As the episode continues, we delve into listener queries about the delineation of the Ten Commandments, the concept of full preterism, and the complexities involved in discerning the true Christian church in today’s world. Bridging biblical history with present-day theological concerns, Steve offers practical advice on maintaining unwavering faith amid personal and doctrinal challenges. An insightful conversation that provokes thought and inspires spiritual reflection.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for an hour each weekday afternoon. I expect we’ll have no trouble with the broadcast. I am in Southern California. You may have heard there’s some big fires in this area. They are not very close to where I am, so I don’t expect them to come to my neighborhood, but we have been alerted by the electric company that our electricity might be cut off at some point in the next few hours. And so I’m counting on that not happening during the radio program. We will do our best to have the whole program live. If we do happen to get cut off, if our electricity goes down, then there will be a recording of a previous show that will kick in. But I’m going to act as if this is going to work out just like any other day. There’s good reason to believe it will. And so I’m going to say if you want to call in and have questions about the Bible or Christianity or you’d like to raise objections or challenges to either of those two feel free to give me a call the number to get me on the air is 844-484-5737 that number again is 844-484-5737 our first caller today is sally calling from nashville tennessee who used to call from i think salem oregon in the old days is that true sally That is correct.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s me.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, and now you’re in Nashville. Hi.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, hi. How are you doing? Hey, I have an origin of Satan question. I thought I’d heard most of the arguments about Satan being a fallen angel, which I don’t really lean toward. But I’d heard a new one, and I wanted to get your thoughts. Someone said that there’s three archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and apparently Lucifer. When I brought up the point about Lucifer being a Latin name in a Hebrew scripture and it really meant morning star, they told me about Job 38.7 that says, When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, that Satan was at creation with Michael and Gabriel. I have not heard that one, so I wanted to get your thoughts.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, there’s actually no reference to any archangels in the Bible except for Michael. Michael is referred to as the archangel. Yeah, in the book of Jude, in verse 9, Michael is referred to as an archangel. Gabriel is not. Lucifer is certainly not. Lucifer is not even said to be an angel of any kind. Gabriel, of course, is a messenger angel. He brought the messages to Joseph and Mary and to others in the Bible, even Daniel. Gabriel is a messenger angel, but he’s never referred to as an archangel. Now, what that person said, I had been taught, too, all my life. I grew up thinking that there were three archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer, and that all of them, each of them had a third of the other angels sort of assigned to them, and they led these ones. And then when Lucifer rebelled and fell away, his third of the angels went with him, and they became the demons, and this is how I was taught growing up. But, of course, then when you do grow up, you can read the Bible with your own eyeballs. And that’s something I did. And there is no mention of any archangel in the Bible except Michael, and he’s only called that one time. Now, Jesus is referred to as the captain of the Lord’s hosts, which is archangel. Arche means chief. So the chief angel is what Michael is called. The person who appeared to Joshua, I think is in the fifth chapter of Joshua, outside Jericho, described himself as the chief of the hosts of the Lord. Now, the hosts would probably be the angels of the Lord. And so the chief of them… would probably be the same thing as the archangel, the leader of them. But we don’t really have any other names given of any angels who are archangels. So that’s not true. Now, in Job, it does say that when God laid the foundations of the earth, the sons of God sang for joy and also the morning stars. Now, the morning stars are obviously, they’re equated with the sons of God. However, we don’t know who is meant by the sons of God, it seems probable that it’s referring to angels. But there’s nothing that would suggest that it’s referring to archangels. You know, angels could be represented by stars. And given the statement itself, it would suggest that somebody, before the earth was made, obviously not human, was rejoicing with God. So the theory that the morning stars are, singing for joy, that those refer to angels of some kind is not a bad idea. But the thing is, Jesus is also called the morning star. We know he’s not an angel. So clearly, the expression morning star can be used more than one way. It may be, in fact, that Job is referring to the angels as morning stars. I have nothing, I’m not opposed to that idea at all. And Jesus, who is not an angel, is also called the morning star. And the king of Babylon is also called the morning star. Apparently it’s a flexible term.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. But one thing that made me kind of pause was him saying that the morning stars were the angels, at least one of them being Lucifer, because of that scripture in Ezekiel, or is it Isaiah where he’s described as morning star?
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s Isaiah chapter. That’s what the word Lucifer means. And it only appears one time in the Bible, actually. And that is, of course, Isaiah 14. Excuse me, Isaiah. Yeah, 1412.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I think 14. And that’s King of Babylon, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, it’s referring to the King of Babylon, as the passage says a few verses earlier.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. So in my mind, if it’s referring to the King of Babylon, it can’t be Satan. So therefore, how could it be Satan? Because the same word is used.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, those… Those who believe it is Satan, they would say, sure, the passage says it’s to the king of Babylon, but very secretly it’s really addressing the spiritual power behind the king of Babylon, and that is Satan. So they’re seeing something mysterious in it that the Bible doesn’t reveal. So I would say, well, if the Bible doesn’t reveal that this is talking about the spiritual power behind the king of Babylon, and it says it’s written to the king of Babylon… Why don’t I just go with what the Bible says? And if you want to make guesses about things the Bible doesn’t say, you’re welcome to do that. I think when we do theology, we’re a lot safer to go with what the Bible actually says rather than guessing at things that the Bible doesn’t mention.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. All right. That helps. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Sally. Great talking to you.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right. You too.
SPEAKER 01 :
Bye-bye. All right. Our next caller is Randy from Redlands, California. Randy, welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, thanks for taking my call. My question is about Exodus chapter 34, and I have two questions here. You know, it mentions that Moses, the Lord says to Moses, with these words, in accordance with these words, I’ve made a covenant with you in Israel, and then Moses writes the covenant on the Ten Commandments. So that’s the old covenant, is that correct?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, it is.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. The Ten Commandments that are listed just before this Are not the Ten Commandments that are in Exodus 20 in Deuteronomy?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, there is no list. There’s no list of the Ten Commandments in chapter 34. There are two places in the Bible that list the Ten Commandments. One of them is Exodus 20, which was uttered at Mount Sinai when the Israelites first got there. And the other one is mentioned a generation later. It’s over in Deuteronomy chapter 5. Moses runs over the Ten Commandments again. Now, there’s no listing of Ten Commandments in Exodus 34. There are some people who think that we should look for Ten Commandments in Exodus 34, verses 10 through 26, or 27, because in verse 28 it says, So he was there with the Lord forty days, meaning Moses was, and forty nights neither he ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. So, on the tables of stone, Moses wrote the Ten Commandments. But we already know what the Ten Commandments were. They were listed for us in chapter 20. There’s no list of them in this chapter. What we have in this chapter is a lot more than ten instructions written. I don’t know where someone finds Ten Commandments here at all. In verses 10 through 27, I counted them once. It seems like there’s at least 15 or more commandments in that section. But those things that are commanded in these verses are not themselves the Ten Commandments. It says, basically it’s saying that Moses wrote these things, and he did because we read them in Exodus, but he probably wrote them on papyri or parchment. not on stone. And then it says, and on the stones he wrote the Ten Commandments. So Moses wrote, as I understand it, the entire Pentateuch, or the entire Torah. And the Torah included 613 commandments. But the Ten Commandments were uniquely written on stone. The others were all written on whatever writing materials Moses had, which in those days would either be parchment made from goatskin or papyri, which is sort of a paper-like substance that was manufactured in Egypt. So it’s not saying that you will find the Ten Commandments listed in this chapter, because they aren’t. And the material that some people, strangely, want to see as, oh, here’s a different set of Ten Commandments in this chapter, I’m not sure how they’re counting them, I think they almost have to just kind of be artificial in where they put the numbers, because there’s a lot more than ten instructions in this particular passage.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and it’s the same thing. There was more than ten there, but verse 27 says, write these words for accordance with these words. Which he did. Which he just was speaking about the words before. Yeah, well, yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right, the words he’s given just before, he tells them to write them down, and he did. And that’s why we have them in the Bible. He wrote the whole five books of Moses. So they are there. They are there because he did write them down. And then it says, and he wrote the words of the covenant on the tablets, which are the Ten Commandments. So these words that aren’t the Ten Commandments, he wrote on whatever writing materials he had. The Ten Commandments, by contrast, were written on tables of stone, it says. So that’s all it’s saying. It’s not giving us a list of the Ten Commandments. It’s simply referring back to them. which were already listed 14 chapters earlier and didn’t need to be listed here, too.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, very good. So Hebrews 8.13 says he’s made a new covenant and the person is obsolete. He’s talking about the Ten Commandments as a contract.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. Well, he’s talking about the entire Torah. Now, see, everything that’s written in Exodus and Leviticus were written at Mount Sinai. Israel, when they came out of Egypt, they camped at Mount Sinai for a year. During that time, Moses made several, at least two, important long treks up the mountain where he met with God, and God gave him the Ten Commandments on the first time on stone, and then they got broken, so he had to take up tables of stone again and write them on there again. But God also dictated to Moses a whole bunch of other instructions. about animal sacrifices, about priesthood, about clean and unclean animals, about sacred days. None of those were really in the Ten Commandments, with the exception that one sacred day is, and that’s Sabbath. But there were lots of sacred days, and they’re not in the Ten Commandments. So the Ten Commandments were the first laws, and most people see them as sort of a summary of the basic moral code that belongs to the larger law. But the larger law had a lot more laws and rules that are not in the Ten Commandments. Like I said, about over 600 more rules than the Ten Commandments. So, you know, Moses wrote all of them, and this is affirming that. Now, they were part of the covenant that God made there, not Sinai, and that’s the covenant that Israel lived under for 1,400 years until Jesus came, and then Jesus made the New Covenant. And as you quoted from Hebrews 8, it tells us in Hebrews 8.13, where there’s a New Covenant… it has rendered the first one old or obsolete. And so the old covenant is now obsolete because there’s a new covenant.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you very much.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, Randy. Good talking to you. Thanks for your time. Bye now. Kim from Las Vegas, Nevada. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. First, thank you for your ministry. It’s helped me tremendously. My question is, I’ve just recently been looking into, like, full preterism. Just was curious about it. And I find all these Israel only. And it just, wow, I mean, these people seem very well learned and quote, incite all these things. I don’t have enough knowledge. But I don’t. I don’t go for it. Anyway, I don’t know if you have it in your topical lectures, but I would love if you would speak on it, if you could address it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, actually I wrote a book against full preterism. And while you can actually purchase the book from Amazon, you can also listen to the audiobook for free at our website. So if you’ve been to our website before or if you have our app, it’s better if you have our app because when you listen from our app, the app, remembers where you leave off and brings you back to the place you left off when you come back the next time. I’m not sure if listening to it on the website has that feature. But anyway, the book is called Why Not Full Preterism? And it’s a 300-page book. And, again, if you’re really interested in looking into the subject, I give the arguments that full preterism largely leans on. And then I debunk them. And I teach what I think Christians have always understood the Bible to say until the full preterist movement started back in the 1970s. Now, the Israel-only movement, as I understand it, is a sub-branch of full preterism. And there’s a lot of hostility between some full preterists and the Israel-onlys because full preterism has broken up into several different branches. And most of these branches really despise each other. You can tell by the way they speak about each other. They really don’t like their competitors. See, if you come along and you’re the first person to say, hey, everything was fulfilled in 70 A.D. There’s nothing left to be fulfilled, which is what the first full preterist said. you kind of have the corner on the market of novelty there, because the whole church has always believed there’s a second coming of Christ, and you’re the first person to come along and start a movement saying there isn’t going to be one. So everybody who’s interested in silly novelties will run to your camp. But then if your camp breaks up into several different denominations or branches… And now there’s a bunch of people saying the one thing that is your novel, your novel claim to fame. They’re all saying that it was all fulfilled in 70, but you’ve got people adding other bizarre stuff like only Israelites can be saved and so forth. So there’s a lot of resentment, it appears to me when I read the literature, between most full preterists and the Israel-only full preterists. And I don’t say much about Israel-only in my book because I am rather trying to address the issues that underlie full preterism itself and undermine the whole concept. The concept being Those who don’t know, the full preterists believe that everything that was ever predicted, including the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the rapture, the final judgment, the new heavens and the new earth, those have already happened. They all happened in 70 A.D. So it’s kind of a ridiculous view, but they don’t sound ridiculous. Like you said, they sound like they really know the Bible well. I debated Don Preston about 12 years ago. He’s the leading debater among the full preterists. We had a two-day debate in Denver. And he is not stupid. He’s not stupid. He can quote scriptures. He can talk real fast. He can make points from scripture that you’ve never heard before. But so can Jehovah’s Witnesses and so can Mormons and so can people. Just because someone can do that doesn’t mean that they understand it correctly or that they’re not a cult leader. So I wouldn’t be impressed by people who think they see the scriptures better than anybody else ever did in the past 2,000 years. Generally speaking, that’s an extremely unhumble claim. And I’ll tell you, if I thought I saw something differently than all Christians had before me for 2,000 years, I’d either be fairly quiet about it or extremely humble about it. You know, I mean, if I brought it up, I’d say, well, you know, this is just my opinion and so forth, but it’s the way I’m kind of looking at it. And I have done that with some things. I mean, there are not many things that I would ever say, you know, no one has ever said before. But when I see something differently than most Christians do, and once in a while that’s the case, I just, you know, I will not be dogmatic about it because I fear, why would I be right and everybody else wrong? But the full preterists don’t have any of that humility. They think it’s quite natural that they would be right and everyone else would be wrong. And that’s exactly what their claim is. Their claim is that the whole church has been wrong for 2,000 years until they came along. They’re very arrogant. Yeah, I have no use for that kind of arrogance in a Bible teacher.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, I appreciate that. I’m going to check out that book. It’s called Why Not Full Credit.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, like I said, the regular copy you can buy as a book from Amazon if you want, but I’d recommend, I mean, some people would rather read than listen, but you can at least listen to it for free at our website. If you go to thenarrowpath.com, and there’s a tab that says Books, and that’ll take you to a picture.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, I know how to get there.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, do it.
SPEAKER 09 :
I appreciate that, Steve. I just found that shocking, some of the way they come across. And so this, no, you guys are totally wrong, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I’m like, what? So I wanted your take on it.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, thanks for your call, Kim. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
God bless. You too. Well, Kim was in Las Vegas, and so is Joseph, who’s our next caller from Las Vegas. Hi, Joseph. Welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, good afternoon, Steve. I listen on KKVV radio here in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Anyway, I want to ask you, I’m very concerned about the people in Southern California, primarily Los Angeles area. And I want you to explain, if you will, please, via Scripture, if you can quote maybe a few Scripture passages, do you think they’re being judged by the Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit of Jesus? Or do you think it is the devil that’s creating… the winds and everything that is happening, the fires, the downed power lines in the Los Angeles area. The reason I wonder about this, they call the winds the Diablo winds.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, well, what people call the winds doesn’t tell us anything about the will of God. Now, you gave two possibilities. One, is these fires are a judgment from God, and the other is that they’re, you know, an attack from the devil. I’m sure for those who are losing homes and things like that, it would seem very much like an attack from the devil. But there is always a third option, and that is it is the laws of physics. Fires get started. If there’s dry brush around, they generally spread to the dry brush. If there’s strong winds, the fires spread faster. If you’ve had incompetent governance in an area for years so that they’ve reduced the police, I mean, the fire department size. They haven’t maintained the woods. They cut away dead brush and so forth because they had too many homeless people to put into hotels. Well, you know, there’s, or illegal aliens or whatever. You know, when government mismanagement can lead to problems, and the problems are caused by nature, but could have been mitigated by human activity. I don’t see how God or the devil really has to be brought into the picture of this as the cause of the storm or the fires. The Santana winds are strong, you know, seasonally. It’s not uncommon for Southern California to have several days, at least a year, of these Santana winds that blow really hard and fast. And obviously that makes it very difficult when you’re trying to put fires out. And then when you’ve got a reduced fire department, Resources have been mismanaged by the governing people in Southern California, leading to water shortages and things like that, mismanagement of the forests. I think, you know, I’m not going to put that on God or on the devil. Now, I will say this. Despite the fact that nature throws all kinds of disasters at people, I mean, if you were in some parts of the world, world, you might have volcanoes to contend with or tornadoes or hurricanes. Here in California, we often have earthquakes. They’re not always devastating, but when they are, I’m sure people say, well, is that God or is that the devil? I don’t really think we have to have God intervening specially to bring disasters. I do believe this as a Christian. that I can trust myself and my things and all my concerns to God, and that God can protect from even natural disasters, certainly. And I’m not saying the devil never has anything to do with it, because in the case of Job, you know, God gave the devil permission to test Job, and a strong wind came and blew down Job’s house on his kids and stuff. So, you know, I’m not saying the devil never has anything to do with bad disasters. And I’m not saying that God never sends them. I’m just saying we don’t have any information in the Bible that would tell us that every time something like this happens, we can pin it on the devil or on God. But I do believe that living in a disaster area As a Christian, I can say I’m trusting my well-being and my things to God. If he takes them from me, he’s got every right to do so because everything I own belongs to him, including my own life. I’ve been bought with a price. I’m not my own. If he wants to take my life, that’s perfectly his priority. He’s going to do it sometime. If this is the day, then this is the day. Same thing with my loved ones. Same thing with all my possessions. They’re all going to burn someday. If this is the day, then maybe I wasn’t planning on it being the day, but it’s not altogether surprising. I expect everything I own to burn someday, and I expect to die someday and all my loved ones to die someday. It might sound a little clinical to say it that way, but, I mean, you might as well live in the real world. Now, I will say this. I do believe that if God doesn’t want me to die or doesn’t want my things to be destroyed, that he can protect me. And there have been cases of disasters that totally wiped out whole neighborhoods, and one house is standing untouched and unharmed. Now, I’m not going to say it was always the Christians who had that house. It might be a non-Christian. But it’s obvious that just because there’s a disaster, it doesn’t prevent God necessarily from protecting what he wants to protect. And Job is another case of this, because the devil complained to God before God gave the devil permission to hurt Job’s things. The devil complains, says, I can’t touch him or anything that he has, because you put a hedge around him. But take down the hedge and let me come in and hurt him, and you’ll see, he’ll curse you to your face. So God, the devil can’t touch anything you have unless God lets him. And if God lets him, he’s got a reason for it. And that’s the way a Christian looks at the world. Non-Christians, of course, can say that’s silly, that’s superstitious. Yeah, but at least then you’re just left to fate. And that’s fine if you want it to be that way. We have reasons to believe what we do. But I’m out of time for this segment. We have another half hour coming up. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming up, so don’t go away. My name is Steve Gray. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 06 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. Welcome to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you but everything to give you. When today’s radio show is over, we invite you to study, learn, and enjoy by visiting thenarrowpath.com where you’ll find free topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all The Narrow Path radio shows. We thank you for supporting the listener-supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Remember thenarrowpath.com.
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. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you disagree with the host and want to say why, feel free to give me a call. The number to call is 844-825-8000. That’s 844-484-5737. Once again, that’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller today is Danielle from San Juan Capistrano, California. Hi, Danielle.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks so much for taking my call. My question is, well, let me give you a little background. I’ve been doing a Bible study with some friends. in the book of Revelation and, um, learning about the early church. And I’m trying to take a deep dive into what the early church believed, what they held on to. Um, um, and I really, you know, I, I’m, I take all of my information from the new Testament. Um, but I’m hearing a lot of talk online on social media that the Catholic and the Orthodox church is the true church. And since I’m already struggling with, um, Reformed theology, especially on election, predestination, and eternal conscious torment. I’m wondering, what do I do now? Because I don’t know where to go, what to do, because I want to walk in the way of Christ, but I don’t know what the church is. Where should I be worshiping? And so I was wondering if you could speak on this. Because I’m kind of in limbo, and I would love to get out of this place.
SPEAKER 01 :
Sure. Well, you know, there’s a woman who asked that same question to Jesus. Where should we go to worship? And he said, well, she knew of two options. One was Jerusalem, and one was the Mount Gerizim where the Samaritans had their temple. And there was conflict. Some said they were the true church or the true temple, and the others said they were. And so we’ve got the same kind of situation today. And she said, well, which one is right? Where shall we worship? And Jesus said, well, the time is coming where people won’t be worshiping in either of those places. Those who worship God acceptably are those who worship in spirit and in truth. Now, in spirit and truth is not a particular location. In fact, that’s the point. You’re not going to worship in a given location necessarily. If you’re worshiping God in the way he’s pleased, you’ll be worshiping him in spirit and truth. Now, was he saying that people won’t go to meeting places anymore? No, he himself went to synagogues. after that to worship on Sabbath, and so did the apostles and others. And the churches, you know, the apostles set up churches that people gathered. So gathering with Christians is just fine, and even gathering with Jews was just fine before they were Christians. But that’s not really, that’s not part of what’s required. I think sometimes we feel like God is going to be displeased if we choose the wrong day of the week or the wrong place to meet with others. I think we can meet with God, with God’s people anywhere where two or three are gathered in his name. And it can happen not once a week. It can happen every day or four days a week or 10 days out of the month or something. You know, I mean, there’s nothing in the Bible that says how often or where you need to meet. In the early church, they met in homes primarily. Sometimes they met in one of the porticos of the temple. Sometimes they met in the school of Tyrannus, which Paul apparently rented or secured for Christian meetings, a public access facility. In other words, it really didn’t matter where they met. We know at least one case they met out by Riverside. And so it doesn’t matter. Now, what you’re really asking is what denomination or what group is the approved group, because you’ve apparently had some connection with Reformed groups, which would be maybe Presbyterian or other Reformed groups, possibly Reformed Baptists or whatever, and now you’re having a problem with their Reformed theology. And you’re looking at the Catholic and the Eastern Church, which both claim they’re the original church. Now, the problem with anyone saying they’re the original church is that the original church died 2,000 years ago. The church is people. The church is not an organization. The church is not an institution. The church is people. And, of course, generations of people overlap each other through the ages. So there’s people who are part of the church now. at all times and all places where there are Christians. But certainly there wasn’t always the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church was never really Roman Catholic until there were people referring to the Roman bishop as the pope. And that really wasn’t happening much until about probably the 5th century or later. The Eastern Church was joined at the hip with the Roman Catholic Church until the 11th century, and then they broke off and had their own But they say it was the Roman Catholic Church that broke off from them. The point is both groups claim that they are the true church and the original church. No, the original church was in Jerusalem. Then there were churches in many other places, too, in Antioch and eventually, you know, Philippi and Thessalonica and Galatians and so forth. There were churches lots of places, but they were not Roman Catholic, and they weren’t Eastern Orthodox. They were just congregations of Christians. They didn’t have names like that, and they didn’t have a centralized authority, except that they all agreed that the apostles were, you know, the apostles that Jesus appointed. So if they had disputes, they had to send messengers back to Jerusalem where the apostles were. But the apostles are dead now. Fortunately, their writings are still alive, so we can still follow the apostles today. because we can follow what they said. It’s in writing for us. Unfortunately, none of the organizations that have called themselves churches, whether it’s Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic or Protestant for that matter, none of them that I know of have simply continued the biblical practices and doctrines that the apostles taught, that Jesus taught. Each group has their own traditions they’ve added. which I’m not going to say traditions are bad, but if they insist upon those traditions, then, of course, then you begin to confuse man’s traditions with God’s word, and we shouldn’t do that. I believe the Catholic Church has some traditions that are quite contrary to Scripture, and I think the Eastern Orthodox has some, too. Perhaps the Catholic Church has more. I’m not sure. But they’re both very similar in that respect. They have a lot of tradition. They’ve got an institutionalized structure. And then, of course, Protestant denominations have the same problem. They have their traditions, and they have their institutionalized structure. So what you can either do is start a 4,500th denomination of your own, or just fellowship with people in any of them. Because in every denomination, there are true Christians. In every denomination, there are also some traditions and things like that that aren’t really Christians. were never part of what Jesus taught or the apostles. But as long as they don’t make you believe those traditions, you’ll find in those churches there are people who really love the Lord, really people who are followers of Christ. I can fellowship with an Eastern Orthodox person or a Roman Catholic person. I won’t be joining their churches, but I have no trouble fellowshipping with them if they love the Lord. Same thing is true with Protestant churches, including Reformed churches. I have different views than Reformed churches. But I have no problem fellowshipping with somebody who holds Reformed views as long as they don’t make the mistake of thinking that their views are the gospel or something like that, which some seem to. You know, you just find, I would just say find people who love the Lord, who are following Jesus, who are seeking to follow the word of God. Don’t worry too much about, you know, harmless traditions that some of them may hold. We live in a hard time for finding a church. I have people write to me all the time saying, do you know of any good churches in the area where I live? I’ve been looking for a long time for one. Sounds like you’re at the beginning of that process, too. I don’t. I don’t know of good churches in most places. But I assume there are churches that are good enough. That is good enough. I mean, not that they can’t be improved. And perhaps that’s one of the main things. Are they willing to be improved? You know, I believe that any church you attend, including the church that I have in my home, it’s got defects in it. It’s got problems. I mean, there’s going to be things that aren’t perfect. But the real question is, are they perfectable? Are they correctable? Are they teachable? And this is the problem that some churches have is they don’t want to be taught. If they have things they’re doing unscriptural and you say, hey, by the way, this isn’t a scriptural thing, they don’t want that. They’ll kick you out before they’ll change. And that’s the kind of church you don’t want. You don’t want to be in a church that doesn’t love the truth but just loves its own historical viewpoints and traditions because that church is not following Christ. Now, some people in it might be. Remember, the real church is people. The institution and the people are not the same thing. It’s just that people sometimes are part of an institution, but their being part of Christ is a different matter. You can be part of an institution and also a follower of Christ, but not if you’re going to put the views of that institution ahead of the views of Jesus, obviously, because a person who’s a real Christian wants to follow Jesus. It looks like you’re kind of in that place. You’ve been with apparently Reformed people, and now you see some things differently. You know, I don’t know if they’re driving you out because you don’t believe as they do, or if you’re just saying, wow, these people are so different than me, I don’t want to fellowship with them. I think we should fellowship with people different from us until they won’t let us. But on the other hand, if I went to a church and all they ever talked about were things that were their traditional beliefs that I don’t agree with, I would definitely get a little tired of that. I’d go looking for a church that wants to talk about Jesus. There must be a few around. I’m not sure. You know, there were a lot of them around when I was a kid. When I was young, even a young man, I could go into any town, and I could go into a Baptist church or a Methodist church, probably a Presbyterian church or, you know, something like that, Pentecostal church, and I could find people, churches that wanted to talk about Jesus and wanted to talk about the Bible. That’s less and less popular in churches these days, and so I’m not really sure that they’ll be easy to find. But there’s got to be. There’s got to be some churches where you live. where people, you know, the pastor really wants to talk about Jesus, wants to follow Jesus, wants to teach people to be disciples. And I’m saying there will be a lot fewer of those churches now than you would have found 50 years ago, but you’ve got to find one, even if they just meet in a home, you know. But I wouldn’t choose them based on their denomination. I’d choose them on the basis of their single-mindedness as followers of Christ. That would be them. the only issue I’d be looking for. Because they don’t have to agree with me on anything else.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that makes sense, because I was looking at the Fellowship of Believers in Acts 2, and it’s just meeting together, breaking bread, sharing what they had. I just want to follow Christ, learn to love, learn to be merciful. Very simple, and I just didn’t know if, because I believe that we’re saved, Christ saves us, you know, that it’s not the church that saves us, but I started hearing different voices. I got confused. So you simplified and confirmed what I’ve been thinking. So thank you very much.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, sure. And you live in Southern California, and so do we. If you want to email me, we might be able to direct you more. You know, I can make some suggestions.
SPEAKER 02 :
That would be wonderful. I would love that. Is that your website?
SPEAKER 01 :
At the website, yeah. Go to my emails there.
SPEAKER 02 :
Perfect. Steve, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, and God bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Danielle, God bless you. All right, we’re going to talk next to Cheryl from Wheatland, California. A lot more women today than usual. We usually have mostly men. Hi, Cheryl, welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I was reading through Matthew, and I became puzzled by a couple of things. One was, why does Peter get so much credit for recognizing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, when earlier on, when Peter had walked on the water and then got into the boat, it seemed like all the disciples seemed to come to agreement when they said, truly, this is the Son of God.
SPEAKER 01 :
And even more than that, Before Peter ever met Jesus, his brother Andrew came to him and said, we have found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. So, I mean, before Peter ever laid eyes on Jesus, he was told by his brother that Jesus was the Messiah. So why was this a great revelation two years later when he, at Caesarea Philippi, Peter said that? Right. Good question. I think, well, you know, when Peter did say you are the Messiah, the son of the living God, remember, Jesus said, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven has. Now, he’s saying you didn’t learn this from man. Now, the truth is, he did first hear it from a man, his own brother, Andrew, told him that. But that didn’t that wasn’t the revelation that Peter got that he needed. And many of us need to ask ourselves, do we know Jesus is those things by anything other than hearsay? You know, somebody has told us that and we decide to believe it? Or do we know that because the Father has revealed it to us and we know it and no one could dissuade us from that conviction? I think that this was the kind of steadfast conviction that Jesus is commending because just a few days earlier, Jesus had had the multitudes following him. He had fed the 5,000 like maybe a week earlier, if that. And there were these huge crowds following him. And then Jesus said some offensive things to the crowds, and they all left. At least most of them left. And so much so that Jesus turned to the 12 and said, Are you going away too? Like almost the only ones left. And Peter said, To whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life. And it was like the next week or a few days later that Jesus went with them to Bethlehem. to Caesarea Philippi, and Peter made the statement that Jesus was so pleased to hear. I think what it is, is that Peter and the disciples were following Jesus on the assumption that they believed he was the Messiah. But then John the Baptist had thought he was the Messiah too, and when John was put in prison and Jesus didn’t seem to be moving forward in the routing of the Romans to get John out of prison… John began to have his doubts, said, are you the one who’s coming or not? Now, you see, at this point, John the Baptist and even probably the disciples were shaky about this because they started out convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, but he didn’t seem to be acting like the Messiah. They thought the Messiah was supposed to rouse the troops of Jews to drive the Romans out. That’s what the Messiah was supposed to do, they thought. And Jesus wasn’t doing that at all. Now, when Jesus had thousands following him, I’m sure the disciples thought, oh, man, it’s any day now. He’s going to mobilize these people. But then everybody leaves him, you know. It’s like he says some things about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and everyone’s offended and leaves him. And now, you know, after there were thousands in his movement, and Peter and the disciples, of course, all kind of his cabinet people, You know, I mean, they probably thought they were really riding the crest of a big wave here. And suddenly, boom, the tide went out and there’s only them. Now, that would be discouraging for them. And it may well be that although the disciples didn’t voice it, Jesus knew very well. Some of them were wondering. Some of them were having the same kind of doubts that John the Baptist had expressed. But when he said, who do you say I am? You’re the Messiah. You’re the son of the living God. It’s like, OK, I know that you are saying that not because someone told you that two years ago when we first met. But you’re saying that because my father has shown you that, because you wouldn’t, you know, the fact that none of these things have shaken your faith, you’re still strongly convicted about that. So, good for you, you know. I think that’s what he was saying.
SPEAKER 07 :
Also, I was also noticing how the disciples were able to be sent out by Jesus to raise people from the dead and heal and drive out evil spirits, but it seems surprising to me that they would become so amazed about Peter walking on the water when they were able to do those miracles.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, well, I’d say no matter how many miracles I’d seen, the first time I saw a man walk on water, if I’d never heard of anyone doing it before, I’d think that’s pretty amazing. You have to realize that human beings, in order to believe in miracles, Probably they need to discipline themselves to not forget what they’ve seen. How many times have any of us prayed for something and then it happened? And when it happened, we thought, oh, I’ll never doubt God again. You know, I’ll never doubt God again. But then how many days does it take until you’re in another crisis and you pray and you’re not really sure if God’s listening? I mean, the Israelites walked through the Red Sea on their way out of Egypt. Three days later, they thought they were going to die in the wilderness. It doesn’t take long to forget the things that make an impression on us. when they haven’t been around for the last few days you know so i think that you know yeah the disciples had seen miracles but that you know when you’re living in the now and there’s a new crisis and the crisis isn’t immediately resolved suddenly we go back to our old doubting ways unless we discipline ourselves to hold on to the faith and not forget what we’ve seen and that’s what like the writer of hebrews urges us to keep doing don’t forget Thanks for your call. I need to try to get more in before we’re done here. Not much time left. Bob from Bellevue, Washington. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, good afternoon, Steve. My question has to do with Genesis 6. And it seems as particularly the Nephilim, the giants that are mentioned in verse 3, with regard to verse 2, the sons of God. If the sons of God were fallen angels, my first question to you is, were they men who had corrupted themselves so much that they were open to full demon possession, thus allowing them to cohabitate with human women? If not that, then Were they just fallen angels who somehow came out of their realm and were able to cohabitate with women? The second question regards the Nephilim. It seems to be just inserted there. I don’t know. I don’t want to say out of place, but it’s just right there in verse 4. And there’s nothing said about them that are evil or anything like that. or that they were an offspring of the sons of God. You’re right. Yeah, so I guess my question is, why is it there?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I think the Nephilim were in the land in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God went into the daughters of men and children born to them. Obviously, the Nephilim were there before those marriages and afterwards. So it’s not saying that these Nephilim were produced by these marriages, but that they were there at the same time. Now, the Nephilim are apparently giant races of people. And why it’s mentioned here, I’m not sure, with the possible exception that Moses, when he wrote this, was dealing with Jews in the wilderness, because that’s where Moses was apparently when he wrote this, and they had been afraid to go into the promised land because they’d seen Nephilim there. And God had said that he could give them the land, but when the spies went into the land and came back and said, we saw Nephilim there, we can’t conquer them. And Joshua and Caleb said, no, but God promised he’ll give it to us. And the people didn’t believe it because they were afraid of the Nephilim. It may be that Moses, writing to these very people, when he’s writing Genesis, because he’s writing ancient history at the time he wrote Genesis, he mentions certain things. And maybe he’s saying, you know, in those days there were Nephilim there too, but what do you think happened to them? You know, these are the people who were wiped out in the floods, including Nephilim. God doesn’t have any problem dealing with the Nephilim. You know, that might be why he mentioned it. I don’t know. Some people say that the Nephilim were evil, and they say the sons of God were fallen angels. The Bible does not say that the sons of God were fallen angels, nor is there any particular reason to associate them with that. This idea became popular as a result of an apocryphal book called Enoch in the 2nd century B.C., long after Genesis was written. The idea that these are angels that fell is not mentioned in the Bible. And I don’t believe they are, for the very reason you mentioned. How is it that angels could procreate with humans? Do they have human DNA? How did they get that? God didn’t give angels human DNA, so how did they get it to procreate with humans? I think sons of God are simply humans. Human children of God. Like I’m a child of God and you’re a child of God if you’re a Christian. To as many as received him. To them he gave the power to become the sons of God, it says in John chapter 1. And people in the Old Testament are called sons of God too. Israel, when they’re loyal to God, are called that. So I think that sons of God as often, no doubt more often in the Bible, refers to humans who are godly. Although there’s a couple places in Job where it probably refers to angels. But the term sons of God can be used more than one way, obviously. So I don’t think these are fallen angels, and I don’t think the Nephilim are from them. And why the Nephilim are mentioned, I can’t be sure. You’re right, it does seem to be an offhand mention of it. But it may be, as I said, there may have been a purpose that Moses had, as he’s writing this for the Israelites to read, that the Nephilim that they saw in the land that were such a terror to them, even though God said he’d give them the land and give them the victory, They apparently didn’t think God could take care of giants. Well, this story points out that among the people that God easily took care of in the flood, they included giants. I mean, God can take care of the situation. And that might be why he mentions it. I’m only guessing because I haven’t spoken with Moses about it to get it from him. But that would be a guess that I would be willing to strongly consider.
SPEAKER 04 :
How about the verses in Peter where Peter says that, Jesus proclaimed. 1 Peter 2.
SPEAKER 01 :
1 Peter 3.
SPEAKER 04 :
And the days of Noah, these spirits were thrown into the spirit prison. He went down and proclaimed his victory over death. But he references these were the ones who were in the days of Noah.
SPEAKER 01 :
The disobedience in the days of Noah. I think that’s 1 Peter 3.20. I think he’s talking about human spirits. I think he’s talking about human beings that were disobedient while the ark was being prepared, it says, and Christ preached to them. They are now, because they’ve died since, they are spirits in prison. But when they were still alive, those spirits in prison were preached to in the days of Noah through the Spirit of Christ. And that’s what Peter says there. He says, through the Spirit, Christ preached to these people who are now spirits in prison. But he did it in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared. They weren’t dead then. They’re dead now. They’re spirits in prison now, but they were alive then. And they were preached to, but they were disobedient, it says. And I think it’s referring to the preaching to that generation by Noah himself. That’s at least how I understand that passage.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, sir. Thank you very much. Have a good 2025.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. You too. It’s good to hear from you, brother. Well, my apologies to all those who are waiting online to get on. We seem to have run out of time. But we haven’t run out of days yet as far as we know. We’re on every day. So if you didn’t get on today, again, I apologize if you’ve been waiting online for, as some of them have, for about a half hour. I’m sorry for that. Those who call earliest definitely get on earliest. So keep that in mind because we’re on Monday through Friday. And every one of those days of the week, we have the lines open. If you want to call early enough, you’ll definitely get on. If you call late, you sometimes will. But unfortunately, today is not one of those times. I wish it were. So with only about a minute left, I’m going to have to not take any more calls. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I’ll take a call and say, oh, we don’t have a minute. Is that good enough for you? And it’s not. So I’m just not going to take that chance. Music’s playing. Time to go. Let me just remind you, The Narrow Path has been on the air for 28 years daily. And we don’t have any commercials because we don’t sell anything and we don’t let anyone else sell anything during our hour. So we are listener supported, but we pay lots of money to radio stations. Lots of radio stations carry the show and they charge for it like they do everyone else. So we have to pay them. And if that money comes in the mail, we keep paying them and we stay on the air. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. That’s P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can do that from our website, where, again, everything is free. The website is thenarrowpath.com. thanks for joining us let’s talk again tomorrow God bless
