In this episode, Steve Gregg delves deep into listener questions ranging from biblical interpretations to modern theological stances. The conversation shifts to a more personal perspective as callers express concerns over salvation and the fear of losing their place in the Book of Life. Steve provides thoughtful, scripture-based responses, emphasizing the importance of abiding in Christ and the challenges of spiritual backsliding. Additionally, discussions unfold about women’s roles in ministry, addressing potential misconceptions with biblical insights. Tune in for a rich, educational experience that touches on essential aspects of faith and doctrine.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
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. And we do it live so that we can talk back and forth in real time. Now, a few stations run the program delayed. If you’re listening in the middle of the night, it’s probably a replay of the program, not live. There’s a few stations that don’t carry it live because of conflict in their schedules. But mostly, in all likelihood, you are listening to the program live. if you’re listening on the radio most of the time. So that means you can call in. That’s why it’s a live show. So you can call in if you have questions you want to ask that we can discuss on the air about the Bible, about the Christian faith, or you want to balance comment because something the host has said is not what you find agreeable and you’d like to present an alternative, feel free to do that. We welcome you. We’re not close-minded about hearing your point of view. The number is 844-484-5737. Right now I’m looking at a switchboard that’s got a couple of lines open, so this is a good time to call. It’s not always the case that there’s lines open. The number is 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Benjamin calling from Greenville, Ohio. Benjamin, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you, brother. I have a question in Hebrews 6, verses 4 to 6. My question is on, it speaks of it being impossible to restore once someone has fallen away. I just kind of want clarification what your view is. Is that an actual, would you see that as an actual impossibility, or more likely it will be harder to regain that relationship again? Yeah. I can take your answer off there.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, okay. Thank you for your call. That really depends on how the thing is translated. There’s more than one way to translate it, but either way, I can give you possibilities here. One is that he’s saying it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age come and have fallen away it’s impossible to renew them again to repentance, crucifying again to themselves the Son of God. That’s how it reads in the Greek. Now, many translations say, since they crucify again, or something like that. But since they crucify is not really found in there. The word is crucifying. That is, while they are crucifying to themselves the Son of God, you can’t bring them to repentance. In other words, while they’re in firm rejection, Christ as if they’re you know putting them on the cross over again that’s you know in that state they can’t be brought to repentance so some people believe that’s how it should be understood because the phrase I’m look at the New King James it says since they crucify again actually in the Greek it says crucifying again so it’s impossible to renew them again to repentance crucifying that is as they are crucifying Christ But, of course, if they stop doing that, then they could be brought to repentance. That’s one view. The other is, well, there’s other views that have been held, but I can’t survey them all right now because of other calls waiting. But another one that I think is reasonable is what you suggested. You suggested, is it just harder? Now, it says it’s impossible, but you wondered, is it literally impossible or is it just harder? And that’s a very good question to ask because there are, there are some things that are not impossible with God that the Bible does say are impossible for men. And it may well mean that for the person trying to bring that person to repentance, they’ll find it essentially humanly impossible. It’s that difficulty. But, of course, God can do anything. There’s nothing really impossible to him. In fact, Jesus said something very similar about another case of people that are awfully hard to win. And that’s rich men. In Matthew 19, Jesus said about a rich man entering the kingdom of God, he said it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for that to happen. And the disciples, well, then who can be saved? And Jesus said, well, with men it’s impossible. But with God, nothing should be called impossible. So here we have in Matthew 19 a case where Jesus said it’s really humanly impossible to get a rich man to truly convert and enter the kingdom of God. But It’s not impossible for God. And it’s probably a similar case that the writer of Hebrews has in mind, where he says these people have already been saved. They’ve already known the word of God. They’ve caught the Holy Spirit. They’ve tasted the age to come, the powers of the age to come. But then they’ve just turned on it. They’ve hardened themselves to it. They’ve just apostatized. And having done so, they’re in a state of hardness that makes them particularly anxious. difficult to win back. But to say it’s impossible to renew them, what’s impossible for whom to renew them? I think he’s talking to the readers. In the last part of the previous chapter, he said that they were babes and not mature. He said they had not become skilled in the word of righteousness because they were babes and only could drink milk and not meat. It seems like he may be saying, you need to go on. In chapter 6, verse 1, let’s go on to maturity then, because it’s impossible, meaning for someone like you, to renew to repentance someone who’s gone further than you have in the Christian walk and has fallen away. How are you going to win them back? You can’t. It’s either humanly impossible or at least impossible for the readers. But it does not, it’d be saying too much to suggest it’s impossible for God to bring them back. Because, frankly, it has happened many times. Many people have come back to Christ after falling away. But no one should take it lightly. It’s not an easy thing. Once you have hardened your heart against the truth that you know, you don’t have a virginal conscience anymore. You’ve got a tainted one. And it’s much more difficult to turn your whole heart back to God. But God can bring people back. It sometimes does. So I don’t think the writer should be understood to be saying there’s no hope for someone who’s fallen away. But he’s certainly not trying to hold out a lot of hope for it. He’s basically saying it’s a very terrible, difficult thing, impossible at some level, but probably not impossible for God. Since we’ve gone, nothing should be called impossible. All right, let’s talk to John from Orlando, Florida next. John, welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey there, Steve. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 02 :
Good. Good to see you. Good to hear you again.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, good talking with you, brother. See, my question has to do with Calvinism and sovereignty, deterministic model of God’s sovereignty. Of course, we know that a lot of people have pointed out that to be consistent, logically consistent, if a person agrees with the first point of Calvinism, then the rest of the points fall in place with resistless logic, as some have said. I’m one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do. I agree. I agree. And I’m wondering if you think it’s the same with that model of sovereignty. The reason I’m asking is this. It seems to me, and I’m wondering if I’m off here when it comes to logic, that if I’m talking with a Calvinist and trying to persuade him away from that deterministic model of God’s sovereignty, that I might be able to share with him, hey, listen. You know, if you want to hold to the five points, I don’t recommend it, but if you feel like you need to, then you can certainly do that without holding to this extreme model of God’s sovereignty. It seems like it would be a possibility to me, but what say you, logically speaking?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, it would be possible, though it would require an entirely different system of theology than is currently on the market, I think. I mean, the question, of course, as you know, is that salvation is either all of God or at least partially of man. Of course, some would say that Pelagianism teaches that it’s all of man. I’m not sure Pelagius taught that, but that’s what he’s represented as teaching by his opponents. But the question is, does man have a role, any responsibility, any ability at all to do anything that would make a difference in his being saved? And the Calvinist view is no, no. He’s got, and they start with point number one, total depravity. They say that’s the first point. If people are totally depraved by their definition of that term, They can’t repent. They’re dead. They can’t do anything. So it all has to be of God. And that’s, of course, agreeable with the whole idea that God’s sovereignty means that everything is something he does. Everything is something he determines. If he doesn’t determine it, it’s not going to happen. Nothing can happen that he hasn’t determined, including salvation of a sinner. Man doesn’t have the power, if he’s totally depraved, to receive Christ if God hasn’t ordained that he would. That’s their view. Now, I know you know more than many listeners about this because you’re a Bible teacher yourself and have studied this a lot. just for the sake of the listeners, that the idea of sovereignty that you’re referring to in Calvinism is the idea of total determinism, divine determinism, not philosophical determinism, which just is the view totally outside Christianity that everything that happens was determined by a previous thing that happened, which was determined by a previous thing that happened, so everything’s just a chain reaction. But divine determinism is the idea that God has determined in advance everything that’s going to happen. We also call that meticulous providence that God has meticulously in every detail controls everything by his providence. So that’s the Calvinist view of sovereignty. And if that’s true, then I don’t see… I mean, if that view of sovereignty is true, then the five points would have to be true, too, I would think. I’m not sure of a logical way to divorce those two. Though what you’re saying is the five points could be true even if that view of sovereignty wasn’t. So… So, you know, what I’m saying is that view of sovereignty would require the five points and much more. But do the five points require that view of sovereignty is, I think, what you’re asking.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, so let me put out the idea here. And I’m not, okay, I want to clarify, I do not believe this. I’m theorizing here that if one states, okay, my model of God’s sovereignty is this, that under the umbrella of God’s sovereignty, God rules. actively decides to ordain certain things to come to pass. Not everything. He also has a general idea of allowance, where there are certain things that will happen that totally are not his will, but under this idea here, the Calvinist would say, yes, I can affirm that, and say that he chooses to exercise his sovereignty in the area of salvation in a way to validate and hold in place all of the five points. So, in other words… Speaking of the position that I’m theorizing about, like, okay, yes, I agree with what you’re saying about God’s sovereignty. However, in the area of salvation, it’s Calvinistic. Do you think that there’s anything logically inconsistent? I think it would be an option, but…
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m not sure what it would help, you know. I mean, I guess we could say God still determines who will be saved and who won’t. And in that respect, people don’t have any real choice in the matter. But God doesn’t determine everything that sinners or good people will necessarily do. You know, he can decide who’s going to be saved and who’s not. But let’s just say a man, you know, is trafficking, sex trafficking children, you know. Well, God may have decided that this man will or will not be saved, but God’s not making him do everything he’s doing, including that. So we can’t say that God made him do it. That would be perhaps agreeable with what you’re suggesting.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I guess that the reason why I’m thinking about this is just the proposition or the idea of maybe winning someone over to a more biblical position. one piece at a time.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s like, okay, let’s deal with sovereignty first.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know what?
SPEAKER 08 :
This doesn’t fly.
SPEAKER 02 :
I think you’d sooner convince the Calvinists that some of the five points are not true than to challenge their view of sovereignty. Because to them, their view of sovereignty is the only way to honor God. In fact, it’s why they have their five points. They don’t think God is honored. if God isn’t controlling every single thing that’s happened. Because if he’s not, then something is happening that’s not in his control. And to their mind, a God who makes everything happen, or controls everything, or ordains everything, is the only God worthy of their admiration. I’m not sure why that would be true, but what does R.C. Sproul say? He says, if you don’t believe that God ordains all things that happen, you’re an atheist. Right, right. That’s what he argues. He argues if you don’t believe that God ordains everything that happened, then you don’t believe in a sovereign God. So right now he’s played a trick on you. He’s defined sovereignty as ordaining everything that happens. That’s not the meaning of sovereignty in English, and nor is there a word in Greek or Hebrew that means that. But he’s played a trick on our minds. He says, okay, if you don’t believe God ordains everything that is, you don’t believe he’s sovereign. Right. I’m not going there with you, R.C. I can believe that God is sovereign without saying he ordained everything that happens. But then he says, and if you don’t believe he’s sovereign, you don’t believe he’s God, so you’re an atheist. So, I mean, it’s a silly argument, but he tricks a lot of people because a lot of people are not very good thinkers.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, it occurs to me, and I’ll get off the phone after this, that it has occurred to me recently that not only is that not a biblical argument, definition of sovereignty, but it occurs to me that I can’t think, and someone can correct me wrong, I can’t think of any place anywhere in any literature that actually has that as a working definition of sovereignty.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, of course not.
SPEAKER 09 :
It just doesn’t even exist.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s not the meaning of the word. Only in theological discussions would the non-biblical word sovereignty, which isn’t found in the Bible, They give it a meaning that means meticulous providence. Now, in secular writings, when you talk about the sovereignty of the United States, when people say we shouldn’t be in the United Nations, we need to have national sovereignty, or when we talk about a sovereign, a king is a sovereign, or something like that, no one is talking about someone who ordains everything that happens. That’s simply not part of the definition of sovereign. It doesn’t exist. Right. It’s just a Calvinist trick. It’s a Calvinist mind trick. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, all righty. Hey, thanks for your time. God bless you, brother.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, John. Great talking to you, man. God bless you.
SPEAKER 1 :
Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 06 :
Bye now.
SPEAKER 02 :
Another caller from Florida, and also named John. This one’s from Englewood, Florida. I don’t know if that same John just crossed over a border and called again, but this is John from Englewood, Florida. Hi.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, Steve. I guess I’m going to have to piggyback a little bit on what you just talked with your last caller about. I just wanted to I look at your topical lectures a lot, okay? And it seems to me that two keys that you mention all the time, all the time, is to love truth, pursue truth. That’s very, very important. And to know God, not just know about him, because you can read a book about Hildebeest, you know what I mean? And, you know, that’s not knowing her. Knowing God means you’ve got to have the personal relationship with him, okay? Right. That’s what you say all the time, right? I mean, I agree. I do.
SPEAKER 02 :
Those are highest virtues, highest priorities, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, so down here where I’m at in Florida, too, there are a ton of Calvinists, and they believe, you know, in that predestination, and God is responsible for everything that happens, even evil, you know, and that, like, murder, rape, you know, sending people to hell. Everything, and it’s for his glory. Now, to me, that kind of God is a monster. I mean, that does not make any sense to me. I’m an open theist. And all I wanted to ask, I guess I’ll just make it short now and get down to, we both can’t have the same truth. And we just talked about how important truth is. So, one, we both can’t be right. So where does that leave it?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, it means somebody’s wrong. Yeah, it means somebody’s wrong. Now, the question then becomes, can you be a Christian and be wrong about something like that? I mean, we do know that as a Christian, you can be wrong about many things, right? I mean, Christians are sometimes good Christians can disagree about many things. I assume you believe that. I certainly do. Right, but a cheating God is evil. Right. Well, yes, if someone knowingly blasphemes God and accuses him of being evil, this is a very dangerous thing, obviously. I will say this, though, that a person in his own mind may have seen his doctrine, which makes God look evil to you and me. He may see it as the only way to vindicate God, to make God, to defend the glory of God. And that is how Calvinists do think. They think that they have to make God in charge of everything because otherwise he’s not big enough. We’re shrinking God. We’re diminishing God. We need to give him all the glory that he deserves. But to them, you see, to them, the glory of God, and this is something they often don’t think about, but there’s a difference between Arminians and Calvinists, or let’s just say Calvinists and people who aren’t Calvinists. Calvinists believe the way you glorify God is exalt yourself. his traits, his characteristics of magnitude, which would be his omnipotence, his omniscience, his omnipresence, those kinds of, you know, the kind of things that make him a different kind of being than any created being. It’s those characteristics. Now, an Arminian or a non-Calvinist, maybe an open theist, would be, would say, no, we glorify God by extolling his character, not Not his abilities, not his non-moral traits. We’re talking about his moral traits, his holiness, his mercy, his compassion, his justice, his love. Those are the things where God shines. Now, of course he shines in the other ways, too. But the thing is, he can’t help but be what he is. I mean, if I’m six foot eight and I become a great basketball player, you know, or let’s say I’m seven feet tall and become a great basketball player, I can’t take a lot of credit for that. Sure, I had to practice shooting hoops and so forth, but I didn’t make myself seven feet tall. I get no special credit for that, although people might be impressed. It’s nothing that I can take any credit for. But if I, you know, spend my time instead of becoming a famous basketball player choosing to train, you know, inner city kids to shoot hoops, that’s a choice I’m making for which I could be congratulated or honored. You know, because that speaks of my character, not my accidents of birth. Now, God is, if he were a good God or a bad God, he could be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. He could be all those things and be a very wicked God. He isn’t, thankfully. But that’s the great thing. The great thing is he isn’t. The great thing is not how big he is, although that’s very encouraging since he’s on our side. But if he wasn’t on our side, we wouldn’t glorify him for that. We’d be terrified of him for that. We’d find that horrible. I mean, that’s what many atheists say. They don’t like the idea of God being a peeping Tom, eavesdropping on them. They don’t like the idea that God’s always there. To them, that’s not a good thing. But what God wants us to do is recognize his character. That’s knowing him. He says that in, I’m trying to think, I think it’s Jeremiah chapter 9. Yes, in Jeremiah chapter 9, verses 23 and 24, God says, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Nor let the rich man glory in his riches, but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord executing loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight. So he says, if you want something to boast about, boast that you know who I am. Not how big I am. Not how big I am, but I’m a God who exercises loving kindness and justice and righteousness. That’s the man who’s got a grasp on who God is. So, I mean, God doesn’t boast about his size very often, but he often affirms his traits. I mean, when Moses said, God, show me your glory, and God stuck him in that crevice of the rock and passed by and let him see his hundred parts after he’d gone by, God then declared… himself he declared his attributes to to uh to moses and in fact it says he declared his name to him and here’s what he said in exodus 34 i’m the lord the lord god merciful and gracious long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression sin by no means clearing the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation. Now, everything there has to do with his character. Everything there has to do with the kind of person he is, not the kind of being he is. We know he’s a different kind of being. than anything he created. He’s unique. He’s the eternal, infinite, you know, creator God. That’s great. I mean, there’s nothing else like that. He’s unique in that sense. But that’s not what he’s talking to us about. He’s talking about his loving kindness, his justice. This is what he wants us, he wants us to know that. You know, when my kids were little, I didn’t want them necessarily to know how many cells there were in my body or what my IQ was. or even how tall I was. They didn’t have to know that, or how much I weighed. But I wanted them to know that I was a good man. I wanted them to know that I cared for them, that I was committed to them, that I was not cruel, and things like that. This is what a father wants his children to know. And the Calvinists want to focus entirely on God’s status and prerogatives and non-moral type characteristics. The Arminian wants to focus on what God wants us to focus on, his character. Now, the Calvinist thinks that he glorifies God by emphasizing that God has the power and authority to do anything he wants to. Well, Arminians don’t deny that. We know he does. But we don’t think he exercises those things in a way that’s contrary to his character. We think what’s so impressive about God is his character. And to tell you the truth, if he’s the one who makes people be evil, before they’re ever born he predestines them to be evil, and then he punishes them for that, that’s a hard sell to say he’s a loving God. He might be loving to the few that flatter themselves that they are the elect, but they know that most people are not, which means that if we say that God loves the elect but has basically abandoned and taken all hope away from 90% of the people on the planet, How can we say God is love? We can say, well, he loves us. And that’s what Calvin said, you know, in his commentary on 1 John 4, where it says God is love. He says love is not what God is essentially. It’s what he is known to be by us who are the elect, you know. In other words, he’s loving to us, but not to most people. So John says he’s love. This is as absurd a way to take scripture as can be imagined. Hey, brother, we’ve got a break here. I can’t continue, but I appreciate you calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, thank you, though, Steve. You hit the nail with the character. That’s what I wanted to hear, the character. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, Brother John. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Bye. Bye now.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’ve got another half hour coming up, but we’re at the halfway point, and we’d like to let you know that The Narrow Path, this program, has been on the air since 1997. That’s 27, 28 years now. And we are totally listener-supported. We have nothing. We sell nothing. We have no sponsors. And we pay over a million and a half dollars a year to radio stations to keep the program on. Where do we get the money? Well, from people who want to give it. 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 go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. If you would like to call and ask a question about the Bible or the Christian faith or a or discuss a difference of opinion you have with the host, you’re welcome to join us by calling this number, 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our next call is from Eddie in Sprague River, Oregon. Hi, Eddie. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. Yeah, I’m still dealing with it. Daniel 9, chapter 9, verses 26 and 27. You can’t get past that, can you? Yeah, no, I can’t. And it just, I don’t know what it is, but I stick with something until I find out what it is. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you know what? I’ll tell you something. If I did that, I would be going nowhere in my learning because the more I’ve learned, the more I’ve learned about those verses you’re talking about in Daniel 9, the more I’ve realized that it’s kind of unsolvable because there’s a period of 490 years from a starting point to an ending point. Now, the problem is the starting point is ambiguous. The starting point is a decree to restore and build Jerusalem. Well, there’s three different decrees like that, and different scholars have different opinions as to which of those decrees is the starting point. So we can’t even decide which. When that 490 years starts with certainty, because there’s several possibilities, then the end point is not really known for sure. Some people think the end point has to do with the baptism of Jesus in 26 or 27 A.D. Some think it’s the crucifixion of Jesus around 30 or 31 A.D. And some think it’s 70 A.D. Some think it’s still in the future. And I suppose you could add to this, maybe people who could believe that it’s talking about the birth of Christ, because it’s simply saying from the point of the declaration to restore and build Jerusalem to the Messiah. Okay, so to the Messiah, what, until he’s born, until he appears in public, until he dies, what? The passage in Daniel is sufficiently ambiguous that if you never get past it until you understand it, you’re going nowhere. because I now have been teaching for 54 years. I taught Daniel the whole time. I’ve read about as much as I think is out there about this. And I still have to say, I’m still not sure where the starting point is or the ending part is. And frankly, it doesn’t matter because no matter which starting point you take or which ending point you take, the Messiah that has come is coming right around the time that Jesus actually came. And no other Messiah who has any credibility came anywhere around that time. So we can say Jesus came in the time period that Daniel identifies. But as far as nailing down the dates, I hear from people who are very positive that they’ve got it down. Of course, they don’t realize how many other people, maybe better scholars than themselves, are pretty positive, too, about their alternate views. So I’m saying if you’re going to hang on to that and go nowhere until you get that right, you’re not going to grow. You’re not going to learn anything else because you’re going to be stuck there the rest of your life. I guarantee it. Go ahead. Good word.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I just, I see it when Jesus was on the cross. He said it’s finished. And, you know, that Daniel is talking about, you know, leading up to that point in time. And when he said it’s finished, to me it’s finished.
SPEAKER 02 :
So anyway, that’s what I did. Yeah, but he didn’t say the 70 weeks are finished. Something was finished, to be sure, and I agree with it. I think his mission was accomplished. But I believe that, according to Daniel 9, the cutting off of the Messiah was in the middle of the 70th week. So we couldn’t say the 70 weeks were finished. We could say the first 69 and a half weeks were finished, but there’s another half week. So it wasn’t all finished. I mean, that is the prophecy, wasn’t it?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. To me, it’s just, I see it. one of those things that’s easy to get stuck on something, especially when it’s put in your head, that it’s going to be years and not a combination of even days, because that was the most holiest time of that week that took place when he said it’s finished. But the reason I was calling was to define the – the cutting off, not for himself, after himself is used a colon. And, you know, I never graduated high school. I’m pretty lame. So I had to look it up, and I looked it up, and it’s supposed to follow the colon is to the following to the right is supposed to complement what’s on the left.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, let me stop you just for a minute. Let me stop you. There is no colon in the Hebrew. The Hebrew has no punctuation. Yeah, so And actually, as I look at the New King James, it doesn’t even have a colon in the New King James. It has a semicolon. But some translations might have a colon. The translators put in whatever punctuation they think belongs there. But Daniel didn’t put in a colon. He didn’t put in a period. He didn’t put in punctuation.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, that clears up a whole lot right there then. All right, brother. Okay, well, thank you very much, Steve.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Eddie. God bless you. Good talking to you.
SPEAKER 06 :
God bless you, too.
SPEAKER 02 :
Bye now. All right. Let’s see here. We’re going to talk next to Greg in Corona, California. Hi, Greg. Welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, how are you, Steve? Thanks for taking my call. First time caller.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, great.
SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome. This may be quick for you or maybe not, but I heard a pastor on the radio say, and I’ve got him verbatim, so… I didn’t mishear him.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, that’s good.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I was curious about it. He said, he was talking about having your name removed from the Book of Life. And he was using a reference of Moses pleading to God at one point. Yeah. That he could remove his name from the Book of Life. And then he went on to say, so… Don’t be fooled. If you’ve given your life to Christ or you got baptized or you’re born again and you go back into a sin like drinking, he specifically said, another sin like lustfulness or something, you’ll go to hell. Pretty much verbatim, and I was really curious if that’s biblical. Based on what I just said. Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, depending on how he means it, that could be correct, but he may not mean it the way that I’m thinking. Here’s what I believe is true. I don’t believe that once you are born again, and your name is in the book of life and so forth, and you’re one of God’s children, regenerated and possessed by the Spirit. I don’t think that, you know, if you sin again, you lose your salvation. Like if you, you know, that if you don’t live a perfect life and you fall back into something, some old sin or maybe a new sin you weren’t in before, but you just go back and fall into sinning. Now, the question there becomes, What’s up behind that? Are you sinning in spite of the fact that you’re making every effort and have every intention of living a holy life? If so, then your sin is not really characteristic of your commitments. Paul said, when I do things that I hate, and he means when I sin, he said, I don’t want to do that. He said, when I do things I hate, it’s not me. I mean, I’m not saying I’m not guilty of what I do, but it’s not who I am. It’s sin that dwells in me. I’ve got a different direction I’m committed to. I’m committed to a holy life, to living a clean and obedient life to Christ. But he says there’s this other thing fighting in me, this sin in my members that brings me into bondage. He said the same thing to the Galatians. In Galatians chapter 5 and verse 17, he said this flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these two are contrary to one another. So you don’t do what you want to do. Now, I think every Christian who’s honest with himself, who’s ever intended to live a holy life, would say, yes, sometimes I don’t do what I want to do. Sometimes I’m irritable. Sometimes I’m envious. Sometimes I’m lustful. Sometimes I overeat. Sometimes I might be tempted to drink and maybe have fell once or twice or a few times. You know, I mean, I do stumble. James said, in many things we all stumble. But though we stumble, that’s not the same thing as saying, I’m done with Jesus. I’m going to just go back and be a drinker again. I’m just going to be a drunkard again. I’m just going to go back and be a fornicator again. See, everyone falls into some kind of sin or another occasionally. I believe even the best Christians sometimes do. I do believe the more you become adept at walking with Christ, at walking in the Spirit, the more you cultivate your spiritual life, actually, the less you will sin. Because we’re supposed to be being changed from glory to glory into the image of Christ. We should be more like him than we were some time ago. But being more like him doesn’t mean we’re perfectly like him, and it doesn’t mean we always are as good as we usually attempt to be or even as we normally are. Because even when you’re a mature Christian, that would mean you normally are living a pretty holy life. It does not guarantee you’d never stumble again. So the question about loss of salvation, well, as long as we’re abiding in Christ, we can’t lose our salvation. The Bible says he that has the Son has life. He that has not the Son of God has not life, in 1 John 5, verse 12. So if you have Jesus, you have life. The question is, are you still abiding in him? Or have you, as he described it in John 15, 6, I think it is, have you stopped abiding in him? And being cast forth as a branch. So let’s just take a practical case. Let’s just say you’re a Christian. You’re trying to follow Christ. You’re devoted to him. You’re devoted to obeying him. Your life commitment is to live a holy and obedient life. But out of weakness, you have sometimes fallen. And when you do fall, you hate it and you repent of it. And you attempt to not do that anymore. Well, in that case, you’re about normal for being a Christian. And certainly you don’t lose your salvation for stumbling out of weakness. And the fact that you repent afterwards means that you’re obviously, why would you do that? Except that you’re committed to doing something else. Repentance means you don’t like what you did. You don’t agree with it. You renounce it. So you might fall again sometime in the future. But the fact that you truly hate it and renounce it means that you’re trying not to do that kind of thing. And because you have a different commitment. And that commitment is to be obedient to God. Now, if you have that commitment to be obedient to Christ, you’re still committed to him. And if you’re committed to him, you’re abiding in him. It’s when you stop being committed to him. It’s when you decide you don’t want to be a Christian anymore. When you decide you’d much rather be a drunkard or a fornicator or a greedy person and pursue the god Mammon instead of the real God. You know, when persons make the decision that they’re done with Jesus, then there’s no possibility they could be saved because Jesus You can’t be saved without Jesus. You’re only saved when you’re abiding in Jesus. And if you don’t abide in him, you do. You don’t go to heaven when you die. And more than that, you don’t have him, you know, working his work in your life here. And you’re not, you know, you can’t be fulfilling his purpose in your life nor go to heaven when you die if you’re not in Christ. So the preacher did say if you go back to drinking or something like that, you’ll go to hell. I assume what he meant, but I’m not sure because I don’t know him or his denominational affiliations, but I assume what he meant is if you renounce Christ, give up on following Christ, and go back to your life of sin, then I would have to agree with his conclusion because that would be becoming an apostate. But on the other hand, if he’s saying, well, now that you’re a Christian, if you ever drink again, you go to hell, and there are some people who believe that, but it simply is not biblical. in my opinion. I’d have to disagree with him on that. On that one point, at least.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s what was so stark about his comments. And you do know him. He’s a Calvary Chapel pastor. And you know of him. I won’t mention his name, but it was very stark because every other pastor I’ve heard explain sin and explain salvation has said it more like you. And this just kind of blew me away. And… He used those words just like that. You can have your name removed from the book of life. Don’t be fooled. If you go back into sin and drinking another sin or so, you will go to hell. And it was pretty stark, so it just made me want to call you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, well, I’m glad you called. It’s good to talk to you about that. Let me just say, there’s apparently someone famous enough that I know him, but I don’t know who it is, and I don’t need to. But I would just say in his favor, he probably is talking about becoming apostate. That is, if you give up on being a follower of Christ and you don’t want to be a follower of Christ anymore and you just want to go back and be the way you were before you knew Christ, I would agree with him. That’s apostasy. In apostasy, you can’t be an apostate and be saved. But it’s interesting because Calvary Chapel, when I was in Calvary Chapel, I know Chuck Smith’s view and many Calvary Chapel pastors’ views was eternal security. They believe that you can’t lose your salvation no matter what. But anyway, I, you know, I just, I didn’t hear him. I didn’t hear him elaborate on it. But I just shared with you what I think the Bible teaches on it. And if that’s what he meant, I wouldn’t fault him. But, of course, you can’t, you can’t just, you can’t believe something just because a famous pastor says it. Yeah. And you can’t believe it just because I say it. I’m not a pastor. But, I mean, a famous person saying something doesn’t make it right.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
I can’t believe that you can be taken from the grasp of Jesus once you’ve given your life to him that easily. So I can’t believe it’s that easy to become an apostate.
SPEAKER 02 :
I don’t think it is. I honestly don’t think it is. It’s not easy at all to become an apostate. If a person easily goes back to a life of sin and gives up on Jesus that quick, I doubt they were ever really saved. You know, I mean, obviously, Jesus said there’s going to be a lot of people who think they’re saved and they aren’t. And he’ll say, I never knew you. So certainly, if a person finds it easy to give up on Jesus and go back to his life of sin and says, I’m good here. That person is very good reason to think that person probably never really was converted. On the other hand, some people who really are converted and serve Christ faithfully for years. and hate their sin and make progress in the Christian life for a long time, have been known to be, you know, through some trauma or through some disappointment or through some trial or testing, they fail the test and they decide to be angry at God because they lost a loved one or something. And this embitters them toward God. And more and more, they just kind of, fail to keep up their commitment to Christ, and they just give up on him and eventually go back to the world. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it happen. And I wouldn’t conclude that they were never converted. I think in many cases their earlier years of Christian life would strongly argue that they were converted. But even if you’re very committed to Christ, the heart is not a static entity. It’s not like a rock that never changes. our hearts are dynamic. They change. They can become calloused, the Bible says. They can become cauterized. Our consciences can be. We need to be careful about that. We need to make sure we don’t harden our hearts, as in the provocation. It says in Hebrews chapter 4. So there’s, you know, our hearts, you know, can be truly devoted to God at one point and not at a later point. I mean, think about people you’ve been in love with if you’ve been in love before. When you’re in love with someone, you think, I could never stop wanting to be with this person. I would never stop loving this person. But if you allow, whatever, resentment or other things, disappointments to dig their way into your heart, you might decide you don’t want to be with that person anymore, even when you marry them. So, I mean, how many people are there that get divorces? who, when they got married, were sure they’d never do that. And they were sincere when they said, I’m going to stay with you until death do us part. That was their sincere feeling at the time, but they didn’t stick with it. They weren’t faithful unto death, and that’s what Christians have to be. This is a warfare, and if you don’t stay faithful to Christ, you, by default, go over to the other side. It means you’re on the enemy’s side. I appreciate your call, brother. I hope that’s helpful. Let’s see here. Our next caller is John Kent from Kent, Washington. I know a John Kent in Oregon. This is John from Kent, Washington. Hi, John. Welcome.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. Hey, Steve. Yeah, I appreciate your show. Quick question about Daniel 12.4 where it says knowledge will increase. I was wondering what your opinion was about that. I just don’t know what to say specifically, but I just wanted to see what your viewpoint was on that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. In Daniel 12, It’s very common for Christians of many different stripes to understand Daniel 12 to be about the end times. And those who do would suggest that when it says knowledge will increase, I mean, they often point out, well, look at the advance of knowledge we’ve had just in the past century or so. You know, I mean, you know, if you go back to, you know, the 1700s, after thousands of years of human civilization, no one had figured out how to build an engine. You know, they had, I mean, maybe a water wheel, maybe a windmill. But as far as the internal combustion engine or diesel engine, I mean, for thousands of years, people could not move any faster than a horse could carry them or than a ship under full sail could carry them. I mean, there’s limitations. But now, just in the past 200 years or so, You know, we’ve got not only, you know, engines and self-driving, I mean, self-propelled vehicles, we even, they’ll even, technology will drive them for us. I mean, we’ve just got, we’ve got AI now. We’ve got, you know, a glut of information on the Internet. And so, you know, to say knowledge will increase and to apply that to the end times, it’s a very common thing to do here because knowledge has increased so much in recent centuries. It’s hard to make that point unless you question, as I do, whether Daniel 12 is about the end times at all. I personally think that although there’s language, you know, Daniel’s full of figurative language, there’s language in Daniel 12 that makes it sound like it’s the resurrection on the last day, second coming of Christ, and so forth, and final judgment. But there’s other information in Daniel, including this chapter, that make me think, and especially the way it’s cited or alluded to in 1 Peter and some other places in the New Testament, make me think it’s not really talking about the end times. I believe it’s talking about the end of the Jewish order and the beginning of the New Covenant order. And to say that in that era, which was in the first century, knowledge would increase reminds me that Paul, four different times, Once in Ephesians 3, once in Colossians 1, once in Romans 16, once in 1 Corinthians 2. Paul four times tells us that God had revealed to him and the apostles by the Spirit that mysteries that had not been made known to the previous generations of the sons of men. And this is the knowledge of God. This is not, you know, technology or, you know, internet glut information. But more importantly, the knowledge of God. God has revealed more knowledge about himself in Christ and through the apostles than anyone prior to that ever had of him. In Daniel’s day, they didn’t have that knowledge. but it would be increased when Christ would come and the apostles and God’s Holy Spirit would reveal those things. Paul emphasizes that many times that the knowledge of the mystery of God has been revealed to him and the other apostles. So, I mean, that’s not the whole reason I would see chapter 12 of Daniel that way, but because I do see chapter 12 of Daniel that way, That’s the era that I think it’s referring to of knowledge being increased. I would assume that it means knowledge of the gospel or knowledge of the mysteries of God or whatever.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, so that’s kind of what I thought of it. Almost like Romans 1 doesn’t say that people will be without excuse. There’s no tie-in to that, is there at all, do you think?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I think, you know, maybe, but I think in Romans 1, Paul is saying that people would have no excuse for not believing in God because he’s made himself known through the things he’s made. So the reason people are without excuse… is not because there’s now suddenly more knowledge than was available previously, but they’re without excuse for the same reason anyone was without excuse throughout history. It’s because as they look at the sky, they can see the creation. They can see the universe. They can see through the things God has made the proof of his existence. And that wasn’t a new development in Paul’s time. That was something that people from the time of Adam and Eve were capable of doing, and the failure to recognize that was what made them without excuse, I think. Okay. All right, brother. Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 06 :
God bless you.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. God bless you, too. All right. Pam from Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Steve. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I enjoy your program. When I get off of work every evening, I’m listening to you. But this is what I wanted to ask you. I’ve been wanting to ask you this. About women preaching. You know, time and time again, I hear if a woman preaches the gospel, she is going to hell. Okay.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, let me just say this, that when people say preaching, in many cases they mean pastoring churches. A lot of times we think of the leader of the church as the preacher. In the Bible, things were different than that. Preaching referred to evangelism. I mean, go through the New Testament, look up all the times it talks about people preaching. They’re preaching the gospel. They’re preaching the gospel to unbelievers. They’re evangelizing. And so preaching is specifically declaring the good news, and principally to people who have not heard the good news or don’t know the good news. So it’s evangelism. Now, what happens in the church is teaching. Jesus said to the apostles, go out and make disciples and teach them to observe everything I’ve commanded you. In Acts chapter 2, the 3,000 converts on the day of Pentecost sat daily under the apostles’ teaching. They were being taught teaching. Now, teaching and preaching are different things. Preaching is what is done to unbelievers, and teaching is what is done for believers. They need to be taught to observe everything Jesus commanded. So when you say women preaching, you may be thinking, and the common way of thinking nowadays is that the pastor is the preacher. In the Bible, that wouldn’t be understood to be the case. The teachers in the church were the overseers, called episcope in the Greek. or the elders, called presbyteroi in the Greek. And they were to be teachers. The Bible says they had to be apt to teach. It doesn’t say they had to be evangelists, but they had to be teachers. And so the leaders of the churches were teachers. Now, there were preachers, of course. God gave some apostles. He gave some prophets. He gave some evangelists, Paul says in Ephesians 4.11, and some pastors and teachers. So can a woman preach? Can a woman be an evangelist? Absolutely. Absolutely. the very first evangelists in the Bible were women the apostles heard the gospel of Christ’s resurrection from the mouth of women so the Bible does not indicate that women cannot preach it doesn’t even say they can’t teach they can teach they can teach women and children and in some cases even men but what Paul does forbid I think is for women to be in the role of an overseer or an elder and that is a the leading teacher in the church. I don’t think Paul forbids any other activities to women. So when it comes to choosing elders, Paul says he doesn’t put women in that role. The elder had to be a husband of one wife. But every other kind of ministry, including evangelism, or even teaching in other settings, was never forbidden to women in Scripture that I know of, or even being a prophetess. So women can do just about anything except be pastors in the Bible. I’m sorry I’m out of time, but I hope that helps. If you’re listening to The Narrow Path, our website is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. It’s got a lot of stuff all free.
