Listeners are invited to reflect on the concept of salvation through a detailed analysis of popular salvation tracts. We discuss the importance of a heartfelt commitment to Christ beyond mere recitation of words. As the episode unfolds, we tackle the controversial topic of the rapture and its timing concerning the tribulation period. Additionally, there’s an in-depth discussion on preterism and its variants, shedding light on different eschatological perspectives. Join us as we explore how these profound themes resonate with our spiritual journeys today.
SPEAKER 1 :
Good afternoon and welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 01 :
radio broadcast on this the last calendar day of 2024 as usual we are live though we will not be live tomorrow which is new year’s day so if you want to get through anytime in the next 48 hours this is the day to do it if you have questions about the bible or the christian faith or you disagree with the host and want to say why and in what way we would love to hear from you The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And I should have announced this yesterday, but I wasn’t on my game, so I forgot. And I won’t be able to announce it tomorrow because I won’t be on the air. But we have a monthly Zoom meeting the first Wednesday night of every month. It just so happens the first Wednesday night of this month, or of January, I should say, is New Year’s Day. But we’re going to have it anyway. So if you’re interested, tomorrow night, 7 o’clock Pacific time, we have a Zoom call. It usually goes on about an hour and a half or so. And it’s a lot like this radio show. People who are participants will ask questions. We’ll talk about the things that they have questions about. A little different than this program. There’s more people. Well, no, there’s probably more people listening, but actually I can see more people on the Zoom call than I can on the radio show. And we don’t have quite the pinched time limits to get everybody in when we’re on the Zoom call because we’re not forced to fit into a single hour on the air. So if you’d like to join us for that, You can go to thenarrowpath.com, look under announcements, and you’ll find the login information for this Zoom call, which you can be a part of anywhere in the world. The time where I am, it will be 7 p.m. That’s Pacific time. It may be a different time where you are, but you can still join us if you want to. Go to thenarrowpath.com, look under announcements, and you’ll find the information about logging in. All right. We’re going to go to the phones now, and we’re going to talk to Linda from Fresno, California. Linda, welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hello. Hi. I have a question about Leviticus 11.2 and 11.4. Okay. Where it says… speaks to the children of Israel saying, these are the animals which you may eat, and then the four is the animals that you may not eat. So I had heard somebody say that they didn’t mean that you couldn’t eat the animals. Could you please explain it to me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it means that certain animals were forbidden to the Israelites as food. They had laws of clean and unclean food. Modern Orthodox Jews still observe these. Some animals could not be eaten without violating their dietary legal code. And some animals could be. Now, this passage goes through essentially the mammals and land animals. That would be… include it and exclude it, and then later talk about some of the birds that are clean or unclean and some of the creatures in the sea. When it comes to creatures in the sea, they could only eat a creature that had scales and fins in order to what we would call a fish, although some fish don’t have scales exactly. But if an animal did not have fins or scales and it was in the sea, for example, if it was a shellfish, if it was a clam or an oyster or A lobster or a shrimp, they don’t have fins and scales, so they would be unclean, and they still are in the Jewish dietary practices.
SPEAKER 02 :
So he was just talking about the Israelites that couldn’t eat it, or did he mean everybody?
SPEAKER 01 :
No, no, no, just the Israelites. Leviticus is giving the special regulations that God gave to Israel when they came out of Egypt. And they entered into a special relationship with God through a covenant at Mount Sinai. And the covenant had stipulations for them. And the covenant, the purpose of the covenant was to single them out from other nations and to make things about them that were unique, that were not observed by other nations. Circumcision was one of those things, obviously. Keeping the Sabbath was another one of those things. The special diet that they ate would be, and some of the clothing they wore. So there was this kind of restrictions on their lifestyle that set them apart from other nations, which means it was only for them. It wasn’t for the other nations. So this was strictly commands that belonged to the Jewish people who are under the law. Now, there are people who say, well, no, we should still not eat unclean animals. And there’s a couple different reasons they might give. One is that back in the time of Noah, there were clean and unclean animals. That was before the flood. And we say there were clean and unclean animals because Noah took two of every kind of unclean animal and seven of every kind of clean animal. And so they say, see, God was already making a distinction of what people could eat and not eat, even back hundreds of years before the law was given, back in the days before the flood. However, Noah’s animals, being clean or unclean, had nothing to do with eating them. People didn’t eat animals, at least they were not permitted to eat animals, until after the flood. God told Adam and Eve to eat the food that grows, the plants and so forth. And then after the flood was over, God said in Genesis 9, now you can eat animals too. So before the flood, they didn’t eat animals. So when Noah, before the flood, selected between clean and unclean animals, clean and unclean had nothing to do with eating since people didn’t eat them. But it’s what they could sacrifice and what they could not sacrifice, what animal was suitable to sacrifice. You couldn’t sacrifice a pig or a dog to God. That’s an unclean animal. You could sacrifice a sheep or a goat or an ox. Those were clean. So there’s no distinction in one kind of animal to be eaten and another kind of animal to not be eaten before Moses gave the law. In fact, after the flood, when God did allow the eating of animals, he specifically said everything that moves shall be food for you. So he didn’t make any distinction between clean and unclean animals. He just said, now, anything you want, you can eat any animal that moves. So, the distinction between clean and unclean animals as diet came only with the coming of the law. Now, there are some people who say these choices that God made about animals that were clean and unclean have a lot to do with what’s actually healthy for us to eat or not. That eating shellfish or eating pork can sometimes be unhealthy for us. And there’s some truth in that. But that’s not the reasons that he gave. You see, if he did give those rules for that reason, then those reasons would still pertain today, even though we’re not under the law. It would still be unhealthy to eat that kind of a diet, so it would obviously make sense to still eat a kosher diet today. But, no, it was all symbolic. There were symbolic reasons that animals fit into certain categories, which I can’t get into right now, but if you listen to my lectures on Leviticus… I do talk about them and explain them. But suffice it to say, we are not, as Christians, obligated to keep the law of Moses or any of these dietary laws. In fact, Paul said in 1 Timothy 4, in verse 4, Now, When Paul said every creature of God is good, he means good for food. Because he’s just mentioned certain heretics. In verse 3 he mentions certain heretics would forbid you to eat meat. And so he’s correcting that. No, everything is good. Everything God created is okay. And that’s very much like the instructions that God gave to Noah in Genesis 9 before the law was given. You can eat anything that moves, anything you want to. You can eat any food you want to, any animal. And so it’s gone back to that now. We can eat any animal we want to. And why? Paul said in verse 5 there, this is 1 Timothy 4, For it, that is the animals to eat, is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. Now, by the word of God, how is it that the word of God has sanctified or declared all animals clean? Well, by God’s statement. It is so. Jesus said it’s not what goes into a man’s mouth that defiles him. It’s what comes out of his mouth. Jesus said essentially there’s no moral stigma attached to eating any particular thing. It’s what comes out of your mouth when you speak that defiles you or shows how defiled you are. But Jesus said nothing can make you unclean by eating it. Nothing. And Paul, no doubt referring to that in Romans 14, 14, said, I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus Christ. That is because Jesus said this. Jesus persuaded me of this. Paul, before he knew Jesus, Paul was a Pharisee. And he didn’t think this way. But now he’s a Christian. And Christ has persuaded him that he says there’s nothing unclean of itself. He means food. And he says, but to someone who thinks it’s unclean, they shouldn’t eat it because it’ll be unclean to them. But it’s not unclean in itself. And he said, I’m persuaded of that by what Jesus said over in Matthew 15. So, yeah, the Old Testament does have strict rules for the Jews to follow, including what they can eat, what they can’t eat. Those kinds of rules belong only to the law of Moses, and they don’t belong to the new covenant. And so Christians don’t have to worry about them. Okay, let’s talk to Ray McCulley from Michigan. Hello. near Detroit. Hi, Rayma. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. I have two different scriptures I want your opinion on. The first one is 1 Corinthians 127. God chose the foolish things to shame the wise. I really don’t have an understanding of what that even means. The only thing I can think of is rap music in the churches. There’s gospel rap and it may sound foolish, but it’s intriguing the young people to get interested in the body of Christ. So that’s just my opinion. I wanted your opinion or maybe give an example. What does that even mean? And then the other scripture, Proverbs 18, 22, the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. The example I can think of is I know people who have benefited from illegal street drugs, those in the neighborhood who sell drugs illegally. It’s kind of like the Robin Hood effect. They take that money and pay for the college education of the children in the neighborhood. So to break the preschool to prison pipeline. So I can’t think of any other example of God will take the wealth of the wicked stored up for the righteous. So those are just my thoughts. What are your thoughts?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, as far as God uses the foolish things to confound the wise, I’m pretty sure they weren’t doing rap music in the church in Corinth. So I don’t think Paul was referring to that. I think what he’s saying is that the gospel he preached was not presented in such a way as to appeal to their intellect and their pride. Now, in these first three chapters or four chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul is directly making a contrast to his own style of preaching and Apollos’ style of preaching. Now, Apollos was a great debater, a great rhetorician. And when he came to Corinth, after Paul had been there, Paul had come and converted these people, and then Paul had moved on and wasn’t there. Apollos came along after he preached, but he was a lot more intellectual. He was a lot more impressive, presenting man’s wisdom. I mean, not that he wasn’t presenting the gospel, too, but his method was more intellectual. It appealed to those who were impressed by such things. And Paul says, therefore, you know, when I came to you, I didn’t do that. You’ll see that in chapter 2 and verse 1. He says, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, so that your faith would not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Now, what he’s saying is that God has not necessarily brought into his kingdom an awful lot of people who are of the intellectual class. Some… have been saved of that sort. But what he’s saying is the people who are humbler, the people who are of lower caste, the people who have less education, these are the people who come to God mostly. Because in verse 26, the verse before the one you mentioned, he says, For you see your calling, brethren, not many wise. According to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty. He’s saying there’s not a lot of the intellectual class in the church. And this is not because you have to be stupid to be a Christian. but because Paul, when he evangelized them, didn’t come to appeal to that element. He came not with enticing words of men’s wisdom so as to persuade a lot of intellectuals. He didn’t want the church to be made up of people who were resting their faith on man’s wisdom or man’s argumentation. Instead, he preached the gospel in power, demonstrated it with signs and wonders, And therefore, they had something different to rest their faith upon than mere intellectual arguments. See, the problem with, I mean, many people do become converted through intellectual arguments. But, you know, if you can be talked into becoming a Christian by intellectual arguments, maybe you can be talked out of it by intellectual arguments. You see, if you actually come into a dynamic relationship with God through Christ, and the power of God in your life has transformed you, I don’t think anyone can talk you out of that very easily. But if someone just persuaded you that the arguments for Christianity are good, and you said, oh, okay, I’ll believe that then. And then someone else comes along and they have pretty good sounding arguments against Christianity. You might say, well, okay, I’ll go with that then. In other words, if you’re just resting your faith on the best arguments you’ve heard from wise people or from intellectual people, philosophers, um, Well, you never know if you’re on solid ground or not. But if you’re resting on the power of God and the gospel itself, then you are. Now, Paul is saying the preaching of the gospel itself sounded foolish to certain people. In verse 24 of chapter 1, he said, those who are called Jews and Greeks, well, I guess I should go to the verse before that. He says, in verse 21 of chapter 1, he says, for since the wisdom of God, in the wisdom of God, The world, through wisdom, did not know God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. That is the apparent foolishness. He’s saying the intellectuals, when they hear the gospel, it sounds foolish to them. It’s not intellectually impressive to them. He says, For the Jews request the sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom. Now, the Corinthians were Greeks. The Greeks usually seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. So he said God is not choosing the wisdom of this world or the wise of this world primarily to get his message across or to carry his kingdom forward. He chooses weak things. He chooses foolish things, foolish people. That is to say, you know, not the wise. not the intelligentsia, per se, and weak people. And he says the reason for that, he says, is so that no flesh should glory in his presence. In verse 29, he says that. He doesn’t want people to say, well, I’m really spreading the gospel successfully because I’m so strong, I’m so eloquent, I’m so smart. No, he chooses people who can’t possibly give themselves credit because they don’t have it in themselves. They don’t have the superiority over others in these areas that might be they might otherwise take credit for. So he says, so God chooses people who don’t have these superiority traits so that they have to give him the credit. And so he doesn’t choose the most impressive people. He chooses ordinary people. And that’s what it means when he shows the foolish and the weak and so forth. Now, as far as the verse in Proverbs that says, you know, the wealth of the righteous or the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. I think all that Solomon is saying there is that In the end, the wicked are going to lose everything. In the end, the righteous are going to inherit everything. You know, we are. We’re going to inherit the world. Jesus said, blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth. All the wealth of the world will be in the hands of those who have pleased God, ultimately. And those wicked who’ve stored up wealth, it won’t do them any good. I mean, they’re going to die anyway. And when they die, they don’t take it with them. So, So I think he’s saying that everything that the wicked store up for themselves eventually will be turned over to people more worthy of it. Now, I also think that Solomon’s not necessarily just thinking of, you know, in the final end of all things, but I think he thinks in the providence of God, it’s often the case that the people who are greedy and store up for themselves, you know, God… sovereignly brings things about, that their wealth is often redistributed, either at their death or in their poverty or whatever, their failures, and that better people, God puts it in the hands of better people who will use it better. But certainly Solomon’s not saying that happens in every individual case, because it doesn’t. It happens sometimes, and Solomon may have seen some cases where where there was that kind of abrupt turnaround in the possession of wealth. And that might have inspired him to make that point. But, of course, it’s a point that has its ultimate fulfillment in the end of all things, when everything will be inherited by Christ and those who are joint heirs with him. All right. I appreciate your call. Let’s talk to Michael from Inglewood, California. Hi, Michael. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Steve. I have a three-part question that has to do with Exodus. The first one is God told Moses at the bush to call him, I guess, or I am that I am. And it says like forever, but I don’t hear anyone hardly ever call God that. So I’m kind of like, why did he say to call him that, but nobody else does it. And then after that, the first three plagues, well, the snake, the staff into a snake, the sorcerers were able to do the blood and the, the sorcerers were able to mimic, but nothing else after that. So the question is, how were the sorcerers able to copy Moses on that, but not any of the other remaining plagues after the gnats and flies? And I’ll take my answer off the air.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, that sounded like two questions. You said there were three.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I guess the second one is kind of mixed together, as in the sorcerers were able to do, but then they weren’t able to do the others.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. Okay. So why were they able to do some of it? That’s one question. And why weren’t they able to do the other? That’s the third. Okay. Gotcha.
SPEAKER 09 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. I’ll be glad to talk about that. Thanks for your call. First of all, God didn’t say to Moses, you need to call me I am that I am. Moses asked him, what is your name? When the Israelites, you know, when I tell them God has sent me and they say, well, what’s his name? Who are we talking about here? Moses said, well, what shall I say your name is? He said, well, tell them I am that I am is my name. Now, I am that I am is abbreviated into four consonants, YHVH or YHWH. I mean, the letters in Hebrew are a little different than in English. But essentially, if you add, you know, vowels to be able to pronounce it, you can pronounce it something like Yahweh. Yahweh. Yahweh is the I Am name. And the Bible does use the word Yahweh a lot in the Old Testament. Although it’s not the only thing that God was called by. God was also called Adonai, which just means my Lord or my Master. He was called a number of different names. Elohim and other names. But Yahweh is the name that God did reveal to Moses to give to the people of Israel. And that’s largely… certainly the main name of God that we read about in the Bible. Now, we don’t find that name being used in the New Testament, and I guess it’s because Yahweh is a Hebrew word or name, and the New Testament was written in Greek. Now, before the New Testament came along, before Jesus came, the Jewish people in Alexandria, Egypt, had been conquered by Alexander the Great. And, of course, the whole Mediterranean world had been conquered by Alexander the Great, and he imposed the Greek language on everyone, so that over a short period of time, Greek began to become the main language of everyone in the empire. And the older languages, including Hebrew, began to be used somewhat less frequently. At least there were fewer and fewer people who knew the old languages and more who knew the Greek, so that there were 70 Jewish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, who worked on a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Now, when they did, that translation is called the Septuagint. It was made almost over 200 years before Christ. When they did, they had to do something with the name Yahweh. And Yahweh is not even a pronounceable name exactly because there’s no vowels in it. And for some reason, The Septuagint translators, just instead of using the word Yahweh, they translated it with the word Kyrios in Greek, which means Lord. Kyrios. And so the name Kyrios in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, replaced the name Yahweh. Now, we might say, well, that’s a pretty irreverent thing to do. The Jews shouldn’t have done that. But when the New Testament writers quoted the Bible, they almost always quoted from the Septuagint. And that includes Jesus. He usually quoted from the Septuagint. And whenever they quoted a verse where the Hebrew Bible said Yahweh, Jesus and the apostles quoted it from the Septuagint, replacing Yahweh with Kyrios or Lord. And that’s why in the New Testament we don’t find the name Yahweh at all. We just find the word Lord in Greek, which is following the convention that the Septuagint translators did earlier. Now, I guess we might say, well, why did they think that was okay? Well, I guess Jesus and the apostles thought that God’s not that hung up on that particular name, vocalized that way. So that’s all we can say about it. Apparently it doesn’t matter to Jesus and the apostles. Therefore, I don’t think it should matter to us. As far as the question of why were Pharaoh’s sorcerers able to do some of the things that Moses did not all, I think because they were sorcerers. I think they knew how to do tricks. But they didn’t have all power. Moses was operating through the power of a God of unlimited power, omniscient. He could do anything he wants and did everything he wants. The sorcerers can do some things, but not everything. And I think that God didn’t stop them from being able to imitate the first three or so tricks. I mean, theirs were tricks. In Moses’ case, I think, obviously, it was a miracle. I think theirs were tricks. But then they were no longer able to go any further. And I think the fact that they could do some and not all almost underscored the fact that they were inferior. If they couldn’t do any of it, they could have claimed, well, all he’s doing is in a different category than the stuff we do. But they imitated him successfully. And I don’t know if they did it by demonic power or if they just did it by tricks. But they certainly reached the limit. of how much they could imitate, obviously, and they weren’t able to match Moses’ miracles after the first few. I need to take a break. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener-supported. If you’d like to help donate to our continuing ministry, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you for listening to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. As loyal listeners know, the Narrow Path Radio Ministry does not have anything to sell you, but does have everything to give you. You can help the radio ministry continue to give and grow by going to thenarrowpath.com and donating your year-end tax-deductible gift. Your giving will help lift the spirits of many more people throughout our nation. Thank you and bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. We have a couple of lines open right now if you want to join us. The number to call if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or maybe you disagree with the host and want to say why, we’d be glad to talk to you. Here’s the number to call. 844-484-5737 That number again is 844-484-5737 And I want to announce again that tomorrow night is our monthly Zoom meeting, tomorrow night, 7 p.m. Pacific time. Maybe a different time for you in a different time zone, but that’s going to be at the same moment as 7 p.m. Pacific time. And you’re welcome to join us. If you want to know how to log into that Zoom meeting, go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under announcements, and you’ll find the login information for that meeting tomorrow night, 7 p.m. Pacific. All right, our next caller is Eddie from Sprague River, Oregon. Eddie, welcome. Hello, Steve. Yes, sir. Yeah, happy New Year to you. Same to you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Say, I’ve been reading Daniel and learned from you how Matthew 23 ties into that. And I’m seeing, you know, the 70 weeks that the last week, I’m having a tendency to see it as the period of the triumphal entry to the crucifixion And also there’s the seven woes that happen in that, as well as the seven aspects of swearing, which is, you know, seven or to seven yourself, literally to seven. Hang on, hang on just a minute.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re losing me here. Okay. You’re talking about the last week of the 70 weeks, right? Yes. Yes, I am. Okay. And you’re saying it has something to do with the seven aspects of swearing? I’m not familiar with the seven aspects of swearing. No, no, no.
SPEAKER 03 :
The seven, there’s approximately seven areas where he’s talking about to the Pharisees as far as swearing to the altar, swearing to the gold. And then finally it ends with swearing to God and he who sits on the throne. So looking at those seven different areas that is being used at that time, it lends my thinking toward the thought of possibly that last week that was set apart from the 70s, could be an actual week, seven days, as opposed to a seven-year period. What are your thoughts?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, yeah, I’m not inclined to think so. But, I mean, I suppose a person could take that if he wants to. Yeah, I would think it’s strange for 69 of the weeks to be seven years each and then the one remaining week. to be not seven years, but seven days. Not that it couldn’t. After all, the word weeks, the Hebrew word only means sevens, as you know. And so it doesn’t really say weeks of years or weeks of days. It just says there’d be 70 sevens. Now, if we want to say that the first 69 of those sevens were seven years each, but the last seven was seven days, I guess nobody could prove you wrong. And I wouldn’t have any incentive to try to, but it doesn’t commit itself to me as a likely explanation, but certainly it’s something you’d be entitled to believe if you read it that way.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Okay, then I had another question, too, that was kind of tying into Matthew 23. And it’s where Jesus is saying, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou killest the prophets and stonest them which were sent unto thee, how often I would have gathered ye as a hen gathered chicks under her wing, the overspreading, and then continued with the desolation after that. And then in 27 of Daniel… It refers to the overspreading of abomination, which was their covering over the congregation. But Jesus would have gathered them and overspread them with his love and his goodness. And then they were left desolate after that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, well, that’s an interesting thought. So you’re saying that God would have loved to have overspread his wings like a chicken over her chicks to protect them and save them, whereas they rejected that and therefore, as it were, overspread with abominations instead. Right. although it says there’d be one abomination that would make it desolate, says in Daniel 9, 27. And Jesus did say your house is left desolate, which I do believe. I do believe his statement, your house is left unto you desolate, is related to Daniel 9. But I think he’s simply meaning that, you know, he’s declaring it as doomed to desolation. I’m not sure he’s saying at that very moment, although he could be. He could be saying at that moment they’re desolate. Yeah, these are very speculative things. There are certainly many different ways people have explained the 70 weeks. And I allow all of them to be promoted by people who believe them to be true. Obviously, they can’t all be true. Some of them, most of them must be wrong and one must be true, or maybe the truth lies in yet one theory that people haven’t come up with yet. But in any case, I appreciate you sharing those thoughts. I can’t tell you that they’re right or wrong. They’re just another theory. I appreciate that. Thank you, Eddie. All right, our next caller is Margaret from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Margaret, welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, my… The questions are really about salvation. For instance, there are tracts, like Billy Graham’s tract, that say you admit you need a Savior and be willing to turn from your sins, that is to repent, to believe that Jesus Christ died for you on the cross and rose from the dead, rose from the grave. or through prayer, invite Jesus Christ to come in and control your life through the Holy Spirit. That means receive Him as your Savior. I’m reading this from the tract.
SPEAKER 09 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 04 :
And then it has a prayer that, Dear Lord, I know I’m a sinner and I need your forgiveness and believe that you… died in my died to pay the penalty for my sin and I want to turn from my sin nature and follow you instead so what would your question be madam people if they say this and I invite you to become my savior does that save their soul they would become Christians and they are saved
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, being saved isn’t specifically accomplished by saying a prayer. Many people have said prayers like that under the guidance of somebody who was leading them, as they thought, to Christ. But, see, words can be spoken that have nothing to do with what’s going on in the heart. This is especially true if you’re simply reading a prayer from a brochure or somebody is saying, repeat after me. Now, I want to say this. I think No doubt there are people who have gotten really saved reading a tract like that and responding in that way. But I would clarify that it’s not the saying of a prayer. It’s not saying anything like that. That means you say, but certainly it does require believing something like that. The main thing is salvation is when you turn from your life of self-centeredness and sin and you turn to become a follower of Christ. As Jesus put it, if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. So I believe becoming a Christian involves that. I deny myself, not verbally per se. I mean, I might do so verbally as well. But people can verbalize things that aren’t really true about them. Remember God said in Isaiah, and Jesus repeated it, these people draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. So, you know, God’s much more concerned about where your heart is at than what you say about where your heart is at. And I believe lots of people have jumped through certain hoops that evangelists have placed for them to jump through and have had no transition whatsoever. from death into life, they haven’t really become believers or disciples. On the other hand, some people who do become real disciples do so through these very means. The point is, it’s not whether you have said that prayer. It’s whether you have turned and followed Christ. Now, when they say you should acknowledge that you are in need of a Savior… and say you believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead, and those other things, well, those are things that are important to know. I mean, you’re not likely to turn to God if you don’t think you need a Savior. You’re not going to be believing the gospel if you’re not believing that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead. But there are people who know they need a Savior who do believe that Jesus died and rose again because that’s simply a fact of history that they’ve been taught. maybe from childhood, and they haven’t had any significant doubts about it, you know, and maybe have jumped through some of these hoops and even prayed these prayers. And someone says, okay, pray after me these words. I know many Christian parents have led their children in those kinds of prayers. with the eagerness to get them saved and so forth. And yet, many of these children, as soon as they get old enough to make their own choices, they have no interest in the things of God at all, which makes it very clear that you can say those prayers without meaning them, or without meaning them sincerely enough, at least, to change your life. What changes your life is when you recognize that That God has declared Jesus is the King and Lord. And that you have previously, up to this point, acted as if that isn’t so. That you’ve lived your life as if he wasn’t the King and as if he wasn’t the Lord. Instead, you’ve done what you preferred to do. In many cases, you’ve messed your life up pretty badly. Other times, your life may have gone reasonably well, choosing your own way. A lot of people don’t really turn to God until their life is in shambles. But it doesn’t have to. You don’t have to wait for that. The point is that the time has to come where you realize that there’s not a reason in the world why it would be right for you to choose your own way in life when there’s a God who made you and who purchased you with his blood, who has a way that he has in mind for you to go. How in the world can it be right for you to neglect what God has for you and go the way that you would prefer? Basically, it’s a tug of war then between you and God. You and God are in competition about what you’re going to do with your life. It’s when you’re converted is when you stop competing with God. To repent means you turn around. You stop pulling the rope and you go his way. So, I mean, all the things in that tract are good things. They’re all good things. It may be a little more formulaic. then I would prefer to use. I would say I’ve read tracts like that since I was a child, and I’ve assumed that people who read those prayers can certainly be saved. I’m sure that many people listening today have been saved by reading such prayers or repeating after somebody else those prayers. But if they have, it’s not because they said the prayer. It may have been at the same time that they said the prayer. If they’re saved, it’s because the prayer they said really corresponds with a radical commitment they’re making in their life to turn around and give up their own rights their own way and surrender to god as your king and lord as to follow christ that’s that decision that transition uh that recalibration is what is conversion what what causes a person to pass from death into life um So if you’re wondering my thoughts about it, I don’t have any real problems with a tract like that. And I love Billy Graham. If that’s a Billy Graham tract, I’ve always loved Billy Graham, a hero of mine since my childhood. But I will say that a tract like that can be the means by which someone turns their heart to God and they become a true Christian and more power to them if they do. It’s also possible, of course… when you’ve got that step-by-step procedure to getting saved, that people can say, oh, okay, if I do this and I do that and do that and do that, then I’m a Christian, and yet have never had any changes whatsoever in their priorities, in their orientation. They’re still living for themselves. Sometimes they even went through those steps just to look out for themselves, to make sure they don’t go to hell. In other words, they’re still putting their own interests first, not God’s. conversion should happen when we realize that God’s interests are the only interests that should matter. And therefore, I’m going to reorient myself to make his interest the only thing that matters to me, too. I’m going to be aligned with the universe then, because the whole universe does the will of God, except for man. And I guess I’m going to try to get in line with the rest of creation and not go my own way, but God’s way. That’d be the issue. But, yeah, I got no real problems with any of those things in that tract. Okay. Charlotte from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Got a lot of women calling today. We usually have mostly men. Hi, Charlotte.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello. Hi. Hi, Steve. How are you? Good. Good. I am new to trying to study and read and learn from the Bible. And… I have heard many people before talking about the rapture, and somebody recently told me that there’s nothing in the Bible about the rapture. Can you tell me if that’s true or where that came from, that whole rapture thing?
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, let me just say, you’re new at studying the Bible. You’ll find that many people who love to study the Bible do believe in this doctrine called the pre-tribulation rapture. they are following a system of theology which is called dispensationalism, even if they’ve never heard that term. I know because I followed it for years without knowing what the term was. Never had heard of dispensationalism, but I was a dispensationalist because that’s what my pastor was and what I was taught. The dispensational view arose in the 1830s, and along with it this idea that before a seven-year great tribulation occurs at the end of time, there will be a removal of the Christians. The dead Christians will rise from the dead and go to be with the Lord, and the living Christians will be caught up. Now, the rising of the dead Christians is called the resurrection. The raising up of the living Christians to meet the Lord there is called the rapture. Now, the word rapture is not found in our English Bibles anywhere. It is from the Latin Bible, the Latin translation. Raptura or raptus, some word like that means to be caught up. And I don’t read Latin. I don’t know Latin. But the word rapture is from the Latin word in 1 Thessalonians 4, I think, 17, maybe 16. So the idea of a rapture is not absent from Scripture, even though the word is not found in our English Bibles. But the problem is, while all Christians, I believe, have always believed in a rapture, what was new, What the innovation was in the 1830s when dispensationalism came into being is that the rapture is earlier than the actual second coming of Christ. People who hold that view hold that Jesus will come at the end of a seven-year tribulation and will set up a kingdom on earth for a thousand years called the millennium. But before that seven years of tribulation, which means seven years before Jesus actually comes back, That’s when the rapture will take place, they say. This is called the pre-tribulational rapture, the rapture taking place before the tribulation. Now, that view is not a historic view of the Christian church. It’s not taught in the Bible. It’s not taught in church history. You might be able to find a few. I mean, there’s lots of teachers in the past 2,000 years who’ve taught different things. There might be a few who have used something like it. For example, there have been some older teachers before the 19th century who taught a rapture that would occur three and a half years before the second coming. They were in the minority, but there have been all kinds of different views. But the Bible teaches, and through most of church history, all Christians held, that the rapture occurs at the second coming of Christ. Now, again, you’re not going to find the word rapture in Scripture, but you do find 1 Thessalonians 4 that said the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout in the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, which is the resurrection. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord of the air. That’s the rapture. Now, believing in the rapture is a historic Christian belief. But the question is, believing in a pre-tribulation rapture? No. No, that’s a modern view. Many, many, many Christians hold it. Those who do feel that they have a scriptural case for it. I used to hold it myself. I have some lectures on that at our website, thenarrowpath.com. I go over all the scriptures there. that I used about 20 different proof texts I used to use to prove a pre-tribulation rapture. But I not only go over them, I also analyze them and show why they don’t teach it at all and why taking them that way is contrary to what the Bible actually does say about the subject. So I don’t believe in a pre-tribulation rapture because some people have heard of no other view of the rapture. They mistakenly think that I don’t believe in the rapture. Some people say, oh, you don’t believe in the rapture, do you? Well, I don’t believe in the pre-tribulational rapture because that’s not taught in the Bible, but I believe in the rapture. I believe the rapture happens when Jesus returns. Not seven years earlier, not three and a half years earlier, not any period earlier. So, yeah, you’ll hear different views on the rapture to be sure. And probably, you know, if you’re in a Bible teaching church, very many of them are of the dispensational variety category. And they will teach a pre-tribulational rapture. And all I’m saying is the church throughout history has not, and many denominations do not. I used to teach that until I was able to analyze my case more objectively and realize it’s not there. It’s not in the Bible.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Well, I thank you very much.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Well, thanks for your call. If you want to hear my lectures on this, they’re pretty thorough. If you go to thenarrowpath.com, there’s a tab that says Topical Lectures. If you find a series that’s called When Shall These Things Be? That’s the series. And there’s lectures there on the rapture and other eschatological issues. So at thenarrowpath.com under Topical Lectures, When Shall These Things Be?
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 01 :
Sure. God bless you. All right, let’s talk next to, it’s going to be Mike from Sacramento, California. Hi, Mike, welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, Mike, thanks for taking, I mean, Steve, thanks for taking my call. My question is actually a similar question to the last caller. It’s about eschatology, and it’s a two-part question. One, I wanted to ask you, what is your eschatological view? Amillennial, post, partial preterist, full preterist? And the second question would be, what do you see as the biggest problem, let’s just say between full preterism and partial preterism? If I understand that correctly, I guess partial preterism is the same thing as postmillennialism. Because the reason I’m asking these questions is because I understand Paul to teach in Galatians that our citizenship is in heaven. and that the Lord said his kingdom is not of this earth, and flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. So I’m of the mindset that we’re ultimately going to wind up in heaven, but there’s a lot of people believing that we’re going to have some sort of paradise on earth. So could you clarify this?
SPEAKER 01 :
Sure. Well, I can, yeah. My eschatological view is amillennialism. I’m not post-millennial, but I am a partial preterist. Now, partial preterism is not an eschatological view. Eschatological views are those that interpret what’s going to happen in the end times. Now, some people have a view of the end times, which they gain from a certain interpretation of the book of Revelation, because they take a futurist view of the book of Revelation. That is, they think Revelation is about the future. The preterists, whether full preterists or partial preterists, preterism just means they take the book of Revelation as being fulfilled in the past. This has no bearing on what their eschatology is. They’re just saying the book of Revelation isn’t about eschatology. Eschatology is another subject. So if you take Revelation as having been fulfilled in the past, all of the discourse in Matthew 24 as having been fulfilled in the past, then you’re some kind of a preterist. Now, a full preterist… I believe it’s heretical. Full preterism is the view that all prophecy in the Bible has been fulfilled and nothing remains to be fulfilled. So they believe that the second coming of Christ, the resurrection, the new heavens and the new earth, the final judgment all took place in A.D. 70 in a spiritual sense and there’s nothing in the future. That is a view that no Christians held until the 1970s, essentially. Maybe a few years before, but it became a movement in the 1970s. it’s to my mind a very wrong view it eliminates the future resurrection of the dead now partial preterism just means that you believe that some scriptures are fulfilled in the past not all and essentially all Christians are partial preterists of a sort because all Christians believe that lots of scriptures were fulfilled by Jesus when he was here on earth but not all scriptures so part of the scriptures part of the prophecies have been fulfilled. That’s a partial preterist view. But someone who’s called a partial preterist is likely to also believe that Revelation and the Olivet Discourse have been significantly fulfilled in 70 AD, at least much of it. And so there’s different views. Now, I wrote a book against full preterism, although I’m a partial preterist. It’s called Why Not Full Preterism? You can get it at Amazon if you want it. Or you can listen to the audio book free from our website. If you go to thenarrowpath.com and look, there’s a tab that says books. You’ll see my book. Why not full preterism? And you can listen to the audiobook free. You don’t have to buy it. Just listen to it there right from the website. So that would answer your question about full preterism somewhat more than I can right now. But preterism and full preterism are not eschatological views. Amillennialism, premillennialism, and postmillennialism are. And being partial preterist doesn’t mean you’re postmillennial. Although A lot of postmillennialists are partial preterists. But I’m an amillennialist. That’s something different. And I’m a partial preterist. So they’re not identical. Preterism, any form of preterism, is not an eschatological view. It’s not a question of the end times. It’s a question of when was any given prophecy that you’re looking at fulfilled. If it hasn’t been fulfilled, you’re a futurist. If it has been fulfilled, you’re a preterist. At least that’s how you’re taking it. Now, from then, of course, from that beginning, you would then develop whatever eschatology you believe is consistent with the materials in the scripture. I’m sorry I’m out of time. I wish I were not. But I hope that’s clarified some things, probably muddied some things. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. I hope you have a happy new year. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We’ll talk again in a day or two.
