Join us for a riveting discussion that navigates through the nuances of faith in public life, specifically exploring the significance of the phrase ‘In God We Trust’ on U.S. currency. Steve Gregg also addresses intriguing questions about the prophecy in Isaiah and clarifies the concept of the Body of Christ, fostering a deeper understanding of these biblical themes.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
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, taking your calls. If you’d like to call right now, we have lines open on our switchboard. If you have questions about the Bible, about the Christian faith, questions about the sanity of the host, you disagree with something you’ve heard here, you want a balanced comment, want to correct it, We welcome you to call. The number to call, take this number down. In fact, instead of taking it down, just go ahead and call it because we can get you through pretty quick. We have several lines open. 844-484-5737. That number again, 844-484-5737. All right, we’re going to go to the phones right now and talk to Nelson, who’s calling from San Diego, California. Nelson, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I have a question here. 2 Corinthians 4, 10 through 12. It’s always kind of been a mystery to me exactly what they’re talking about here. It says, we are always turning around in our body, the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body, so that the death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. Can you give me your take on that, bro? I know you’ve got a good one.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I don’t know if it’s a good one or not, but it certainly is something I’ve, thought a lot about over the years because 2 Corinthians is a lot more confusing than 1 Corinthians because Paul is talking about things a lot more mystical in some cases, including the mystical spiritual development we have, for example, in the last verse of the previous chapter where he says, We all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror of the glory of the Lord are being changed. transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord. He’s saying the Holy Spirit is changing us to be like Jesus as we gaze upon Jesus. And I believe that in chapter 4 he’s on the same subject when he says that we are being changed inwardly in a way that makes us more like Jesus and exhibits his nature and his character more. And that’s what I think Paul is talking about that in this case because he says, you know, that even if our outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day in chapter 4, verse 16. And that’s a renewal of the inward man, which is, as he says in chapter 3, verse 18, being changed from glory to glory into the image of Christ. And he says in verse 17… He says, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Now, the glory of the Lord obviously is a dominant theme in these statements. And it has to do with the glory of the Lord being seen in us. Because he says we’re being changed from glory to glory into that image. He’s using the word glory in this context to be a synonym for the image of Christ. as we’re beholding the glory of the Lord, we’re changed from glory to glory into that image. So Christ’s nature, Christ’s character, Christ’s likeness is what he refers to as the glory of the Lord. And so he’s saying our light afflictions are working for us. This eternal weight of glory, this change in us is being made into the likeness of Christ. So in verse 11 says, or verse 10 is what you were talking about, always caring about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. By the life of Jesus, I think he means the character of Jesus, the glory that’s being worked in us through our sufferings. We’re caring about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus. That’s a strange way of saying it. It sounds rather mystical, but I don’t think it’s referring to anything other than the fact that he is experiencing the sufferings and such that Christ has gone through. He’s suffering like Christ has suffered. He starts talking this way early on in the chapter about how his sufferings bring a supernatural comfort, and that comfort brings the ability for him to console others who are needing comfort. In the first seven verses of chapter 1, And then he says about his suffering that he’s gone through in Asia. In verse 8, he says, we don’t want you to be ignorant about what we’ve gone through in Asia. We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired of even life. Yes, he says, we had the sentence of death in ourselves. that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raised the dead. So he said we have the sentence of death in ourselves. It just means that we were facing death on a regular basis. It’s an unusual way to say it, perhaps. But we were facing death on a daily basis. And I think that’s what he means also in the verse you asked about in verse 10. We’re always caring about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus. That is, we are experiencing death. in our experience of suffering, the sufferings of Christ himself. Now, of course, Paul, like I said, he had some mystical ideas that we probably should make more of an attempt to get a grasp on than we maybe usually do. But he said that he was happy in Colossians. This is a very similar thought. Colossians 1.24, he said, I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, And I fill up in my flesh, that is in my body, what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. Now, what’s that mean? You know, what’s lacking in the afflictions of Christ is being supplied by me suffering. Now, here’s what I understand Paul to mean. Paul had a very pronounced sense, one that we should have but we rarely do. He had a very pronounced sense that he was a part of the body of Christ, just as we all are. As part of the body of Christ, we are Christ’s flesh and his bones. We are organically one with Christ. And our sufferings are him suffering. Remember when Jesus said in Matthew 25, you know, inasmuch as you did it to the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me. If you neglected my needs, if you blessed me, whatever, if you did it to my brethren, you did that to me. Why? Because my brethren are me. They’re my body. You know, Christ is embodied in the collective church. Now, we don’t see this often because when we look for the church, we see, you know, organizations called churches. We see, you know, the institutional church, which is not what Paul had in mind when he spoke about the church, nor Jesus either. The institutional church is something that developed after, you know, long after the apostles died. And what they had started had pretty much become an organization run by people who weren’t even necessarily always spiritual people. It’s been 2,000 years since Christ. But we still have the same true church, not in an organization somewhere, but simply in the community of all people in the world who follow Christ. All who love Christ, who are born again, have his spirit. As many are led by the Spirit of God or the sons of God. We are the members of his body. And therefore, although you can’t associate the true church with any one organization or any one institution that calls itself a church, and certainly not with any 501c3 corporation, but the body of Christ is a spiritual unity of all real followers of Christ who have been made one in the Spirit into one body, And like Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, God took the Jews and the Gentiles, and among the believers, Jews and Gentiles were made into one new man in Ephesians 2.15. That man is the body of Christ. So this concept of being organically one with Christ, he is the head. We are the rest of the members of the body. But the head and the body are one organism or one person in a sense. And so what Paul sees is my suffering, when I’m suffering, Christ is suffering. You know, you do it to the least of his brethren, you do it to him. So whoever’s making me suffer is also making him suffer. So Christ continues to suffer. As long as he has parts of his body that are suffering. You know, if I have systemic pain through my whole body, let’s say I have a headache. And then the headache goes away, but I still have a real bad arthritis in my thumb or something like that. my head is still suffering because the thumb belongs to the head too. The thumb belongs to the same body. So as long as any member of my body is suffering, my head is suffering. It’s my head that knows it’s happening. My thumb doesn’t know it. My head knows it. And so Paul’s seen himself and the rest of us as members of the body of Christ. And when he is suffering, Christ is still suffering. And he says, now there’s going to be more suffering for Christ before this is all over. What is lacking or what is deficient in the total amount of suffering is is being made up in his body, in us. And so when Paul says in Colossians chapter 1 that he is glad to accept his part of the suffering, he says, I rejoice in my suffering for you and fill up in my flesh, that is my suffering in my body, what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. Well, what does that mean? Did Christ not suffer enough? Well, he did for our propitiation. Christ’s suffering was totally sufficient for our propitiation. But he continues to suffer through his body’s suffering. And that’s not for propitiation. That’s for propagation. As the kingdom is being propagated, as the gospel is being propagated through the world, Christ still suffers until that’s done. And there’s a sum total between, of course, the time Jesus was here and the time that the world comes to an end and the devil is thrown into the lake of fire and so forth. There’s a sum total of suffering that Christ, through the suffering of his church, will continue to endure until there’s no more. Now, Paul’s saying, okay, there is, therefore, some sum total of suffering that Christ will have suffered when this is all over. And I’m paying my part. The suffering I’m experiencing is taking my share of that, and I’m glad to be doing so. I mean, he doesn’t say so, but he might be thinking, you know, the more of it I have to take on, the less other people have to take on it. If there’s a zero-sum amount of suffering that will be suffered, I’ll be glad to take my share for the church’s sake, he says, for the sake of the church. So it’s kind of a strange concept. Not too strange if you share Paul’s understanding of the body of Christ. We all use the term body of Christ, but I think very few Christians I’ve ever talked to really have the idea. You know, Paul’s the only person in the Bible that uses the term the body of Christ to speak of the church. It’s strictly a Pauline expression. But though we use the expression, I suspect that many Christians do not have any grasp at all on what Paul’s idea was when he used it. I mean, let me show you something else here. And we’re being changed. Our suffering changes us into the image of Christ because Christ’s body is maturing. And, you know, as a child’s body matures into an adult, not only does the whole body mature, but every part of the body matures with it. So, you know, the growth of the body to maturity involves the maturity of every member of the body. So Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, that he himself, verse 11 and following, he himself gave some to the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Now, it means the body of Christ as a whole to be built up. The word edifying means to be built up, or in this case, it’s talking about maturing. He says, until we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man. Now, we, the members of the body, become a mature man. The body of Christ, singular. That’s because Paul, two chapters earlier, said that the Jews and the Gentiles, God moved, removed the wall of partition between them and made in himself of them one new man. That’s the body of Christ. Well, this new man has become a mature man. Christ’s body is maturing into the image of Christ from glory to glory. And he says in verse 14, so that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trick of men, etc., etc. So, The point here is that we’re all growing. And he says in verse 15, But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for edifying of itself in love. So every joint, every member of the body does its share. Every part grows. And as every member of the body grows, the whole body grows. And it builds the body up into a mature man. That’s what Paul said. That’s why Jesus hasn’t come back yet. Some people say, well, Jesus didn’t come back yet because there’s more people to evangelize. Yeah, but every day that he doesn’t come back, there are more people being born in pagan lands than there are being converted. So, I mean, it’s not just so a larger portion of the population will be saved. It’s because he’s waiting for the body of Christ to become a mature man. He said he gave apostles, prophets, so forth, until we all come into that mature man that he’s becoming. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says, and this is the first time Paul talks about the body of Christ as a body. This is chronologically the earliest reference in any of Paul’s writings to the body of Christ being referred to as a body. And he starts off by talking about a generic human body and then uses that analogy. He says, for as the body is one and has many members, he’s talking about any body, none in particular, but all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. Now notice he didn’t say so also is the body of Christ or the church. He said, like a body. that has many members, and all the members are individuals, but they all make up one body, that’s like Christ. That is his body. Christ and his body are not individual, separate things. So in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 22 and 23, Paul says, And he put all things under Christ’s feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him. who dwells, who fills all in all. So Christ’s body is the fullness of him. Now, what that just means is that if you have a body, it’s the fullness of, it fills out what’s lacking of the head itself. The head is fine, and the head is the ruler. The head is the Lord of the body. But a head by itself without a body isn’t much. I mean, it can’t function. So the body fills out. It is the extension. It’s the machinery through which the head operates. And the body of Christ is that, too. But it’s not just machinery. It’s an organism. The same life that’s in the head is in the body. And we have the same spirit as Christ. And the head directs the members. This is all stuff that Paul takes for granted here. And whenever we say body of Christ, we’re quoting Paul’s imagery. But I’m afraid very many Christians have never thought anything about it. And this is what Paul is talking about. So he’s saying when we suffer, Christ is suffering. And we’re carrying about in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus. In a sense, as we’re facing death, so is he in a sense. I mean, as we’re facing the perils and sufferings associated with dying, well, he’s going through that with us too. I mean, we’re part of him. We’re members of him. And so all of that is in Paul’s understanding, which, I mean, anyone who really meditates day and night on Paul for years and years and years, or even maybe for a short time, would eventually see this. It’s just that many people don’t study Paul. They just pick proof texts about forgiveness of sins and justification stuff and only use those. His theology is pretty unknown to Christians because we’re not that interested in Paul’s theology. We’re interested in verses that tell us we’re saved by grace, which is most of what people quote from Paul. But Paul really saw the purpose of God was for Christ to be reproduced in his people. And as we suffer… That image of Christ is being developed or being changed from glory to glory in that image. You know, in Galatians 4.19, he said to the Galatians who were kind of backsliding, he said, My little children with whom I labor again in birth until Christ is formed in you. Christ being formed in them, that’s what he’s looking forward to. In Colossians, he says he strives and labors until he can present every man perfect in Christ. Paul has much more in mind in his understanding of God’s purpose for the church than just let’s get people to sign on the dotted line and join the church and tell them they’re saved.
SPEAKER 04 :
Like Peter says, some of these things that Paul says is kind of hard to understand.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, Peter did say that, yeah. And they are. I mean, they’re deep. Even if you understand kind of generally what he means, the aspects of it that he was into. Remember, he was caught in the third heaven and heard things that he couldn’t even repeat, he said. It was unlawful for him to repeat them. So, I mean, if the stuff he did say… Is this difficult? Imagine how deep some of the stuff was that he wasn’t able to talk about. Anyway, Brother, 2 Corinthians is an epistle, especially in the first several chapters, that a lot of these kind of statements are made that are really kind of head-scratchers in a way. But then when you get a picture of what he’s thinking, his big picture about the body of Christ, you see, oh, okay, that fits there. Hey, Brother, I should take another. God bless you. I appreciate you calling today. Larry in Kent, Washington. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Hey, Steve. Good talking to you again. Just had a question. It’s not probably a super important question, but I was talking with a guy at work and we started talking about politics in the States or religion in the States. And I ended up agreeing with him kind of, or I didn’t find myself disagreeing with him with the term In God We Trust on our currency in the U.S. And it just kind of sat on my mind for a few months, and I was like, you know, I wonder. I couldn’t disagree with him. Like, you know, I kind of agree that maybe we are mixing sort of the state and the church.
SPEAKER 06 :
You have to realize I wasn’t listening to that conversation with you and your friends, so I don’t know what his position was. What was he saying?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so he was against the fact that we have on our currency and God we trust.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, he disagreed with that statement on our currency. And I kind of didn’t find myself disagreeing with him too much. And then, you know, obviously in the Bible, Jesus says, you know, whose face is on the denarius, and they say Caesar’s. He said, give what is Caesar’s, you know, to Caesar. But the fact that we have in God we trust, and I don’t mind it. Like I said, it’s not an important question, but is it sort of a, you know, do you have an opinion on that? Or, you know, is it sort of like mixing the state and the church? Anyway, I was just wondering what your thought on that would be. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
So mixing the church and the state, you know, is a very ambiguous thing. You know, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution don’t mention, you know, the mixing or the separating of church and state. The only reference that is made in our founding documents to religion is that, you know, obviously the First Amendment is that the state cannot establish a religion or require people to follow it. And we don’t. But that doesn’t mean that people who run the state or people who founded the country or the citizenry themselves, that they are irreligious people, that they are people who can’t believe in Jesus or can’t believe in God. Right. It may sound presumptuous in our day and age to put on our coins, in God we trust, when so many people who spend those coins don’t. are atheists or they don’t trust in God. They might even be religious people who are, you know, more hypocrites than anything. They’re not really trusting God. So, you know, it could sound like it’s more sanctimonious than reality. But on the other hand, I don’t know who put that on there. I don’t know when the coins were minted originally and who said, let’s put that on there. But, you know, the country was built on a foundation of people who did believe in a God. And they weren’t all Christians, but they did believe the Bible was a very important book and that there was a God. And so at some level, people who founded this country mostly did believe in God and perhaps may have trusted in him more than we know because when people came over from another land to this wild land over here, certainly some of the earliest settlers did come over as religious people who were really had to trust God for their survival and stuff. But now by the time the country was founded, there was a lot of secular people too and deists and other people than Christians. But I think it was always assumed that America was a country that recognized its dependency on God. And I think that’s what the coin is suggesting. It was probably not assumed that every American person recognize their dependency on God or trust in God. But to say in God we trust, it may not mean we have faith. We have Christian faith. It may mean we depend on God. Our trust is in God. Our dependency is upon God. We’re acknowledging that right in our money. And that might be a good place to acknowledge it because many people trust in money. In fact, I think probably an awful lot of people who don’t trust in God or even some who claim they do. Their real trust is in money. Their real sense of security is that they have enough money to get them through their retirement years or they have enough to pay their bills for the next month. This is what a lot of people trust in is money. Whereas, you know, to put right on the money, yeah, no, we trust in God. It may not really reflect the true faith of everyone who handles that money, but it may be intended as a reminder that while I’m handling money, something that many people count on for their security. Our real faith should be in God. Again, I don’t know when that was put on there. I don’t know who minted it, who made that decision. But when I see it, I don’t think, oh, that’s hypocritical because not everyone who handles this money really does trust God. I think it’s a good reminder. It’s intended, perhaps, to be a reminder that our safety and our security isn’t in our money. It’s in God himself. So I don’t know if that’s true or not. I mean, I don’t know how they meant it, but that’s what I tend to see. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Just a thought. All right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Thank you for your call. Well, we’ve used up a good half hour. Already with just two calls. But we will take more. But we do have lines open. If you want to be on the program, you should call now because we can get to you. We have another half hour coming up. But the time does go by fast. So you want to get your foot in the door early. The number to call is 844-484-5737. If you have questions about the Bible, the Christian faith, anything like that, a disagreement with the host, feel free to call. The number is 844-484. 5737. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. If you’d like to help us out, you can go to our website and see there’s a donation tab there. But if you don’t want to donate, that’s okay. There’s lots of resources and they’re all free at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
Is the Great Tribulation about to begin today? Are we seeing the fulfillment of biblical prophecy unfolding before our very eyes? In the series, When Shall These Things Be?, Steve Gregg answers these and many other intriguing questions. The lecture series entitled, When Shall These Things Be?, can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 06 :
Alright, welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we have another half hour together taking your calls if you’d like to be on the program with your questions about the Bible or whatever related to that. The number to call is 844- 844-484-5737. It looks like the line’s just filled up, but, you know, the truth is that lines also open up in the course of a half hour. So keep this number and call it. In a few minutes, you might find a line has opened. The number is 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Hunter calling from Hartford, Alabama. Hi, Hunter. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, Steve. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 06 :
Good, thanks.
SPEAKER 09 :
I was going to get your opinion. What was your opinion on Jimmy Spiegert? I’ve seen where he passed away recently. And I don’t know a whole lot about him, but I’ve seen a lot of people in the Christian circles posting about it and things like that. So I just wanted to get your opinion.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Well, first of all, actually someone asked me about this last week. I didn’t know Jimmy Swaggart. I saw him on TV a few times, but I wasn’t attracted to his ministry. My dad kind of liked his ministry because I always felt that Jimmy Swaggart was kind of a minister for the older generation, like my dad’s generation. He didn’t appeal to me. But, yeah, he was a little over the top in his emotionalism, it seemed to me, and things like that. it may have been genuine. It was always hard to tell. I know that when he sinned and he was caught, he blubbered and cried and allegedly repented, but he didn’t show much signs of repentance, really, in the long run, in my opinion. Someone may disagree, and they’re welcome to it. All that really matters is whether God does, and that’s not my judgment call to make. But I just always felt like there was not a lot of sincerity there, and actually… You know, the fact that he was caught with prostitutes and stuff on a regular basis, apparently, you know, may suggest that my intuitions were correct. Maybe he wasn’t that sincere. There’s a lot of preachers, Southern preachers especially. There’s a culture of Southern Pentecostal preachers who, you know, they preach emotionally. They stir people up. And a lot of them, let’s just say they’re not very conscientious about their faith. moral life or their their living a life obedient to god i can’t say specifically about jimmy swagger to uh to what degree he was sincere or not that will be god’s to judge and i’ll leave it to god to judge i don’t feel like i have to have an opinion about jimmy swagger uh he’s not standing before my bar of judgment and i don’t even i never really knew him at all so uh I’d rather not make any pronouncements about Jimmy Swigert’s actual sincerity or anything like that. I thought it counted very much against him when, after he was caught, and he made this weeping, blubbering public repentance, that those ministers that he was answerable to, that he was accountable to, They wanted to take him out of the ministry for a year, and he wouldn’t do it. I mean, he agreed to it kind of at first, but then after six months, he said, no, that’s enough. I’m going to go back in the ministry now. And, you know, to my mind, if a person really repents, they don’t expect anyone to trust them again. If I were caught in that kind of thing, I would think, you know, I don’t know how anyone would trust me again. Not that I couldn’t really repent again. Not that I couldn’t really be trustworthy in the future, but I just wouldn’t expect anyone to trust me. I wouldn’t say, well, you know, you don’t want to trust me for a year. I think you have to trust me now. It’s been six months. I’m coming back. I just don’t think he knew what repentance is. And I think most Christians don’t. Most Christians think it’s a big emotional thing. I think it’s turning around and going the right way and being humble and things like that. So, yeah, he just wasn’t my kind of preacher. He may be a brother. I don’t know. He may not. You know, if I see him in heaven when I get there, or if I don’t, I don’t know that I’d be overly surprised in either case. I know the grace of God is great, and I also know there’s a lot of fake ministers that Jesus said, you did these things in my name, but I never knew you. Depart from me. So I’m not the man who makes that decision. God will make that decision, and so I’m going to leave that kind of in the realm of ambiguity. All right, thank you for your call. Danny in Maine, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, hello. Hi. Can you hear? Okay. Yeah, just a quick question, I think. It’s about the martyr’s prayer in Revelation. They refer to that. You know what I’m talking about?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, Revelation 6, when the fifth seal is opened. Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
So, in your mind, does that mean that the martyrs and saints in heaven can pray?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I mean, I expect to talk to God when I’m in heaven.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, I’m saying, can they pray right now, the martyrs and saints that are in heaven?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, they don’t actually, in what’s called the martyr prayer, they’re not actually praying there. They say, how long, O Lord? They’re asking a question. How long, O Lord, before you avenge our deaths on those who dwell on the face of the earth? That’s not really a prayer. That’s more of asking a question.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, when you pray to God, you’re asking a question, but in place of the semantics here, because they call it the martyr’s prayer for a reason, so they’re speaking to God in some way, and our are aware of what’s going on in the world, right?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I really don’t know much more than what is said there. They know that they were killed unjustly, and they wonder how long it will be before they’re avenged. Yeah, that’s all we’re told.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so they’re aware of what’s going on in the world, and they’re speaking to God about how they want it to be avenged. So whether or not they know what’s going on on the earth or not, we don’t know. We don’t really know what they know or what they’re actually doing. What is your question for me? What is your question for me, brother? Okay, so the question would be, is that where the Catholics get to the reasoning that they can pray to the saints to speak for them to God?
SPEAKER 06 :
It could be. It could be they get it from there. I know they also get it from Chapter 8 of Revelation where, We see there were another angel having golden censers came and stood at the altar. Just a minute. There’s kind of noise here. I’m going to put you on hold. Okay. And they offer incense. An angel did this in this case in chapter 8 of Revelation, verse 3. Another angel having a golden censer came and stood at the altar, and he was given much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints. upon the golden altar, which was before the throne. Now, three chapters earlier, the saints themselves, or at least one of the elders, which is thought to be a member of the body of Christ, exalted in heaven. It says in Revelation 5, 8, Now when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp. and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. So, you know, the 24 elders are thought to represent the church, at least many people think so, and they have golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. Now, it’s interesting that it doesn’t say they offered them up. They had bowls full of incense, and now it’s later in chapter 8, we see an angel offering offers up the incense with the prayers of the saints. And perhaps the prayers of the saints it’s referred to might be the ones you talked about at the beginning, the martyrs’ prayers. But in general here, we see some stuff going on in heaven. There are Christians up there, apparently, if that’s who the 24 elders are. There is incense being offered, maybe by them or maybe not by them, but the incense is the prayers of the saints. So from this, I’ve had some Catholics tell me, you see, it tells us that the saints are praying for us. Now, I don’t know why we would assume that the saints refers to people in heaven. But, of course, Catholics use the word saints very, shall we say, narrowly. The Bible uses the word saints only as a synonym for a Christian, not necessarily a dead Christian. In fact, I’m not really sure if the Bible ever mentions the saints strictly as a group of dead people, but Paul refers to his readers as saints. So I guess I’d be a saint too, and you would be too, and I guess all of us who are followers of Christ are saints. So our prayers are seen offered up by this angel as incense. I don’t really know whether we’re really finding any saints in heaven doing any praying there. And like I said, even the martyrs, you say it’s called the martyr’s prayer. I’ve never called it that, but I don’t mind being someone calling it that. I see them simply asking God, you know, when are you going to kind of settle the scores here? We’re a bunch of innocent martyrs killed by the wicked. You’re going to let this go on forever? Or are you going to bring it to an end? Now, to say they knew what was going on in heaven, I mean on earth when they were in heaven, I don’t know. I don’t know how much they knew. They apparently knew that the people who killed them weren’t dead yet so i mean that must be you know that much they knew because they knew that they hadn’t judged been judged yet but yeah i don’t see anything in these passages that would tell me that i can pray to a saint in heaven and that saint will hear me and know that i exist I mean, as an individual. I mean, it may well be that people in heaven know that earth is still going through its warfare. You know, that there’s still persecution of Christians on earth. That doesn’t mean they know anything about the names of the people that it’s happening to or or that any of those people can talk to those people in heaven. There’s nothing in the Bible that would suggest that. So you ask, is that one of the things Catholics use? They do use some of this material in chapters 5 through 8 of Revelation for their position, but I don’t think it makes their point. So, yes, they do. They do use that. Okay, let’s see. Mark in Groton, Massachusetts. Hello, Mark. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. I’ve been studying Isaiah a lot, and I’m trying to find all the most important parts or verses of it. Do you have any suggestions?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, that’s 66 chapters long, the most important verses, important in what connection? There’s a lot of passages in Isaiah that are about the Messiah, In fact, there’s more passages in Isaiah about the Messiah than in any of the other prophets. For this reason, some Bible scholars refer to Isaiah as the prophet of the Messiah because he mentions the Messiah more than… I mean, Jeremiah mentions the Messiah. Daniel does, too. Most of the prophets have some allusion to the Messiah, but Isaiah really has that focus more than the others. But still, most of Isaiah is about other things, not about the Messiah himself. Like the rest of the prophets, Isaiah has… you know, denunciations of the compromises of Israel and Judah. He denounces and predicts judgment upon them. He has a section in chapters like, what is it, 13 through 23 or something, where he’s talking to pagan nations and denouncing their sins. There’s lots of different subjects there. When you say the most important verses, maybe that the Messianic passages would be the most important verses. As far as where those are from, is that what you’re asking?
SPEAKER 05 :
On that note, in chapter 7, of course, we all know 714, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, etc. And then all the verses at the end of chapter 7 follow in that. In that day, the Lord will whistle for the fly at the end of the stream. In that day, the Lord will share a razor. What does this all mean? Even this part… Yeah, those verses are… He’ll eat curds and honey. Okay, so I assume curds means that there’s a surplus of milk, and so, you know… Can you explain from the end of 14 or 15 on to the end of chapter 7 what that all means?
SPEAKER 06 :
Sure. Yeah, I mean, I can attempt it. Those verses, I believe, are not about the Messiah. Now, Isaiah 7.14 is quoted by Matthew in Matthew chapter 1 as being about Jesus’ birth by a virgin. Isaiah 7.14 says, you know, that the virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son. And you should call his name Emmanuel. Now, that is in its original prediction, talking about something that was going to happen later. shortly after it happened because it was going to be a sign to Ahaz, the king of Judah. That’s what he says. He says, therefore, he’s speaking to Ahaz, the king. And he says, therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Who? Ahaz. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And you should call his name Emmanuel. Now, this son that would be born shortly after this was a type and a shadow of Christ. And therefore, when Christ was born of a virgin… Matthew sees this as kind of a secondary fulfillment of this prophecy. This is a type of Christ, this statement. But most of the passage is not. Most of the passage is about a son who is going to be born, which is recorded in the next chapter, in chapter 8. Isaiah’s own son, Maharshal al-Hashbaz, who, by the way, if you’ll notice in chapter 7, it says… about this child that is quoted in the New Testament as being about Christ, but it’s only secondarily. The child that’s spoken of here in verse 16, Isaiah 16 says, Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. Well, who are both these kings? These kings, as you can tell by reading the earlier part of the chapter, were the king of Syria and the king of Israel. were coming against Judah. Ahaz was the king of Judah. This was in the context of the Assyrians, a great power which was conquering all the nations around it, were threatening the Middle East with conquest. And Syria, not Assyria, but Assyria was this big empire, but Syria is a little country. And so is Israel, and so is Judah. And Syria and Israel… wanted to combine their forces to resist the encroachment of Assyria. But they realized that the two of them together probably weren’t strong enough. They wanted Judah in on this, too. They wanted a three-country confederacy, but Ahaz, the king of Judah, was not complying. He didn’t want to do that. And so they, the king of Syria and the king of Israel, were conspiring together against Judah, to take Ahaz out and to replace him with another person who they referred to as the son of Tabil, there in chapter 7, verse 6. Now, that is, they wanted to put a different king in Ahaz’s place so that he would comply with them, and they would have this three-nation confederation against Syria. This is what it’s all about. But the immediate threat to Ahaz was these two kings, Syria and Israel, who were coming against him. They’re mentioned, for example. in verse 4 of the chapter. Say to him, take heed and be quiet. Do not fear or be faint-hearted for these two stubs of the smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezan and Syria, the son of Ramaliah. Now, Rezan and the son of Ramaliah, these are the kings that are threatening him. So when he talks to us, his child is going to be born. This will be a sign to you, Ahaz. A child is going to be born. And before that child is old enough to know how to refuse the evil and choose the good, he says in verse 16, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both of her kings. Meaning these two kings. They’ll be gone. So this is talking about an immediate threat. And the child that would be born would be born soon. And before that child had reached a point of moral accountability and knew to refuse evil and choose good, those kings would be no longer a threat. That’s what this was, the birth of this child would be a sign. Now in chapter 8… we find that God tells Isaiah to go into a prophetess, who is no doubt his wife, and to conceive a child named Meher Shalal Hashbaz. And it says about that child in verse 4, For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father and my mother. the riches of Damascus, which is Syria, and the spoil of Samaria, which is the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom, will be taken away before the king of Assyria. Now notice, in chapter 7, it says a child will be born, and before he could know the difference between good and evil, those two kings will be gone. Now this child of Isaiah is born, and before he will know how to save my mother and my father, these two kings will be gone. This is the child that was predicted. And then later, in chapter 8, verse 8, Isaiah refers to this son as Immanuel. Speaking to Meher Shalal Hashvas when he’s born, Isaiah says in Isaiah 8.8, He will pass through Judah, that is Assyria will. He will overflow and pass over. He will reach up to the neck, meaning the whole nation will be destroyed except the head. Jerusalem will be above ground. The rest will be overflown with the armies of Assyria. And the stretching out of his wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel. Now, the child that was born, or to be born, mentioned in chapter 7, verse 14, was going to be called Emmanuel. When Isaiah’s child is born, he calls him Emmanuel. And the same prediction is made of Adam. So we can see that this child in chapter 7 is primarily a reference to Isaiah’s child that would be born in the next, is predicted, and then it was fulfilled in chapter 8. Now, of course, some Christians may not like this because we want this all to be about Jesus. And it is. Secondarily, this statement about the virgin shall give birth and conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. That is true. That was true of Jesus as well. But it was also true of Isaiah’s child. Now, someone says, but Isaiah’s child wasn’t born of a virgin. Well, that’s where… that’s where it’s not certain exactly how this is meant. There’s three ways it could be meant. One is that Isaiah’s wife was a virgin when this was uttered, and then he went and married her and had a child. So a woman who was currently a virgin would, upon getting married and no longer being a virgin, would conceive and have a child. But she was a virgin at the time the prophecy was made. Another way of understanding it is, as most Jews would say, the word virgin, betula, means a young girl. Or Alma, excuse me, Alma. Betula wouldn’t mean virgin, but Alma would mean a young girl. So that they would say this should be translated, a young girl shall conceive and bear a son. But there’s another way that I think I understand it. And that is that the virgin, because it doesn’t say a virgin. Okay. It says the virgin shall conceive. Well, that sounds like it’s some specific virgin. The virgin? This is not a prediction about some virgin somewhere will conceive, but the virgin will conceive is what it actually says. Now, what are we to understand that to mean? Well, Judah… is actually referred to as the virgin in Isaiah 37.22. This is the word that you should give to Sennacherib, it says in Isaiah 37.22. The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you and laughed you to scorn. Now, the daughter of Zion, which is a figure of speech for Jerusalem, is called the virgin. So when Isaiah says the virgin will conceive, I think it may simply mean a child will be born in Jerusalem, in the virgin. You know, the virgin will produce this child. This city, this city will produce this child. And so you could take it any of those ways. But certainly the context, chapter 7 and 8, certainly indicate that the first fulfillment of this and the primary fulfillment is in that day was Isaiah’s son. But Matthew, seeing that there’s a mention of the virgin bearing a son, sees a secondary meaning in this fulfilled in Christ. This is a second fulfillment, or a type and an antitype kind of fulfillment. So that’s, I mean, yeah, Isaiah is not the easiest book in the world to understand. But I’ll tell you, if you want to understand Isaiah, I’ve done everything I can to make that easier in my verse-by-verse lectures on Isaiah at the website. They’re free. If you go to thenarrowpath.com, every book in the Bible, there’s verse-by-verse lectures. Free. And Isaiah is a very thorough treatment. So if you go to thenarrowpath.com and find the tab that says verse-by-verse teaching, find the book of Isaiah and listen to those, you’ll get a much fuller idea of what these processes are saying. All right, brother, thank you for your call. Okay, our next caller is Sandy in Gig Harbor, Washington. Sandy, welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good afternoon, and thank you for being there. I just appreciate also the verse-by-verse that I didn’t go through, I will. I’m referring to the passages where Paul has a thorn in his flesh. It seems to me that his resolute is, your grace is sufficient for me. But that sounds to me trite for the degree of level that is to me. And I guess my question is, what does grace mean? Thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Okay, well, first of all, if my grace is sufficient for you, it’s only understood to mean I forgive your sins. I mean, because that’s what most Christians think when they think of God’s grace. Your sins are forgiven. You say, well, that kind of sounds trite when the guy’s really going through pain. He’s being tormented by this thorn in the flesh. Whatever it was, it was very excruciating. And he prayed three times that God would take away. For God just to say, no worries, you’re going to heaven. My grace is sufficient for you. Would be, well, I don’t think that’d be trite. I think that’s a very amazing, important thing. But on the other hand, it doesn’t really address the situation immediately. I think my grace is sufficient for you is paralleled with the next line. My strength is made perfect in your weakness. Grace isn’t just God’s forgiveness. Grace is God’s assistance, too. God gives grace in trials. There’s many references in Paul’s writings elsewhere. He talks about how by the grace of God I am what I am. You know, I labored more than all the apostles, but not me, but the grace of God that was with me. He was enabled by that. He said, that’s in 1 Corinthians 15.10. In 1 Corinthians 3.10, he says, I, by the grace of God, as a wise master builder, laid the foundation of the church. He said he did it by the grace of God, meaning by the enablement of God. Peter talks about grace in that way, too, when he’s writing in 1 Peter about the sufferings they’re going through. He talks about God’s grace in that situation. So what God is saying is, though it is not my purpose at this point to remove this pain you’re going through, I’ll do something that’s just as good. I’ll give you, and maybe even better, grace to endure it supernaturally. I’ll give you supernatural strength to endure it. Now, why didn’t God just heal him and take it away? Well, for the simple reason that God didn’t intend for this world to be a place where we have no pain or any suffering and so forth. We were talking to an earlier caller in this same book, 2 Corinthians, Paul was saying our light afflictions are working for us and exceeding an eternal weight of glory. Okay, so that sounds like a good thing. If our afflictions are working this glory of this likeness of Christ in us, then that’s a really good thing. And if that’s what it takes, then I guess we should rejoice in it, like Paul said he would. He says, therefore, I’ll rejoice in my infirmities when God told him that. So, I mean, some people give the impression in their preaching that somehow Christianity is supposed to be an alleviation of all pain, sickness, everything healed, poverty ended, and so forth. None of those things are what the Bible promises, but they do promise that God will give you the grace to go through things, in which case you won’t be sorry that you did. That’s what the Bible says. Hey, I’m out of time. I wish it was not. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported. If you’d like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
