And if I know my friends now, I’ll know them then too and much more about them than I know now. But we are not told much about that. It’s easy to be curious about it, but we’re not really answered directly about that. Marty from Brooklyn, New York. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER 05 : 50:28

Hi, Steve. I called yesterday and said that I didn’t believe God had the patience with us.

SPEAKER 03 : 50:38

Yes, we have three minutes. We have three minutes before we’re done. Go ahead.

SPEAKER 05 : 50:42

Yeah, I don’t have a question for you. I just wanted to thank you for your faithfulness and your love of God, because when I got off the phone after that question, the Holy Spirit put me on my knees, and I was asking God’s forgiveness, and he just filled me with a new spark.

SPEAKER 03 : 51:02

Well, that’s good to hear.

SPEAKER 05 : 51:03

I just wanted it. Yeah, I just want to thank you. I want to let all my brothers and sisters in Christ know that God is more faithful than we could ever imagine. And I want to thank you and thank you so much for your program and thank you for answering my question yesterday.

SPEAKER 03 : 51:21

Well, thanks for calling back and following up. Thank you, Steve. God bless you. God bless you, too. Marty’s call yesterday, if you weren’t listening, was that he He wondered whether God was less patient in the Old Testament than we see him manifest in Christ in the New Testament. Christ seems more patient with sinners, and God in the Old Testament much more likely to lash out and, you know, like somebody touches the Ark of the Covenant and God strikes them dead. Two of the priests, the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, they offer the wrong incense to God in the tabernacle and God strikes them dead. You know, you’ve got these kind of judgments kind of instantly coming on some people. And then you’ve got the big things like wiping out all the Canaanites and the Amalekites and, you know, judgments upon these nations and so forth. And what I was saying, because some of you may not have heard yesterday, was that God and Jesus are not different from each other in this respect. Jesus made it very clear. If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. He said, if my works are not the works of the Father, don’t believe me. In other words, he expected that they would know that the things he was doing are the very same things God does. And the truth is that God was exceedingly patient. Sure, there were some instant deaths in a few cases to make an example of someone. Jesus did that, or God did that in the New Testament, too, with Ananias and Sapphira. Boom. They lie to the Holy Spirit. They’re dead, and they fall over. Herod, giving a speech, people praise him, and he doesn’t give glory to God, and the angel of the Lord strikes him, and he’s eaten with worms and dies. I mean, those are the same kinds of things God’s doing in the New Testament, with Christ at the throne, at the right hand of God, ruling. As God did in the Old Testament. So we don’t really see any change there. What we do see, of course, we don’t see a lot of passages and none in the record of Christ in the Gospels where he does really. mean or harsh or violent things. I mean, driving the money changers out of the temple is hardly similar to wiping out a civilization with a flood. You know, he’s just making people leave and take their business with them. Even cursing the fig tree didn’t hurt anybody. It didn’t really hurt the tree. It didn’t have conscious awareness of it. So, I mean, Jesus did some things that were acts of judgment, but nothing really harmful to anybody. Whereas God in the Old Testament wipes out whole civilizations. But the difference is, or one difference is, there’s others, that God puts up with these civilizations for hundreds of years. He put up with the Canaanites and their wickedness for 400 years before he sent Israel into Egypt. clean house there. He put up with the pre-flood people for 120 years when he wanted to end their career, but he gave 120 years to repent. God’s very patient. Jesus, of course, didn’t do anything during his lifetime, but we only have three years of his lifetime recorded. We have 4,000 years of God’s activities in the Old Testament, so no wonder we see more there. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. We’re listener supported. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Have a good weekend.