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From answering caller questions about atheism and moral teachings to understanding complex theological concepts like dispensationalism, this episode invites listeners to examine different biblical interpretations. Discover the fascinating discussion on the biblical ‘coming of the Lord’ and the disparities in understanding predestination and free will. Tune in as we close the episode with clarifications on the misunderstood details of Christmas celebrations and biblical interpretations of strong drink.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Good afternoon and welcome to, well, Christmas Eve live broadcast of The Narrow Path. And if you’re not too busy getting ready for family and so forth coming over tonight, we welcome you to join us. You can certainly listen in even while you work. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, you’re welcome to call in as always. And we’ll be glad to talk to you. If you see things differently from the host, I want to say why. Well, you’re also welcome to call that kind of call. The number to reach me here is 844-484-5737. Now, we’ve got some lines open on our switchboard right now. If you want to call now, you can get through. 844-484-5737. And we’re going to talk first of all to Tim calling from Ontario, California. Hey, Tim, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, Steve, Merry Christmas.
SPEAKER 10 :
Same to you.
SPEAKER 09 :
A little moisture in the air today.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. It’s not flooding here yet, but they talked about it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. So my question is about Exodus 1238. It says a mixed multitude went up with them, them meaning the Israelites. They’re not really mentioned too much more except for Numbers 11. and Nehemiah 13 is the last time, so it was when they heard that the law, and they heard the law that they separate all the mixed multitude from Israel. My question is specifically about the mixed multitude. When they left the Exodus with Israel, and they obviously were a part of the covenant, and they must have circumcised and done the law, so they would have been a part of Israel, but what part did they play because they weren’t a tribe? And what else can you tell me about those verses, about the mixed multitude?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, there were always Gentiles who were a part of the covenant people. Even when God made his covenant with Abraham, before there were Jews at all, before there was Israel at all, when God made his covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17, he made it very clear that that circumcision would be the mark of being in the covenant. Abraham and his sons had to be circumcised, but so did his entire household. Now, his household included 318 servants who were not descended from him, so they were not Abrahamic people, they were Gentiles. And they were all circumcised that same day, which means that Abraham’s covenant with God included himself and Ishmael, and 318 Gentiles, which means that there are a lot more Gentiles than people with any Abrahamic connections, other than the circumcision, which was the marker being in the covenant. And even then, of course, it was clear that a Gentile could be in the covenant if they wished to do what the covenant requires. In that case, it was circumcision. Now, when Israel left its slavery from Egypt, Obviously, if there were, in fact, millions of slaves leaving, and the Bible seems to indicate there were, then slaves of other races in Egypt would probably, at least if they’re opportunistic, probably join the crowd and just kind of jump in that river of people going across the Red Sea to freedom. Now, perhaps not all of those people. would be loyal to Moses or whatever. They just left Egypt. Maybe once they got across the Red Sea, they just split, a lot of them, back to their own countries, wherever they were from. But there’s no reason to believe that they all did. That is to say, when Israel came to Mount Sinai and God made the covenant there with those standing there, we have no reason to doubt that there would be some, at least, who were Gentiles who had come out of Egypt with them. Now, the conditions of the covenant… In this case, we’re not strictly circumcision, although that was still required in the Sinaitic covenant. But more so, it was the special terms given at Mount Sinai. And God said, you know, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you’ll be a holy nation, a kingdom of priests to me, and so forth. Which means that anyone who wanted to do that could be part of that nation. And We don’t know how many there were. My assumption is there were probably not a very large percentage of the crowd who were Gentiles. But there were some. And there could have been any number. I mean, for all we know, there could have been as many there who were Gentiles as were Israelite. We simply have no information about that. But forever after that, it was very clear that if a Gentile wished to be circumcised and keep the covenant that God made at Sinai, That Gentile was a part of Israel just like anyone else. So if you say, well, what role did they play? Well, the ones that actually conformed to the covenant requirements, they just became part of Israel. But like you said, what tribe were they? That’s a hard thing for me to answer. I don’t know what tribe they associated with. They probably were given the opportunity to associate with any group of Israelites if they wanted to or that would welcome them. And then they’d be part of that tribe. And then when the land was divided up later, they would simply get their portion with the others who were, you know, Zebulonites or Gadites or Reubenites or whatever. So I don’t know that. But that would have been an issue, you know, throughout Israel’s history because it was always possible for a Gentile to become a proselyte. It still is. I mean, if a Gentile wants to become a Jew, they can. Of course, today it doesn’t really matter. what tribe you would be associated with because there’s no land division by tribes as there was back then. But there was then, and even then, a Gentile could become part of it. So I do not know how it was determined which tribe they would associate with. Obviously, that would be some kind of administrative detail that they’d have to work out, and we’re not told how they did so. But they were treated like regular Israelites, but they obviously were not descended from any of the 12 tribes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. I just thought it was kind of interesting. I just wonder how they played into that and what tribe did they end up adhering to or being with. I know in Numbers 14 it says that the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense cravings, so the children of Israel also wept again. And so… I mean, they were obviously having some of the same challenges that the Israelites were with trusting God. So they were amongst the Israelites. We just don’t know what tribe they would have, you know.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I’ve wondered that myself. And the question has come up on the air before, too, and I don’t know the answer. I’m not really sure if we have an answer. There may be something in the rabbinic writings that would answer that, although… By the time those were written, I’m not really sure if the tribal divisions of the land were still an issue, since many of the Talmudic writings were written after the nation of Israel had been dispersed for the last time. So, yeah, I can’t answer that. I don’t know if anyone can. I don’t think the information is available, at least not to me. Perhaps some Jewish scholar familiar with the Talmud or whatever might have some answers for that.
SPEAKER 09 :
But ultimately what’s important is that they did become a part of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. They were not like, you know, they weren’t still Gentiles. They were proselytes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. Okay, Steve, thanks. Merry Christmas. God bless.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, Timothy, same to you. Bye now. Okay, Jennifer in Price, Utah. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you so much for taking my call, and Merry Christmas. Recently, there was a celebrity death, and that person claimed to be an atheist, but also claimed that he admired Jesus’ teaching and that he just didn’t accept Jesus as Savior. Well, I got into a huge argument with a friend regarding this, and I’m wondering if you can give me some scripture that I could have used instead of just getting emotional but my friend felt like because he was a good person and he did good things in the world that you know he’s going to go to heaven god’s going to make a pass and i said if he rejected jesus he doesn’t get to spend eternity with jesus but i didn’t have any scripture um i thought of filthy rags you know we talked about works and i tried to make the point that your works don’t mean anything if you haven’t first accepted the Lord. So can you give me some scripture and a better way I could have handled this?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, the way I would have handled it would be simply to say, I guess God will have to be the judge of that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. That’s what I felt like. Like I’m in the place of God. I felt like afterwards I didn’t have the place to judge. I don’t know what happened to this person. So maybe do I owe my friend an apology? Should I go back and say, hey, I was wrong. I’m sorry.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I’m not going to say you were wrong. I’m just going to say we don’t know enough to know if you were completely right. And you might mention that. You might say, you know, perhaps I spoke with more assurance than I actually have because I don’t know what was in that person’s heart. Now, if the person said, I don’t accept Jesus as my Savior or whatever, I’m not sure what they mean by saying they accept the teachings of Jesus. If they mean the moral code that Jesus taught, well, most decent people would accept most of that. If somebody says, I accept the teachings of Jesus, but they don’t accept the teachings of Jesus about himself, but only about a good way to live, then they’re not really believing in the teachings of Jesus. Now, I would say this, too. There are people whose knowledge is very rudimentary. I mean, I would say there’s even people who go to many churches who don’t know much about Jesus because many churches are very liberal. They don’t believe the Bible. They don’t teach the Bible. They don’t preach the gospel. And there might even be people who are seeking the Lord and going to church, and they simply do not learn much about him. Now, of course, we could say, well, they could read the Bible for themselves, and that’s true, although many times I meet people who are real Christians who don’t read the Bible as much as they should either. But it’s even possible for someone to read the Bible and just have fog in their head about it and not really be able to understand it. I don’t fully understand that because, to me, the Bible is just full of light and insight and so forth. But I do know there are people who’ve got some kind of mental block when they read it, So, I mean, I’m going to say God’s going to just have to say, did this man respond to Christ at the level that he had access to, that he knew about? You know, if he didn’t know much about the gospel, he knew there was a Jesus, and he loved Jesus, and he wanted to please him and wanted to do what he said, you know, well, we’re going to have to let God be the judge of whether that is right. equivalent to accepting Jesus, given the amount of knowledge that man had. This is, you know, it’s very important that we teach people, as Jesus said, teach them to observe all things that Jesus commanded, but also to teach them who Jesus is. Because if they don’t know, I can’t say that they will definitely go to hell, because before Jesus came, there were Jews, faithful Jews, like the prophets and Moses and David, who certainly we would have to say are in heaven, and even non-Jews like Job, who, you know, I’d be amazed if he’s not in heaven. Of course he is. But they didn’t know the gospel like we do. They didn’t know as much about Jesus as we do. But they did, their heart was directed toward God. Their heart was directed toward knowing God and obeying God the best they knew. And I believe they’ll have to be judged on the basis of how much they knew and how did they respond to it. And That’s why even the persons that I meet who seem clearly not to be Christians when they die, I’ll let God be the judge because I don’t know how much they really knew. And God does. And how much one knows or does not know plays into the whole evaluation of where their heart’s at. Because the apostles, before they were before they knew much, when they just left their nets and their tax-collecting booths and started following Jesus around, they didn’t know much about him. They knew he was the man from God. Eventually, they believed he was the Messiah. But in their lifetime, I’m not sure, I should say in Jesus’ lifetime, I’m not sure if they had any awareness that he was really, as we would say, God manifested among us in the flesh. He never seemed to mention that to them. They did come to understand. Remember, Jesus said the last days that he was with them, the last evening before he was arrested, he said, I still have many things to tell you, but you’re not able to bear them yet. But when the Holy Spirit comes, he’ll lead you or guide you into all truth. Now, I believe it’s the Holy Spirit that guided them into truth after Jesus was gone, after they saw him ascended to heaven. the Holy Spirit revealed to them who he really was, namely God among us in the flesh. But I don’t know that they really understood that prior to the Holy Spirit coming. And that means that they spent some years wandering around with Jesus, totally devoted to him, obeying him, learning from him, not challenging him at all, but kind of defining themselves as his followers, but without fully understanding what we might think we understand now. And obviously, if they had died at that time, they would be in heaven because Jesus even told them during his time with them. He said, don’t rejoice that the demons are subject to you, but your names are written in heaven. So they were what we would call, even before they met Jesus, they were part of what we call the faithful remnant of Israel. And the faithful remnant of Israel included people like Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist, or Mary and Joseph. many of those a generation or more older than Jesus might have died without fully knowing about Jesus’ death and resurrection, those kinds of things. So, again, I’m not saying that knowing him accurately is not important. I want to know him as accurately as I can, and I want everyone to know him as accurately as I can help them understand him. But I have to say that after our best efforts, there will be people who still have, you know, fogged, in their heads when they’re trying to think about who Jesus is, and God’s going to have to decide, and he won’t have any problem doing so because he knows the heart. Which of those people did not receive him because they never really heard or understood? They may have gone to church every day of their life, and the church might not have ever preached the gospel. I’m not saying going to church saves anyone, but God knows why somebody goes there. And if somebody’s going there because they’re trying to find God and the church just doesn’t introduce them to God, you know, God knows that too. I really, I don’t think that our concern, and this will shock many evangelicals because it would have shocked me at one time to say it. I don’t think God’s main concern is for us to know who’s going to heaven. I think his main concern is for us to teach people to become followers of Christ. and let God decide, you know, based on everything he knows, you know, what their destiny will be.
SPEAKER 06 :
That makes perfect sense, what you just said. Thank you so much, because you’re right. I’m not the judge. I don’t know, and none of us are. And the more important thing, you’re absolutely correct, is just knowing about the Lord and and learning about Jesus and learning what he said and what he did. And it’s not my place to say, you know, where anybody’s going.
SPEAKER 10 :
We might strongly suspect that somebody has passed into eternity unprepared to meet God. And we could be right. But there are things about their hearts that we don’t know and that God certainly does. And that’s, you know, we can be quite sure that God, who wants all men to be saved, will judge as charitably as the facts will allow.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much. You took a big burden off of me. Thank you. God bless you.
SPEAKER 10 :
God bless you, Jennifer. Thanks for joining us today. Merry Christmas. Dexter in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi. Thank you for having me. One of my questions is mainly on salvation as far as losing your salvation or not losing your salvation. I Went to a church. My grandfather was a pastor at Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Church, and they believe that you can lose salvation. Right. Now that I live in Idaho, I was living in Pennsylvania, but now I go to a Baptist church, and, of course, they believe that once you’re saved, you’re always saved. Right. And I’m in Bible college, and my next class is Bible doctrine, and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot about it. that topic but i’m curious on because unfortunately i come from two sides of the coin where one says you can lose your salvation the other one says you can’t sure and i’ve also had experiences where both sides have quoted the same verse now i can’t remember exactly which one but i remember the instance where both of them said the same thing but they’re just looking at it differently right so i’m just curious what your thoughts are on it
SPEAKER 10 :
All right. Well, like yourself, Dexter, I’ve been on both sides of that divide. I was raised Baptist myself. And I was taught once saved, always saved. But I’m not convinced that that is true anymore. And that’s not because I became a Wesleyan. I’m not a Wesleyan, although I have a great respect for John Wesley and his teaching and his life. But, in fact, my change of mind… did not occur from my changing denominations. I did change denominations. I left the Baptist church and the Jesus movement to become part of Calvary Chapel. But Chuck Smith, my pastor at Calvary Chapel, believed in once saved, always saved also. But it was in Chuck Smith’s church that I came to think otherwise about it because Chuck was very diligent in teaching us to study the Bible straight through. And although his own interpretation led him to once saved, always saved, I study the Bible, too, and it seemed to me like it’s not what the Bible teaches. Now, people who believe in it are often alarmed when they hear, you know, maybe there’s a possibility of someone losing their salvation, and they usually think that means, you know, if you sin enough times after you’re a Christian, you lose your salvation. The truth is, in the early church, they not only believed, and I’m talking about the first three centuries, they not only believed in that you could lose your salvation. They thought if you sinned again after you were baptized, you could lose your salvation, or would. And for that reason, many people, even in the time of Constantine in the 4th century, did not get baptized until they were on their deathbed, because they wanted to make sure they didn’t sin again after their baptism. But this is not biblical. It’s not biblical to say that if you sin after your baptism, you’re not saved, obviously. So, I mean, people have thought lots of different things about it. But I don’t believe that anyone would lose their salvation because they commit a sin after they were saved. Or two or three or ten or a million sins because the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin, it says in 1 John. 1 7 and it says if we confess our sins as first John 1 9 He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So He’s he said in 1st John 2 1 little children. I write these things so you don’t sin But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he’s the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only both over the sins of the whole world So in other words John recognizes well, you’re not supposed to sin but if you do you Jesus died for us, and we can be forgiven. So it’s not like, well, if you sin after you’re saved, you’re lost, no matter how many times you sin. You’re saved not because of the number of things you did right and the number of things you did wrong. You’re saved because of the nature and the trajectory of your course in life. Have you changed your trajectory from a life of sinning and selfishness to a life of following Jesus and being devoted to God and seeking to please him. Now, even if you have, there will be times you stumble. There will be times that you do sin, and that’s what John acknowledged and James acknowledges. Frankly, I believe the whole Bible recognizes this. good people, godly people do sin, but they repent because they don’t want to sin, really. They want to follow God. That’s the trajectory they’ve chosen for their life, is obedience and devotion to God. Now, that’s what a saved person is. He’s someone who’s had a change of heart and has that heart that’s devoted to God. Although he may sin, he’ll repent and be forgiven. Now, a person, I believe, can lose their salvation not by too many sins, but but by a change of that trajectory, by a person deciding, yeah, I don’t want to follow Jesus anymore. I’m done with this. I’ve got something else I’d rather do. I’d rather follow my own way or follow a different way than Jesus. Now, that’s like a married couple. They promise to be perfect to each other at the altar, but they’re not perfect. People aren’t perfect. But even the imperfections in behavior of a married couple doesn’t give them grounds for divorce. But if one of them says, I’m not in here, I’m out of here, and they leave and divorce their partner, Well, then that marriage is pretty much destroyed. It’s over. The relationship is broken. One person can break a relationship. It takes two to keep a relationship. The faithfulness of both is necessary. So where I’m at, and where I think the Bible is at too, is that if you renounce Christ and decide not to be his follower anymore, yeah, you’re not going to be saved anymore. It says in 1 John 5, verses 11 and 12, this is the message. that God has given us eternal life. This 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 the point here is that, you know, if you have Jesus, you have life. If you don’t, you don’t. The life is in Christ. And Jesus said in John 15, we need to abide in him, remain in him. Otherwise, we can be cast forth as a branch and withered and burned. So I mean, there’s lots of things about this, but the point is being a Christian is simply in a relationship with Jesus that’s a proper relationship where he’s the Lord and we’re subject to him. And that’s our desire and our pleasure to be subject to Christ. It’s our privilege. So I’m, you know, I think a lot of people think they’re Christians and aren’t. And the only reason they hang on to their religion is because they’re afraid they’ll go to hell, right? That’s a shame. I mean, people should be followers of Christ because they love God. And if you love God and you follow God, even though you stumble, you still are in the relationship. You’re still in the marriage, as it were. So I do have lectures on this. If you go to my website, thenarrowpath.com, under the tab that says Topical Lectures, There’s a series there called Knowing God. Is that the one? No, no. It’s the content of the gospel. It’s the series called The Content of the Gospel. And there is a lecture there on eternal security or once saved, always saved. I go into it much deeper there than I can in the format of this radio show, but I hope what I’ve shared gives you some insight into the matter. But, yeah, go to thenarrowpath.com. Look under Topical Lectures. Find the series that’s called The Content of the Gospel. And then there’s a lecture called, it’s either called Once Saved, Always Saved, or it might be called Eternal Security. Those are different terms for the same thing. Hey, I need to take a break. I appreciate your call very much. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour. We’re not done. We have an hour program. This is just the bottom of the hour. We are listener-supported. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can donate from the website thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we have another half hour ahead of us. Our lines are full, and it’ll probably take the half hour up just to take all these calls, so I’ll only give out the number again if we get some time. free if we get ahead of time. I do want to announce one thing, and this is just, I’m so old school when it comes to technology. I don’t do social media much. I have a Facebook page, which I check out once in a while, and once in a while I post something on it. But I’m not on there a lot. I don’t have time for social media much. And I’ve determined not to have any other social media just because that’s more things to keep track of. And I’m not interested in spending more time in social media than I do. It’s a waste of time in many respects. But, I mean, anything I need to say to people can be done on my Facebook page. The thing is, somebody, without my permission and without even telling me, apparently started an Instagram account. using my name, my picture, my email address, and so forth. And I only learned of it because my son happened to send me a picture of it and say, is this you? Did you do this? And I didn’t. Now, here’s the thing. I’m so old school, I don’t even know what to do about it. There’s several hundred followers there, I think, now. And if they’re watching for me to show up there, I’m not going to. I don’t post on Instagram. Whoever set it up, I don’t know what they may post in my name since they started the thing in my name. I don’t know if they plan to post things they have to say as if they are me. I have no idea how this works. I’d love to take it down. But I just want to warn you, if you happen to be on Instagram and you go to my account on Instagram, it’s not my account. I’m not there. So maybe some of you who understand that stuff can even let me know what to do about it. But I just want to warn people because I have no idea what somebody may post there in my name since they created the account. I did not. So, again, anyone who understands that stuff, don’t talk on the air with me about it. But if you want to email me some information about what to do about it. I would not mind being able to get rid of that. All right. Let’s go to the phones, and we’ll talk to Warren from Clipper Mills, California. Hi, Warren.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello. My question is concerning the term, the coming of the Lord. I read in the Gospels, and I read in the beginning of Revelation, and like Thessalonians 2, it’s talking about the coming of the Lord. And I know there’s two or three different words about the word coming in the Greek. But I have a hard time understanding what that exactly means because Jesus always talked about him coming quickly or coming shortly. And there was always a sense of urgency with his coming. And even in Matthew 24, he says, When it’s talking about the, you know… They will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great glory. Okay, so that’s why I wanted to get a little bit more understanding about that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Well, in Greek, as in English, the word coming can be a noun or a verb. It sounds like a verb, but when we’re talking about the coming… The coming is being used as a noun. We’re talking about an event. It’s a person, place, or thing. It’s an event. So the coming of the Lord is the word coming is being used as a noun. And that noun in the Greek is parousia, P-A-R-O-U-S-I-A, parousia. So parousia is used, it’s a noun that’s used sometimes. of the coming of Jesus. And by that I mean the second coming of Christ, which we still await. There’s also the verb, like I said, I’m coming. Well, that’s a verb. That’s not a noun. That’s erkomai in the Greek. So the verb for coming is erkomai, and the noun is parousia. The word parousia doesn’t just mean the coming, but it can mean the presence also. It is said that the word parousia has kind of a range of meaning, perhaps similar to our English word visit, like I’m going to visit you for the next few weeks. Well, my visit then would start with my arrival, my coming, but also with my continued presence until I go away again. So the word parousia kind of has that meaning. It’s the coming and the presence that is the result of the coming. Okay, so that’s the noun. Now, sometimes Jesus talks about how he is coming, and the word erkomai is used because that’s a verb usage. And other times, the coming is the noun parousia. Both of these can refer to the same thing, of course. If I said, I’m coming, and you said, good, I’m looking forward to your coming. Well, I used it as a verb, and you used it as a noun. And that’s kind of how it is with these two words. They can refer to the second coming of Christ, and often they seem to. They do. What’s confusing, though, is that these same words are generic words for anyone coming. The word parousia is used in 2 Corinthians for Paul talks about how he’s comforted by the coming of Titus. or the coming of this person or that person, or Paul even talks about his coming to visit certain readers and so forth. And the word parousia, which is the word that is used for the coming of Christ, is also used for the coming of anybody. It’s a generic word for coming. It doesn’t specifically mean you know, what we call the second coming of Jesus. Same thing with the verb erkomai. So this is why it’s confusing. Now, more than that, another thing that’s confusing is even when we talk about the coming of the Lord, the parousia, or the erkomai of the Lord, we are not always talking about what we’re thinking of when we say the second coming. The second coming is that which is announced, for example, in Acts chapter 1, verse 11, when Jesus ascended into heaven. The sky and clouds received him out of the sight of the apostles as they looked on. A couple of angels stood there and said, You men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into heaven? This same Jesus, whom you’ve seen going away, will come again in the same manner as you saw him go. Now, as far as I’m concerned, that hasn’t occurred yet. He has not come again in the same manner as he left. So that’s referring to the future, the end of the world, the second coming of Christ. Paul says in 1 Timothy, I think it’s chapter 6, could be wrong, he says that Jesus will judge the living and the dead at his coming. That would be his parousia, and that would be the second coming. When Paul says, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, he’s talking about the second coming. Now, he doesn’t use the word coming in that verse, but a few verses earlier he does, where he says… Those of us who are alive remain until the coming of the Lord. That’d be the parousia of the Lord. So there are times when, you know, the Bible talks about Jesus coming, raising the dead, judging all people, rewarding everybody according to their works. You know, sending people to their eternal destiny is this kind of thing. That’s obviously the future second coming. But what makes it confusing is these words are also used not only in the New Testament, the Old Testament. figuratively there are times when God or Jesus are described as coming but it’s not really referring to what we think of as the second coming some of these references are to events of judgment for example it says in Isaiah chapter 19 verse 1 that God is coming to Egypt on a cloud which is really referring to the fact that God’s judging Egypt God’s not literally riding on a cloud into Egypt or coming to Egypt He’s sending Assyrian armies as a judgment upon Egypt. And because he is the instigator of this judgment, it is figuratively spoken as if he’s coming in the persons of these armies. In Micah, I think it’s chapter 1, verse 4, if I recall, it talks about how God is coming from his place and going to tread on the high places of the earth. It’s referring again to, in this case, the Assyrians coming against Israel. And so this is not really referring to the literal coming of God, but his, as it were, instigating a judgment through the instrumentality of foreign nations conquering someone. But because God is the one behind it and God is the one bringing it to pass, it is figuratively said, metaphorically said that God is coming. And so this kind of language is used in the New Testament also at times. One example would be, for example, in Matthew 22, in the parable of the vineyard, where the vineyard owners killed the prophets or killed the master’s servants and even the son, which is, of course, the prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus were killed by the Jews. Jesus said, when the master of that vineyard comes… What will he do to those people? And they said he will utterly destroy those miserable men and give the kingdom to others, give the vineyard to others who bring forth fruit of it. And Jesus said, that’s correct. He said, that was going to happen to the Jews. He said, the kingdom will be taken from you and given to someone else. Well, he said, this happens when the master comes. Well, this happened in AD 70. The master, as it were, came and settled the score with those who killed the prophets and those who killed his son. That’s what the parable is talking about. And so the reference to him coming is a reference to something that happened in AD 70 when the Romans came. And it’s not the only time in the New Testament. There are other times when coming does not refer to the second coming. So this is why you find it confusing. When Jesus said, I’m coming quickly, I believe when he says that, and of course he says that twice in the book of Revelation, I believe he’s not referring to the end times. I don’t think he’s referring to the final coming. I think this is one of those cases where he’s coming in judgment through the Romans upon the city of Jerusalem. And that did happen quickly. shortly after it was written. So anyway, that’s how I understand it. If it sounds confusing, I realize it can be, but when you take things in context individually, you’ll see case by case, you can usually decide which thing is being referred to. There may be times when it’s not easy. A guest from Costa Mesa, California. Welcome to The Neuropath.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi there, Steve. I have a question about dispensationalism and then perhaps a follow-up. Is the concept of the return of Jesus being within one generation of the reestablishment of Israel as a nation a basic part of dispensationalism?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I think most dispensationalists believe that specific thing. I don’t know if Darby, who invented dispensationalism, made that point specifically. He might have. I would think that that would be a point that would have developed within dispensational circles after Israel became a nation in 1948. I know that dispensationalists have pretty much looked at that as signaling the last generation. I don’t know. I can’t say because I don’t know before that if they use that argument. It’s so universally used now apparently among dispensationalists that it seems like it’s inherent in their viewpoint. but I’m not sure if it was before the restoration of Israel. But dispensationalists tend to see the restoration of Israel as a nation in 1948 as the signal of the end times, the signal of the last generation. And they do so on the basis of Jesus talking about the fig tree, which I think they totally misunderstand. But in Matthew 24, 32, they say, now learn this parable from the fig tree. When its branches already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. Okay, well, the fig tree, they tell us, and they don’t prove it, but they tell us that the fig tree is a image of Israel, and that when it puts forth its new twigs and leaves, this refers to the nation of Israel springing back to life after the long winter of having been dispersed throughout the world. Now, I don’t think that the fig tree does refer to the nation of Israel or its rebirth. And you see that, for example, when you look at Luke 21, the parallel statement to this It says, he spoke to them a parable, look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they’re already budding, you see and know in yourselves that summer is now near. So, in other words, he’s talking about a phenomenon that has to do with trees in general. Probably he was near a fig tree and he said, look at the fig tree. It’s springtime now and you see it’s starting to get twigs and leaves and therefore you know that summer is near. And the application he makes has nothing to do with Israel. the application he makes is in verse 33 of Matthew 24. So you also, when you see all these things, that is the things he’s been describing earlier, know that it is near at the doors. Okay, so that is just as you can tell that summer is near by what’s happening to the fig tree in the springtime. So you can know that the destruction of the temple, which is what they asked about, is near when you begin to see all these other things happen I’m talking about. It’s like, you know, there will be something to warn you of it, just like there’s a warning of the summer coming. Now, the next verse, Jesus says, Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away until all these things are fulfilled. And that’s the statement that has given dispensationalists reason to believe that the generation that sees Israel become a nation again in the end times, which they take to have taken place in 1948, that generation will not pass until everything is fulfilled. And that’s why Hal Lindsey and Chuck Smith and prophecy teachers in the early 70s were always saying, well, Israel came back in 1948, a generation is 40 years, 1988 would then be the end of the generation that saw that, and therefore Jesus has come back by 1988. And there were many people who predicted that that would be the case. Of course, they were wrong. And one reason they were wrong is, is because Jesus didn’t say what they said. He didn’t say the generation that sees the fig tree blossom again will see the end of all these things. He said, no. He said, assuredly, I say to you, this generation. Now, this generation is a term Jesus used five times in Matthew. All the other times he’s talking about his own generation. I think five other times before this. So he’s always talking about his own generation when he says this generation. If he was talking about some long future generation that was going to see Israel reestablished, he just said, I guarantee you that generation will not pass until everything is fulfilled. I mean, it’s not his own generation. It’s some later one. So, you know, there’s nothing in his statement that would validly give people reason to say, well, you know, the generation that saw Israel become a nation will see the end of the world as well. That is simply a gratuitous statement. view that was taken by inserting ideas into a passage that does not contain them. And so that would be the origins of that idea.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I remember when 1988 kind of came and went, what I thought I heard from dispensationalists was that, okay, well, we were wrong about the definition of a generation. It’s now 80 years, and We’re coming up in three years. That’ll be 80 years. And I’m wondering, is there at some point in time when a fair-minded dispensationalist will have to say, there’s something seriously wrong with our beliefs here because Israel has been a nation for however many years, 90, 100, 120 years, and Jesus hasn’t returned?
SPEAKER 10 :
I got to say, you’d expect it. You’d expect the time will come when dispensationalists say our predictions have failed every time. We’ve made more and more and more predictions, and they didn’t happen. Maybe we should relook at the way we’re interpreting Scripture. Because I, and I think it sounds like you also, like myself, we think they’re not interpreting it correctly. And I guess you have to ask, after so many failures, when do you begin to suspect that you’re not interpreting it correctly? Of course… I decided that they were not interpreting it correctly. I was a dispensationalist. I took it the way they do. But long before 1988, in fact, before 1980, I looked at it more carefully and said, wait a minute, that’s not what it’s saying, because it isn’t. And I began to realize I had been interpreting a lot of verses wrongly through a dispensational grid. And you don’t even have to wait until you’re your predictions fail to come true, you can actually just look at the Bible more carefully and say, well, I don’t have any basis for saying this.
SPEAKER 08 :
Indeed. All right. All right, brother. Thank you.
SPEAKER 10 :
God bless you. Thanks so much. All right. Let’s see. Next in line is John in Gainesville, Florida. John, welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, thanks for taking my call, Steve. I tell you, I love your show, The Narrow Path. I also love the Wretched Radio program, both on a separate radio station called I know of it. They had a good one on the record video the other day where they said, Hey, let me just say, let me stop you just a minute, John.
SPEAKER 10 :
We only have a few minutes left and we’ve got people waiting behind you. Do you have a question for me today?
SPEAKER 01 :
It’s not a question. I just want to say that they said the universe is 18 billion years old and the earth is only half a billion. There’s no way God could have created the whole thing in a day’s time. Well, guess what? There is no time in eternity. So how can they measure anything in God’s world of eternity? They can’t.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right. Well, I appreciate your comments, and Merry Christmas to you. Let’s see. We’re going to talk next to Eric from Tigard, Oregon. Eric, welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, hi there, Greg. Hi.
SPEAKER 10 :
Got a question?
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, yeah. My question is Proverbs 31, verses 6 through 7.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
What line? Yeah, give strong drink to him who is perishing in. whine to those who are bitter apart, and then let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more. I don’t know. I’m kind of like confused about that verse because it seems like if you’re bitter apart, like you shouldn’t be drinking. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, it’s describing someone who’s perishing, dying. In those days, they didn’t have much to numb the pain. I mean, we’ve got all kinds of nice painkillers. someone who’s dying of cancer or dying of some agonizing injuries or something like that. You know, we’ve got all kinds of painkillers and so forth we can give them. They didn’t have anything like that back then. Wine or strong drink, frankly, was the main thing they did. It’s just like in the TV westerns, you know, when somebody has gangrene in their leg and they’re going to die if they don’t saw the leg off. So they stick them on the table in the, you know, in the barber shop. and take a sob if they give them a pint of whiskey to numb the pain. Now, you might say, but getting drunk is a sin. Well, being a drunkard is a sin. If the only way you can kill the pain is to consume that much alcohol in that situation, then, you know, it’s not the same thing as being a drunkard if you’re not somebody who drinks, generally speaking. It’s just the same as taking an anesthesia because that’s what it’s talking about. It’s saying if people are perishing and grieving, grieving doesn’t just mean, you know, they lost their wife or their job or they’re depressed. It means that they’re in excruciating pain. Well, you can numb the pain, you know. They’re dying. They can die with less agony. in that case. Now, some people are so against alcohol, a lot of Christians are, that they’d be amazed at this suggestion, but they themselves would probably not mind taking opioids or something else like that when they’re having surgeries or whatever, or they’re recovering from it. So, to say, well, you shouldn’t be able to use alcohol for anesthesia ever, well, maybe you shouldn’t use opioids then or any other kind. I think that’s being a little more legalistic. When the Bible talks about being a drunkard, it’s talking about a lifestyle of turning to drink for comfort and to avoid responsibility. It’s recreational drinking it’s talking about. Anyway, I appreciate your call. Let’s talk to Karna from Albany. We don’t have much time, unfortunately. Karna, hi.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, it’s Romans 12, 2. I’m having trouble with the testing and approving what God’s will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will. And then the King James just says that you may prove what is good and acceptable, a perfect will of God. And I just, when, you know, friends die a horrible death, and, you know, they’re murdered or, you know, whatever, cancer, it just doesn’t seem like God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will. They’ll say, well, it must have been God’s will. They weren’t healed. I don’t know. I have trouble with that. Can you help me?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, this is not talking about God’s general will and general providence. I mean, certainly, if we talk about, you know, it was a great hurricane that wiped out several villages and killed lots of people. Was that God’s will? Well, that’s a different aspect of God’s will that that. what Paul’s talking about. Paul’s talking about God’s will for human behavior. He’s saying you need to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That is, you become more Christ-like in your thoughts and behavior, and this is at the expense of being conformed to this world. That is, you’re departing from the way that the world thinks and acts, and choosing to think and act the way Christ does. You’re not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of your mind. in that your life behavior proves, uh, that this, I mean, show it demonstrates to the world, uh, convincingly that this is the way God wants people to live. Uh, when it talks about, you know, what is the acceptable, perfect will of God, he means God’s will in our lives, God’s will for our behaviors. He’s not talking about the cosmic will of, you know, whether a comet is going to hit the earth or not, and whether that’s God’s will. Um, You know, that’s a different kind of discussion and certainly one that can be had. But that’s not what Paul’s discussing here. That’s not really his concern in this passage.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, yeah, that’s what I thought. That makes sense. Thanks, Steve. Have a great one.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, Karna, great talking to you. God bless. You know, folks, I think it was yesterday or the day before, somebody asked me, why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th? And I answered as I thought best. I said the Bible doesn’t tell us when Jesus was born. I don’t know why December 25th was chosen. I’ve always been told that it, you know, corresponded with a day that the Romans already celebrated and that when Rome became Christianized, they just associated the birth of Christ with it. Now, I was incorrect. I’ve had people send me things. There’s sources I had never seen, didn’t know existed. I got an email and through text people sending me information about that. And I had never heard it. And one reason I had never heard it is I’m not interested in it. I never have been concerned about special days. Paul said one man esteems one day above another. Another man esteems every day alike. I’ve always been in the second category. I’m not really that big on holidays, generally speaking, and therefore I never had much interest. And I just went with what you always hear. But it turns out there is information online, and it’s good information from ancient sources, that Christians were celebrating December 25th as the birth of Jesus in the 3rd century. That means in the 200s. And that’s before any pagan celebrations were associated with that day. So I was mistaken about that. And they calculated the date largely from the conception of John the Baptist. We actually had someone call and share some of that. Not in detail yesterday, but some people sent me a number of files that have clarified that. So, yeah, the idea of celebrating Jesus’ birthday on December 25th is based on calculating some things from some biblical data, though the Bible doesn’t really set that date for us. Anyway, Merry Christmas, and let’s talk again the day after. We’ll have a recorded program tomorrow. Our website’s thenarrowpath.com.
