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[Music] Good afternoon and welcome to the narrow path radio broadcast my name is Steve Greg and we’re live for an hour each week the afternoon as we are right now so that you and other listeners can call in if you have questions you want to raise on the air about the Bible or about Christianity or maybe a difference of opinion from the host you’d like to comment about to balance comment be glad to hear from you right now there are two lines open the rest are full the number to call is 844 484 57 37 that’s 844 484 57 37 if you’d like to be on the air today I’ve been mentioning all week long this debate tomorrow tomorrow night and I did not arrange this I’m just being kept in the loop as as changes have been made and it’s even a little up in the air right now but I was originally told that I’d be debating our friend Max the atheist on the subject of the Resurrection of Christ I was later informed that that was not quite correct that Max had wanted to debate on a different subject but that there’s another another atheist who would debate me on that subject and so though his name was not given to me and as recently yesterday I’ve been told this not even clear whether he’s available so here it is Friday and the debate is supposed to be tomorrow night all I can say is that watch our website for the latest news or you can just kind of log into or go to the YouTube channel modern day debate it’s called modern day debate on YouTube it’s five o’clock tomorrow evening is every time and you know if you go there I I assume the debate is happening though almost every day I’ve heard different changes in what’s going on and therefore if if for some reason this fellow is not going to debate then it looks like it won’t happen but I’m available and as far as I know it’s going on to night at five o’clock there’s a possibility since I don’t know all the latest information that it may may not go on anyway that’s all I really have to say because I don’t know anything more about it than that I wish I could give you more certain ideas we’re going to talk to Kurt from Florida first of all today Kurt welcome to the narrow path thanks for calling hey Steve thank you first I just want to say thank you for all that you do your great resource you challenge me to make me think and it’s greatly appreciated so you’re welcome so the question I have is what are as Christians today what are we to make of Jeremiah 209-11 I know I have for you says the Lord plans okay not to harm you and that yes sorry well of course we whenever you’re reading the prophets and and the things they predict or the things they promise we have to first of all take into consideration what was going on when they wrote and who were they writing to and realize in the message that we’re reading in their books primarily and initially has evidence to the people that they’re addressing but there’s another level of interest in the passage and that is are there people today maybe do we fall into a category that would be analogous to those people and and God being the same yesterday I hit forever would any promises or any any attitudes he mentions in this passage spill over into other cases that are you know similar to that and that we have to do that with this passage two of course Jeremiah 29 is a letter that Jeremiah in Jerusalem is writing to the Jews who have already been taken captive in the now eventually all of the Jews in in Jerusalem except for the ones that escaped Egypt like like Jeremiah would they’ll be all taken into Babylon Babylon came three times against Jerusalem once was in 605 BC when Daniel and his friends were taken later in 597 BC Ezekiel and others were taken with King Jack and I into captivity and then in 586 BC the Babylonians came back burned down the temple took the rest of the people into captivity except for the ones like Jeremiah and some who escaped Egypt but essentially with the exception of relatively few all the people of Jerusalem were going to go away into Babylon into captivity but some already had been this was after for example Daniel had gone into captivity with his friends this is after Ezekiel was carried away so far so there was a quite a few a lot of Jews who had been taken captive into Babylon already the remainder that were in Jerusalem would soon be taken as well now he’s writing to them because there are false prophets among them in Babylon does the Jewish communities now resettled in Babylon against their will had among them there Jewish people who were professing to be prophets and they were prophesying to the people in captivity that this captivity would be very brief that actually they shouldn’t even settle in because God was going to very quickly release them so they go back to Jerusalem now Jeremiah knew otherwise Jeremiah had predicted back in verse 25 a chapter 25 that they’re going to be there for 70 years and so he wrote this letter to them to tell them not to believe what the false prophets are saying not to believe that this is going to be a short vacation in Babylon this is going to be 70 years longer going to be there for a long time and so will their children and their children’s children and so he writes them and tells them to settle in become content there work for the peace of the society that they live among now the Babylonians and realize that God hasn’t forsaken them and in the middle of that he says in verse 11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you says the Lord thoughts of peace not of evil to give you a future and a hope” then he says “and then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart” now these are specific statements made to those people contemporary with Jeremiah living in Babylon in the circumstances that I just described but honestly there’s a sense in which all of God’s people are in a parallel kind of circumstance. In fact, first Peter writing to Christians throughout the world refers to them as the diaspora scattered abroad Peter writing to the diaspora he’s using the same term that was used actually for the Jews scattered away from Israel ever since the time of the fall of Samaria in 722 BC most Israelites have lived outside of the land of Israel in what is called the diaspora and Peter acts like Christians are kind of in a parallel situation, we’re also in a diaspora, we’re away from our home, our citizenship is in heaven and we’re here in a domiciled here on this planet so there are parallels and they are the kinds of parallels and these are the kinds of statements in Jeremiah that are relatively generic toward God’s people I mean, you know, the parts that say “well you’re going to have to live there for a while, it’s going to be a while” obviously some things are unique to their case but when he says “work for the peace of the land that you dwell in” because in their good you will experience good and so forth well that’s probably true of Christians whatever lands we live in and certainly it’s the case that we God could certainly say to his people in Christ I know the thoughts I think toward you says the Lord and some translations say the plans I have toward you, plans of peace and not of evil well that’s certainly true God doesn’t have evil intended for his people but he has good plans for us to give you a future and a hope but one way that may not be precisely parallel is that those people God was going to leave them alone now for a while they’re going to cool their heels and babbling the worst was in a sense passed for them because they’d been through an invasion they’d been carried away captive they’d been removed from their homes and friends that was a bad thing but now they were settled into a situation that wasn’t going to be such a crisis situation they could have been there and they should just settle in and count on being there for a while and that was a promise he was making to them in that situation now we can’t really say that God is promising all Christians everywhere that they’re going to peace where they’re living maybe the peace that passes understanding but in terms of having tranquility in terms of having no further molestation from enemies and things like that there’s certainly we can’t argue that God is saying that to us right now it is true that his plans for us are good ones but they may not be exactly the same in character as the plans he had for these people he’s writing to there but it’s also the next few words say you’ll search for him you’ll find me when you seek for me with all your heart we certainly quote that a lot out of context but I think we can I think that’s basically how God is you know he wants to be sought and he wants to be found in the book of Hebrews it says that you know those who would come to God must believe that he exists that he is the re-water of those who diligently seek him it says in Hebrews 11 so the New Testament affirms that those who seek God diligently will find him and that’s the promise that God made to these people too so obviously these people had elements of their situation that are parallel to God’s people at all time namely God is on their side all things work together for good to those who love God his plans for them are good plans those who seek God with all their hearts will find him those are kind of universal things and they applied to the people Jeremiah’s writing to no more or less than they applied to all of God’s people at all times but some specifics of what God was saying to them of course as in all prophecies of the Old Testament some of the specifics apply fairly uniquely to the people that first received the message although there might be in some cases parallels in history where people are in you know analogous situations that’s the thing even when we read the New Testament the epistles for example we realize that we’re reading promises and instructions and corrections given to particular churches in the first century we realize that’s what they were the epistles were directed toward an original audience and the specifics in the epistles apply to that original audience more exactly than to anyone else but there’s lots of churches throughout history including at the present time that have almost precisely the same circumstances going on as those churches had and the instructions there we can see well that that would apply to us now too because our situation isn’t really much different than the church in Galatia or the church in Corinth or the church in Philippi or the church in Colossia or something so that’s how we take the Bible we recognize that the prophets and the New Testament epistles are written to actual situations and it has those situations where they have the most exact application but because God doesn’t change and His commitment to His people and His standards and morals are always the same obviously there’s plenty of application to modern situations where we might not be the exact same situation they are but we’re close enough or at least to the degree that we are then His words to them probably would be applicable to us as well as to them Awesome though I appreciate that very much Thank you Good talking to you, God bless you Our next caller is Victor from Colorado Thank you for welcoming Hello, can you hear me okay? Yeah there’s a lot of other noise but go ahead, I can hear you Thanks, I just want to quick-trip our question So I was curious first of all Jesus said that we should love one another and love God but then it also says that we can’t please God about faith So I was wondering what was more important love for faith and then my second question is what’s the good remedy for weakening faith? A good remedy for doing what was faith? A good remedy for doing what was faith? I see, I see Okay, so those are the two questions The noise on your line is sufficient, I’m going to take you off the air I will go ahead and ask your questions So it says in Hebrews 11 that without faith it’s impossible to please God So we have to have faith to please God Jesus also said that the great command is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your name as yourself So the question is which is more important love or faith? Now you know I really don’t see how that is Why that’s the dichotomy? Love and faith are not things we have to choose between in a relationship like for a married man What’s more important from to love his wife or to trust his wife? Well, it’s not a very good marriage if either of those things are deficient Why should he choose between them? Why can’t he trust her and love her? Or if he can’t trust her, at least why can’t he be trustworthy so she can trust him? In other words faith or mutual trust is a quality of a relationship The more you trust somebody and the more they can trust you, the more solid the relationship is The more intimate the relationship is Likewise love, love is when you’re committed to the other person’s good about the good of yourself You’re putting them ahead of yourself That’s what love is Now is there any reason why a man or woman in a marriage cannot both be fully trustworthy and trusting of their spouse and also putting their interests above themselves? Those are not like opposite ends of a continuum Those are characteristics of the proper relationship and I would expect, although obviously there are subpar marriages I would assume that every good marriage and there must be billions of those in history that has been characterized by both and that’s what’s to be characterized in our relationship with God and with Christ we should fully trust him, that’s faith and we should truly put his interests above our own, that’s love and you know I’ve never occurred to me that I have to focus on one or the other unless I’m deficient in one or the other but it’s not as if one has priority of each other Now technically someone might say well in 1 Corinthians 13 it says now abide these three faith, hope and love and the greatest is love so that we say well if you want to really ask what’s more important faith or love I guess technically maybe love is the most Instagrams but I’m not sure that it’s so much greater than faith as to be as for it’s important to be distinguished from it so you know I’m not going to, I don’t think we’re supposed to put those two things in a balance against each other and say well which one is heftier which one is more important I would say that you won’t be a good Christian if you’re not speaking to be eminent and both of those are trusting God completely and loving God completely Now you said what’s a good remedy that someone can use if their faith is diminishing or becoming weaker Well I will say that there’s a number of things about that I actually have a lecture where I talk about that about increasing faith in our series have a website called the foundations among the foundations are repentance and faith and baptism and so forth and in the lectures about faith I do talk about that but of course most evangelicals would answer maybe rather glibly read the Bible more because the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God although Paul is not in that particular place talking about reading the Bible his readers probably didn’t have full Bible to read but he’s saying that we cannot really have faith in anything about God unless he tells us in his word unless he speaks to us about it so when we hear from God it is our obligation to believe it and if somebody never hears the Word of God they won’t have any particular content to fix their faith too is what Paul’s talking about On the other hand it is true this I have found it to be true the more I read and meditate on the Word of God the more it does nurture my faith partly because as you read the Word of God what is faith? I mean what faith is trusting and why do you trust somebody? well because you have found them to be trustworthy that’s why you trust somebody if you have found someone not to be trustworthy you can’t trust them unless you’re delusional if someone only lies to you and you say I’m going to believe in anyway well you’re just delusional I’m talking about normal sensible people you will trust those people that you find to be trustworthy you will distrust those who prove themselves to be distrustworthy so to have more faith or trusting God you need to become more aware of his own trustworthiness now there’s a number of ways to do that reading the scripture is certainly one of them even if it’s just reading the stories of Jesus or the stories of God in the Bible seeing that he makes promises and he keeps his promises his Word is true he’s reliable I mean the more you become acquainted with him the more you become convinced that God and Jesus are trustworthy the more you’ll just naturally trust them because you do you do naturally trust anyone that you count to be trustworthy it’s not even an effort to do so it’s when you’re not sure if they’re trustworthy that it’s an effort to believe what they say so becoming acquainted with God the things he has done, the things he’s promised you’ve promised you’ve promised you’ve promised the things he has done, the things he’s promised you find those things in the Bible and it does nurture your faith but more than that I would say you need to also be mindful of the fact that God is in your life even now that you when you pray and when prayers are answered you might want to keep a journal of that a lot of people say, well I pray but I never see answers to prayer well I don’t know how long we’ve been doing that but I would say this I have not noticed any answers to yet but there’s also been a ton of prayers over the years that were amazingly answered amazingly answered I can’t remember all of them right now there’s some that come to mind quickly whenever I want to bring it up but there’s got to be a hundred times as many honestly because I’ve been walking with God fifty years or more sixty years and so you know there’s been a lot of prayers answered but I forget a lot of them now I think it’s very advisable to journal answered prayers when God answers a prayer that builds your faith if you read over such a journal and remind yourself of those times it also builds your faith and I will say this David you know had a lot of faith to go and confront Goliath but one reason he did is because he said you know I once as a shepherd I had to confront a lion and another time I had to confront a bear and those are bigger and stronger than me I trust to God and God delivered them into my hand I killed them and protected the sheep he said this same God who delivered from the bear and not he’ll deliver from his Palestinian in other words this is my first rodeo I trust to God before and he’s proven himself faithful so I’ve got every reasonably he’ll handle this situation too you’ll have more faith in God in the present if you do not forget the ways that he’s shown himself faithful in the past that’s a very helpful thing to call those things to mind I would also say one way to build your faith is to step out in faith more which might mean putting yourself in positions where you’re trusting something God has promised and you’re in a position where you’re a little vulnerable if he doesn’t come through it’s not going to go as well for you as if he does and I mean I, for example I chose many years ago it still do to live my faith and that means that if I ever have needs I won’t tell anyone but God the Bible makes it very clear I don’t have to if you’re serving God if you seek first the kingdom of God is righteousness all the things you need to be added to you that’s a generic promise and I believe it I’ve been doing that for 50 some years and it’s true and so putting yourself in places where you actually see God deliver you in situations like every single time I’ve had to pay a bill over the past half a century it’s those bills got paid and they got paid on time although I had no idea in most cases where the money would come from but I trusted God and God showed himself faithful the more you’ve built a catalog of history of God’s faithfulness the more his faithfulness is going to be just the second nature for you to believe it and to trust him in it so I would just say living by faith reading the scriptures you know and that kind of thing is going to build your faith now I will say about the latter thing there are a lot of people who say God has promised this or that which isn’t so and yet people believe that he is promising because their preachers told us for example some preachers say that God is promised to heal you if you have enough faith that is not true some say the scriptures promise if you have enough faith that is not true either those are not promises of God in the Bible but many preachers give them now if you are trying to hang on to a promise that isn’t really a real promise of God he is under no obligation to come through on what somebody said he is supposed to do and your faith can be hurt by that make sure you are actually looking at the promise of God in their context and understanding them but the more you live counting on the promise and the more you live counting on God in various ways to be faithful the more often you will see him faithful he will be faithful and you will have you have a more back log of experience over that the more you will simply live by faith and that is what I would suggest as means of building up a faith that is rather diminishing I would say one other thing too in order to keep your faith strong I think a lot of people’s faith has become weaker because they have believed a lot of lies against God in our day on the internet or in the schools or whatever we often will hear you know that the Bible has been proven to be wrong in this way or that way you know there is a lot of fake news of that kind and thank any time and I have been following this stuff for decades every time some story comes out so the Bible has been proven wrong or the scientists have proven there is no God I know that has been the fault for that nonsense that when you look deeper you find out it is not true but in the meantime you certainly have an attitude of trusting if somebody said you know I suspect that your wife is doing something behind your back I would be I would actually say well I don’t think she is you know I mean if there is some evidence to investigate I wouldn’t mind looking into it but I am going to my defaults is going to be the truster I just say I trust her I know her I don’t believe she is wrong and whenever I hear something that someone brings up to try to challenge my saving God or the Bible my first response is well I believe God about that I look into it but I will my default is to believe God rather than as many people every time they hear something it gives them doubts their default is to is for their their faith to falter and that is just the wrong way to to go hey listen I think a break I hope that is helpful you are listening to the narrow path our website is the narrow path dot com we are listeners supported and we have another hour to go so I will be back in 30 seconds don’t go away small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life we are proud to welcome you to the narrow path with Steve Greg Steve has nothing to tell you today that everything to give you when today’s radio show is over we invite you to visit the narrow path dot com where you will find top political audio teachings blog articles verse my verse teachings and the archives of all the radio shows studies, learn and enjoy we thank you for supporting the listeners supported narrow path with Steve Greg [Music] welcome back to the narrow path radio broadcast my name is Steve Greg and we are live for another half hour taking your calls right now our lines are full it is likely that we will spend the whole half hour taking the calls that are waiting but if you want to try to get in later the number to try to get through is 844 alright let’s talk next to Brad from little ten Colorado hi Brad good to you from you hi yeah I have a question that’s just an opinion question I have a friend at church who’s invited me to join an organization that the hands out Bible is the Institute of Bibles and that’s great but the only problem is that in each Bible in the back is the gospel message which is I kind of the typical water down version of the gospel that you might see and yeah for here in many places it doesn’t mention repentance or obedience or anything so I just wondered like what would your opinion be am I propagating continuing to propagate the weakened water down the gospel which they are not going to they wouldn’t appreciate me saying well here’s this Bible but in the back by the way don’t pay attention to that they wouldn’t do that is this a group of hands out Bibles on the street or do they put them in hotels or how are they distributing them? well yeah not all of them because if it’s you’re handing a Bible out on the street you can say you know this is a Bible which is the Word of God but there’s stuff in the back that are you know not part of the Bible and I would trust what’s in the Bible more than the stuff that’s in the back because what’s in the back is obviously written by men who express expressing their understanding of things but men are not available the scriptures are so if I were handing a Bible with some materials in the back and by the way a lot of Bibles are that way I mean a lot of study Bibles have a lot of good notes in them but also have some opinions in their I don’t agree with I would never recommend people believe all the opinions in a study Bible but that doesn’t mean they’ll find no benefit from it I think the point would be if you’re personally handing out a Bible to somebody and that particular edition of the Bible has some notes that people have made to be helpful in the back I would simply point out to the person that I wouldn’t go strictly by the notes in the back go by what you read in the Bible itself some of the notes in the back I might agree with some of my have my differences with but the Bible itself I will never let you down now that way you have at least you’ve disclaimed an endorsement of necessarily everything that’s in the back of the book but you still are putting the word of God in their hands it’s nice if you can give them a Bible that doesn’t have stuff in it that you don’t agree with but to have the word of God I will say this a lot of people have found a Bible in their hotel room or whatever that has that kind of stuff in it and they’ve got to say without even looking at that stuff in the back there’s a lot of testimonies of people who are distraught, suicidal, you know, at their wits and their marriages failing and they were in a hotel where they found a Bible and they started reading it and it was reading the Bible itself turned them to God and they actually got to say it so you know the truth is that the as we say the watered down gospel as many American evangelicals have heard it and presented it’s not 100% without merit obviously I mean the problem is there are things that leaves out there are things that they shouldn’t leave out but some people I mean if you’ve just if you’ve just gotten a gospel track and all it says is you know you have to ask Jesus to come into your heart and be Lord and Savior obviously a lot of that’s not with the gospel, that’s not what the Bible says about the gospel but some people have done that and have in doing so actually surrender the lives of Christ have been truly safe you know other people of course do the same thing without that kind of an inward surrender and they probably mistakenly think they’re saved but the thing is that it’s like when Paul said that some people preach the gospel out of different motives and he does and some of them don’t have the best of motives but he said but at least the gospel is preached and I rejoice in that I would say giving out Bibles it’s always going to be a good thing unless it’s a really bad Bible like a Jehovah’s Witness Bible or unless it has cultic notes in the back or something like that I agree with you the way the gospel is usually summarized in American evangelicalism it leaves out some major parts that are actually in the Bible but I wouldn’t throw a Bible in the trash if it had that stuff in the back yeah okay well then I guess I’ll meet with my friend and say what would you say if I was telling people this is a hand it up might think what he says about that great oh you could write up a little tract of your own presentation of the gospel or get our traction we have we have a tract about the carat but you could or you could write your own just a sheet of paper printed upon you know your computer and just stick them in the back of the Bibles as you give them out yeah right I expect a conversation about sitting in a way that we’ll see that’s the way I like it yeah okay okay well Brad is good to hear from you brother yeah thank you thanks for calling by now all right let’s talk to David from Portland Oregon hi David welcome oh hi I’ve been listening to different people about the end times and they were saying that during the time that Jesus is keen on the earth that there’ll be people that don’t believe and they’re going to be rebelling and I that doesn’t make sense to me what do you think? well that is what we call the pre-millennial view and according to that view when Jesus comes back his people will go into a thousand year millennial reign centered in Jerusalem and but along with them going beyond the second come of Christ into the millennial period there will be people who are not converted for whatever reason now this I believe does not agree with the scripture but but this is a view that’s extremely common to hear and therefore they believe that in the as they would call it the millennial reign of Christ which is a thousand years they believe Christ will be reigning on earth in Jerusalem that the world that he reigns over will be partially made up with his own disciples and partially made up of people who who were not saved but they behave in fact they sometimes point out that the Bible says he’ll be ruling with a rod of iron as if that means he’s going to be a tyrant and make them behave even if they’re not Christians I believe the idea of the rod of iron is not meant it doesn’t mean he’s going to be bumping people on the head with his rod of iron I believe that saying his basically his scepter or his shepherd’s rod will be unbreakable you know not that he’s going to be pounding people with it or something like that or threatening people with it his reign represented by a scepter or by a shepherd’s crook that it’ll be an iron one that would be permanent as opposed to most objects that are more breakable I think it’s just starting with the permanence and the inviolability of his sovereignty at that time but some take the rod of iron to mean he’s really going to be some people think of it as with an iron fist you know maybe they miss they mix up the phrase an a rod of iron with with our more common expression an iron fist it was someone arranged with an iron fist well then even people who are rebellious will behave to avoid being trounced by that fist anyway that view holds that a thousand years after the beginning of that reign there will be generations born who are not Christians unbelievers people have been behaving they’ve been you know kind of following the rules but they’re not they don’t have a heart for Jesus and they say that at the end of that time Satan will be loosed he’ll go out to see the people that is the unbelievers and there will be this general rebellion against him against Christ but it’ll be put down by fire from heaven this is all their interpretation of a revelation 20 and that’s called the pre-millennial especially the dispensational pre-millennial interpretation now for most of history the church didn’t believe in that that’s a fairly modern view although it’s extremely popular today and it’s you’re going to hear it everywhere some of the biggest denominations teach it but if you lived let’s say 200 years ago you’d never have heard it it’s really that new in the last 10th of church history it arose the first 9/10 of church history people didn’t really teach that and so you’re under no obligation to see it that way I don’t I used to but I don’t anymore because you know I studied out more and I just see flaws in that whole interpretation based on the way they’re assuming things about the passage that I don’t assume but I don’t believe that any unbelievers will be you know going into the eternal state or the or the post-second coming state I believe that’s only for believers and you know Paul said for example about the second coming of Christ he gave a very strong indication that when Jesus comes there aren’t going to be any believers that are I mean any unbelievers that are going into his kingdom as as unconverted people it says in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 6 through 8 says it’s the rightest thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in framing fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ so this flaming fire at the second coming of Christ taking vengeance on people it’s taking out those who don’t know God or who don’t believe the God or don’t obey the gospel I don’t think that leaves any believers or I should say any unbelievers unscathed likewise in the previous chapter 1 Thessalonians 5 it’s said in verse 2 as far as you yourselves know perfectly the day of the Lord comes as a thief of the night for when they say peace and safety then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman and they shall not escape so I don’t really see in these passages about the second coming of Christ any unbelievers escaping or any unbelievers that aren’t destroyed at that time and by destroyed I take that to mean they are killed just like they I mean they die at that moment as they would any other time later on everyone dies but that’s when their death takes place and then of course everyone stands before God at the judgment so I don’t see that there being a thousand year period after Jesus comes back where Jesus is raining over a bunch of unbelievers making them submit against their will that is the dispensational position and that is the most popular position that’s what you heard apparently I don’t accept that position if you’re interested in an alternative view about these things the view I teach is actually the view that you would have heard if you lived any time before before the year 1800 let’s say if you were a Christian and you’re under biblical teaching from the church you would have heard something very different if you were living before the year 1800 and as far as what it is you would have heard I believe it’s far more biblical and I have lectures that teach those views at our website and if you want to go into that deeper the website is the narrow path dot com that’s the narrow path dot com and under the tab this is topical lectures there’s a series called when shall these things be and that’s my series on eschatology and it deals with this very thing in much greater detail so it’s the series is called when shall these things be it’s a topical series under the topical lectures tab at our website the narrow path dot com so I hope that will be helpful to you right Aaron from urbandale Iowa hi welcome to the narrow path thank you Steve my question has to do with two verses and Romans Romans 11 11 through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles in 11 19 branches were broken off so that Gentiles can be grafted in these verses make it sound like the only way the Gentiles gained access to the all of tree was through Israel’s rejection as if you know had Israel not rejected dad the Gentiles would never have gained access to the tree but I can hardly believe that’s what it really means so you should light on what it does mean and maybe why Paul used the wording that he did there yes I don’t think that Paul is saying that Israel fell so that the Gentiles could come in until 11 11 says this I say then that they meaning the unbelieving Jews stumbled or you just ask asking a question retort I said have they stumbled that they should fall now a lot of teachers who teach differently than I do they add a word that’s not there in the bottom and the word is beyond recovery or permanently for example several different socialists I’ve debated they whenever they quote this I think they may be quoting the NIV or something where it says have they stumbled that they may fall without recovery well there’s nothing about recovery suggest here the question is did they stumble simply so that they could fall now why would he ask that well because he’s just quoted verses from the Psalms and from Isaiah in the previous verses about how God had predicted that the unbelieving Jews would stumble God would give them the spirit of stupor eyes that they should not see or they should not hear and so forth that there’s a judgment upon them and so it raises the question well was God just mad at him I mean is that the only reason they fell so he could just dump on him and they just fall and that’s it that’s the whole reason for it and he’s saying no that’s not the whole reason they didn’t just stumble so they’d fall they’re stumbling God has gotten something else out of it namely that through them you know through their fall they could be provoked to jealousy by the salvation that has come to the Gentiles now in Deuteronomy God had said to Israel if you provoke me to jealousy by worshiping other God this is in Deuteronomy 32 21 I will provoke you to jealousy by going for another people so Paul is saying they are experiencing the judgment that God predicted in Deuteronomy that if they stumble if they don’t if they’re not loyal to him then he’s going to go for other people and that will make them jealous and the reason they’ll be jealous is because they won’t have God anymore and the new people will and so Paul says now this is not just something God did out of spite toward them this puts them in the position that they can now because of their alienation from God can become jealous of those Gentiles who do come to God there’s I think what Paul is saying there is not that God made them fall because that was a necessary way to get the Gentiles coming I think what he’s saying is that you know they gave God lemons and he made lemonade you know he can he can take their bad choices and turn that around to get something firm self out of it namely not only the Gentiles but the jealousy of the fallen Jews when they see the Gentiles having their God this is it’s not a clear how Paul would have expounded on this more some people say that if the Jews had not rejected Jesus then the Gentiles couldn’t have been saved well that’s not true not a few not even a little bit true it may be that the way things happened the Jews rejecting Jesus as they did God did use that to scatter the church from Jerusalem through persecution of the church by the Jewish people there to go out to the Gentiles and so forth but it didn’t have to happen that way Jesus after all before there was any persecution Jesus told the disciples go and disciple all the nations so eventually they would have gone around to it even without that persecution the thing is that there didn’t have to one Jew reject Jesus in order for this plan to work if every Jew had come to Christ well that just means the number of Jews that came Christ be a much larger number because there were thousands that did there were thousands of Jews that came to Christ they became the church what if every Jew had come to Christ they would have been the church too the church would have been much larger the body that would go out to the Gentiles even a much larger mission force there’s nothing about the Jews rejection of Christ that was necessary it’s just that that rejection of Jesus didn’t hinder God from fulfilling the purpose and so Paul is not here saying they had to fall so the Gentiles would have room to come in now in the in the later passage about the the Jewish branches that unbelief the unbelieving Jewish branches were broken off and Gentile branches have been broke have come in I don’t really see him saying there that again the Gentile branches could not have been grafted in to the tree even if all the Jewish branches had remained there I mean Paul says it this way in verse 17 he says and if some of the branches were broken off he’s talking about the unbelieving Jews been removed from the tree of Israel and you mean Gentiles who are believers being a while all the tree were grafted in among them and with them you became the partaker of the root and the fact of the tree do not boast against the branches that is don’t be arrogant because you’re included and they were broken off but if you both remember that you do not support the root the root supports you and and so is it you will say then branches were broken off that I might be grafted in well you may say that but Paul doesn’t say that you know they didn’t have to be broken off so I could be grafted in if every Jew had become a believer and remained attached to the olive tree I could still be grafted in there’s room for everybody so it’s it’s who Paul does discuss the failure of the Jewish people in general to receive Christ and the upshot of that of the Gentiles being say but he’s not saying that the first of those was absolutely necessary in order to allow the second now that turns a lot of white seed because it does the first place seem as though there’s a limited number of branches a lot on the tree and the you know the Jews have rejects and the Gentiles come in but you’re just I think what you’re saying is he used that opportunity to to gain Gentiles and he was a necessary that that happened okay right thank you very much appreciate that okay you’re in good talking thank you for your call glad to have you with us right now Fred from Alameda California welcome to the narrow path yes who do you suppose wrote Psalm 132 if it wasn’t David because the first verse to Jeff that David was some other person yeah 132 yeah yeah there are there are 75 Psalms that have David’s name as the author including including some of the ones that are in this very collection this Psalm 132 is what is part of what they call the Psalms of degrees or the Psalms of the censors 15 of these Psalms some of them have David’s name some do not but what you do not we don’t know we have no idea who who wrote them now when it says in Psalm 132 verse on Lord remember David and all his afflictions how he swore to the Lord and top of life it’s obviously taught you this is a later generation than David appealing to God to remember the promises that God made to David because they impact obviously the writer and his generation because of course David’s you know the the fortunes of David’s dynasty affect all the all Israel forever after David’s time so so there is a there is a looking back at David here and as far as who wrote it well it doesn’t tell us and there are approximately 75 Psalms that don’t tell us that David wrote them some of them have other people’s names on them there’s at least one that says it’s a song of Solomon one of them Psalm 90 says it’s written by Moses and quite a few of them are said to be written by or for the sons of Kora or the sons of a staff which are different groups of priests and musicians that you know that that were part of the the regular worship at the tabernacle or the temple later on so there’s a lot of different authors of Psalms and David even wrote they didn’t even wrote some of them that don’t have his name on them I would know this because from time to time a new Testament writer will quote a song that doesn’t have a song title and will say David wrote this so the New Testament writer will attribute to David a song that in the songs itself doesn’t attribute to David and yet again a lot of the Psalms don’t have any information about who wrote them and in some case that’s the case with this one in some cases even if there’s no title telling us who wrote it in some cases it’s possible David wrote it but in this case it doesn’t seem possible because the author is seemingly talking about David as someone living in a previous generation so who wrote it we don’t know could be one of the sons of a staff of the sons of Kora or some other unknown person. All right. All right. Well thank you for your call. Let’s talk to Kiefer from Las Vegas and Nevada next. Hi Kiefer, welcome. Good afternoon, Greg God bless you and all your listeners and what you do I had a perreplaced and a question of my perreplaced as I was in an auto accident and praying that the food was both comes to light and my vehicles fixed and my question is from revelations it talks about the new city of of Jesus and it talks about the club gate representing the tribe to minutes talks about the foundations of the 12 disciples. You know, Judas was you know he we all know what happened to him who would be who would be that 12th disciples that did not going to be Judas so it was one of my two means. Yeah, the 12th the 12th disciple according to scripture was Matthias. We find this in Acts chapter one that before Pentecost the disciples or Peter initiated the idea that Judas being dead. We now only have 11 of apostles and Jesus said that the number should correspond to the tribes of Israel because Jesus said you 12 will sit on 12 thrones ruling over the 12 tribes of Israel he told them in Matthew 19 and so. Peter said we better fill that gap and they chose Matthias now the author of Acts whose Luke at the end of chapter one he says and after that choice of me says Matthias was after that numbered with the 11 that is he was part he’s one of he’s now one of the 12 and so from then on whenever Acts mentions the apostles unless it mentions the names of certain individual apostles it’s talking about the 12 and that would include Matthias so it would seem that Luke recognizes the choice of Matthias was legitimate and therefore I would assume that the names of the 12 apostles of the 12 foundation stones in the city of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 would include Matthias in the place where Judas would otherwise have been. I appreciate your calling out of time. You’re listening to the narrow path. My name is Steve Greg we are listener supported. We pay a lot of money to radio stations to say on the air we don’t mention a lot about it here on the air and we don’t have any fundraising mechanism we know mailing lists are in the okay. All we do is let you know if you’d like to hear this program continue you might want to help us out of the air you can write to us at the narrow path P.O. Box 1730 to Maciel a California 92593 or you can donate from our website which is the narrow path calm everything there is free but you can donate at the narrow path calm thanks for joining us.
