In a thought-provoking discussion, callers present questions varying from God’s presence in natural calamities to the biblical basis for altar calls. Through it all, Steve Gregg provides nuanced insights drawn from years of biblical study, urging listeners to seek deeper understanding and offering comfort rooted in spiritual resilience.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday, taking your calls. If you have questions you want to raise on the air about the Bible or the Christian faith, anything related thereto, any objections, disagreements you might have with either of those things or with the host himself, you’re welcome to call about that. We’ll be glad to discuss it right here on the air. We have a couple of lines open. You can reach me right now at 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Now, I want to make an announcement for those who have in the past come to our meetings in Boynton Park. For many years, I don’t know how many years, I’m thinking maybe, I don’t know, close to 10 years perhaps, we’ve been having monthly meetings in Buena Park, California on the third Saturday night of each month. And we’ve gone through a lot of stuff, including the entire Bible in overviews of books and things like that, except Revelation. I’m going to be, this is the final year, I believe, that I’ll be doing these meetings. And we only have a few months left. But I think, now I’m going to be doing one this, not this Saturday, but the third Saturday of this month. And I’m going to be taking the book of Revelation, doing an overview of the book of Revelation. Now, anyone who’s interested in that may want to put that on their calendar. That’s on the third Saturday of this month. I’ll be in Boynton Park, as we have been once a month for a long time, and I’ll be doing an overview of Revelation. Now, the following month, which is August, I will be out of town on the third Saturday, so we won’t be having that meeting. But in September, we’ll have that meeting one last time, and I’ll do an overview of the whole Bible. Now, I’ve done this before. Many people have found it helpful. And it’s been a long time since I did it, but in a single session going through the entire Bible, giving you the big picture, the whole history, where everything fits. And that’s going to be done on the third Saturday of September. And I expect for that to be the last gathering we’ll have in Buena Park at that location. So we’ve got in the next three months, we’ll have two more such meetings. One is this month and one is in September. and I’ll be out of town for August, so we won’t do that. So this month, on the third Saturday of the month, we’ll be doing the overview of Revelation, and then in September, the third Saturday of September, I’ll be doing the overview of the whole Bible. You might want to put that on your calendar, and we were trying to make some decisions about this when I was in Boynton Park last time, and that’s what we’ve come up with. All right, let’s talk to Yosef in Knoxville, Tennessee. Hi, Yosef. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey Steve, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I had a question about your thoughts on how us as Christians, believers, should read and apply the Sermon on the Mount. I guess like according to its context, genre, and yeah, just how to read it and also a salvific sense because there’s just a lot of very strong language that could connect to it, you know, like forgiving or your Father in Heaven won’t forgive you or, you know, the warning against lusting with the eye and language like throwing the body into hell and stuff like that. And just where I’m around and I go to a Reformed church and I don’t agree with their theology, there’s much emphasis around. I don’t hear people talking a lot about jesus’s words um on the sermon of the mount and i was just wondering like how literal should we take it and just in the whole um subject of using that you know maybe i’ve heard some people support like you know you can lose your salvation but how us as christians can we read and apply and how should we view the sermon on the mount okay yeah it’s a very good uh
SPEAKER 01 :
Good question. I do a lot of thinking about the Sermon on the Mount because I consider it to be probably the most concentrated specimen of the teachings of Christ on a variety of the main topics of his concern, and therefore something that Christians need to figure out. How are we supposed to respond to it? Now, first of all, let me just say, And you’re not in this camp, neither are the Reformed Church that you go to. But there are some dispensationalists, like Schofield and others, who claim that the Sermon on the Mount is really not for this dispensation. Now, you’re not in that camp, and I’m not in that camp, but some people listening may be, and may be familiar with the idea that Jesus was preaching an ethic for the kingdom dispensation. But because the Jews rejected the kingdom, that has been postponed until Jesus returns and sets up the millennium, in which case the Sermon on the Mount will be relevant ethic to the millennial kingdom. But the implication is it’s not really relevant to us or it’s not really directed to us in this age. That is not true. Neither Jesus nor Paul believe that, nor I don’t think anyone else in the New Testament believes. just so that people know about where Paul stood, because sometimes they say, you know, Paul taught something different about this. No, he did not. In 1 Timothy 6, verse 3, Paul said, If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to the wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the teaching which is according to godliness, that person is proud knowing nothing. is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words. So anyone who does not consent to the pure words that Jesus preached, as Paul says, that person doesn’t know anything. So Paul is quite committed to the keeping of Jesus’ words, and should be, because if he wasn’t, he would have been a false apostle. Now, Jesus himself, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, said anyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them, is like a foolish man who builds his house on sand and the rain washes it away. He said anyone who hears these sayings of mine and does them, that means obeys them, is like a man building his house on rock. And when the floods come, his house will stand. So clearly Jesus ends the sermon by saying, you’re a fool if you don’t do what I’m saying here.
SPEAKER 04 :
And then, of course, later… Can I jump in for one second? Go ahead. Because I have heard that, I don’t know if it’s Luther or one of the Reformed, they kind of… see a different view on it, kind of as like something, kind of like you said, that we cannot reach, like something just to strive for.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right, it’s only there to show us that we need grace, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, something like that, yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s kind of a lame argument.
SPEAKER 04 :
Even some of the parables, too. Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, there is this approach to the Sermon on the Mount that many Christians have taken that, well, Jesus never really expected us to do this. He knew we couldn’t, but he laid that out. He set the bar so high that no one could get over it so that we’d realize we’re utter failures. We just need the grace of God. We just need forgiveness because no way are we going to be able to do what Jesus said. But the Bible says that we are expected to do it. You know, Jesus, when he gave the Great Commission, said, go and make disciples and teach them to observe, that means to do, all the things I’ve commanded you. Okay, well, some of those commands, a lot of them are in the Sermon on the Mount. So we’re supposed to teach people to observe, means obey, what Jesus commanded. And like I said, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, if you don’t do these things. Now, he didn’t say, now, if you hear these things and don’t do them, realize you need grace. realize that you need to be forgiven. And that’s really why I gave you this sermon. Not so that you’d do it, but so that you’d realize you can’t do it. No, he said anyone who doesn’t do it is a fool. And anyone who does do it is wise. So certainly Jesus never gave any support to the notion that the Sermon on the Mount is beyond our reach. And frankly, your question, how do we understand it, is really the relevant question. Because if some people understand it to say, that we must be in all points perfect or we’ll go to hell, well then, yeah, that would cause us to despair and just fall back on the grace of God. Now, I think we need to fall on the grace of God anyway. I mean, even if we are living generally according to this sermon, this is the bar. This is the Christian life that Jesus prescribed. This is what Christians are supposed to do. Do we do it perfectly? No. But it doesn’t mean that, well, since I can’t do it perfectly, I’m going to lower the bar and say, I’ll just do what I can do and not worry about the fact that I can’t do what Jesus commands me to do. No, he is. Jesus said, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don’t do the things that I say? He said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Those who do the will of my father in heaven. So, I mean, it’s very clear that Jesus is talking about the need for people to do it. And by the way, Paul does, too. Obedience is very essential. But we’re not saved because we’re obedient. We are saved because we are loyal to Christ. We have faith in Christ, which also the word pistis also conveys the idea of loyalty, allegiance, faithfulness, and so forth, as well as believing. The word pistis has all those meanings in the Greek. And the idea is it’s our allegiance to Christ that we are found in him because… We are his and he’s ours through our faith and faithfulness to him. So this is what saves us. But because we are allegiant to Christ, we are interested, not interested, obsessed with knowing what it is that our king wants us to do. What does our king command? I’m going to make that my rule. Now, I make it my rule to observe the speed limit, too, but I don’t always do it. I mean, there are times I look down and I’m way over the speed limit. I didn’t even realize it. And there’s times when, you know, I just don’t do it. I’m in the traffic and I conform to the traffic rather than to the law or whatever. And similarly, we, you know, we set a certain bar that this is what we’re seeking to get over. If we fail, we know that there’s grace from God. But we don’t want to fail, and we don’t intend to fail. We intend to be obedient. And so that’s what the Sermon on the Mount is for. Now, in reading the Sermon on the Mount, people have gotten many wrong impressions, and you gave a good example. I mean, you mentioned genre and things like that. One of the things that people have often failed to recognize in the teaching of Jesus is the very frequent occurrence of hyperbole. I mean, when Jesus said, for example, when you give your alms before, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Well, you know, what? Your right hand, left hand, they don’t know anything. It’s obviously a figure of speech. But when he said, when you pray, go into your closet and close the door so people can’t hear you praying. But Jesus didn’t observe that, and the apostles themselves didn’t observe that. It’s a hyperbole. What’s it saying? It’s saying, if you are like the hypocrites, which he’s arguing that they should not do, Don’t be like the hypocrites who go out and pray to be seen by men. You do it to be seen by God. In fact, just go into your closet and don’t even let people see you do it. Now, that’s not a moral instruction. That is a hyperbole saying, listen, you better make sure that you’re living your life to please God, not men. And if you have a tendency to be self-conscious about pleasing men, then just go into your closet and don’t let men hear you. The idea is not that a prayer is unacceptable if it isn’t done behind closed doors in a closet. But he gives examples like that. He says, give to everyone who asks you. Even the statement, turn the other cheek to the one who strikes you. I have literally done this. and I see no fault in literally doing it, but to walk away instead of turning the other cheek is another option. The Sermon on the Mount, the ethics in the Sermon on the Mount, are about sincerity in your relationship with God and living a life of loving your neighbor, as Jesus said, is the great commandment. If you read through the Sermon on the Mount, every part that’s not about your relationship with God directly but has to do with your relationship with people, is an exposition on what it means to love people. You’re faithful to your wife, so you don’t divorce. You don’t even cheat with your eyes. You love your neighbor, including your enemy, so you don’t want to kill him. And you want to make peace with him before you go to court, Jesus said. And you bless him instead of cursing him, even though he’s cursing you. You keep your promises, Tim. You keep your oaths. You don’t even require that an oath keep you honest. You just be honest because, well, you want other people to be honest with you. And loving your neighbor as you love yourself is, as it says in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 7 of Matthew, verse 12, to do to others what you want done to them. That’s what loving your neighbor as yourself is. Essentially, everything Jesus teaches in that is simply expanding love. on what it looks like to love your neighbors yourself. But it’s true, he does use hyperbole. When he says, give to everyone who asks you, well, that doesn’t make any sense at all. You can’t give your children everything they ask for. They’ll kill themselves, you know. You don’t give your kid a gun if he asks for one. You don’t let your kid eat whatever he wants to if you care about his well-being. Give to everyone who asks you is a hyperbole. It just means hyperbole. be very willing to give to anybody when the situation warrants it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Is it hyperbole when he says that if we don’t forgive, that our Father in Heaven will not forgive us?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I don’t know that I’d call it hyperbole so much as it’s saying it’s hypocritical if you expect God to forgive you and you won’t forgive others. I mean, if you think that God ought to forgive you would you not also have to agree that you ought to forgive others? Why should God forgive you if you’re not required to do the same thing to others? I don’t know if I’d call that a hyperbole. In some sense, it may be. I would just call it as reasoning that God, from whom you seek forgiveness, also requires you to forgive other people. Now, in terms of if I fail to forgive somebody… And maybe I even forget about the fact that I haven’t forgiven them. And I die as God could say, oops, sorry, you’re not forgiven because you didn’t forgive that person. I don’t think that’s what Jesus is saying. I think Jesus is saying that you want God to routinely forgive you because you routinely fail. Well, then you need to routinely forgive others. If you don’t see that as a necessary thing, then why should God forgive you? How can you even suggest that God should? I believe that he’s not saying if you don’t forgive someone, you’re going to hell. He doesn’t actually mention hell in that connection at all. But I think what he’s talking about is you want to live on good terms with God, just like you want to live on good terms with other people. Now, one thing that living on good terms with people means is that you forgive them When they do you wrong and you extend grace to them and you keep the relationship going without, you know, grudge or something like that being held or resentment. Well, you in your relationship with God, you need that, too. You need to have your relationship with God maintained that way for him to be forgiving you when you go bad. that’s necessary for you to maintain a good relationship with God, so you need to do that with other people. I don’t think Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is talking about how to go to heaven or how to go to hell. I think he’s talking about how to live a life consistent with what God expects us to do and a reasonable life at that because it’s unreasonable for me to ask God to forgive me if I don’t think I should forgive other people. I mean, there’s quite a few times Jesus made that point not even in the Sermon on the Mount. You know, Matthew 18, the story of the man who was forgiven much and wouldn’t forgive his neighbor and such. Now, is there danger of going to hell if you don’t forgive someone? Well, there could well be. There could well be. Yeah, because it depends, I guess, on whether you’re refusing to forgive or or whether you’re simply having a hard time forgiving, or whether you’ve forgotten about the thing and you haven’t outright made a point of forgiving because you kind of just let it go, maybe that itself is forgiving. But there’s, I mean, I would suggest, instead of me taking up, we’ve taken up almost the whole half hour with this question. If you go to my website, thenarrowpath.com, I have, of course, verse-by-verse teachings through Matthew and the other Gospels and every other book of the Bible. But if you go through my Matthew teaching, Matthew 5 through 7, I bring out those kinds of issues for each passage. I’m only now speaking with you kind of an overview of the idea. But the Sermon on the Mount is a portrait of what it means to love your neighbor as you love yourself. And that’s what we are required to do. Do we fail in it? Well, we do, sure, sometimes. But failure doesn’t mean we give up on the project. You know, if my kids are having a hard time learning their lessons in school and I’m trying to help them with their homework, if they don’t learn quick, they don’t just give up and say, oh, what the heck, you just go on your way. I don’t care about you anymore. No, our commitment is to God, to Christ, to obey. And whenever we’re actually deficient, we only are determined to continue the more working at that. So to discount the Sermon on the Mount and say it’s not for this dispensation or it never was expected to be obeyed is simply to ignore what the Bible says about it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thanks. Helps a lot.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you. Okay, great talking to you, Yusuf. Thanks for calling. David from Houston, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. I suppose my question concerns God’s interaction or influence in the physical world. I’m here in Texas, and the recent flooding in the Hill Country is, of course, truly devastating, heartbreaking. I believe it continues to be covered in the national news. I personally have a son and daughter who have been to church camps in that area when they were younger, so… You know, I’m particularly sympathetic or saddened for everyone’s loss. Okay, here’s the question. It’s my belief or understanding that God does not necessarily will or decree such catastrophes. But my question is if by his providence, does he allow it or do these things simply occur independent of God?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, that’s a question that is often raised, and we do think about it a lot, but we don’t have complete answers. I can give general answers. I believe that in general, God made the universe to operate upon certain laws. Natural disasters generally occur in accordance with those natural laws. The reason someone died in a flood is is partly because there was a flood, and the reason there was a flood is because there was a lot of rain, and it got bottled up and the river rose, and there was a lot of rain because of atmospheric conditions and things like that. In other words, certainly natural events mostly are governed by natural laws. If God didn’t set up the universe to work on natural laws, then everything that ever happens would be a providential miracle. Now, we consider miracles… We consider miracles to be instances where God supersedes the natural law for a special purpose. And we might wish he’d do a miracle every time we needed one, but obviously that doesn’t happen. God lets nature go. the way it normally will go, until he has some special reason to intervene. And we sometimes want to blame God if he didn’t intervene in something that he could have, but that’s basically he does what he believes is best, and if he were to intervene to present every disaster, which is what we would desire, at least if the disaster is happening to us, well, then there would be no regularity at all in nature. There would be nothing. You could count on it. except that God will do whatever he wants to do, and who knows what that may be in a given moment. Now, does God have the power to stop a flood that is caused by natural causes? Yes, he does, of course. He can bring a flood, as he did in Noah’s day. He can drain off the flood, or he can prevent a flood. He can prevent people from doing things to other people, as we see in the Bible. And, you know, he has control over those things, but he doesn’t intervene. Frankly, very often. The Bible has relatively few occasions when God has intervened in nature or in any miraculous way. The miracles of the Bible are relatively few and far between. We may not think so in reading through the Bible, but actually, you know, almost all the miracles in the Old Testament happened either in the time of Moses and Joshua, which was like 1,400 years before Christ, or 700 years later in the time of Elijah and Elisha. Most of the miracles happened in those two times, and there’s 700 years between them. And then the next batch of miracles happened 700 years after Elijah and Elisha in the life of Jesus and the apostles. So there’s long gaps of almost millennia between clusters of miracles in the Bible. So the Bible does not teach that God intervenes and does miraculous things very often. He allows the earth to do what the earth will do through its nature. Now, if God had a purpose… To save somebody in the face of a flood, he can do that. He can intervene. He could stop the flood from even happening if he wants. In allowing nature to take its course, he could remove them from the place of danger or something else. God has any number of things he can do. The Bible says he has given his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. And in their hands they will bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone. So God, his angels are present, and he can pull you out of danger whenever he wishes to. One thing the Bible makes very clear is that God doesn’t always want to pull somebody out of danger, including Jesus. When Jesus said, Father, if it’s your will, let this cup pass from me. Well, it wasn’t God’s will to let that cup pass from him. So Jesus said, the cup that the Father has given me, shall I not drink it? And that’s the point. God doesn’t always pull us out of the line of danger. But he always will do what is right for us. in his purposes for us. Now, people who have lost loved ones don’t usually like that. It sounds maybe trite to them. Well, I say it as somebody who had a wife who was killed in an accident, a seemingly meaningless accident. It was on Thanksgiving Day, 1980. She was walking next to the road, and a young man in a pickup truck on his way to his Thanksgiving dinner swung right around a blind turn and hit her, and she was killed instantly. Okay, so could God have stopped that? Of course he could. Did I think that God was wrong not to? Of course not. How could God be wrong? I’ve been wrong many times. God hasn’t been wrong once. So I mean, for me to assume that it’s God who’s wrong and not me is a rather stupid and arrogant thing to do. So I’m not being trite when I say God’s will in any person’s life may include significant loss. One only has to read the Bible to see that. Every person who is godly seems to have experienced serious trials and significant losses. And that was when God was on their side. So, you know, if Christians don’t want that theology, they don’t have to accept it. They don’t have to be Christians. But that is Christian theology. God has the power to deliver me from every disaster, every trial. But he doesn’t want to. He wants me to experience trials. He goes through them with me. He gives me grace in the trial. He strengthens and grows me through my trials and losses. My trials include my losses. So, you know, God can do whatever he wants with nature. And when he doesn’t intervene with nature, he can intervene in our lives to get us out of danger. But that’s not always what he considers to be the best thing. And when Paul asked him to remove the thorn of the flesh, Jesus said, my grace is going to be enough for you. And Paul said, okay, I’ll rejoice in that. I need to take a break for 30 seconds. I’m very sorry about this disaster, obviously. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 10 :
As you know, the Narrow Path radio show is Bible radio that has nothing to sell you but everything to give you. So do the right thing and share what you know with your family and friends. Tell them to tune in to the Narrow Path on this radio station or go to thenarrowpath.com where they will find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all the radio shows. You know listeners supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg? Share what you know.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, the number to call would be 844- If you find the lines are all busy, which would be the case if you called right now, just call back in a few minutes and you may find the line is open. In fact, one just did open. Lo and behold. So the number is 844-484-5737. Our next call today is Michael from Englewood, California. Hi, Michael. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi. Thank you, Steve. I had a question. The first person was talking about the Sermon on the Mount. But speaking of sermons, I believe it says not to prepare what you’re going to say before the Sanhedrin. But I was just wondering, what is your practice before you speak? Do you kind of just pray and speak, or do you do a lot of preparation?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I do what I can. You know, when I first got baptized in the Spirit, I was 16. I had preached many times before I was 16, but I’d always meticulously planned and written out my sermons. And I took speech classes, learned how to prepare presentations, sermons and otherwise. And so I did all the normal things that you do to prepare until when I got filled with the Spirit, I kind of was naive. I was new to the idea of spiritual gifts and spiritual things. And when I read Jesus saying in Matthew 10 to the disciples, when you come before the councils, do not prepare in advance what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will give you words in that hour of what to say. So I figured, okay, now that I’m filled with the Spirit, I need to just let the Holy Spirit guide me and not make any preparations when I preach. And so The next time I preached, I actually followed that. I resisted the temptation even to think in advance about what I was going to say. I picked a passage at random out of the Bible. I just opened it there in the pulpit. I didn’t know what passage I was going to. I read the passage and taught on it. And it was very powerful. I mean, more powerful than it sometimes is when I preach today. Actually, over 40 people came forward in an altar call that I gave. But it was only like a 10 minute talk. But, you know, I had decided I was never going to not going to prepare. Well, as I studied the Bible more, I became less naive and realized that Jesus is not saying it’s wrong to speak without to prepare. And you always have to speak without preparation. And it depends on what you’re speaking about after what kind of an audience. And, you know, I mean, there’s times when. I have to talk about technical issues. I’m a teacher. I’m not really an evangelist or preacher or whatever. I’m more of an educator. And to be an educator, you have to become educated. And to teach on some technical points, you need to actually research them so you find out what they are. Now, I’m comfortable speaking without preparation in any situation. I mean, at this point in my life, I’ve spoken about enough things and so forth, but I don’t feel any compulsion to not prepare. In fact, some of my talks are detailed enough that I feel I would be wrong not to give prepared notes to my hearers so they could follow all the points and not lose them all. That’s what I do. do fairly regularly these days. Nowadays, when I teach, I usually hand out notes that have all the major points I plan to make. And that means I had to make those notes. I had to prepare them. So I’m not of the opinion that it’s wrong to prepare. It really depends on the kind of thing. But of course, as I studied the Bible, I realized that Jesus was not talking about when you preach. He’s talking about when you’re giving a defense for yourself, when they call you before the courts and you’re on trial for your life. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say. God will make sure you have the right things to say. And, you know, Stephen, when he was on trial, is a good example of that. I’m sure Jesus was too. Paul was on trial numerous times. I believe, you know, God gave him the words to say. Christians in times of persecution have often had to give an answer for themselves before counsels and judges and things. And many times their recorded words prove that, you know, God gave them great counsel. insight and articulateness to make points that had to be made. I trust that that was the fulfillment, in their cases, of Christ’s promise about that. But his promise about that, which has to do with giving a legal defense when you’re on trial, is a very different situation than when it comes to, let’s say, addressing a crowd about something that you don’t know much about. And so you need to prepare. You need to research. So I’m not critical of preachers who prepare. The truth is that even when I don’t have notes, it’s not like I’m not prepared. After 55 years of teaching in school, Bible school and stuff, I’ve done a lot of preparation, much of which I don’t have to do anymore. I mean, people have asked me, you know, well, how much time do you have to prepare for every radio show every day? And these are usually people, sometimes people who have their own radio shows, but they’re of a different sort. They’re not like a Q&A like this. But people have often asked me, how many hours of preparation do you have to do every day for each show? I say 55 years. I do 55 years of preparation to do this show. So even then, although I’m speaking off the cuff, which you can tell by the fact I ramble so much here, you know, even though I’m speaking off the cuff, it’s not without preparation. It’s with years of preparation. So anyway, you know, I’m not going to criticize any preacher who feels like he has to do a lot of preparation. Though if he does, I know Chuck Smith, the pastor I used to sit under years ago, he was talking about this very thing. And he said some people criticize him because he prepared his sermons. They said, well, they said he’s not trusting the Holy Spirit when he’s speaking. He said, well, I’m trusting the Holy Spirit when I’m preparing the sermon. I trust him to give me the proper preparation. And there’s nothing really wrong about that particular way of looking at it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thanks, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Michael, thanks for your call. Tina in Surrey, British Columbia. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, yeah. I was just curious… When the people died in Sodom and Gomorrah, will God still give them a chance to repent and make it to a new earth when he does his judgment at the end of the world? And I’ll take my answer off the air. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Well, I don’t know exactly how God is going to handle every person who dies under such judgments. The truth is, when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, little children died, too. Infants died there. Everyone in the town died. Certainly there were some individuals who were utterly corrupt, but there must have been some people there, younger people or whatever, who were not as corrupt as everybody else. And so God will still have to judge each person, you know, individually and individually. You know, did everyone go to hell who died without Jesus before Jesus came? Certainly not. Abraham died before Jesus came. And the Bible says he believed God. It was counted to him for righteousness. So God is going to judge people who’ve never heard the gospel on some basis. It’ll be a just one. It’ll be a proper one. And that would include people who died in a general judgment like the flood or when Sodom and Gomorrah were incinerated. Now, you ask if they’ll have another chance after, you know, when Jesus comes back, will they have a chance to repent then? That I don’t know. I really don’t know. You know, it would seem out of fairness that those who’ve had no real chance to know anything about God because they never had a Bible, like Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t have a Bible. The people who died in the flood didn’t have a Bible. They didn’t know the gospel. It would seem like, you know, if God’s not willing that any should perish, that he might give such people an opportunity to make a decision postmortem. But we don’t have any promise of that. We can’t count on that. All we can say is God will do the right thing. Will he allow any repentance postmortem? Maybe, maybe not. But even if we say maybe he will, that’s not anything we could count on because the Bible doesn’t promise it. And therefore, we shouldn’t ever presume upon that. We should seize the opportunities we have right now to follow Christ. Because we don’t know everything about what will happen in the judgment to those who fail to do so. But it will not be advantageous to die in disobedience to God. That is a fact. Thomas in Sacramento, California. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. It’s a pleasure to talk to you. Your ministry has changed my life. I will make this quick. I’m a fellow elder at my church, and I saw some concerns with another fellow elder that was harmful but not necessarily black and white sin. So I went to another fellow elder to see was I seeing this correctly, and he saw the same thing. But then in the process, and then when I went to that fellow elder, I was accused of not following Matthew 18, going directly to your brother, and I was accused of gossip, even though I never slandered or denounced him or told anybody else in the body. It stayed within our plurality of elders. So I just want to find out. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, the principle of Matthew 18, verses 15 through 17, is that when there’s correction to be brought, it should be kept as private as possible. In other words, what Jesus said, if someone sins against you, first just go to him alone. And that’s the step that you’re being accused of avoiding. But the idea is to keep it private so that if that person repents and gets right, then no one else ever has to even know that anything happened. It doesn’t mar his reputation. And then Jesus said if he doesn’t hear you on that first step, Then take another person. Now, you know, you taking another elder into the situation would be the very second step of that. And that is, of course, to keep it still very private. You’re still not making any publicity of the man’s fault. You’re still giving him a chance to repent and keep this more or less a private matter. But you bring it in a second person because he didn’t listen to you when you came alone. And then, of course, you said if he doesn’t hear those two, then take it before the church. Now. Generally speaking, I mean, you should probably just say, yeah, you’re right, I did follow that up. I should have probably just talked to the guy first before I talked to someone else. It’s not the end of the world. You still kept it relatively private. The idea being, you’re trying to preserve the dignity of the person in the event that he repents, that he doesn’t now have the stigma of having done the deed that he’s now repented of, because no one knows about it, or very few people know about it. So… I mean, technically, you didn’t follow the instructions as given, and I think we should. But, you know, a lot of times we foul up in ways like that that are not too disastrous because you’ve still, I assume, kept it very private. Yeah, absolutely. And so far, I mean, I think maybe if the man himself is accusing you of why didn’t you go to me first, I would just apologize. I’d say, yeah, you’re right, I should have. I’m I’m sorry about that. You know, forgive me. But, you know, I didn’t make it public. So, I mean, I’m hoping to get this thing squared away without making any public concerns about it. But, I mean, I have to say that all of us are no doubt guilty of this. And we need to aim at not being guilty of it. But when we are, it’s not the end of the world. I mean, it’s kind of serious if we go and speak publicly about somebody’s sin when we haven’t spoken to them about that. That’s quite a serious thing because when you finally speak to them, if you find out that they accidentally did something wrong and they repent about it, But now everybody knows about it, and you’ve ruined his reputation. Of course, that’s a terrible thing. So there’s definitely very important reasons to follow Jesus’ instructions. But I think all of us, just in the course of, I don’t know, being loose-lipped, you know, I mean, just talking to people in general, sometimes other people come up in the conversation, you say something about them, you mean no harm, but it’s, you realize after his eyes, probably should talk to him about that, because I haven’t done it. You know, there’s times when we have to say, I’m sorry, I didn’t do what I should have done exactly, but Still, I mean well, and I’m trying to get this thing restored. And so let’s move on from here, and I’ll admit I made a bit of a mistake.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. And so as far as I love that answer, and as far as I’m trying to figure out the lines of gossip, too. Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
I was going to say something about that, because speaking to another elder may not be technically gossip. And gossip, you know, there are times you have to speak about somebody else in a negative way to other people. I mean, to protect them or in some other sense to bring about a resolution or to prevent something worse from happening. The general rule about gossip that I think works best and preserves the idea of loving your neighbor as you love yourself is that Don’t speak about one man’s faults or one woman’s faults in the presence of others who are not either a part of the problem or a part of the solution. That is, the people you speak to might also be a part of a problem. A man’s wife might need to be spoken to or someone else who’s involved in wrongdoing with him. I mean, to speak to them, they’re part of the problem and they need to be addressed too in the matter. But then someone else who’s not part of the problem might be part of the solution. Somebody might need to speak to this man or do something toward this man, you know, and you speak to them because they’re not doing it. I mean, the idea is to restore a responsible peace and righteousness in a situation where there’s been some misdeed done, but to do so as charitably as you can toward the other person. Now, when you speak to another elder about someone, even though you haven’t spoken to the man, now technically I think you should have spoken to the man first, but okay, that’s water under the bridge. The person you spoke to is an elder. and therefore could be seen as part of the solution, too. And so I wouldn’t necessarily call that gossip. I would say skipping over an important step in church discipline, but it’s not quite the same as gossip, in my opinion, unless you kind of intended it to be. A lot of times when we, no matter who we’re talking to about something, we’re kind of relishing giving out some purulent information about somebody else just because people love to hear gossip. But, you know, if we’re not motivated that way, and we’re trying to keep it as private as possible, and we’re not trying to talk to people who don’t have anything to do with it just to make them want to hear more, you know, it has a lot to do with where your heart’s at.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and I truly respect and love this guy. My wife has flourished in a relationship with him, and that’s why I feel like I have the feeling like he’s going to fall in the hole, and I’m seeing a pattern, and I’ve I feel like I wouldn’t have been a good friend if I at least mentioned to him and then trust God for the results.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Amen. I think you should even let him know that if you have the opportunity to do that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I have. God bless you, Thomas.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thanks for having a sensitive conscience about that.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right.
SPEAKER 01 :
God bless you.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, brother.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you so much. Yeah. April in San Bernardino, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. I have a question about forgiveness. Specifically, I don’t remember where it’s found, but the incident in the Bible where Stephen says, don’t behold us to their account as their stoning him. Does that indicate that we could perhaps ask forgiveness to God for other people? And he will hear that. I also know that Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do on the cross. But I don’t really count that because Jesus is God and he has the power to forgive. But Stephen didn’t. And if God cannot forgive someone else, if we ask him, why would Stephen have prayed that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, well, I think Jesus’ statement and Stephen’s are very similar, even though Jesus is higher rank than Stephen is. But both of them were praying to the Father. Both of them were praying to God, you know, don’t hold this against them, which means that both of them in their own hearts had already forgiven them. I mean, this was an attitude of forgiveness that they had chosen, and they’re interceding for those people to God and say, God, don’t hold this against them. You know, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. It’s like just an attitude of universal charity even toward your enemies, which is what Jesus taught. You know, he said pray for those who persecute you and do good to those who wrong you and so forth. Bless those who curse you. So, yeah, I think we can do that. Now, if you’re asking when we do that, does God, you know, is God obliged to forgive people? In other words, can we go around forgiving people and now before God they are forgiven? That I don’t know, but I’m not sure I would say no about that. When Jesus said to the apostles, whosoever sins you remit, they are remitted, and whoever sins you retain, they are retained, that is a very obscure statement. And, of course, Roman Catholics have a very special need for that statement to give special competence to their priests and so forth. But Jesus didn’t say it was true of priests per se. Now, he may have meant it was true of the apostles only because he was speaking to them in the upper room. But there’s also such a thing as the priesthood of the believer that the Bible teaches about. And priests intercede. And that’s what Jesus was doing. It says in Isaiah 53, he made intercession for the transgressors. Well, there he was doing it. Interceding for them. Father, forgive them. And Stephen was doing the same thing. And the fact that Stephen did it, and it’s recorded as if that’s a good thing. I mean, obviously not everything people did is recorded in Acts, but Stephen is definitely given as an example to be emulated. The fact that he did it and it’s recorded that he did it, I think is implying that we can do that. Now, that doesn’t mean that I can say, God, forgive that wicked man of all his sins so that he’s saved. Well, I can’t do that because not all of his sins have been against me. I can certainly forgive and I’m obligated to forgive those who have sinned against me. And for me to say, God, that person wronged me, but please forgive him for that. I do. I think that maybe on the day of judgment, that particular sin will not be brought up against him. I can’t prove that. But to my mind, just processing all that the Bible says about this, that’s the impression I have. That if I forgive someone of something they’ve done against me. I think God will say, okay, I’ll accept that, your intercession on his behalf, your priestly intercession. I’ll forgive him for that sin. But that doesn’t apply to all his sins. Only Jesus and God can do that. So I’m not 100% certain that I’m right, but this is how I do view the matter, pretty much. And so that would be the best answer I know how to give to that question. Robert in Pinole, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. My question is, I’ve been to churches where at the end of the message, they’ll tell people to bow their head, repeat after them, and then they’ll say, you know, if you raised your hand, now you are saved. And then also I’ve been to churches where they’ll do altar calls. And then I heard you say earlier that you preached a message and you did an altar call and 40 people came forward. My question is, is that biblical? And if so, Where are some verses that can find that in the Bible?
SPEAKER 01 :
There are none. There are none. It’s not biblical. But it’s not forbidden in Scripture either. I mean, it’s the kind of thing that you don’t find that being done. But there’s nothing in the Bible that says you must not do that. It’s sort of a, what should we say, it’s a revivalist tradition. Probably arose with people like D.L. Moody and people like that, calling people forward You know, and then churches, evangelistic churches especially, began to incorporate that. Now, when people say, while every eye is closed and every head is bowed, no one is looking around, please raise your hand and I’ll see it. To me, that’s kind of counterproductive. I mean, it’s one thing to say after a sermon, listen, if you want to come to Christ, come on forward. I’ll talk to you about it. You know, I’ll be glad to. It’s another thing to say, you don’t have to do this in front of anybody. You know, you can do this secretly. God doesn’t mind if you’re not willing to accept him before men. But God does. Jesus said, whoever will not acknowledge me before men, he won’t acknowledge me before the Father. So you kind of give the impression to people that we’re not going to expose you. You won’t have to publicly own Christ here because no one’s looking. Of course, it’s rather deceptive because the same churches that do that. After they’ve raised their hands, they usually say, okay, now if you did that, come on forward. And, of course, the person doesn’t have to, but the preacher has already seen their response, and they feel kind of pressured. Oh, okay, the pastor knows I raised my hand. I better come forward. So it’s kind of manipulative, in my opinion. It’s kind of manipulative. It’s one thing to say, listen, I’ve just presented the gospel to you. Some of you here may not have ever responded to Christ before. Come on forward, I’d like to talk to you about it, or come up afterwards or something like that. I’m not going to do some kind of a display here, although you shouldn’t be ashamed. If you’re going to follow Christ, you’re going to have to be able to own him before men. But I mean, I’m not going to follow some kind of traditional doctrine. revivalist tactic here. I’m just going to say, listen, I’d be glad to lead you to Christ if you want to come forward after we’re done here, or as we sing this song, whatever. I think doing it while we sing a song is sometimes a little emotionally manipulated, too. I mean, I’m not saying it’s bad. Many, many people, myself included, I think, have gone forward at these kinds of altar calls when I was young. And I don’t fault it, except to say it isn’t done that way in the Bible ever. And it is a way that can be psychologically manipulative. And I don’t think that’s, I mean, I do believe in giving people a chance to respond to the word of God when you preach it. But I think we just need to be careful about not doing things that are putting psychological pressure instead of conviction of the Holy Spirit. And certainly not telling people they’re saved because they’ve repeated a prayer after me. Anyone can repeat a prayer for me and not have in any sense repented. I mean, even if I say, okay, repeat after me, Lord, forgive my sins. Well, they can say that, but that doesn’t mean they’re repenting. You know, there are many people who have said a so-called sinner’s prayer or gone forward in altar call who have in no sense seriously done business with God, have in no sense surrendered their lives to Christ. And when the preacher says, okay, you’re saved now, this can be a very damaging thing, it seems to me, if you’re saying that because you repeated this prayer or walked down this aisle, that’s what makes you a Christian. It is not. It is not, at least not in any biblical example. So I understand your perplexity over it. I grew up in that tradition, by the way. I mean, to me, everywhere I went. In fact, I’ve heard people critique churches because I went to that church, it was good, but they didn’t give an altar call. Well, why should they have to? If somebody wants to receive Christ and they’ve heard the sermon, can’t they go up there after the sermon’s over and talk to the pastor about it? Why do they have to give an altar call? An altar call probably gets some people to come forward who wouldn’t do it on their own volition after the church service. But those are the people who aren’t necessarily being moved by the Holy Spirit. they’re being moved by the altar call. And in many cases, I think the psychological dynamics that are being used in it. Now, again, I did that myself when I started. I gave altar calls. And I wouldn’t be opposed to it in every case now. It’s just not a tradition that finds biblical support. And it may be at times one that is followed to the detriment of of a person’s salvation if we give them a false assurance that they’ve done what is required to be saved when all they’ve done is what we told them to do, say a prayer and come forward. And that’s not what saves a person. The Bible never records the case of a person coming to Christ by saying a prayer or walking down an aisle or of the apostles inviting people to do so. That doesn’t make it bad, but it makes it something we have to look at through a bit of a critical analysis. And it may be something we might want to do differently. Anyway, you’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported. If you’d like to help us out, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let’s talk again tomorrow.
