Join Steve Gregg as he addresses listener queries about the interpretation of Revelation 20:7 from the amillennial perspective. Explore the symbolic nature of Satan’s binding and how it contrasts with premillennial interpretations. In response to inquiries about recommended Christian apologetics books, Steve offers insights into top picks for both introductory and in-depth exploration of faith, providing a thoughtful guide to navigating spiritual literature.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon. We have an open phone line so that you can call in through this hour with your questions about the Bible or the Christian faith that we can discuss here, commercial free, no breaks, except at the bottom of the hour I do take a break to let you know how to reach us. But, yeah, we don’t have anything for sale. We have no sponsors. We just use this whole time to take your calls. And you can call if you have questions or if you have a disagreement with the host about something that’s happened, been said on the program. The number to call, by the way, it looks like I’m looking now at this full switchboard, so don’t call right now, but call in a few minutes. Lines do open up. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Now, we have a couple of things happening tomorrow in Southern California, for those of you listening in that area, which is where I live. Once a month, we have a men’s Bible study on Saturday morning in Temecula. And that’s happening tomorrow morning, 8 o’clock, for men. And that’s held at a location you can get the address at our website for. And then in the evening, in another location in Southern California, in Orange County, we have a Bible study in Boynton Park. And that’s going to be about the book of 1 John. It’s going to be an overview of the whole book of 1 John. And that’s tomorrow night. So if you’re interested in these meetings, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under announcements. By the way, the meeting tomorrow night is 6 o’clock. It might be a little earlier than you’d be expecting, so I don’t want you to show up late if you’re coming. It’s at 6 o’clock. And the men’s Bible study is at 8 in the morning in Temecula. All right, so check that out. If you’d like to join us, we’d love to see you. Go to thenarrowpath.com. Look under announcements, and you’ll see the time and place of these gatherings. We’re going to go to the phones now and talk to Justin in Topsham, Maine. Hi, Justin. Welcome to The Narrow Path. How are you doing, Steve? Can you hear me well? Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, so speaking of 1 John, in 1 John 3, verse 6, no one who lives in him keeps on sinning. I know the rest of the book, there’s some parts where he’s talking about practicing sin. So my first question is, should we view the book of 1 John as kind of a whole? That way it doesn’t seem a little weird. And then secondly, the second question has to do with cessationism. What is the – I have a good friend of mine who is a cessationist, and I – I have yet to get an answer from him about the passages that speak of the ceasing of gifts. And I’ll take my answer off the air, if that’s okay, sir.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Well, thank you for your call. Good to talk to you. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Well, you know, in 1 John, there’s about three or four places that it says that people who are born of God or people who abide in him or people who, you know, are Christians don’t sin. And yet every Christian knows that they have sinned since becoming a Christian, which seems to make it seem unrealistic. Or else, of course, makes it seem like maybe we’re not Christians because we do sometimes sin. But the New Testament writers had a view of things which we should have, but many modern Christians don’t. And that is that there’s two ways to live your life. One is to live in sin. and the other is to live in obedience to God. Now, this is a decision that you make when you become a believer, that you’re going to live in obedience to God. And therefore, you make that your aim, and you make that your habit. Now, to say we live… If we say somebody lives in sin, that doesn’t mean that everything they do is sin. It doesn’t mean they never do a good thing. You know, a person who is a sinner may still… Love his mother and take care of her when she gets old or something. There are people who do good things, although they are living in sin. To say that someone lives in sin doesn’t mean everything they do is a sin. Likewise, to say we live in obedience to God doesn’t mean that there are no exceptions in our behavior. It doesn’t mean we never, ever do the wrong thing. But we don’t live in sin. If a person is living in sin, then they’re not following Christ. And if they’re not following Christ, they’re not what the Bible regards as a Christian. So John assumes his readers know this because, you know, in those days, they didn’t have a Christianized culture outside the church. In the Roman Empire, everything was pagan. Their morals were atrocious and so forth. They were idolaters. They were immoral. And so when a person became a Christian, their course changed. And it was very obvious. They’re not living in sin anymore like the rest of the world does. And so when John says he that is born of God does not commit sin, he means he has given up his life of sin. It doesn’t mean he never stumbles. The Bible makes it very clear we all do stumble. And when we do stumble, we do sin. But then we repent and we go back to living obediently again. And when we do sin, it’s something we really didn’t really want to do. I mean, there was something about us that wanted to. Obviously, our flesh wanted to. But our hearts and our minds didn’t. really don’t want to. That’s what Paul talked about where, you know, I do the things I hate and the things I want to do I don’t do. He says, I see this in my mind. I agree with the law of God. In other words, I’m in favor of doing the right thing. I really want to do the right thing. But I see that I have some force, some law in my members that brings me into bondage to sinning. So from time to time, a Christian does stumble into sin. But even when they do, It doesn’t represent the way they want to live their life. They’ve had a weak moment. And because it’s not the way they want to live their life, as soon as they’ve done it, they repent. They don’t live in sin. They may fall into sin, but they don’t live in it. So that’s what John means. And he assumes that all people of his generation knew that. That’s what it was. You’re a sinner, a pagan, living in idolatry and immorality and dishonesty and all those evil things that pagans in the Roman Empire lived in until you become a Christian. And when you become a Christian, you renounce those things. You stop living that way. Your life goes in another direction from what it was doing before. And, yeah, you might fall into sin once in a while, and John is not denying that. In fact, John acknowledges that because he says in the same book, in 1 John 2, verse 1, My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. I’m writing to you so that you don’t sin. But if anyone does sin, he says, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. So he does say, you know, sometimes we do sin. We don’t want to. I’m writing to you so you won’t. I’m writing to you so that sin will no longer be a part of your life, but if you stumble into sin, thankfully it’s not the end of the path for you. we have a redemption in Christ. But notice a couple of verses later, he says in 1 John 2, 4, he who says, I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. Now, keeping God’s commandments is living obediently. And anyone who says they know Christ and they don’t live obediently, they don’t know Christ. He says they’re lying. They may be lying to themselves. Or their pastor may have lied to them. Their pastor may have told them they’re a Christian, even when they’ve never departed from their sinful life. But he says it’s a lie, whether you’re lying to yourself, lying to others, or someone else has lied to you. If you think you know God, but you’re living in sin and disobedience, you don’t. You don’t know God. And that’s made very unambiguous. So several times throughout the book, John does say, you know, those who are born of God, those who he dwells in and so forth, those who abide in him don’t sin. But he’s not saying it never happens that we sin. It just means that our life is the opposite of a life of sin. It’s a life of obedience, which is unfortunately punctuated by failures on occasion. And so that’s what he means by that. Now, about cessationism, for those who don’t know that word, you asked about it. Cessationism is the doctrine that the gifts of the Holy Spirit… at least what some people might call the sign gifts of the Spirit, healing, prophecy, miracles, that kind of thing, tongues, interpretation of tongues. Some people say that those gifts have ceased. That’s why it’s called cessationism. Cessation means ceasing, the ceasing of the gifts. And many people believe that this happened when the New Testament was completed. Or they don’t put such a fine point on it. They just say after the apostolic age. Now, I don’t know if they would say this happened the moment John, the last surviving apostle, died. Suddenly all the gifts disappeared. Or if there’s some more generic or general area in their mind called the apostolic age. One thing I can say, though, is whatever they’re thinking of, it’s not in the Bible. There’s nothing in the Bible that speaks of an apostolic age after which the gifts will go away. Paul did not seem to be aware that the gifts would ever be taken from the church. In fact, he said in 1 Corinthians 1.7 that you lack in no gift while you’re awaiting the revelation of Jesus Christ. That’s why we’re waiting for Jesus to come. We don’t lack any of the gifts. I’m still waiting for him to come. So I believe the church still has the gifts, and there’s certainly nothing in the Bible that would indicate otherwise. Why do so many people think that the gifts have ceased when there’s not one verse in the Bible that says it? Well, I think it has a lot to do with our tendency to look at our own church and say, well, we don’t have these things going on in our church, so I guess they’re not supposed to, because certainly we couldn’t be deficient. We can’t be at fault. We can’t be the ones who are negligent of something we shouldn’t be neglecting. So I guess the fact that we don’t see these things in our church must mean we’re not supposed to. It must mean that those aren’t for today. And that’s what a lot of people, I think, are reasoning. But they’re not reasoning from Scripture. Now, many of them, of course, do cite 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul says that the gifts are that we prophesy in part and we know in part. That is, we have only partial imperfect functioning of the gifts. But he says, but when that which is mature or perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away. Now, some people say, well, that which is in part is the gifts. And therefore, when that which is perfect is come, Paul says, then the gifts will be done away with. Well, he doesn’t say the gifts will be done away with. He said when that which is mature comes, then that which is partial will be done away. But that might mean, you know, when we are mature enough that we function in the gifts in a mature way, then this immature functioning and this incomplete functioning of the gifts will pass, and we won’t do that that way anymore. Because the next words he says are these. He says, when I was a child, I spoke as a child. I acted as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now, why does he say that? He’s just said that the gifts, we operate the gifts in a partial way, but when that which is mature comes, then that partial way of doing things will be done away. Now he says, I was a child once, but when I grew up, I put away the childish things. Now, what did he do as a child? He said he thought as a child, he acted as a child, and he spoke as a child. So is he saying speaking and acting and thinking are things that he stopped doing once he ceased to be a child? No, he stopped doing it in a childish way. He says, I put away childish things when I became a man. But what he put away was not thinking, but thinking as a child. It was replaced with thinking as an adult. Same thing with acting and speaking. He did put those things away, the childish ways, but he didn’t stop thinking and speaking. He just stopped doing it like a child. He started doing it like a mature man. And that’s what Paul says, that we currently are using our gifts in an immature way. At least they are, the Corinthians were. And he says, but… The truth is that maturity will come. When that which is mature comes, then this childish stuff will be done away with. So he’s not saying that gifts will be done away with necessarily. Now, if he is, as some people think, if he is saying the time is going to come when that which is perfect has arrived, whatever that is, something else, and then the gifts will be ceased. I mean, that’s what cessationists think he means. Well, then what is that? What is the thing that’s perfect that has to come that will cause the gifts to be taken away or to cease? Well, if Paul is talking about such a thing, the best way to understand it would be Jesus coming back. When Jesus comes back, the gifts will be able to be ceased. Just like Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1.7. You lack in none of the gifts while you’re waiting for the coming of Christ. But the cessationists often will say something like, well, that which is perfect is a reference to the completed New Testament. When Paul was writing, most of the New Testament was not yet written, but of course it has been now. And we now have a perfect revelation from God in a complete New Testament canon. And that’s the perfect. And when the New Testament was completed, therefore, and the canon of the New Testament was full, then the gifts were taken away. Well, That is like 100% arbitrary. I mean, there’s not one line in the Bible that would suggest that the coming of the New Testament would do away with the gifts. That is simply assuming that when Paul generically or vaguely speaks of that which is perfect, that he means a completed New Testament canon. But why should he have meant that? Did he even know there was going to be one? Did his readers know there was going to be one? There’s no evidence in the Bible that Paul knew that someday… All his letters will be collected along with Peter’s and John’s and James’ and Jude’s and the book of Revelation and the four gospels and the book of Acts. They’re all going to be gathered together into what we call the New Testament canon. I mean, Paul, as far as we know, didn’t know about that. And if he did, he never mentioned it. And if he did know it, there’s no reason to believe the Corinthians would know. So if he’s speaking to them in terms he expects them to understand… And he says something vague like, when that which is perfect comes. And what he’s talking about is a completed New Testament canon, which they’ve never heard of, and he doesn’t explain, and which he’s probably never heard of either. This is the most arbitrary interpretation of that that could be imagined. It’s one of those interpretations of necessity. If you want to prove the gifts are going to go away in the apostolic age, you’ve got to find some marker. You’ve got to find something. That’s when they went. Now, what’s interesting is the New Testament canon was completed in the first century, but it wasn’t settled, what books belonged to it, until almost 400 A.D. So, I mean, at what point then? There’s a 300-year range there when the gifts could have ceased, if that’s what they’re looking for in the New Testament canon. I will say this, the early church fathers… Many of them had not gotten the memo if the gifts had ceased because they talked in the 2nd and 3rd century, they talked about prophets coming to the churches. They talked about healings. Apparently they didn’t know that the gifts had ceased, although Calvin, I think, is the first one to suggest it. And he was in the 16th century, late. So I believe the cessationist doctrine originated with John Calvin. I went looking for the origins of it once. I believe that’s what we nailed it down. I think Calvin’s the one who taught it. Luther didn’t believe that. Luther was a generation earlier than Calvin, and he didn’t believe in cessation. In his song, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, he has this line, The spirit and the gifts are ours. We have the spirit and we have the gifts, he said. That’s just a generation before Calvin. But then Calvin came up with the idea, apparently, that the gifts had ceased sometime in the Apostolic Age. And frankly… He didn’t have any scripture for it. I think he just hadn’t seen any gifts, so he just decided, well, they must have gone somewhere. Maybe we should go looking for them, you know, if they’ve gone somewhere, because they’re supposed to be around, according to scripture. All right. Let’s talk to, let’s see who’s been here longest. It looks like Kathy from La Hopper, California has been waiting longest. Hi, Kathy. Hello, Kathy.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes. Hi, Steve. I have a question. Let me run away.
SPEAKER 01 :
Kathy, I don’t know what your question is yet.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes. My cousin’s on the phone. I’m running away so he doesn’t hear me asking this question. The last time I got to talk to him was about 35 years ago. Only this two weeks because Daddy, just 89 years old, just went to be with Jesus. But he doesn’t I don’t think he knows Jesus yet. Do you recommend which book I can introduce to him? Because I don’t know if he knows Jesus yet. He is 59 years old and he was a graduate of Yale and he was an MD in the ER room and currently he is practicing private clinic And he is an open-minded, intelligent, I’d say like ten times higher IQ or five times higher IQ than me. A very humorous man.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, as far as what book to recommend, you have to realize I’ve read about a thousand books. And I’d say maybe about 50 of them would be equally humorous. Good for a book.
SPEAKER 08 :
Do you recommend the book Is God Real by Lee Strobel or Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell? But I don’t know which edition for Josh McDowell because when I go on Amazon, I don’t know which edition to recommend to him. When I tried to buy it for friends, I couldn’t find which one.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I know that Josh McDowell’s first edition of Evidence That Demands a Verdict came out around about 1970, and it’s been revised. There’s also a second volume called More Evidence That Demands a Verdict that came out some years later. And there might be more. I don’t know how many he’s put out now, but I would just say whatever one is the current one. You know, he put out a smaller version of that. Not everyone’s going to be interested in reading the kind of book that evidence that demands a verdict is unless they’re really hungry to know the truth.
SPEAKER 08 :
He’s a great reader.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, yeah, that’s a good book. That’s a good book. Or you could get him a more abbreviated version by the same author called More Than a Carpenter. Josh McDowell wrote a smaller book for people who don’t want to read such a big book called More Than a Carpenter. That’s a little book. He could probably read it in one sitting. You mentioned Lee Strobel. His books are usually pretty good. I mean, I like Lee Strobel fine. I’d like everybody to read my book, Empire of the Risen Sun, which I think could be helpful, though it doesn’t really provide arguments for Christianity like some of these other books do. But I think it’d be valuable for someone exploring Christianity to read. But there’s lots of books out there. Literally, I probably have read 30 to 50 books that would be good for a non-Christian to read to introduce them to the evidence for Christianity. And so it makes it kind of hard for me to just pull one out, especially since I don’t really know him. If I knew what he’s struggling with, maybe I could.
SPEAKER 08 :
He’s okay with the dad passed away because Mom passed away first, and then wife passed away, and he said he’s fine because this is unfortunately not his first time, even though he’s the only child.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, well, again, any of the books we’ve mentioned would be fine. And as I said, I wish everyone would read my book, not because I want to sell them. I don’t ever sell them. I give them away, but… You know, my book, Empire of the Risen Sun, I think would be of value to most people. I’ll tell you what, there’s a pretty good author who wrote recently a couple smallish books that when I read them, I thought, oh, these would be really good for an unbeliever to read. And the author’s name is Peter J. Williams. Peter J. Williams, okay. And one of them, which I thought was quite good, was called Can We Trust the Gospels? And he wrote another one. I don’t remember what the title of it is. Something like Is the Bible True or something like that. I don’t remember. But if you looked up his name, Peter J. Williams, say at Amazon, I know that his book Can We Trust the Gospels is a good book. And it’s not a very long book, but he’s good at summarizing the information.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
And he’s a real scholar. He’s a real scholar.
SPEAKER 08 :
Do you recommend me also to have him look up Passover and also give him a copy of the Book of John?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, reading the Book of John is always good. As far as the Passover, what do you mean, studying the Passover?
SPEAKER 08 :
Just look it up because Passover is the blood of the Lamb.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, there’s, I mean, Passover is one of many, many, you know, dozens of topics that could be of value for him to read about. It’s, you know, I mean, there’s so many books. There’s just too many books for me to know what to recommend. So just the ones I mentioned are the ones I’m going to recommend, and I could recommend other ones, but we need to take other calls, and we can’t survey the whole field of Christian apologetic literature at this point.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Kathy, thank you. Let’s talk to, let’s see, Gene from Gainesville, Florida. Gene, welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, good afternoon, Steve. First, I want to take a second and thank you and your wife and your team there for your ministry. It really encourages us to search the scriptures and be brilliant.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, thank you. By the way, your phone is probably on speakerphone. There’s a lot of road noise coming through it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, let me go to see if I can go to handheld here. But real quick, my question is about, from the perspective of someone who was raised in the premillennial tradition, and it has to do with the call you took on Tuesday in reference to Revelation 20, verse 7, with the unchaining of Satan for a brief time. Sure. I’ve been examining the differences between premillennialism and amillennialism for the last few years, and your response provoked in me to question the amillennialist perspective on your interpretation of Revelation 20, verse 7, based on the writings of three New Testament writers.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, I’m going to have to put you on hold here because we’re at the bottom of the hour. Maybe you can get your phone off of speakerphone. We can hear you a lot better if you do. And I’ll put you back on in about a minute or so. So stay tuned, and we’ll come back to you. I just need to let our listeners know that The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. We pay for lots of money to be on the radio. It costs a lot of money to buy time from radio stations. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730. Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can donate from the website. That’s thenarrowpath.com. It’s got lots of resources. They’re all free. But you can donate there if you wish at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away. We have another half hour.
SPEAKER 02 :
In a 16-lecture series entitled The Authority of Scriptures, Steve Gregg not only thoroughly presents the case for the Bible’s authority, but also explains specifically how this truth is to be applied to a believer’s daily walk and outlook. The Authority of Scriptures, as well as hundreds of other stimulating lectures, can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, 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. Our lines are full, and we’ll probably occupy the remaining half hour, so I’m not going to give out the phone number at this time. But so that we might hope to get through all of these calls, I’m going to just ask the callers to do something that we haven’t had done today very much. It’s always nice when people call up and say, My question is, and then give me a question, especially since you’re calling to ask a question. Just ask a question. You don’t have to give me a bunch of background for it. If I want background, I’ll ask you. But we have a lot of people waiting, very little time. So whenever I put you on the air, if you don’t mind, just say my question is. Or if you don’t have a question, just say my disagreement is. But that way we can actually get to the question soon enough and hopefully get more callers in. We were talking to Gene from Gainesville, Florida, before the break, and he didn’t get his question out, so we’ll put him back on here. Hi, Gene. Welcome back.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. Yeah, thanks. Hopefully this is clear now. So my question is in regard to the Amelios perspective on Revelation 20, verse 7, and your explanation earlier this week. So the three New Testament writers, Peter, Paul, and James, all write about during their time period the ongoing and active role of Satan. He’s prowling around like a roaring lion. He’s an adversary to us, is what Paul thought, an active adversary, and then James talks about
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m aware of it. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
What is your question, then? So the question is, from an Amalanus perspective, how is that reconciled with the aspect that the thousand-year reign of Christ is really a figurative aspect and that Satan is unbound at the end of that? Therefore, theoretically, he would still be bound in the time period
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, I got you. I got you. Okay. Yeah, that’s about the most, frankly, the most common question people have when they first hear about amillennialism. Because amillennialism holds that Revelation 20 is symbolically describing the time between the first and the second coming of Christ as the so-called thousand years. Of course, it’s a lot more than a thousand years, but the number thousand years is thought to be simply symbolic for a really long time without any suggestion of how long that would really be. Now, during that time, according to amillennialism, that time began when Jesus was here the first time, and it will end at the end when Jesus comes back. So we’re kind of living in that thousand years. But the big question that people have, probably more often than any other, is isn’t Satan supposed to be bound during the thousand years? After all, he’s loosed again at the end for a little while. That would mean that he was bound forever. when the New Testament writers wrote about Satan roaming about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, or those kinds of things, or even now. Is Satan around now? Of course he is. Of course he is. So how could he be bound? Why would someone believe that the binding of Satan took place at the first coming of Christ and that he’s still bound until the time at the very end when he’s loosed for a little while? The confusion here comes from, I think, misunderstanding what the imagery of Revelation is trying to say. Revelation is not telling us that Satan is literally nowhere around. This is written in a vision to make the point that Satan has been bound in one activity in particular. Yes, the pictures of him as a snake or a dragon with a chain and a bottomless pit. I mean, this is all the imagery of the vision. But the point that it keeps making is he is bound, it says in verse 3, so that he should not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years are finished. And then in verse 7 it says, and 8, when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out and deceive the nations. Okay, so this is simply a description of Satan being bound with respect to his ability to deceive the nations. It’s not saying he’s literally bound somewhere. I mean, when Jesus said he had bound the strong man in Matthew chapter 12, meaning Satan, he had bound Satan and was spoiling his house. He didn’t mean that Satan was literally in a closet tied up with the door locked somewhere and he couldn’t get out. This is simply making the point that Jesus was plundering Satan’s domain and Satan was as helpless to stop him as if he had been bound and was simply watching as a home invader stole all this stuff and couldn’t resist. The imagery of these things is not saying that Satan literally tied up somewhere or chained somewhere. You know, Jesus was explaining in Matthew 12 that, you know, although Satan is not literally bound somewhere, he’s as helpless as if he was bound. He’s, you know, Jesus is coming into the devil’s territory, taking his stuff, loosing the people who are demon-possessed and letting them go. That’s plundering Satan’s house. And Satan couldn’t stop him any more than a man who owns a house who’s tied up could stop a home intruder. Now, the same kind of imagery here, I mean, it’s a different image. It’s a dragon instead of a man. It’s a chain. It’s not bound in his own house. But the idea is that Jesus at his first coming has rendered Satan helpless in areas that he was not previously helpless. Now, when he’s loosed again, he will not be helpless in this respect anymore. The binding of Satan refers to him being rendered incapable of resistance or incapable of doing something. that he could do before. Yes, it looks very absolute. You know, the dragon’s in a pit, the lid’s on there, and so forth. He’s got a chain on him. That’s all the, I mean, that’s no more literal than the beast is literally an animal with the mouth of a lion and the feet of a bear and the body of a leopard. and has seven literal heads and ten literal horns that have crowns on horns. No one takes that literally. No one believes that’s a real animal fitting that description. That’s how Revelation talks. That’s how Revelation describes things. That’s how visions are. Zechariah has visions like that. Daniel has visions like that. They are never in literal terms, but they are impressionistic. They have all kinds of details in the vision because a picture is worth a thousand words, and it might take a thousand words to describe the picture, but the picture itself is getting across an idea. And the idea is, before Jesus came, the nations, that means the Gentile nations as opposed to Israel, were under the deception of Satan. They were his domain. Only Israel had been selected by God to receive the law, to receive prophets, to receive revelation. The rest of the nation was left to Satan, of the nations. The Gentile nations were under Satan’s blindness. They were all worshiping demons, sacrificing their children to idols and things like that. Satan kept them in blindness and darkness, and no one challenged him. Well, Jesus did, because when Jesus came, he defeated Satan at the cross and sent his disciples out to disciple the nations, that is, the Gentiles, and to tell them the gospel. So Satan could no longer keep the nations in deception. Now, somebody said, well, doesn’t he still deceive the nations? Well, he deceives people. That’s the point. He deceives people. He’s the deceiver, to be sure. He roams about like a roaring lion speaking. But he can’t deceive the nations as a whole anymore. In other words, there was a time when all the Gentile nations other than Israel were Satan’s rightful domain. God allowed him to deceive them. God allowed them to be in darkness. That time has ended. The light has come. And the true light now shines. And it’s going out to all the nations. Satan cannot keep them in darkness anymore. Now, can he deceive individuals? Of course. Of course he can. And in every nation, there are people who are deceived by Satan. In fact, even Christians get deceived by him some of the time. That’s not what this vision is talking about. This vision isn’t talking about whether Satan can deceive people or not. It’s talking about he’s been stripped of any right to keep the nations in deception. anymore they are no longer his domain they’re jesus’s domain jesus said all authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me therefore go to the nations and make disciples of all the nations so the church age is the time when satan cannot keep the nations in deception anymore though he can he can deceive anyone who wants to be deceived and apparently plenty of people want to be But, you know, those people who live in these nations who didn’t have any access to light, to truth, previously, now it’s come to them. And that’s what this age is about, bringing that truth, bringing that light to the nations. So Satan can’t take that whole… block of humanity and just say, they’re mine, I’m in charge, they’re going to stay deceived. No, the truth has come. Now, the losing of Satan seems to be a reversal of that. Seems to be, you know, that the truth is somehow hindered again, and Satan manages to get a lot of nations in blindness again. Now, I don’t think that’s happened yet necessarily, but I think that that’s something that will happen at the end. But to say, well, but doesn’t the Bible say the devil still tempts us? The devil, you know, he still lies. He still… You know, we’re to resist the devil and he’ll flee from us. He’s like a roaring lion seeking. Yeah, yeah, it’s all those things. And it was those things even when Jesus said he had bound the strongman in Matthew 12. Jesus had bound the strongman. He said so. But that didn’t mean Satan was literally bound somewhere. It’s making a point. And to try to extend it to all activities of Satan is simply to go beyond what the passage is trying to say. So the amillennialist doesn’t think the devil is literally bound. you know, has a chain and he’s in a pit and locked up somewhere. We’re not saying that’s literally happened. We don’t think Revelation is literal at all. It’s like Daniel. Daniel’s not literal either. And Zechariah’s not literal. I mean, these kinds of visions are always given in symbolic imagery. There’s not one of Daniel’s images that are given in literal imagery. So, and same thing with the Revelation as far as I’m concerned. So, anyway, that’s how I understand it. Okay. Thank you, Gene. Good talking to you. Okay, we’ll talk next to Kerry from Dallas, Texas. Kerry, welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. Hi. Just something on your last point there. When Jesus did announce that he bound the strong man, afterwards, did he not still cast out demons? Yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. Yes, he did. In fact, he said that’s why he was able to cast out demons, because he had found the strong man. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, my question is about Romans 11, 25, and 26 again. You’ve helped me a lot here, but I still have some more questions. About three. First of all, Paul’s use of Israel in 25 and his use of Israel in 26, don’t seem to be the same Israel. One seems to be national Israel, the other seems to be repentant Israel. And then Paul makes the statement that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Would that not indicate that this hardening is continuing today? and also with the word until, does that not leave open a space between the fullness of the Gentiles and maybe when that hardening is removed and maybe leaving room for a millennial kingdom?
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. First of all, your question about Romans 11, 25 and 26, is Paul using the word Israel differently in those two verses? Well, yeah. Yeah, he is. In verse 25, he says, For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion. That hardening in part has happened to Israel, meaning the nation or the race of Israel. until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so, or in this way, all Israel will be saved. Now, we know he doesn’t mean national Israel will be saved, because he’s denied that earlier, in chapter 9, in verse 27. In chapter 9, verse 27, he quotes from Isaiah, chapter 10, which says, though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea. Okay, there’s a lot of people who are descended from Israel. It says, only the remnant will be saved. So, not all of the Jews will be saved. And by the way, if Paul did predict that someone other than the rent would be saved, he sure missed his mark because the vast number of Jewish people who’ve lived at his time and since have not been saved. All Israel will be saved. Now, see, some people think he’s talking about just one generation of Israel at the end times will be saved. But he doesn’t say anything about the end times. He doesn’t say anything about… He doesn’t really say anything about the future at all. He just says that all Israel, the true Israel, will be saved. But only a remnant of national Israel will be saved. The true Israel is a smaller portion of national Israel. And that’s what he began his whole discussion in chapter 9, verse 6, saying they are not all Israel who are of Israel. So he’s made a distinction between two Israels at the beginning. Now, I’ve talked to people who disagree with my view on this, and they say, well, yeah, he did mention an Israel within Israel in Romans 9.6, but after that he only talked about the nation of Israel, and so he has to be talking about the nation of Israel in verse 26, all Israel will be saved. Why would that be true? Wasn’t there a reason for him saying what he said in chapter 9, verse 6? I mean, it would be very crazy if Paul just as an offhand throwaway line said, not all are Israel who are of Israel. But never mind that. Let’s just talk about those who are of Israel and forget about the Israel that not all of them are it. No, he’s made the whole argument through chapters 9, 10, and 11 is the nation of Israel as a whole have not been saved and never will be. Isaiah said only the remnant of them will be saved. Therefore, only the remnant are the true Israel that will be saved, and not all who are descended from Israel are in that true Israel. So he’s made a distinction, the whole chapter 9, is distinguishing between two Israels. One is a vessel for wrath, one is a vessel for honor, he said. You know, and one is just a remnant, a small portion of the other Israel. So… So Paul has introduced this idea there’s two Israels right from the beginning. And to suggest that he forgets that in chapter 10 and 11 and never mentions again that fact is to ignore the fact that chapter 9 is setting up the whole chapter 10 and 11. It’s not a throwaway line when he says they are not all Israel who are of Israel. It’s the theme. It’s the theme of the whole three chapters. And so when he comes to the very conclusion, he says, well, you know, that Israel that are not the remnant, they have been hardened. Of course, that’s only part of Israel. That’s why he says hardening in part has happened in Israel. Part of Israel has been hardened. The other part has not. That’s the Israel within Israel. That’s the remnant has not been hardened. And he’s already made that point just a few verses earlier, because he says in verse 7, Romans 11, 7, he says, What then? Israel, that is the whole nation, has not obtained what it seeks, but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were hardened. Okay, so hardened, some of them were hardened. Who weren’t? The elect, the remnant, they weren’t hardened. So the nation of Israel, Paul has been talking all the way through here. There’s two parts of the nation of Israel. There’s those who can only be called children according to the flesh, and there’s those among them who can be called children according to promise. The first group is just every ethnic Jew. The second group is that portion within ethnic Jews who happens to also believe. And he introduces that distinction, you know, several verses introducing that idea in chapter 9. And that’s how he closed it. So Paul has used the word Israel throughout this discussion to refer either to the whole nation in some cases or to that portion of the nation that are the elect, the remnant, the vessels of honor, whatever. I mean, he uses these different words for it. And so it’s not a strange thing for him to use the word Israel two different ways. within a few lines of each other. He used it two different ways in one verse, in chapter 9, verse 6. Here we have him using it two ways in two successive verses. Verse 25, hardness in part has happened to Israel. Okay. That’s the group that’s, they’re Israel, but they’re not believers. They’re not the remnant. But the Israel that will be saved is the remnant. Now, when he says, and so all Israel will be saved, so means in this way, What way? What way will all Israel be saved? Well, he’s just described it. This is the conclusion of a description that began in verse 16 of an olive tree. It had Jewish branches because the olive tree is Israel. But the unbelieving Jewish branches have been removed, so they’re not Israel anymore. They’re not on the tree anymore. And then Gentiles who believe have been added to the tree, so they’re part of Israel now. So the believing branches that were not broken off are Jewish believers. And the Gentile branches have been added to them. Now the tree is Jewish believers and Gentile believers. And in this way, all Israel, the Jewish branches and the Gentile branches, will be saved. That’s what Paul says. Now, you said the word until. Does that mean until today? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look around. Most Jews don’t believe. So part of Israel has been hardened. until the fullness of the Gentiles have been fulfilled. Now, does that suggest that after the fullness of the Gentiles are fulfilled, something else will happen? Maybe the Jews won’t be hardened anymore? This is what many people think, but Paul doesn’t say that. Paul does not describe anything happening after the Jews are partially, you know, no longer hardened. The word until doesn’t always mean he’s predicting the end of something. To say this will be true until such and such just means it won’t change before this happens. Will it change after that? Well, maybe, maybe not. It’s not predicting that unless it does. It doesn’t predict anything after that. So, I mean, when God said to Jacob, I will not leave you or forsake you until I have fulfilled all my promises to you, Does that mean, okay, but then I’m going to leave you and forsake you. After I’ve fulfilled my promise, I’m going to forsake you. No, to say this won’t happen until this doesn’t mean, okay, and after that it will. It means this will not cease to be true until such and such a point. And it may not cease to be true at that time either. But this is the end point we’re looking at. The end point we’re looking at is the fullness of the Gentiles being come in until that happens. Still, only part of Israel will be hardened. Will they be unhardened once the Gentiles come in? There’s no mention of it. Not even a hint of it, actually. The truth is, I think if the fullness of the Gentiles will come in means until the last Gentile actually gets saved, that probably won’t happen until the last day. In which case, there won’t be much time for anything else to happen. Jesus will be coming. So I don’t see anything here that necessitates… Someone saying, well, you know, the Jews are getting saved. There’ll be a millennium and so forth after that. Let’s see. We’ve got a lot of calls. Nicole from the Bronx, New York. Welcome. Not there? Nicole? Okay, I’m not hearing Nicole, so I’m going to have to move on. Joshua from Dallas, Texas. Welcome. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hit another button. David from Andover, Kansas. Hopefully we can get to Joshua, too. David, are you there?
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, can you hear me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. Okay, great. My question is, who are the inhabitants of the sea in Revelation 12.12? I assume they are the fish. Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, so when it says, woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows the time is short, that’s just the fish and the sea creatures there.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it could mean the fish and the sea creatures. I mean, there’s great disruption on the world. As you read the book of Revelation, you see that the sea turns to blood. The fishes die. The ships sink. You know, the islands disappear. Those kinds of things happen. So, I mean, it’s hard to say. I mean, certainly it could mean the sea will suffer in such ways that, you know, fish will die. Anyone there? Or it could, of course, there’s a possibility it could mean people who are sailors and who they basically live on the sea in ships. That’s a possibility. It’s a strange way to speak about them, those who dwell in the sea. But, you know, it doesn’t really clarify. So it’s basically saying that the sea – now, by the way, I will tell you this. The sea can be symbolic also for the Gentile nations. In the Old Testament, there are a few places in the prophets where Israel is compared with land, and the Gentile nations are called the sea. So I don’t know if there’s a previous place in Revelation where that was used that way, but it might mean that there. So there’s a variety of possibilities. Okay. Thank you. That’s very helpful. All right. Thanks for your call. Now, Joshua, we’ve got to you from Dallas. Welcome. Hi. Hey, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER 10 :
So, yeah, based on the way I understood the word called in the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22, where the Lord says many are called, few are chosen, my understanding of that word called has historically been meant to mean called via the gospel, like, you know, hearing the gospel. Yeah, but so my question then is if I look at 1 Corinthians 1.24, where it talks about Christ being crucified, being a stumbling block to the Jews, falling to the Gentiles. And then verse 24 says, but to those who are called, the Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, the wisdom of God. So I just wanted to know how you understood that word called there in that passage.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, in 1 Corinthians 1.24, the Calvinists generally believe that it refers to an effectual call, that all people are called through evangelism. But not all people are effectually called. They would say only the elect are effectually called. And the effectual call really would refer to irresistible grace. Basically, they would say if someone’s of the elect, God calls them in a different way than he calls others in a way they can’t essentially resist because of irresistible grace. And they would read this verse that way. Any Christian, we are the called. They would also see it that way in Romans 8.28. All things work together for good to those who are the called according to his purpose. And it says in verse 29, Whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son. Whom he predestined, he called. And whom he called, he justified, and so forth. So there’s reference to Christians as called. And, you know, it seems to be referring to something other than just the whole world. The whole world is being called by the preaching of the gospel. But Christians are called in a different sense. My understanding, and this may not be the correct one, but my understanding, I’m not a Calvinist, but my understanding is simply that this means those of us who’ve heard the call, those of us who have received the call. And I do believe there is something to a more effective call than just hearing with your ears. I mean, People can be driving down the road listening to the radio and hear the gospel and ignore it completely, where others, they hear the gospel and it just grabs them. It grabs them, and they’re riveted. They’re hearing it at a different level than the others are. But this would not mean that they are now being irresistibly called. Persons can be very gripped and very convicted by the message and still walk away from it. But all of us who have been converted have been gripped by the message like that, at least. And we didn’t walk away from it. We received it. So I just think when he talks about us as the called, he’s focusing on the fact that we are Christians because we heard that call. And we identify with it. And didn’t resist it. But, I mean, Calvinists see it a little differently. And I can see how they would. But I just reject their whole system.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thanks, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, brother. This is Mark. Thank you. Good talking to you, brother. I’m out of time for the show today. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported, as I mentioned earlier. You can write to us, if you wish, at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or from our website, thenarrowpath.com. There’s a place to donate there, thenarrowpath.com. Let’s talk again tomorrow, Monday.
