In this episode of The Narrow Path, Steve Gregg addresses some of the pressing concerns of evangelical methods. Learn about the different approaches to evangelism and how they impact conversions. Delve into complex conversations around LGBTQ issues within a Christian context, and find guidance on navigating these conversations with love and truth. Conclude by exploring the significance of divine judgments and reconciliation in the biblical narrative.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for an hour each weekday afternoon. And we take calls during that entire hour from people like yourself who have questions about the Bible or about Christianity. or might perhaps have objections to the Bible or Christianity, and there’s somebody they’d like to talk to about it. Well, here I am. You can talk to me and to our listeners about it. We welcome you to call in with any such questions, any such challenges. Don’t worry. It’s not going to bother me for you to bring up something that you think is a hard question. Sometimes people say, I had a question, but I didn’t want to bring it up because it might stumble people too much, because they thought it was a hard question. Then when they told me who it was, It wasn’t as hard as they thought it was. So the truth is that you can ask any question you want to as long as you’re polite and use good language suitable for the radio. And the number to call to do so is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And, of course, it should go without saying your question should be in good taste. This is a family-friendly radio station. Okay, we’re going to go to the phones right now, and all of our lines just filled up. The first caller today is Lana from Ontario, Canada. Lana, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Maybe you can correct my thinking if I’m thinking off. So here’s my thought. Have you ever heard of laminin, the protein that’s in every chromosome in our body? And it’s said to be the god chromosome because it’s part of everybody’s And I was wondering if that can link somehow to the scripture that says where the worm never dies. And if that is the part of us that never is actually going to die.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, a physical part of us. I think I have seen memes over the years that people have posted with information about this. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand what it is, but I assume that it’s actually part of the cell or something in the cell, which I don’t think there’s any part of our cells that never die. Actually, even during our lifetime, our cells die and replace themselves all the time. All the cells in our bodies are less than seven years old, I think, because our body replaces them all that frequently. So cell death is a very common phenomenon during life, and then, of course, after a person is dead, to my knowledge, every cell in their body is dead and every part of it is dead. So I don’t know enough about the matter you’re asking about. But if we’re talking about some chemical or some substance in our cells, well, our cells are all going to die unless Jesus comes back before we die. But even then, many of our cells have already died and will die in the next few years. So I don’t know that that would be related to immortality at all. Now, the statement that Jesus made in Mark chapter 9, that in Gehenna the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched, is actually a quotation from the last verse of Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 66, 24, where he spoke about people being cast out. into a place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. So Jesus is quoting from Isaiah. In the context, Isaiah does not appear to be talking about hell, per se. And Jesus used the word Gehenna, which means the Valley of Hinnom, to speak of what place that was. Many people in the days of Jeremiah said, where their corpses were thrown into Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, because of the Babylonian invasion and the slaughter. Jeremiah said in a couple of places in his book that the Valley of Gehenna would suddenly take on a new nickname as the Valley of Slaughter because of the multitude of the dead that would be in it. And this is related to the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 B.C., Now, Jesus was living in an analogous time. Shortly after Jesus’ time, within a generation, Jerusalem was going to fall in exactly the same way to another invading power, the Romans. And it would be destroyed, and bodies would be cast into the Valley of Hinnom. The Valley of Hinnom is right outside the walls of Jerusalem. And in times of great slaughter, when there wasn’t enough time to bury the bodies, they They’d just throw bodies into a mass burial place. And the Valley of Hinnom being right there, which is what Gehenna means, the Greek word Gehenna means the Valley of Hinnom, is where they were thrown in many cases. Some of them, according to Josephus, were also thrown into the Valley of the Kidron, which is right outside the walls of Jerusalem too. So, I mean, when Jerusalem was under siege, when people were starving by the thousands, when… Later, when they were being slaughtered by the soldiers breaking in, bodies were just piled up in these places. Now, Jesus said that his generation was facing that very crisis, and he said that they’d better follow him because then they would have eternal life, and they should seek that life. It’s better, if necessary, he said, to pluck out an eye or cut off a hand than to keep it and be thrown into Gehenna. He said the alternative is to enter into life. by following him. And so I’m not really sure that there’s anything in the description that is talking about the afterlife or hell. I know it’s very common to take it that way. Of course, it’s also very common for people not to think very deeply about Scripture or study it very well. But the truth is that what Jesus is quoting comes from Isaiah 66. the exact phrase that he uses. And it doesn’t seem to be talking about people who are alive in hell because it says that the righteous will go forth and behold the corpses of those who have rebelled against God. And it says their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. Now, we’re talking about corpses here. And by definition, a corpse is a dead body. So we’re not looking at living people in this case. We’re looking at corpses. So Just like, and I personally think that the context of Isaiah 66 also favors a reference to the dead being piled up outside Jerusalem in AD 70. So, I mean, there’s all the features, all the features of this, of the passage in Isaiah and in Mark, which Jesus is speaking, strike me that way. Obviously, it’s possible to see it another way, and probably most Christians do, and that’s fine. People can see it however they want to. But the truth is that to say the worm does not die, I think maybe what you’re thinking is that that’s referring to something in the person, their worm, like maybe their soul or something like that, will not die, as it were to suggest a doctrine of personal immortality. And whatever we may know or think about immortality separately, The reference to the worms here is not reference to something that’s good or in us. It’s referring to that which eats dead bodies. Throughout Scripture, the worms are mentioned as eating dead bodies. So we’ve got, you know, these bodies are perpetually being eaten by worms and smoldering in flames and so forth. So, you know, I don’t know very much about that particular point that you asked, but But I think I remember how it was connected in previous memes and stuff that I’ve seen. And I don’t see it that way. I don’t think there’s anything in our cells that itself lives forever. I don’t think any of our cells themselves live forever. So I’m going to have to express skepticism on that one. Thank you for your call. God bless you. Okay. We’re going to talk next to Yvette. Yvette? from Rancho Cucamonga, California. Hi, Yvette.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question for you. I’m sure this has been asked several times regarding water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Does it mean that the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there has to be a manifestation of speaking in tongues? And if you are truly Pentecostal, you have to speak in tongues? I’m going to get my answer off the phone.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Yeah, thank you for your call.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Steve. Thank you for taking my call.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re welcome. Well, you’re right that if you’re truly Pentecostal, that is, if you’re part of a Pentecostal church or Pentecostal denomination, they pretty much require you to speak with tongues or else they doubt that you have been filled with the Spirit. Pentecostal denominations differ from others in that they have this doctrine called the initial evidence doctrine. They believe that speaking in tongues is the initial evidence that you have been baptized in the Spirit. And if you do not speak in tongue, then you lack that evidence. And they consider it to be basically essential evidence of being baptized in the Spirit. So, yeah, if you’re going to be Pentecostal in the sense of part of the Pentecostal movement or Pentecostal denomination, they’re pretty much going to make you speak in tongues or else they’ll hold you as one who has not yet crossed the the threshold into spirituality yet. Now, the Bible itself doesn’t teach that doctrine. It is true, what we do have in the Bible, we have a few cases, a handful at the most, recorded in the book of Acts of people who got baptized in the Spirit. Now, of course, I believe every Christian in the New Testament got baptized in the Spirit, but in the book of Acts, we don’t read of it all the time, and we read of a few cases, just like We don’t read the names of the people who got converted on the day of Pentecost. There’s 3,000. We have some people’s names. We have some details of some people’s lives. Most people, we don’t get a full account of their conversion. But we have some accounts of people being converted, for example, or being baptized in the Holy Spirit as on the day of Pentecost, or when Philip preached in Samaria in Acts chapter 8, or when Saul preached. had hands laid upon him and he was filled with the Spirit in Acts 9, or in Acts 10 when the household of Cornelius was baptized in the Spirit, or Acts 19 when 12 men in Ephesus were baptized in the Spirit when Paul laid hands on them. We have five altogether, a handful of cases recording the specifics, not all the specifics, but some specifics, of individuals or groups getting baptized in the Spirit. Now, in three of those five cases, we are told that they spoke with tongues. And so that would be on the day of Pentecost. That would be in the household of Cornelius. And that would be in Ephesus in Acts 19. So three out of five cases, when people were baptized in the Spirit, we are told they spoke with tongues. Now, there are two other cases recorded. and we’re not told whether people spoke in tongues on those occasions or not, we might assume that they did. And perhaps that would be correct, but we don’t know. We would be guessing. And we can’t build doctrine on speculation. At least we shouldn’t. So we can’t really say that the Bible teaches that in all five cases, people who got baptized in the Spirit spoke in tongues. Much less can we say that in all the thousands of cases that are not recorded in the book of Acts, where people did get baptized in the Spirit, which I believe was normative in the early church, and it should be now, the thousands of cases that are not recorded, we don’t know how many of them spoke with tongues. Perhaps most of them did. We’d say out of the five cases we know of, three out of five did, which is a majority of the cases recorded. Whether the majority of unrecorded cases also people were baptized and spoke in tongues also, again, that’d be speculation. But It’s entirely possible to take the whole of Scripture at face value and not believe that everybody speaks in tongues because the Scripture does not say that everybody does. In fact, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, at the end of that chapter, he says, do all speak with tongues? And the implication is the answer is no, not all do speak with tongues. Someone might say, well, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14, I wish that you all spoke with tongues. Yeah, well, he wished that everybody could stay single, too. Paul had his own preferences about things. He would have liked to see everybody speak with tongues. He would have liked to see everybody stay single. But he said in the other case, in chapter 7, about singleness, he said, yeah, but not everyone has the same gift, meaning not everyone has the gift of being single. And not everyone has the gift of being married. People have different gifts, he said. He refers to those as charismata, which is the word charisma is the gifts. So Paul wished that everyone had the gift of singleness, but they don’t. And, you know, he says, so, you know, one has this gift and one has another. And likewise, when he says, I wish you all spoke with tongues. Well, okay, but he didn’t say it was so. He just said, that’d be great. That’d be great if everyone did that. But I don’t make those decisions. You know, Paul didn’t make the decisions about who did. God did. So, you know, we don’t have any evidence that Paul believed that all people do speak with tongues if they’re filled with the Spirit. So let me just say, I do believe in the gift of tongues, and I do believe in the baptism of the Spirit. And I do believe that in the Bible and in modern times, some people speak in tongues when they get baptized in the Spirit. What I can’t say on biblical authority is, what Pentecostals say about it. They say that it is the initial evidence of being baptized in the Spirit. And I would say, well, you can believe that if you want to, but you don’t have the Scripture on your side. The Bible does not go so far as to give us that. And I am pretty sure I’ve known people who do not speak in tongues, but who are nonetheless filled with the Spirit. At least that’s my judgment of them. And there’s nothing in Scripture that would disqualify that judgment. It’s a subjective judgment on my part. but I don’t have anything that would objectively disqualify in terms of scriptural teaching. So I don’t believe that speaking in tongues is a necessary and universal practice of those who are baptized in the Spirit. That would be my reaction to that. Okay, let’s talk to Jacob in Ripon, California, or Ripon, California. I’m not familiar here. Hi. Hi.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi. I have a question about something I say when I’m praying.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I’m wondering what it is.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Just a moment. Your phone has just got all garbled. I don’t know if it’s my headphones that are a problem or if it’s your phone.
SPEAKER 03 :
But as soon as you start talking, it’s just like you’re talking underwater. I’m sorry. There, that’s better. I just heard that clearly. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. So whatever I’m praying for, what I’m praying, I have an important thing. For your glory, for your honor, your will, because I can’t think. Okay, it’s having the same problem.
SPEAKER 03 :
Same problem as far. I literally cannot understand one word.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. So I’ll call you back.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, do that, and you might want to be in a better place for it. Yeah, thank you. Sorry about that. I wish we could have had that conversation. All right, let’s talk to Jay in Little Rock, Arkansas. Jay, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, Steve, how are you? Thank you for taking my call, first-time caller and new listener. My question to you is, we try to share the gospel in our local area, and still… trying to figure out the best way to do that. We’ve stumbled upon the Living Waters Great Comfort website. Watch these videos. Basically, we’re dealing with a lot of people that are either claimed to be Christian or have a Christian background. And we try to use the Ten Commandments or the law to reach them, as well as people that are maybe not so familiar or considered atheists or agnostic. So I just wanted to know if you… I know Jesus would, you know, he would spoke to the Jews, so he could shout, repent, and they kind of, it startled them, and they would know what he’s saying. And I’m leaning more towards like, okay, well, just asking, you know, do you consider yourself to be a good person? But is there a method, or maybe, I don’t know if method is the right term, but is there something maybe based on Scripture that you would recommend, or is it a way that you found helpful when going out and trying to just talk to people.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Well, let me just say, first of all, I appreciate that you are making this effort to reach your community for Christ, and I hope that you’ll be very successful. You mentioned Ray Comfort, who I regard as a friend of mine. You know, Ray and I have crossed paths many times or several times, and it’s always been very friendly. And I respect him. His ministry, which is called The Way of the Master, at least last I heard it was, has a particular way of evangelism that is recommended, which you have discovered and which you’re seeking to implement. And my attitude toward that particular means of evangelism is sort of like my attitude toward the previous caller about speaking in tongues. I believe in speaking in tongues, but I don’t believe that you always have to speak in tongues. If you’re baptized with spirit, I believe in, uh, the use of the law, for example, in evangelism, but I don’t believe that you always need to. I think that when, when something, uh, I personally think that evangelism is most effective when we’re really connecting with people as individuals and we don’t have a packaged program. Now, I’m not saying that package programs never work. Uh, They often do. I mean, there was the four spiritual laws when I was a kid that Campus Crusade came up with, and I believe a lot of people got saved through that. And, you know, Ray Comfort has his way of the master means, which I’m sure many people have been saved that way. And so I’m not here to criticize anyone’s method of evangelism if what they’re saying is, this is something I’ve done and it’s worked in many cases. But if someone says this is the way it has to be done or it won’t be done properly, that’s when I’m going to have to say, well, I’m not of the same opinion. Now, I don’t think Ray Comfort would say you can only evangelize his way and otherwise you’re not doing it right. But everyone I know who has studied his way and every time I’ve heard him evangelize, he does it this way. They always say you need to use the law to bring conviction of sin because people, From my childhood, I’ve been a Christian all my life, and I’ve been evangelistic all my life. But from my childhood, I always heard, you know, you need to let the person know they’re sick before they’ll take the medicine. They need to know they’re sinners and condemned before they’ll be interested in Christ. And that being so, it has always been a given. in evangelical methods of evangelism to make someone know they’re guilty first, and then let them know there’s no hope of forgiveness except through Christ, and then let Christ’s sacrifice and faith in him be presented as the means of salvation. Now, all of that is, to my mind, good. What it isn’t, it’s not an example of the way that Jesus evangelized or the apostles. I mean, the truth is, everybody I know who follows the way of the Master lays heavy emphasis on hell and heaven. And Jesus and the apostles, frankly, didn’t when they were evangelizing. The apostles, for all we know, we have no record of them ever mentioning hell or heaven when they were evangelizing. And we don’t have any record of them going through the Ten Commandments. Now, Jesus, sometimes it’s mentioned, well, Jesus, when he was talking to the rich young ruler, he recited some of the Ten Commandments. Well, yeah, but it certainly didn’t bring conviction of sin on him. See, the idea of that philosophy is, People won’t know they’re sinners unless you bring the Ten Commandments. Jesus did with the rich young ruler. He cited the Ten Commandments. Yeah, and it didn’t convict the guy because the guy said, I’ve kept those. It had the opposite effect. It made him think, okay, if that’s what it takes, I’m good. We don’t have any case in the Bible of somebody using the Ten Commandments to convict somebody of sin, though I’m not saying it would never work that way. I think it probably does. I’m just saying that when it comes to methods of evangelism, anyone can tell you how they’ve done it and the successes they’ve had doing it. But the Bible doesn’t lay out a method. Evangelism, the Greek word euangelium, means the gospel. And evangelism is the proclaiming of the gospel. And this can be done in many ways. It can be done handing out tracts. It can be done standing on a street corner. It can be done in a one-on-one conversation at Starbucks. It can be done with friends in your home. And there’s not a method. What you want to do is present them the good news that Jesus is the king and that God is expects all people to embrace him as Lord and king of their lives. And if they do, they’ll be saved. Now, that’s the good news. That’s the way it’s preached by Jesus. That’s the way it’s preached by the apostles. It’s what the gospel is. Now, what about using the Ten Commandments? Well, sometimes you might need to do something like that. I mean, if you’re talking to somebody and say, well, Jesus is the king, and they say, well, I don’t need a king. Well, but you need him to be your savior. Well, I don’t need a savior. Well, but you need to be saved from your sins. Well, I don’t sin. Okay, well, sinning is violating the law of God. Do you know what the law of God is? Here’s some of the laws God made. Have you ever broken those laws? And that’s where you get into employing some of the things in what Ray calls the way of the master. But lots of people already know they’re sinners. I mean, they’ve kind of maybe repressed it and don’t think about it much, but they know they’re sinners. You don’t have to go through all ten commandments usually to let them know that. Sometimes you do. So I’m just saying don’t lock into a method. But if you know Jesus and you know the gospel, which is the good news that Jesus is the king and that those who come to him and become part of his kingdom, which means submitting to the king and trusting in him and being loyal to him, he saves those who are loyal to him. That’s what Jesus taught. That’s what the apostles taught. if you can communicate that in any way that gets that information across, that’s fine. Now, I’m a guy who’s kind of, I don’t know, I’m just against methods. I’m not saying they don’t work. Some people prefer to use a method, and most methods will work some of the time. I don’t know of any of them that work all of the time, but My position is we don’t judge the success of our evangelism by how many converts we make, because it’s not all up to us. It’s up to them, too. And we can’t determine how they will respond. We can only determine whether we let them know the good news, and then the response is up to them. Notice in Acts chapter 2, and frankly all the other sermons in the book of Acts, in that case Peter just declared, Let the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified Lord and Messiah, which means king. And that was the end of his sermon. They were convicted in their heart and they said, what must we do? So in other words, he just declared the facts. He just declared the good news. That’s what the gospel is. It’s good news. And then the conversation when you’re presenting it can go many directions depending on how the people respond. In which case, I would always recommend… Don’t have pat answers. Just respond honestly and in a way that you would with a real conversation with people. That would be my recommendation. Hey, I need to take a break. I’m sorry to say we will be back for another half hour. Don’t go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds.
SPEAKER 01 :
The Narrow Path is one feature of the teaching ministry of Steve Gregg. Steve’s philosophy of teaching is to educate, not indoctrinate his listeners. He believes that Christians should learn to think for themselves about the Bible and not be dependent on him or any other teacher for their convictions. We hope to teach Christians how to think, not what to think about the Bible.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg, and we have another half hour ahead of us taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you disagree with the host, feel free to give me a call. I’d love to talk to you. The number is 844-484. 57, 37. I’ll just say that before we took the break, I was talking to a young man from Arkansas who was asking about any recommended methods of evangelism. And again, I don’t recommend any method for universal use, but I really believe in being led by the Holy Spirit or at the very least by God. by the way the conversation goes, which I don’t think is different than being led by the Holy Spirit generally speaking. I think we share as the Holy Spirit prompts us, and I don’t really lay out any methods. But I did mention one way that some people do it is by handing out tracts. And a lot of people, I think, have gotten saved by tracts, although a lot of people who hand out tracts discover – that, you know, maybe, I don’t know, nine out of ten of them end up on the ground because not everyone wants to read them. But there are good tracts that present the gospel, and people that you may not have an opportunity to talk to at length, you can at least get the message into their hands by leaving tracts. And toward that end, we have posted at our website a tract that I wrote. Actually, it’s taken directly from one of my books about the kingdom of God, It’s from the book Empire of the Risen Sun. I think it’s at the end of book two, if I’m not mistaken. Or maybe it’s at the end of book one. Anyway, it is a presentation of the gospel of the kingdom. Somebody took it from my book, put it in tract form, and printed up tracts. And we’ve actually got it posted. You could print it from our website and use it if you want to. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. And to find that tract, if you want to, there’s a tab there that says comic books. Now, the reason it says comic books is there’s also some discipleship manuals in comic book form, which I also wrote and drew years ago. And those can be downloaded or read online if you want to. But the tract is there, too. So if someone wants to use a tract, they say, well, I don’t know where there’s any good tracts. I hope. Ours is good track, and you’re certainly welcome to use that. It’s free to download at thenarrowpath.com. All right. Let’s go to the phones again, and we’ll talk to Jonathan in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Hi, Jonathan. Welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Brother Steve, Greg, I met you in 2010, and you’ve taken me through Watchtower, Word of Faith, Calvinism, dispensationalism, Messianic Jews, I can go on and on.
SPEAKER 03 :
I didn’t take you through them. If anything, I brought you out of those.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, thank you. Yes, sir. I humbly have moved Empire of the Risen Son to number one and placed Mere Christianity at number two, as required reading, obviously, after Genesis to Revelation. A 15-year walk has had ups and downs. I used to think your radio answers were long until I listened to your 12 90-minute lectures on one subject. I request that you give me your intensely abridged answer right now and also point me towards a more comprehensive treatment elsewhere. Okay, here’s my question. After reading Genesis 11, I went on a rabbit trail concerning what I perceive as tension of what I know to be Yahweh’s righteous judgments. The kingdom message is about reconciliation and love for one another. The expulsion from Eden, the global flood, and the confusion of language and scattering of people seems to me to be divisive solutions. Can you help me navigate this?
SPEAKER 03 :
When you say divisive solutions, you mean that God is being divisive?
SPEAKER 02 :
I know he’s not. I know Yahweh is reconciliation and loving, but to me, you know, when Genesis 11 is talking about people having one language and being able to accomplish anything, and then his solution is confusion and scattering. And also, you know, that took me also to the flood, just killing everybody except for eight people, and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. I know Yahweh’s judgments are righteous. I think we reconcile this with the kingdom reconciliation and love one another message.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, reconciliation requires two parties. That’s what reconciliation means. Two parties that are at odds with each other make peace with each other. Now, the Bible always teaches that to have peace with somebody else, both parties are going to want it. So, yeah, God wants to have peace with all humanity. but you may have noticed some people don’t want to have peace with God, at least not on his terms. God is not going to let man set the conditions for things, simply because man is in the dark. Man doesn’t know what is necessary. God does. God knows what we were made for. He knows how the universe works. He knows how the spiritual realm works. He knows everything that we need to know, and based on his complete knowledge of that, he has laid out about how to escape from the dark side to be on good terms with him. And they’re not that difficult. They’re just, they are particular. You know, you can’t just say, well, okay, God wants me to do things this way, but I’m going to do it the other way and expect him to be okay with that. Well, he’s not okay with you dying. There’s a way that seems right to a man, but at the end of there are the ways of death, the proverb says. And, you know, people go their own way and say the way God says. They’re going to die. And God’s not okay with that. He says in Ezekiel 33, 11, he says, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his evil way and live. God has no interest in killing people off. People pursue the ways of death because they reject the way of life that he gives them. Now, Yeah, God does divide. He divides between truth and error, between light and darkness. The Bible says in him is light and there’s no darkness in him at all. You know, even in Genesis chapter 1, he made light and then it says he divided between the light and the darkness. One of the first actions he did on the first day of creation, he was divisive. He divided between light and darkness. Later, the second day, he divided between the waters above the firmament and the waters below the firmament. So, I mean, he starts out by dividing things. He creates something, and he makes a division between that and what isn’t that. And so also, he makes a division between truth and what isn’t truth, between righteousness and what isn’t righteousness, between life and death. And that’s why, you know, Moses said to the Israelites, I’ve said before you, life and death. Choose life, you know, that you may live. So, yeah, the flood is a good example of God dividing between the few righteous and the wicked that were choosing death. You know, casting Adam and Eve out of the garden was another way of doing that. He’s not going to let sin, unrepentant sin, you know, stay in the paradise where he dwells with the righteous. Now, there were no righteous when Adam and Eve left, but their children, some of them were. And God has always made a distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous. Likewise, the division of people into different groups, different language groups. Now, this was not a case of dividing between good and bad. It seems like most of the people were just bad. But as long as they were united, they could consolidate their group power toward evil. And God’s not in favor of that. So he divided between them and sent them, you know, different directions because they couldn’t communicate with each other. That was at least very merciful. He didn’t kill them. He didn’t even hurt them. He just made them go separate ways and live their lives not as one concentrated group of people. that was a very merciful judgment on his part. But it worked. It prevented them from being united. Now, the Bible does say in the Psalms how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Yeah, but it’s not all that pleasant when wicked people dwell together in unity, nor when wicked people and Christian people dwell together united with each other. The Bible says do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What fellowship has light with darkness? And what agreement has Christ with demonic powers? None. So, your perception is correct. God did divide. And God is divisive. And that’s because there are things that are unlike each other. And if you can’t make a distinction between them, then you’re simply not going to live in reality. If you can’t tell the difference between you know, water that will kill you and water that is healthy, you’re going to die probably. And the same thing is true in the spiritual realm, the moral realm, whatever. So, yeah, we have to make distinctions. That’s called making judgments. Human beings, as far as we know, are the only creatures on earth that God made capable of and required to make moral judgments between what’s good and evil, right? In fact, God established the priesthood, it says, in Leviticus 10, and then it’s repeated in Malachi, I think in chapter 2 of Malachi. It says that God intends for the priests to be able to teach people how to divide between the clean and the unclean, between the good and the bad. People need to make those decisions. God does it himself. So to say that God was divisive and to consider that to be somehow maybe a flaw or a criticism of God, that simply comes from our carnal idea that we don’t want any conflict with anyone and therefore we’ll just have everyone be one happy family and sing Kumbaya together. Well, that’s not the way God operates. God wants us to all be one big happy family and sing Kumbaya together on his terms, but not on everybody’s terms. And when it comes to having reconciliation, which is the question you’re asking about, if two people are divided and offended with each other, they can both decide that they’ll bury the hatchet and be friends again, or one can offer an olive branch to the other, and if the other will accept it, they can be friends again. But if two people are hostile toward each other, it takes both of them, not one of them. to agree that, hey, let’s be friends again. That’s what reconciliation means, is to be friends again. So, yeah, people have to agree with God if they’re going to be not divided from him. And that’s why we find the consistent teaching of Scripture is God does divide between the good and the bad. You know, when God sent the plagues on Egypt, God said to Pharaoh, You know, the plagues are not going to come on the Israelites in the land of Goshen. They’re only going to come on the Egyptians. So you might know that God divides between them. He makes a distinction between Israel and Egypt. So, I mean, there’s not really any part of the Bible where God is not making divisions because it’s a fundamental aspect of reality that light and darkness are different. Good and evil are different. And God is on the side of light and good. He’s not on the side of darkness and evil. So God does divide between those things. I hope that clarifies things for you. I appreciate your call. It’s great to talk to you. Let’s see if we can get some more calls in before out of time. Let’s see here. Rosa from San Diego, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my call. I just have a question. I am a follower of Christ. I’ve always been a Christian since I was 10 years old. I didn’t go to church on a regular basis, but my belief was there. I am a mother of five, raised my children believing in Christ. But now that my children are older, one of my sons came out saying that he was gay. left the house because he felt that he did not have any support because, well, we don’t believe that’s possible. We know that Jesus made a man and a woman, so we are not really, you know, supporters of that. And now that he lives on his own, at first he calls himself gay. Now he calls himself trans. And wants us to refer to him as a woman. Changed his name to a female name. And wants us to call him our daughter. We refused to do that. And because of that, he’d rather stay away. He became homeless. I reached out. I said, you know, you have a home. You have a family. You are always welcome to come back home. As long as you come back as a man. that God created you, but he refused to do that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, so let me just say this. I’m terribly sorry to hear that. It’s a terrible story, but what is your question for me?
SPEAKER 10 :
So the question is, as a mother, it’s hard to stand, you know, the way that I’m standing, you know, by the word. because a lot of the times, you know, the love of the mother questions me and is like, am I doing this right, or should I just accept my son the way he is?
SPEAKER 03 :
I understand. I understand. Well, it’s one thing to accept a person the way they are, and another thing to affirm and approve of the way they are. It sounds to me like you have told your son – You can live at home, but you’ll have to live on our terms. Now, the fact that you said you’d have him there in your home means you accept him. There’s no question about that. But to do it on your terms, that’s his decision. If he doesn’t want to do it on your terms, then that’s on him, and you can’t change him if he’s an adult. By the way, many Christian parents are in your position and can relate with what you’re saying. It’s a terrible thing to happen. But, I mean, the truth is, There are definitely truly people who are confused about their sex or their gender. It is a mental illness. I mean, it’s not popular or politically correct to say that now, but it’s always been in the books, the psychology books. It’s always been listed. You know, gender dysphoria is a mental illness. The only difference between, say… 20 years ago and now is that many people in our society have been trying to make us accept mental illness as an alternative norm. And I guess next we can go with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses and that disease that Nebuchadnezzar had for a while where he thought he was a cow. I mean, that’s a mental illness. It’s a known mental illness, too. But it’s not normal. And it’s not something that anyone can require us to accept as normal. It doesn’t mean that we hate the person. It doesn’t mean that we, you know, wish evil on the person. It just means that they don’t have the right to insist that we think that’s normal. Because it isn’t. But even if it was normal, no one has the right to make me accept something as normal if I don’t believe it is. And the LGBT agenda has not simply been to allow people to follow their own delusions if they want to. Nobody, frankly, is stopping them. But the agenda is to force everybody else to say, and we agree with it, it’s quite normal. Well, that’s like tyranny. That’s like mental tyranny, saying you can’t believe what you want to believe. You have to believe what I want you to believe. Sorry. Sorry. I mean, I don’t have any of my five children yet, I hope I never do, who would tell me that they are now of a different gender. But if they did, I’d say, well, you know, I’m sorry you think that way because I think you’re mistaken. And you think I’m mistaken. So we are both disagreeing with each other, which we both have the right to do. But you can’t make me agree with you just because you want me to. I’m a thinking person, too, and I can tell when something’s not normal. So if you want to call it normal, I’m not going to condemn you. I’m just going to say, hey, I’m not going to confirm that. I’m not going to affirm that for you. I’m not going to call you by a different pronoun because I love you and you don’t lie to people that you love. You don’t deceive people you love. If people are living in a delusion, you don’t confirm that delusion. It just enables them against their own well-being. Now, as far as being gay, which is, I guess, how he started out, there are definitely people who, perhaps through no fault of their own, and I don’t hold them at fault for this, they are attracted to people of the same sex. I, myself, have always been attracted to people of the opposite sex. But whether I’m attracted to the opposite sex or same sex… I have to govern my sexual life according to the commandments of God. So in the many, many years, decades actually, that I was a single man, I had to be celibate. Why? Because there was no sexual activity that was lawful for me to do as an unmarried man. The Bible does not allow unmarried people to have sex. And so I had to restrict myself. Now, if I – and that’s as a heterosexual man. If I’d been a homosexual man, that is, if I’d been attracted to men instead of women, I would have had to restrain myself just the same because the Bible doesn’t allow that either. So, I mean, it’s not as if the gays are singled out for special deprivation. Many heterosexual people never find somebody to marry. though they’d very much like to. And they have to live their lives pure. They have to live their lives celibate. Now, that’s if they’re Christians. I mean, obviously, non-Christians will do whatever they want to do. But as a Christian, I’m not going to tell a person that it’s okay for them to sleep around with whoever they want to, because I don’t believe that. I believe that God’s instructions are for our good, and I think they’re morally absolute. So whether my child is heterosexual or gay, in terms of where their sexual attraction goes, my instructions would be the same for them. You’ve got to be celibate if you’re not married. And you can’t marry someone of your own sex because that’s not what marriage is. How do I know that? Because Jesus said that. Jesus said that in Matthew 19, made it very clear. Marriage is not between two people of the same sex, but two people of the opposite sex. And so, you know, just because someone wants it to be differently. You know, there’s a lot of things I’ve wanted to do in my life, but I didn’t. And the reason was because I’m committed to following Jesus. That’s why in the many decades I was single, I didn’t have sex. It’s not like I never would have been attracted to it. I was very much attracted. I just didn’t do it because I I’m committed to following Jesus. Now, anyone who’s not committed to following Jesus is in about as much trouble as anyone else who is. So I don’t think a gay person or a straight person is the worst for whatever their unchosen attractions are. You can’t decide what’s going to tempt you. You can decide, though, whether you’re going to resist temptation, whether you’re going to obey God. And therefore, it doesn’t matter if you’re straight or gay. if you’re going to follow Christ, you’re going to live a sexually pure life. Your son, unfortunately, doesn’t want to do that. And he’s not the only, you don’t have to be gay to be rebellious. Straight people are rebellious too sometimes. But the point is, I think that the LGBT movement suggests that somehow Christians are putting a burden upon gay people or transgender people, as they call them, you know, that’s especially punishing them. No, no, we know what God made people for and what he made them to do. And we hold ourselves to that standard. We hold everyone to that standard. We recognize they can violate the standard, but they can’t do so with our approval. And that’s what you’re going to tell your son is that, you know, I love you. I would give my life for you. I don’t love you any less when you’re in this delusion than I would if you weren’t. Parents love their children unconditionally, and any real parent would die for their child even if they’re very unhappy with the choices their child has made. And I’m there. I’m there with you. But I’m not going to, because I love you, I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not going to let you pretend to be something, and me, I’ll just play along and pretend like you are too, because I love you. It’s not because I hate you. It’s the opposite. If I hated you, if I didn’t care, I could just play the game and get what I want from you, which is your affection and your love. I’m not getting it from you this way, and I want it very much, but I’m not going to cheat on you and lie to you and enable you in a self-destructive pattern just so I can have what I want from you. That’s because I love you. I love you more than I love me. So that’s kind of the way reality is, and And you may not be able to get anywhere with this. I’m just telling you what it’s like. He needs to know what it’s like, but that he won’t accept it is a very good likelihood. But it is still true. And someday, maybe he’ll be interested more in what’s true than in what he craves or desires. Some people do get to that point. I hope your son does. Okay, let’s talk to, let’s see, it’s going to be Michael in Effington, Effingham, excuse me, South Hampton, New Hampshire. I don’t know. I’ve got abbreviations here. Gotcha. Okay, Michael, welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
No worries. Thank you for your ministry, Steve. You’ve taught me to not be indoctrinated, but to think on my own and my own. 50 odd years of being a Christian. I have not run into a radio ministry like yours. I put you up there with the old J. Vernon McGee and R.C. Sproul and MacArthur.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I’m not up there with them. They’re in heaven and I’m not.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you’ll be there soon.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re right. I’m old.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I’m old, too. But my question now is I’ve been a Christian. I’m a PK. My dad was a second career Christian. Yeah, second career, he didn’t go to seminary until he was in his late 30s.
SPEAKER 03 :
I just need to tell you that we’re going to be off the air here in about two minutes.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sorry. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
The question is baptism. I’m conflicted because I’m a Lutheran. We acknowledge one baptism because of the one creed, the Apostles’ Creed, for the remission of sins, and I look to the resurrection, and so on. And we are a creedal church. We are Orthodox. We are not LCA. We’re not the Lutheran Church of America. There used to be like 14 different branches of Lutheranism back in the 70s. You’re aware of that because you’re in the Jesus movement. So my question is, I was baptized. I think it’s sufficient, but I never made a public – I was confirmed in the church, but I never made a public confession. confession or a public baptism and i just don’t want to do it for a reason like well i think i’m obligated or i think i should uh you know that it would even be boastful uh in some way so i mean humility is something i’ve it’s been hard for me to learn but i know now when to keep my mouth shut when i should but i just want to make sure that my motivations are genuine well i’ve talked to A dozen pastors have agreed, even though they’re Lutheran, they have agreed to do it. And we’ve had discussions about it. But for some reason, that creed that I learned when I was able to speak just really kind of hammers me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, well, I’m almost out of time here. So let me just say, if you were a believer… At the time you were baptized when you were young. I got a feeling as a Lutheran, you were probably baptized as a baby. I don’t know that you said that specifically, but I’m assuming that’s true. But if you were baptized a little older than that, and you had made some kind of a conscious, responsible decision to be a believer in Christ before you were baptized, then I wouldn’t even think for a moment that you had to be rebaptized. If, though, you would say, well, I really didn’t know what it was about. I didn’t know what I was doing. It was not really reflective of anything. responsible commitment I was making, then I would suggest read that to them, especially if you’ve got other Lutheran pastors who are willing to do it. So that’s the best I can do in the time we have. I’m off the air in about 10 seconds. I wish we could have talked longer. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
