Join Steve Gregg on The Narrow Path as he delves deeply into the topic of predestination in the Christian doctrine. In this episode, Steve responds to Michaela from Sacramento’s concerns over predestination, discussing key scriptures from Romans and Ephesians. The episode also features a fascinating discussion on E.W. Kenyon and his influence on the Word of Faith movement, as well as an exploration of the relevant parables and teachings from the Bible.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast as we begin another broadcast week. We’re on Monday through Friday at this same time. A live broadcast on most stations. There are a few stations that play the program later. If you’re listening to one of those stations, you will not be able to call in during the program. But make note, even if you listen to a delayed broadcast and you’re in other words, while you’re listening, it’s not on the air. And make a note, from 2 o’clock to 3 o’clock Pacific Time in the afternoon every weekday, 2 o’clock to 3 o’clock. Now, you may be in a different time zone, but keep that in mind. The reason I mention this is someone told me they wrote to me a question and said, I can’t call in because you’re not live where I am. Well, you can. You just won’t be calling in while we’re on the air there. We are on the planet, and we have a phone line open from 2 to 3 Pacific Time if you can call. whether we’re broadcasting at that moment in your area or not, we are there, and we can take your calls. The number to call if you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith, or if you have a disagreement with the host you want to talk about, I welcome your calls. Here’s the number, 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And we have a couple of lines open right now, so if you call now, it’s a good chance you’ll get on. 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Michaela from Sacramento, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you, Steve, for taking my call. I do appreciate that. I also appreciate how detailed You are with your answers to a lot of Bible questions that you get on the air. It’s been very helpful to me.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, I’ve been told by some, and I’ve been doing this program for 29 years, I’ve certainly had a lot of people suggest you need to give shorter answers. You know, it’s boring. It’s too long. The guy who first got me into radio had a show, and he said, make sure your answers are no more than three minutes long or else you’ll lose the audience. I thought, well, the audience I will lose by going over three minutes with an answer are those who don’t have a very serious interest in the subject they’re asking about. Because I consider that if a question is important, it’s important enough to give persons a fairly complete answer. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
I do appreciate that. Okay, my question regards an issue in the Bible that refers to predestination, if I’m saying that correctly.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
My struggle is that I’ve been a Christian for about 20, 25 years of my life, and I struggle with this reference of predestination. If you could explain how people are able to lean on that and then the scriptures that they’re referencing to lean on that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, when you say this… When you say this reference to predestination, are you talking about Romans 8 or Ephesians 1? Those are the two places the word comes up.
SPEAKER 07 :
The one that I, you would have to explain it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
The one that refers to before the foundation of the… Yeah, I think you’re thinking of Ephesians 1, 4, if I’m not mistaken. Yeah, and it troubles me because I know some people say, well, that’s what Calvinism is all about, and…
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, Calvinism is kind of about that subject, but they don’t see the subject the same way Paul was referring to it, in my opinion. I believe that I’ll be glad to talk about that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure. I appreciate your call, Michaela. Okay, so predestination, that’s a big word in the Calvinist controversy. And in some cases, people who aren’t Calvinists, they just kind of deny predestination, which you can’t do. unless you’re going to edit the Bible. The Bible mentions predestination. On the other hand, to make predestination a major focus of theology is to not resemble the Scripture very much at all, because Paul only has two places where he actually uses the word predestinated or predestined. when he’s referring to us. Now, there are times when Peter mentions that Jesus was predestined before the world began, but was manifest in his last times for us and so forth. Jesus was predestined. But when it talks about you or me or Christians being predestined, there’s really two passages in Paul, and the word is used in passing. That’s important. I mean, if it’s only mentioned one time, then it’s a biblical subject that we have to endeavor to understand. Two times, even more so. But to suggest that it is a major theme of theology is to ignore the fact that 99.9% of the writings of the New Testament make no reference to it at all. But if you have a verse or two that do, then that makes it something for us to understand and know. Now, I believe in predestination, but not the way the Calvinist usually represents it. Predestined means to affix a destiny in advance. Pre means in advance. Destined means to assign some end goal, some destiny. So to be predestined means that God has previously predestined. affixed and determined a particular goal. Now, when it says that we are predestined, we have to understand that that can be understood two very different ways. The way the Calvinist understands it is that you are predestined, and I am predestined, and each individual is predestined either to go to heaven or go to hell, they would say. That is, before the world began, God had before him all the names of all the people who were ever going to live or die in the whole course of human history. And he picked some of the names and predestined them to get saved. And the other names he just passed over and didn’t predestinate. Now, Calvin himself and the Westminster Confession of Faith actually are a little more robust in their statements about those that God didn’t predestinate to be saved. It says he predestined them to be lost. That is to say, God not only said, I’m going to save this group of people, he said, I’m going to condemn this people to hell. And this decision was made before anyone was born. And they would say that the list of the elect, which they would identify with the predestined, the elect are a number that cannot be added to or subtracted from, they say, because it’s a total number of people who will ever live, Who will ever be saved? And they are the elect. They are predestined to salvation. That is what Calvinism teaches. In other words, they see predestination as an individualistic thing. Now, it is true that the Bible does speak of God choosing people individually for certain vocations. Paul said he was chosen from his mother’s womb. We know that Jeremiah was chosen from his mother’s womb. To be a prophet. Paul was chosen to be an apostle. Jesus took the twelve into the upper room and said, you know, you have not chosen me. I’ve chosen you and ordained you to go out and bear much fruit. There are individuals whom God has chosen, like Samson was chosen before he was born. And God has in mind something for them. Now, this is not the same thing as predestining someone for salvation. Because Samson, by the way, I mean, I guess he was saved, but he certainly dropped the ball in his spiritual walk in his lifetime. But predestination, in that sense, does not have anything to do specifically with whether they will get saved or not. It has to do with what God’s going to do with them, apparently knowing they will be saved. God knows, I believe God knows who’s going to be saved. Of course, there are Christians who have a different theology than that, but as an Arminian myself, I believe God is aware of who will be saved. And some, he has chosen for specific callings, like apostles and prophets and things like that. And some of those, maybe all of them, were chosen by God before they were born. But this is not the same thing as talking about predestination, where Paul talks about how we are predestined. In my opinion, Paul is talking about the whole church is predestined for something. Now, There’s only really two places where this subject comes up using this kind of language in the Bible. One is in Romans chapter 8, where in verse 29 and 30, Paul says, Okay. So there’s a group of people at the beginning of this sentence whom God foreknew. That’s the subject, or I guess that’s the object of the sentence. The ones that God foreknew. Okay, we’re going to talk about them. He predestined for them to be conformed to the image of Christ. That’s the first thing we read about predestination. God knew some people beforehand. Based on his knowledge beforehand, he predestined them… To what? To get saved? No. No, he doesn’t say anything about them getting saved. He talks about them becoming conformed to the image of Christ. This is the end goal of the Christian life. Paul talks about it. John talks about it. John says in 1 John 3, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know when he shall appear, we will be like him. We will be conformed to his image. That’s what’s happening now. through our life as we walk with Christ. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3.18, We all with unveiled faces, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed from glory to glory into that same image. That is the image of Christ. God is changing us, and he has predestined that we, the church, will be conformed into the image of Christ. Now, it doesn’t say here or anywhere else that God predestined who would become a Christian. And I believe those that he foreknew refers to those who would, in fact, become Christians. If you’re a Christian and God knew that you’d be a Christian, he predestined something for us. Now, us, I believe, it can be individual or collective. He has a plan for the church. He knew there would be a church. Before the foundation of the world, he knew he was going to send Christ. Christ would gather disciples. Christ would live and die and rise again, pour out his spirit and collect to himself members of his own body, of his own community. God knew that before any of us were born. And if he knew every individual in it, that’s fine, but that’s not the point. The point is not that he knew the individual. And the Bible everywhere indicates that those who will be in that group are the ones that choose to be in that group, those who believe, those who repent. Those who follow Christ. Those who are his disciples. Now, the Bible indicates in so many ways that we decide whether we’ll believe or repent. And we know that’s true because if we don’t, we’re held responsible for it. God’s going to judge those who don’t believe. He’s going to judge those who don’t repent. So, obviously, you can’t be judged for something that was never in your power to do or not do. This is something that humans are responsible for as individuals. And we’re all responsible to embrace Christ. And if we do, we are then included, the Holy Spirit inserts us into this company of believers that’s called the body of Christ or the church. Now, okay, so it’s this body, it’s this church that God has predestined to collectively become like Jesus. Now, I say collectively become like Jesus because that’s what Paul says also in Ephesians, in Ephesians 4. Verse 11 through 13, it says, He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ until… We all, plural, come into the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a singular perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So collectively, we, the body of Christ, will become a mature man, which is described as being of the measure of the stature and fullness of Christ. It’s a collective growth. Now, the fact that he says we will become a perfect man or a mature man is a follow-up on what he said two chapters earlier when he said that God took the believing Jew and the believing Gentile, removed the middle wall of partition between them, and made in himself from them one new man, meaning the body of Christ. The body of Christ is a new man made up of the Jews and Gentiles in Christ, Paul said. Now, that new man… is going to grow up into a mature man. And that mature man will be of the fullness of the stature of Christ. So Paul’s theology is that God has a purpose and a predestined purpose for those who are in Christ collectively. Now, I believe that this does not rule out the individual likeness of Christ of each of us because it’s like we’re members of a body. When I was a little child growing up, my body got bigger. collectively, all the members of my body grew too, individually. My hands got bigger, my toes got bigger, my legs got longer, and all of this was part of the whole collective body getting to be a more mature body. So the body matures as individuals mature. And that’s why Paul says there in Ephesians 4, until we all come unto a mature man, and then in the next verse, or it is the next verse, that we should no longer be children. That means individually, tossed to and fro and carried away by every wind of doctrine. As the whole body is growing collectively, each member of the body is also growing individually, so that we as individuals will not be immature either. So Paul is saying that God has predestined that those that he foreknew, his church, his people, individually and collectively, will be conformed to the image of Christ. That’s what Romans 8, verse 29 says. He predestined for those whom he foreknew that they would be conformed to the image of Christ. Now, the other passage on the subject is Ephesians 2. And I’m sorry, Ephesians one. And Paul says there in verse four, just as he chose us in him. Now, he doesn’t use the predestined here, but he does also in the chapters. We’ll see a little later. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons. by Jesus Christ to himself. So he chose us, the church, collectively. He chose the collective church to inherit heavenly blessings and be holy and without blame. And he predestined us. This may specifically refer to individuals in the church. I don’t know. But it doesn’t say he predestined us for salvation. It says he predestined us for adoption as sons. Now, you might say, well, isn’t that the same thing as getting saved, being adopted as a son? Not to Paul. In Romans chapter 8, he refers to the adoption. We’re waiting for the adoption, which he says is the, he’s talking about the resurrection, the redemption of the body, our bodies at the resurrection of Jesus. That’s in, by the way, Romans 8. Let me just read the verses that say that so you’ll know that. It says in Romans 8, 22 and 23, for we know that the whole creation groans and and labors with birth pangs together in Tenel, and not only they, but we also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body that happens when Jesus comes back. So when Paul talks about the adoption, he’s not talking about when we first got saved. He’s talking about us coming into the new creation physically in the resurrection. So when Paul says in Ephesians 1.5, he predestines us to adoption. He’s talking about, again, us being glorified at the resurrection when we will be like Jesus. What God has predestined for the church is that we will be like Jesus. This will happen, finally, at the resurrection when we take on glorified bodies like his. This is what Paul teaches. And those are the only places that talk about predestination. The Paul doesn’t talk about individuals being predestined to become part of the church or to become believers. He talks about the church collectively as having a corporate destiny that God has predestined for it. Now, I can be part of the church or not, depending on if I follow Christ or not. If I don’t follow Christ, I will not be part of that. If I do follow Christ, I will be. And that’s kind of largely up to me. I’m not saying that God doesn’t have a major role to play because no one can come to Christ without God’s previous drawing. But at the same time, he draws many people who don’t come. The point is, God draws, he tries to get everyone to come to Christ, but… Some will and some won’t. That’s pretty much going to be their decision in the final analysis. And if you come to Christ, then you are part of that collective church for which there is a collective destiny that God has predestined. But when one represents predestination the way the Calvinists do, they’re basically saying that you look at any individual alive today and he is either predestined to get saved or or predestined not to get saved. Well, Paul never uses the word predestination in that sense. He never speaks of anyone being predestined to be saved or predestined to be lost. But he does talk about the church collectively. We whom God foreknew. We who were collectively chosen by God to be for the blessings that come. It’s not we who were individually predestined. It’s the corporate body that was selected. Just like Israel. Israel was the chosen or elect nation. But any individual could join it or abandon it. A Jew who violated the covenant could be cut off from the people. The Bible says that many times in the law. And a Gentile could become part of the people. They weren’t born to it, but when they joined it, they were in it. They were part of the chosen people, collective. Israel as a nation had a destiny of And a Gentile or a Jew could be part of it or not, as they wished. But it didn’t change the fact that the collective was the chosen people. And it’s the same thing. You could be part of Christ or not. He’s the chosen one. If you are in him, then you’re chosen in him, too. So that’s what the Bible teaches about those things. George in Covina, California, good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi, Steve. Hey. So… I recently heard a teaching on Galatians 2.20 on YouTube by E.W. Kenyon entitled, Christ in you is not a metaphor.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, at the time, I had no clue who E.W. Kenyon was, but however, the teaching, which was narrated by one of those professional voiceover people, it really impacted me, you know, deeply, I would say. It made a very convincing case for Paul’s declaration in Galatians 2.20 as being something that all born-again believers can confidently declare for themselves as a reality. So can I just read that Galatians 2.20 right now? Sure. This is the New Living Translation, which says, My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. So that’s the declaration which this teaching makes a strong case that each of us, individually, can… avail ourselves of Christ’s resurrection power. But, you know, my major concern now is that since having heard that E.W. Kenyon is the founder of the Word of Faith movement, which I believe is heretical, you know, it’s not like having been so impacted by that message and now finding out that, you know, this message was from a heretical teacher now, I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater as it were. So what would you say about all of that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure. Well, it’s true. E.W. Kenyon was, in a sense, the mentor of the earliest leaders. Kenneth Hagin and, of course, now Kenneth Copeland, people who were mentored by Kenneth Hagin. Kenneth Hagin is sometimes called the granddaddy of the Word of Faith movement. He’s the… he kind of started it, but he got his ideas, at least the ones that were distinctive of his movement, from E.W. Kenyon, who was an earlier generation who had written, and by the way, Kenneth Hagin often quoted Kenyon. Although when, what’s interesting, there’s a book that came out back in the 90s, I think it was, which I think was called A Different Gospel, and it was about the Word of Faith teaching, and it it actually had parallel columns on its pages showing passages out of E.W. Kenyon and passages out of Hagen’s works side by side where you could see it was direct plagiarism. Now, what’s interesting is that Hagen claimed that he got these ideas before he discovered Kenyon and that Kenyon only confirmed them to him. But actually, in his early writings, Hagen is practically plagiarizing Kenyon word for word. I saw that book back in the 90s. I’m sure it’s still available. It’s called A Different Gospel. Kenyon, you know, yeah, he was the wellspring of this movement, which, as you say, is a heretical movement. Now, let me say this. That doesn’t mean you’ll never hear one true thing ever come out of his mouth. When the devil tries to spread heresies in the body of Christ, he… you’ll never find that everything that the heresy says or everything that the teachers say are false. It would be too quick to prove them false to anyone who knows the Bible. Heretics often know a great deal of the Bible and a great deal of biblical truth. Now, by the way, I did hear that message from E.W. King that you’re referring to about Christ and me. And, you know, most of it I had no problem with. But, I mean, I would have had no problem with it before I ever heard of the word of faith either. I mean, Back in the Jesus movement, we used to sing Galatians 2.20, you know, I am crucified to Christ, nevertheless I live. That was one of our choruses we sang every day. You know, and it was something we thought about a lot. And it’s something that when I listened to the YouTube of Kenyon’s message, it wasn’t, he didn’t say much different than what I had already thought and what I think most of us thought. That what Paul is saying is, is that we have a new life that is Christ’s life. Now, of course, that’s imparted to us by the Spirit of Christ, which we call the Holy Spirit also. When Peter says, and I think Kenyon even said this verse on there, in 2 Peter 1.4, Peter says, we have become partakers of the divine nature. Yeah, we’re not just Jesus fan club. We are Jesus’ extension on earth. His Spirit is embodied in us. We are his hands and his feet. And we are his corporate body doing his work through him in his name and through the life that he has put in us. That’s true. Now, Kenyon went further and he made hints about how we should be controlling situations. And that could be true if it means we should be controlling our behavior. but knowing the word of faith as I do, I think Kenyon’s statement was, I mean, we should be controlling realities, like we shouldn’t allow us to be sick or poor, things like that. He didn’t get into that in detail in that message, but that is what he believed, and that’s also what his followers believed. So all I can say is that even people who are heretical, they can occasionally see some things correctly. I mean, what he was saying there is fairly orthodox, I think. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, as they say. So, you know, I like the message for the most part, but I wouldn’t become a follower of his about these things. Hey, George, I need to take a break here. Thanks for joining us. Our website’s thenarrowpath.com. I’m going to take off for about 30 seconds. We have another half hour. Do not go away.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour. Taking your calls, although our lines are full, and we probably will not be getting any new calls into the switchboard in this half hour. If we do get some open spaces and room for you to call in, I’ll give the number out again and we can take your calls. If we can’t get you today, call tomorrow. We’re on Monday through Friday at this same time, live, taking phone calls in order that they appear. And the next one, in order of appearance, is from Victoria in Burnaby, British Columbia. Hi, Victoria. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. Can you expand on Matthew 25, the parable of the ten virgins?
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, hang on a minute. Your voice, your phone is very, very, you’ve got a bad connection or something. You did say Matthew 25, the parable of, which parable? There’s three parables. Oh, the ten virgins?
SPEAKER 05 :
The ten virgins.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
Sure. And five were wise and five were foolish.
SPEAKER 02 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 05 :
And if you could just expound on that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you for your call, Victoria. Yeah, there are three parables in Matthew 25 that are, I think, all related to the final judgment or the end of the world in some sense. There’s the parable of the ten virgins, which I will expound on as you asked. There’s a parable of the talents, which again talks about how the servants of Christ, when he returns… will be judged and rewarded according to how they’ve used the resources he’s given them. Then there’s the story of the parable of the sheep and the goats, which also is about the judgment, where the sheep are those who served Christ’s people, and he took it as done unto himself, and they were rewarded for that. The parable of the ten virgins, just so we know, the issue here is not about virginity. Some translations… referred to them as bridesmaids. And it’s referring to bridesmaids. It’s talking about the Jewish wedding customs, that the bridesmaids are the friends of the bride who do not know when the bridegroom may leave his house with his bachelor friends to come and pick up the bride, to come to her house and commence the wedding. This was a Jewish custom. And so Jesus’ hearers, being Jewish, would know very well. He’s talking about a case where there’s a betrothed bride and groom. This is the wedding night. They don’t know it’s the wedding night. I mean, the people don’t know that because you never know when the groom’s going to come and commence the wedding. But in order that the bride might not be taken totally by surprise, her friends, her bridesmaids, they go out to watch. and listen for the coming of the bridegroom and his company. And since he might come at night, he could come day or night, but since he might come at night, they’re going to need lamps, that is, oil lamps. We sometimes forget how dark it can be when you don’t have street lights and city lights and things like that at night. Literally, it can be so dark you’d be tripping over every rock and so forth. So when you go out at night in those days, you had to have lamps of some kind or torches. Now, there were ten of these bridesmaids. Their job is to light the way. When the bridegroom is coming with his friends, if he happens to come at night, they don’t know when he’s going to come. But when he does, they are to light the way and accompany him to the bride’s house. And so this is what this is the setting. Now, it says that these ten bridesmaids, five of them were wise and five were foolish. Now, what distinguished between them? Actually, the only thing that he mentions that distinguished between them is that the wise ones took extra oil in their lamps and the foolish ones didn’t. I mean, they all had oil in their lamps, I suppose, but the foolish ones just figured, well, if I run out of oil, I run out of oil. Hopefully the bridegroom will come before I run out of oil. The wise ones knew that he might not. He might not come before they run out of oil, so they took spare. They took more oil with them just so that they’d be ready if it was a long wait. And it was very foolish for the foolish ones not to do so. Now, I believe the coming of the bridegroom… is a reference to the second coming of Christ. And the bridesmaids are like, frankly, the church waiting for Jesus to come. And the difference between them is the foolish ones thought he must come rather soon. And in the first century, I’m sure many of the Christians, possibly even the apostles, not knowing otherwise, thought maybe Jesus would come pretty soon. They had no idea. Jesus told them it was not for them to know the times or the seasons that the Father had put in his own authority, so they wouldn’t know But they might have just kind of felt perhaps it will be soon. Just like many generations of Christians since then have thought that it felt like it might be soon. But it hasn’t been. But the point is the foolish ones assumed they knew. They assumed they knew that he’d come soon enough that they wouldn’t need a longer wait and more oil. Whereas the wise ones knew that they had no guarantees whatsoever. of him coming soon. And they were simply prepared. By having extra oil, they were prepared just in case the wait ended up being longer than they hoped. And so I believe the oil, the extra oil as opposed to no extra oil, simply represents preparation to wait it out, to be ready no matter how long it takes for him to come. Now, many Christians have made an effort to identify the oil as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. And by the way, I think oil sometimes, in some contexts, is a symbol of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. But not always. I mean, sometimes it’s just an element in a story, like people who need lamps, they need oil. And a person could, if they wish, but I don’t think it’s necessarily valid, insist that Jesus is trying to make some kind of statement about the need for the Holy Spirit, having enough oil, being filled with the Spirit maybe. Now, as much as I believe in the need of the Holy Spirit and the need to be filled with the Spirit, I don’t think that’s necessarily what this parable is about. I think this parable is about no matter how long you may have to wait, you’d better be prepared at the time. And so, you know, Jesus told just in the previous chapter about a servant who was waiting for his master to come and kind of gave up on waiting because he took too long. And I think this parable kind of amplifies that. In chapter 24, verse 45, it says, Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his master, when he comes, shall find so doing. But then a little further down, verse 48, But if that evil servant says in his heart, My master is delaying his coming. Now, this is a servant who served his master for a while, waiting for his master, but his master waited so long, he just said, Ah, well… Maybe he’s not going to come in time soon. And so he says, my master’s Delane is coming and he begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards. The master of that servant will come on that day when he’s not looking for him and at an hour when he’s not aware of and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, this parable about the servant is immediately followed by the parable of the ten bridesmaids. Both of them have a situation where somebody is waiting for the appearance. The servants are waiting for the appearance of their master. The bridesmaids are looking for the appearance of the bridegroom. Both of these, I think, represent Christians waiting for Jesus to come back. And in the parable of the servant, because the master doesn’t come back as soon as he thought, he just kind of takes the edge off of his diligence and he begins to compromise. And eventually he’s so compromised that when the master does come, He is severely punished. And the bridesmaids have the same situation because the bridesmaids that do not have extra oil and do not have oil in their lamps when the bridegroom comes, they are locked outside the wedding. They’re excluded from it. And there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. So obviously both of these parables speak about, you know, Christians are waiting for Jesus to come back. And they’d better not get tired of waiting. Or at least if they do get tired of it, they better not be unprepared when he does come. This is a need to be faithful. And the bridesmaid’s story, in my opinion, specifically underscores the fact that since you have no idea how long the wait will be, and of course the disciples in the first century who heard Jesus say this definitely had no idea how long it would be. I’m sure it never occurred to them it would be 2,000 years and more. But it’s still true today. We still don’t know how long it will be. And you know I will say this during the Jesus movement in the 70s We were all told that Jesus was coming back immediately. I mean immediately Every year our pastor said it at New Year’s Eve I really think this coming year is probably when Jesus is going to come and you know many of us I didn’t go to college I Many people didn’t get married or have kids because they just thought, well, Jesus is coming too soon. You don’t make any long-term commitments here. And we were wrong, of course, because our teachers were wrong. But the point is, you know, some people, when Jesus didn’t come in the early 70s, they just gave up on following Christ. They went back to the world. Like the servant who said, my master delays his coming. He went back to living with the drunkards and so forth. Or like the bridesmaids who simply didn’t have any oil left after a certain point in time. So the wise bridesmaids are the ones who say, I don’t know if he’s coming soon. He could. He could come any time. I’m going to be ready if he comes right now. But you know, if he doesn’t come now. If it’s a long night, and if he doesn’t come during the night, you know, the early part of the night at all, however long it is, I’m going to be prepared. I’m bringing extra oil just so I’ll have some ready whenever it is he comes. That’s the message of that parable. It is be ready in case he doesn’t come soon. Now, you can imagine how relevant that was to anyone living back then or even a thousand years after them because we can look back in retrospect and say it’s been 2,000 years. But what many Christians are rather foolish about is they figure, well, it must be soon now. And I believe that we’re in a situation not very different than the 70s when it comes to some Christians. They’re all excited about the second coming of Christ. They’re looking at what’s going on in Israel. They’re looking at the world situation. They’re looking at everything we looked at 55 years ago from Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth and all the books like it. And they’re saying, oh, he’s going to come soon, soon, soon. But if he doesn’t, and he might not, many of them are just not ready to wait the rest of their lives. I really think that people need to take into consideration more than they’re encouraged to sometimes. That when you come to Christ to be his child and his servant and his bride, whatever, that’s a life commitment. You’re not just doing this for the next five or six years hoping to be ready in case he comes. You’re in it for the long haul. And that’s what these wise bridesmaids were. They were ready for life. you know, a long delay, if necessary. And that’s what everybody’s got to be. And that’s, I think, the lesson that was intended in that particular parable. All right. Let’s talk to Ryan in Greenville, South Carolina. Hi, Ryan. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I’m doing a master’s degree in apologetics, and as you can imagine, it’s a lot of reading. And I wanted to… I asked the question. I came across something that I don’t know how to answer. And it’s talking about the issue of evil, the Christian issue of evil. And it says, ultimately, at the end of the chapter, the reading says, And the question came to my mind. I’ve heard this phrase obviously before that at the cross this was defeated, but my question is why for 2,000 years do we still see the effects of pain, suffering, sin, and darkness if we say it was defeated?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Well, what happened at the cross and the defeat that is discussed in the New Testament related to that, I think, is that Satan was in some respects the rightful ruler of this world. And, in a sense, had an unchallenged control over the people of the world. With the exception of a few people, like in Israel, who were faithful to God. The rest of the world was worshipping demons for hundreds and hundreds of years. And Satan, you know, just had them in his lap. And, like it says in 1 John, the whole world lies on the lap of the wicked one. it was the devil’s world in a sense. Now, not in the ultimate sense, because even in Psalm 24, it says the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. But, I mean, God owns everything in the universe, but in the sphere of the drama and the battle over men’s minds and souls, God had allowed men to make their own choices, and most of them chose Satan as the one to follow temporarily. I mean, frankly, God wasn’t going to let that go on forever, nor is he. But, Satan was able, therefore, to control the minds of pretty much everybody, with the exception of a small number of people who were mostly in Israel. And most Israelites weren’t faithful either, but there were some who were, and that was God’s little remnant. But when Jesus came, he dethroned Satan. Jesus said, now all authority in heaven and earth belongs to me. Now, that just means that Satan doesn’t have any right to anybody. There’s a sense which Satan seemed to have the right to the Gentiles, to the nations, because they were not, I mean, they were pagans. Satan didn’t have the right to Israel because God had chosen them to be his people, but the world was the devil’s, in a sense. But now, when Jesus came out of the grave and said, all authority in heaven and earth belongs to me, of course, authority means the right to rule. And nobody else has any right to rule except him. That means Satan has no right to rule. And so Jesus said, therefore, go into all the nations, meaning the devil’s territory, go in there and teach these people to follow me, to obey all things I’ve commanded you. So the mission of Christ is a mission based on the fact that Christ is now the rightful king. The Bible teaches that when Jesus ascended to heaven, he sat down on the throne of God, and he’s reigning there until he puts all his enemies under his feet. It says in Psalm 110, verse 1, and of course Paul, and frankly several New Testament writers allude to it, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. And that’s what he’s doing. Now, ruling… He’s the ruler now. That’s done. Satan has no authority. So you might say, well, why is the world so evil still? Well, he’s not done with it yet, but if you could stand back and look at the trajectory of history since the time of the cross, the world has changed immensely due to the presence of the gospel. I mean, the barbarism and the evil that pervaded the entire world simply has been greatly mitigated. And it might take a few thousand years more before it’s finally brought down. We don’t know. We have no idea what the future holds exactly or what time frame. But the Bible indicates that God, of course, since Jesus is the king, he could send 12 legions of angels and just wipe out all his enemies. That’s not what he wants to do. He wants them all to become his loyalists. He wants everyone to become his disciples. But that’s their choice, which means it’s not an instant thing. If Jesus sent the angels out to slaughter all the wicked, he could get this job done in about 10 seconds. But he doesn’t want to get it done that way. He doesn’t want anyone to perish, but that all should come to repentance, it says in 2 Peter 3. So since he doesn’t want them to perish but to come to repentance, that takes a little while because a lot of people are resistant to it, and some never do. Some never do, but many will. if he’s patient enough. And that’s exactly what he says in 2 Peter 3. You know, God is patient towards you, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So God does, he still tolerates people in rebellion only because his mission is moving forward and converting as many of those as he can. And, you know, the nations have been tremendously changed. I mean, all the continents have been powerfully invaded by Christianity. There are some I mean, there’s churches, there’s followers of Christ in every nation of the world. And from those groups of Christians, people are being evangelized in all the world. Obviously, there’s some parts of the world succumbed more quickly. You know, Europe, of course, through Paul’s ministry and others, eventually became, you know, submissive to the gospel earlier than many. Then it, you know, Europe, of course… colonized North and South America and Australia and some parts of Southern Asia. And, you know, so the gospel went to those places too. But there are some parts of the world, especially the Muslim world right now and some parts of East Asia, I guess, we’d have to say that are still largely, you know, not influenced as much as they will be. But the reason it’s evil is only because God has not decided to just step in and force all evil people to submit at the point of the sword. Because that would not be a true submission. Anyone would probably bow at sword point or gun point. But God wants to change hearts. And changing hearts is a whole lot harder than overcoming people physically. Most world conquerors have done so physically with armies. God does it with his word, which is the sword of the spirit. And his word, you know, winning hearts. That’s what the campaign is about. In the meantime, while he is patiently doing this, those who are still serving Satan, even wrongfully, because he has no authority, but they don’t know that, and they’d rather serve him anyway, they’re doing a lot of bad stuff. And, you know, that’s why evil continues. But, you know, Jesus is now the ruler. And his kingdom is like a little mustard seed, he said, that’s growing and expanding. Daniel described it as a little stone that grows to a great mountain to fill the whole earth. God’s kingdom was established when Jesus came and has been spreading through the gospel of the kingdom being preached to every nation. Remember, Jesus said this gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end shall come. So, you know, we could say, well, if I were him, I’d just kind of wipe out the opposition and let’s have paradise here now. Yeah, well, maybe if you were given the authority he had, you might, but if you were him, you wouldn’t. Because if you were him, you’d want everyone to convert willingly. And whether, even if you know that they’re not all going to do it, you’re going to want as many as possible to do it, which means you have to be patient. And you have to influence them and change their hearts, which is what the gospel has been doing for the past 2,000 years. And, I mean, some people say, well, we haven’t really gotten very far in 2,000 years. Yeah, really? Do you know that a third of the population of the earth identifies as Christians? Now, I don’t know who’s a real Christian, who’s not. But when Jesus was here, When the Spirit came down at Pentecost, there were 120 people on the planet who identified as Christians. Through the missionary efforts of the church and the expansion of the kingdom of God through the preaching of the gospel, there are now a third of the population of the world who identify themselves as Christians. And I know they’re not all Christians. But they at least named the name of Christ, and that’s a huge number of people compared to what it was 2,000 years ago. So, I mean, he’s made tremendous strides. But he’s not in that big a hurry like we are. That’s what Peter’s talking about in 2 Peter 3 when he says, A day to the Lord is like a thousand years. A thousand years like a day. He’s saying God isn’t on the same timetable as we are. He’s not hurried like we are. He’s not in a rush. He wants to get the job done and get it done right. And while he does, he’s not interfering very much with those who are still perpetrating evil, except insofar as he’s reaching out to them and trying to get them to convert. So that’s how I would understand that whole cosmology of suffering and why it continues. We’re running out of time. Quickly, let’s get as many as we can in here. Wendell from Evansville, Indiana. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, Steve, you did it again. You got me down a rabbit hole chasing Bollinger’s hyper-dispensationalism. And I listened to a Schofield dispensationalist critique, criticize Bollinger’s hyper-dispensationalism. And I thought, you know, it sounds to me like a Mormon criticizing a Muslim. You talk about a bunch of house of cards. And trying to sort all that out is just mind-boggling. And God bless you, Steve, for doing all that and doing it graciously. And I was reading to Timothy today, and I thought of you. I thought, you know, keep up teaching sound doctrine.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, thanks. Is there something I can do for you today?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well… Not really. I want somebody else to talk. Okay.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I appreciate your appreciation. God bless you, brother. Yeah, we do have a lot of people waiting and only a few minutes left, so let’s see if we can get some more in here. Mark from Groton, Massachusetts, or Groton, probably, or Groton. Hello, Mark. Welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Groton, yes. Hi, Mark. Hi, Steve. In response to your first caller that you had about Calvinism, a Calvinistic preacher I know here in central Massachusetts, he told me that 1 Timothy 2.3 is basically translated wrong. He said instead of where it says, This is good and pleases God, our Savior, who wants all men to be saved. He says, really, in the Greek, it reads, God wants all kinds of men to be saved.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right, that’s what they always argue. They always argue that. Now, if he thinks the Greek says that, he’s quite mistaken. The Greek just says all men. Now, of course, the Calvinists can say, well, this can mean not all without exception. It might mean all without distinction. Now, in other words, instead of saying that every last person, God wants them all saved, which is what we believe, but Calvinists don’t. The Calvinists believe that this means all men, that is all of all races. Not necessarily without any exception of any person, but without distinction. Not just Jews, but Jews and Gentiles. They think that’s what Paul is saying. But that’s not in the Greek. The Greek reads just like the English. It says God desires all men to be saved. The question is whether all men should be understood as the Calvinists do, as all without distinction, that is every race of man, but not necessarily every individual man, or whether it means every individual man. The thing is, in this passage, Paul uses the expression all men several times. And one of them is in the first verse, just two verses earlier. He says, therefore, I exhort, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life. And then it says in verse 4, who desires all men to be saved. And then in verse 6, who gave himself a ransom for all. So three times in this first six verses, Paul mentions all or all men. He says we should pray for all men. That includes rulers. Now here’s the thing. The Calvinists think that all men means all the elect. God wants all the elect to be saved. Christ died and gave himself a ransom for all the elect. They don’t believe the non-elect are included in God’s mission or his purposes. So they want Paul to be saying we should pray for all the elect, meaning from all races and all classes of people. However, when he says for rulers, he We know that he says all men for rulers and others. Well, rulers sometimes are elect, some are not. I mean, some of the rulers are believers and some are not believers. But he says we should pray for basically all the rulers, which means that he’s not speaking of people particularly of various races, nor certainly of the elect alone. So when he says Christ died as a ransom for all, I have to assume that he means the same all he was talking about in verse one and earlier, which means all people, including rulers and as well as lesser people. So now he’s if he says the Greek says that he’s mistaken. The Greek says it just the way it does in English. But the question is not what the Greek says, but how the Greek should be and what framework it should be interpreted by. a Calvinist or non-Calvinist. I’m out of time. Thanks for calling. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out, and let’s talk again tomorrow.
