Daily Radio Program
SPEAKER 07 :
So calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we’ve put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website. You can go to www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gregg and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, we’re going to talk first of all today to Eric from California. Eric, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 08 :
Good.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Well, hey, so I wanted to ask you a little bit about if you’ve had any experiences with reviewing medical studies for the efficacy of prayer.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, no, I don’t review those things. I’ve seen headlines from time to time showing that people who are prayed for recover from their sickness more readily than those who are not prayed for and things like that. I don’t know the statistics and I don’t know the value of the studies, whether they were well done or not. Have you studied that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Some of them, yeah. And the numbers, most of the time they show a negative result. There’s no statistical difference. It has been shown that prayer can lead to lowering blood pressure. The same kind of effect is in someone meditating or something.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, meditation is the same thing, yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, yeah. But some of them have been pretty serious. One was a study done over 3,000 patients that were getting coronary bypass surgery. and they had a control group or as controlled as you can be because, you know, you can’t account for maybe they have a family member somewhere that says a prayer for them that you don’t know about. Sure.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, I was raised a Christian, and I don’t know, I’ve just been having some doubts about… Yeah, well, let me just say, first of all, I’d be very curious to know if they’ve done similar studies in third world countries or if they were just done in Western nations. I think that actual miraculous healings are reported far more and far more reliably, in my opinion, in third world countries. I think on the mission field we see far more of the miraculous than we see in the Western world. And there’s reasons that we could explore about why that would be. But I would say this also. I’m not surprised by the results because I believe that if God wants somebody to get well, they’ll get well. If he doesn’t want them to, they won’t. And, of course, God… knows that all of us have got to die sometime. And so some of us are going to die sick and some are going to die other ways. But I don’t think the Bible promises that if we pray for healing, we’re always going to get a healing. I know of some cases of people who are healed and they were prayed for. I also know of some people who get better who weren’t prayed for and seem to get better. So a certain percentage of people will get better whether they’re prayed for or not. And then a certain percentage of people seem to get healed in association with specific prayer. But we don’t know how many of them would have gotten healed without the prayer. And we don’t know how many of the people who died without prayer might have been healed if they were prayed for. There’s no way to really know this, and nor do I care. Because I don’t see the purpose of prayer as primarily to get healed or to get anything for myself. I believe that faith is in God’s not in his running to our aid for everything we wish to have. And sometimes getting better isn’t what he wants for us. When you think about it, Jesus was approached by the sisters of Lazarus when he was very sick. And they said, your friend Lazarus is very sick. Obviously they were hoping he would come and heal him. Jesus didn’t. He just waited around and waited for Lazarus to die. It was a great disappointment to his sisters. And when Jesus saw them, they said, if you were here, my brother wouldn’t have died. And of course, that’s correct. He probably would have healed him if he had been there. That’s why he didn’t go. He wanted Lazarus to die. Of course, in this case, he had something better in mind. He was going to raise him from the dead, and he did, which was even better than healing him. But that simply shows that healing isn’t the best thing that can happen in every case. There may be other things God would like to do rather than heal. It doesn’t always mean he’s going to raise them from the dead. although all Christians will rise from the dead someday, but it may mean that he has something else he wants to accomplish through their death, and we are going to die. So to me, I don’t think that prayer is a way of manipulating God to get the things you want. I believe prayer is primarily focused on your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And when people try to use prayer for something that’s somewhat more self-interested, I think they’re not using prayer in a biblical way, and I don’t think that God has any obligation to answer those prayers.
SPEAKER 04 :
I agree with most of what you just said. There is for sure a lot of variables when it comes to trying to determine, statistically speaking, whether or not God intervenes.
SPEAKER 08 :
It would be really impossible to conduct a scientific experience with prayer, just like it’s impossible to say by experimentation. whether a given father is going to grant a given request that his son brings to him or not. It depends. What does the father want to do? Does he think it’s good for his son? Does he think something else is good for his son? Maybe his son says, I want a red bicycle, but the father already has in mind to buy him something better than a bicycle.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly. We don’t know how often God sure there should not be moving and interacting with the world in certain situations for whatever reason. So, yeah, that’s a really good point.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, a lot of times it’s by God not answering our prayers that he especially works to try our faith. A major purpose in our existence in this world is to be tested with reference to our faith because he’s trying to weed out those who will be loyal to him from those who won’t. And basically those who are faithful and who don’t lose the faith are the ones who are going to reign with him, the Bible says. So every time we are in a crisis, our faith is being tested. And we think of faith as a means of getting out of a crisis. You know, well, I trust God he’s going to get rid of this crisis. But if he removed the crisis every time we asked him to, then we would never have any tests of faith. It’s like when he didn’t heal Lazarus. That tested his sister’s faith. If he had just healed her, that’s what they expected Jesus to do. But he didn’t. He waited for him to die. And then, of course… when the sisters said, Lord, if you’d been here, our brother would not have died, Jesus said, I told you, if you will believe, you’ll see the glory of God. He didn’t say, if you believe, you’ll see a healing here, but you’ll see the glory of God. I guarantee you that if you trust God, you’ll see the glory of God, whether it’s a healing or something else.
SPEAKER 04 :
Very interesting. Can I ask you one more question?
SPEAKER 08 :
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER 04 :
I guess there’s just certain aspects of… Christian theology that I’ve been really questioning lately. You know, like the idea of hell and God punishing people eternally or even like reformed thinking that God would almost maniacally choose for whatever his reason is that this person’s going to go to hell and this one’s not type of thing. I’ve always loved Jesus. I still do. But I’m getting to the point now where, I mean, I would almost prefer… just to live the rest of my life hoping that God will somehow just save everybody kind of thing. Now, does that make me not a Christian anymore? I don’t know.
SPEAKER 08 :
If you really want to love Jesus and this matter of hell is a big stumbling block, let me recommend that you read my book, All You Want to Know About Hell, Three Christian Views, because the whole purpose of the book is not so much to talk about hell, although it talks in great detail about the different views of hell and the biblical case for and against them. The book is about the character of God. I believe the effect of reading that book will be more to love Jesus even more. And I can’t give away how that will happen. It’s a book-length process. But the intention is to reveal the character of God, to be the loving God that he is, despite the fact that there’s a hell. I myself have called into question whether hell is a place of eternal torment, And I’m not alone at that, because early Christian fathers didn’t all agree about whether hell was a place of eternal torment. There’s three different views, two of them much more tolerable than that traditional view. If you don’t want to get my book, I’m not a book salesman, I don’t even sell it, you’d have to buy it from someone else, not me. You could go to my website, under the topical lectures, there’s a two-lecture series called Three Views of Hell. And that’ll give you, in a nutshell, what my book talks about in great detail. And that’s free. You can just download those lectures from thenarrowpath.com. I think that’ll help you a little with the struggle that you’ve got. And as far as Calvinism and predestination and so forth, I don’t know if you’ve listened to me enough to know I’m not a Calvinist. I don’t believe in that kind of predestination.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’ve listened to every debate that you’ve done with Calvinism. I can’t tell you what a breath of fresh air it was to hear you present the other side so well, because that is something that has been a huge… stumbling block for me my whole life. I can’t help but look at that idea and think that he’s a monster. And I couldn’t serve a God like that.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, thankfully, neither Jesus nor anyone who wrote in the Bible ever said that Calvinism was true. I’m thankful for that. The things they did teach, I think, prove Calvinism is not true. But in addition to my debates, at the website there are also a lengthy series, I think it’s 12 lectures, called God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation. It’s all about the five points of Calvinism. And I bring up all the scriptures that they use, as well as all the scriptures that refute what they use. I explain all the scriptures in their context. Anyone who’s struggling with this Calvinism issue, I recommend, because these are free. You just go to our website and you can listen to them for free at thenarrowpath.com. The series is called God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation. And there’s also that series on the three views of hell, which I would strongly recommend that you, Eric, would listen to. I think it will help you a great deal.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you so much. I’ll definitely look into that.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right. God bless you, brother.
SPEAKER 04 :
You too, man. Have a good one.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thanks for calling today. Okay, our next caller is Leonard from Sacramento, California.
SPEAKER 13 :
Leonard, welcome to The Real Path. Steve, just want to say thank you for taking my call. I’m a young Christian at heart. I consider you my peer. I respect your worth. That being said, my job… is in the cannabis industry. I’m the procurement manager, so I go off and source the material, make sure it meets quality, passes lab results, and brings it into the retail shop so it can then be sold to the patient, customer, consumer, given the recreational times now. I’ve worked in this job for the last three years, paid my bills. I enjoy cannabis. I don’t love cannabis. If you can just kind of elaborate a little more of your personal thought inside a guidance of how to be Very much appreciative.
SPEAKER 08 :
I have my concerns about the use of cannabis other than medicinally. I believe that cannabis used medicinally and genuinely medicinally can hardly be objected to any more than the use of opioids or morphine or anything like that used medicinally. Now, those things can be used recreationally, but I think it’s wrong because recreational use of drugs is used in order to alter life. the mood or the consciousness in some way. And I don’t think that’s a safe thing to do spiritually. I do believe that these drugs can be used in a way that doesn’t have a detrimental effect on the mind and can be useful for pain management and so forth. My suspicion, though, of course, with the medical marijuana thing, and now in California, recreational as well, and Colorado and some other places, but with medical marijuana, it seems like anybody could get a medical marijuana card And therefore, a lot of it is used recreationally, not medicinally. Anyway, so I mean, that’s not a good thing in my opinion. I think that recreational use of drugs is spiritually detrimental. And I might even say dangerous, because I’m not sure when we diminish our natural control over our moods and our minds, to what degree we surrender some of that control to other spiritual entities. And I’m not saying it always happens, but I’m saying… I believe in other spiritual entities. I believe in demons. I believe demons are always seeking to get an advantage over us, and sometimes they possess people. And therefore, I would want to have my guard up all the time. I would never want to let my guard down and allow myself to become more vulnerable. I believe that when you get high on any drug, or even on alcohol, your guard is down. Your inhibitions are down. I think things are different. It’s an altered state of mind. And I don’t think that that’s safe. The Bible doesn’t talk about cannabis or other drugs except for alcohol. But alcohol was the one most ready at hand in those days, I think, for people to be getting high with. Again, alcohol is not forbidden in the Bible medicinally. It’s actually recommended medicinally in the Bible. But alcohol is forbidden as a recreational way to get high. Now, if the industry you’re in is bringing cannabis to people who are using it recreationally, If I were a Christian and doing that, I’d be conflicted. Now, you’ve been doing this for three years, and you’ve only been a Christian for a year, so obviously you’re thinking it through. The reason you called me is because you’re thinking the process through about what someone else like myself would think of it. I think most Christians would think similarly to what I’ve suggested here. Again, the Bible doesn’t speak directly about cannabis, but it does talk about the use of substances, and even the word pharmakia, which is thought to refer to the use of some, perhaps, consciousness-altering drugs in occult practices, is found as forbidden in Scripture. But, again, the specific use of marijuana, we don’t have specific reference, but I would wish to avoid all consciousness-altering substances as a Christian. The Bible says, guard your heart, for out of it are the issues of life. And the heart is the mind. The heart is the spiritual body. center. And I think that Christians ought to very much guard against any compromise of the full control of their faculties. So that would be my understanding of the whole subject. You might want to seek another way to make a living or not. That’s up to you. It’s your conscience before God you’ll have to answer to. Tom from Newburgh, Oregon. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you for taking my call. And I’ve heard you mention that you’ve debated atheists. My own simple thinking is that the reason why they are atheists is because they believe in God.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, that is true. I think some of them believe there’s God, and they’re very much afraid to acknowledge that he exists, so they want to try to prove otherwise. And you can tell that this is their motive by the fact that they’re not just content to say, oh, there’s idiots out there who believe in God. I’m more enlightened and I don’t believe in God. I mean, some people are content to say that and they’re not threatened by God. But obviously people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens and people like that, they have to destroy religion. Why? Well, because it threatens them, obviously. You know, if they really believe there was no God… For example, they don’t believe there’s a Santa Claus, and neither do I. But I don’t spend any time trying to silence people who believe in Santa Claus. I don’t want to outlaw their view. I don’t think it’s a very healthy view to believe in Santa Claus, but I don’t think anyone’s going to be hurt very much by it. I believe in freedom of thought and freedom of speech, so if somebody wants to believe in Santa Claus or teach their kids that, that’s between them and God and their kids. I don’t get threatened by it, partly because I know there is no Santa Claus. Now, if there was a… you know, a communist leader or a Muslim leader in this country trying to overthrow America, you know, I might be threatened by that. And I might try to, you know, diminish belief in him. But you don’t have to fight hard and viciously against something you don’t believe exists. The fact that you feel like you have to write whole books and have a career of arguing against something does suggest that you protest too much. I think it means that you do probably believe there’s something out there that you’ve got to try to eliminate. Let’s talk to Craig from Roseville, California. Craig, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks, Steve. As to the caravan making its way up towards California, I guess eventually up 15 by Temecula, what is our duty as Christians towards that group of people?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, our duty as Christians toward that group of people, first of all, would be to seek to win them for Christ. But that doesn’t translate into any particular political duty. The political duty would have more to do with the laws of the land. So if we want to go to them and reach them for Christ, then we can do so. If they happen to get into the country and they come to where we are, then we can reach them for Christ here. But as far as what we think about what they’re doing… We have to admit, it would appear that their intentions are to break our laws. Their intentions are to come into the country uninvited. You know, when one or two people or three or ten sneak into the country in a given day, we call those illegal aliens. When you’ve got seven or eight thousand coming together, that’s more like an invasion. Now, under the law of Moses… Israel was supposed to welcome aliens who wanted to settle among them. Those aliens, of course, had to keep Israel’s laws and embrace Israel’s culture. They weren’t just allowed to come in and bring their Baal worship or their Moloch worship and live in Israel’s borders. They had to actually adopt the culture of Israel or else not be there. But when thousands of people came together, uninvited into Israel, this was usually under arms, and this was usually an invasion, and Israel repelled them. Now, we are told these people are unarmed, and they probably are unarmed. Well, how do we know that? And we don’t know that they’ll remain unarmed if they come into the country. We don’t know who they are. That’s the point. When thousands of people want to illegally invade a country that they are not legally welcome to come into, then the question is, well, what are their intentions? Now, I have to say this particular invasion is very suspicious. I heard a news commentator talk about how he was down there where they are and standing by the porta-potties, and there were lines as long as he could see waiting to get into the porta-potties. In fact, who put up the porta-potties there? This is not some spontaneous group of refugees just walking out of their country looking for refuge from conditions. Somebody’s setting up porta-potties for them. Somebody is organizing this. And sure enough… I heard today that the president of Honduras, from which many of you have come, he actually told Vice President Pence that it’s the president of Venezuela who’s sponsoring this. Well, Venezuela is not a friend of ours, so it looks like it’s an unfriendly action. Now, if we say, well, they need to get out of their horrible country. Honduras is a place where there’s a lot of murder and crime. Well, that’s true. And there are laws that suggest that they should seek refuge there. in the nearest country adjacent to their own. So they could seek refuge in Guatemala, they could seek refuge in Mexico, maybe Belize. There’s nothing that would make them automatically have some kind of refugee status in the United States. So it’s hard to know why they’re coming. From what I understand, their intention is to get here in time for the midterm elections, which makes it sound like an entirely political thing, doesn’t it? It doesn’t sound like it’s humanitarian. It’s one thing to think a bunch of people are in trouble in their home country and they have to flee, but when they don’t flee to the nearest country where they could find refuge and they make it their goal to come to the American border in time to impact our elections and they are being sponsored by our communist government that is hateful toward us, then I guess we just have to say this doesn’t look like your typical humanitarian crisis. This looks like something very much orchestrated for political purposes, and that’s how I would view it. So, how do you view it? No, I view it the same way, but I was just curious as a, you know, what would Jesus do type of… Yeah, Jesus didn’t maintain national borders, and that’s because he didn’t rule a physical nation. But people who do rule physical nations are charged, even scripturally, with the duty of defending those nations against invasion from hostile powers. And, you know, we don’t know how hostile these people are. We do know that the president of Guatemala said in the national newspaper of Guatemala that he had arrested 100 ISIS radicals, ISIS terrorists, in his own country. Now, a lot of these people are coming from Guatemala, so how do we know that some of them aren’t ISIS people? We don’t. How do we know that some of them are not gang members and so forth coming here to make trouble? Why is it that the majority of the people you see are young males? which is the very demographic that the gangs recruit and that even terrorists recruit. I’m not saying I know much about these people, but that’s just the point. We don’t know much about the people. So, in other words, they’re coming to break our laws. I mean, just crossing the border itself against our laws makes them already people with criminal intentions against us. So… Why do we want 7,000 or 8,000 more people who are determined to be criminals coming into our country? That’s kind of where I’m at.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right, right. And I know God, when he set up Israel, they had borders.
SPEAKER 08 :
Every nation has borders, and everyone charged to rule a nation has a first priority to defend the populace against invaders. This has really nothing to do with what would Jesus do, because Jesus was never in the position to govern a country, nor did he want to be. Jesus gave instructions about how we who follow him should relate to other people. We should do so with compassion. We should do so with love and so forth. For example, when Jesus said we should turn the other cheek, he didn’t address the judges of Israel and say, now from now on when criminals come in who have hurt other people, you just turn the other cheek and let them go. Jesus wasn’t describing how to govern a nation. He’s describing how a Christian should love their neighbor as they love themselves. But governing a nation… is an entirely different set of responsibilities. And Paul said in Romans 13 that the government, that God has entrusted it with the sword to punish evildoers and praise those who do well. So Peter said the same thing in 1 Peter chapter 2. So anyone who thinks, well, what would Jesus do? Jesus might go out and join them. He might go out and live among them. He might go out and minister to them, feed them, and Christians maybe should do the same thing. But when it comes to national policy and making decisions about what’s going to preserve the safety of people that you’re charged to protect, I mean, those decisions have to be made by basically hard, cold facts. Those people can be evangelized in Mexico by Christians if we go there as much as they can be evangelized in here. I’m not against these people. I’m just saying, well, I don’t think that we are under any obligation as Christians to say, hey, just throw open the borders and let these people come in. I think that they would be welcome to apply for residency here just like anybody else. And if they don’t, they shouldn’t be allowed in.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s just me thinking like a common sense person and a Christian. The first half hour is just about over. We’re at the bottom of the hour, and a few stations are leaving us at this point. They only carry the first half hour. But we do go all of an hour taking your calls every day. And so those of you who are waiting, please hold on through this little break at the bottom of the hour, which we always take, and then we’ll come to those calls. If you are listening to a station that does not carry the second half, you can hear the whole program, the second half and all, from our website, thenarrowpath.com, thenarrowpath.com. streams the program, and also archives it. So if you miss it live, you can listen to it later there. You can also get the app for your Android or your iPhone. The NarrowPath.com app is free from the App Store and from Google Play. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. If you’d like to help us buy the time on the radio, that’s where the money goes. If it comes in, we pay for the time on the radio, and that’s pretty much the only place it goes. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. You can also donate if you want to from thenarrowpath.com, the website, though everything there is free. If you’re staying with us in the next half hour, please stay tuned for 30 seconds, and we’ll come right back and continue this discussion.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 02 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 1 :
Narrow Path Radio
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Program, hosted by Steve Gray. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we’ve put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website. You can go to www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls with Steve Gregg and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 08 :
Johnny, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, Steve. Thanks for taking my call.
SPEAKER 08 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 10 :
So our church is one of the churches that does church membership or church covenant membership or something like that. And we’re members there, but like I said, I started listening to you, and I heard you bring up a couple times that that’s more of a traditional thing and it’s not necessarily a biblical thing. I was looking for lectures that you had on that. Do you have any lectures of that within one of your other lectures somewhere?
SPEAKER 08 :
There’s a series called Some Assembly Required. It’s about the New Testament teaching about church, and it goes through a historical survey quickly. of how a church evolved from what it was in the Apostolic times to what it is now. And it looks at a lot of issues that have changed from the early church to now, including the political structures of the church, and certainly the idea of being the member of a church is part of the political development of the church. Because, you see, in the early church, there was only one church in a town. All Christians were in the same church. And you didn’t have to sign a covenant or join a church. When you got baptized, you just were baptized into the body of Christ, and there was one expression of that body of Christ in that town, the church in Corinth or the church in Philippi or the church in Thessalonica or the church in Laodicea or the church in Ephesus or whatever. And so you were just in the church simply by being saved. The Bible indicated it’s the Holy Spirit that places you into the church. But the church was not seen as a 501c3 corporation that existed alongside independent other 501c3 corporations calling themselves churches in the same town. In other words, in competition with each other for the Christian membership and answerable to Bobby’s request. trans-locally rather than to each other. This idea of multiple local church in one town that aren’t in unity with each other is definitely a corruption that came after the Reformation. I’m not saying the Reformation was a corruption. I like the Reformation. But, I mean, after the Reformation, you began to have the splitting off into many denominations. And now you’ve got, of course, in any given town, 10 to 100 churches or more, and a lot of them don’t have anything to do with each other, but they do relate to some kind of coalition of churches or denomination worldwide, but not to the churches down on the next corner. So it’s been a tremendous violation of Paul’s concern in 1 Corinthians when the church of Corinth began to divide. And some were saying, I’m of Paul, and some were saying, I’m of Cephas, and some were saying, I’m of Apollos or whatever. And Paul was aghast, saying, what, is Christ divided? And yet every town has that phenomenon now. We’ve got, I am of the Baptists, I’m of the Presbyterians, I’m of the Methodists, I’m of the Pentecostals, I’m of Calvary Chapel, or whatever. Denominationalism is something Paul renounced and denounced, but we were born in it. We were born in a culture where it takes it for granted, so we haven’t been sensitized to it. But if we had been in Paul’s shoes, looking at the early denominations, of this very phenomenon, and hearing him scold the Church of Corinth for even considering it, we’d be looking at it somewhat differently. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m against going to a church that has a denominational label, because whether a church has a denominational label or not is not the issue. The question is, are they part of the whole body of Christ in that town, and do they recognize that? If they do, then they’re not going to be talking about you having some covenant membership to their group, Because a covenant membership to their group simply means you don’t have a similar relationship with other Christians in town, just those in this group. If I was asked by a church to join the church, I’d ask, well, is it okay if I join this church and all the churches in town, too, since I’m in the body of Christ and so are they? If they said, well, sure, well, then, of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if they said, well, no, that wouldn’t make sense, then they’re not thinking of the body of Christ in a biblical way.
SPEAKER 10 :
But doesn’t joining a church, doesn’t that allow for somewhat of a responsibility, I guess, at least to the building, though, if you’re joining it, to have more of a participation or, like I said, a responsibility since it is more of an organizational thing that you’re joining?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I’ll tell you, I’ve never actually joined a church because all the churches that I’ve been a part of, don’t have membership because they just felt like that’s not biblical. But I’ve been very involved. I’ve been a teacher in a number of churches. I was even an elder in two different churches in different times. But these churches didn’t have membership. I wasn’t a member on some list. And I remember talking to a pastor in Oregon and telling him I didn’t believe in church membership. And he said, well, then how is the pastor supposed to know who he can count on? I thought, what a silly question that is. Having church membership doesn’t tell you who you can count on. Almost every church has twice as many people on its church roles as members as even attend the church. And this is a fact. Almost every church has twice as many people on its roles or more than actually attend the church. So being on a church membership role doesn’t tell a pastor anything about whether he can count on you. And all the pastors of the churches I’ve served in have known who they could count on, even though they didn’t have memberships. Because people make themselves available. And I certainly was available. I taught a great deal in these churches I’ve been in and never did have a membership site. You know, this concept of being the member of a church, because that way the pastor can count on you. You take some responsibility for the building and things like that. If you’re in a church that meets in a building and you think that building is a good thing to support, you can support it without being a member. I mean, you can put money in the offering.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I guess that makes sense. And do you cover that in more detail in that series that you were talking about?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes. Go to thenarrowpath.com and click on the tab that says Topical Lectures, and you’ll find a series called Some Assembly Required. And it’s, like I said, it surveys how the church changed from the apostolic time. It shows in the scripture how they thought about things. And then, of course, I contrast that with how the modern churches think.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Well, I’ll check that out. Thank you very much for your time.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, Johnny. Good talking to you. Thanks for your call. All right. Edward from Salinas, California. Edward, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve. Hi.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I’m calling in because the other day I was watching TV and this guy, Mike Murdoch, was asking for a seed. Every time I turn it on, he asks for a $3,000 seed. And my mom said to send some money, but I didn’t want to. What does he have to do with that?
SPEAKER 08 :
With the seed?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I assume he’s talking about a seed-faith gift. This idea arose, I think, originally with Oral Roberts many years ago. Oral Roberts popularized the concept of a seed-faith gift. Basically what he’s saying is if you give him some money, you’re planting a seed, and that seed will grow to your profit. Just like if you had a seed of grain and put it in the ground, you’d have more grain later if it grows. So putting it in the ground means giving it to him. And so he’s saying if you want to plant the seed, send it to me, send me money, and you’ll have more money to come. This is absolutely not supportable in Scripture. It’s a gimmick. It’s a gimmick to get people to give.
SPEAKER 14 :
I thought so because I thought it was kind of false, but my mom said send it in.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, why don’t you write to him and say, listen, if you need some money, why don’t you send a seed to the narrow path? And maybe God will provide the money you need.
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay. All right. Yeah, because every time it comes on, he changes different amounts of money on it, too.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, any minister who’s up there talking more about money than about the gospel is certainly not somebody worth watching. I appreciate your call. Brian, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, good afternoon, Steve. The Bible group I’m in, we did your four views of Revelation a couple years ago. It was very good, and we have now started your three views of hell.
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, great.
SPEAKER 11 :
And I must admit, it’s… It’s getting more heated at times than the first book.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s much more controversial, but to my mind, much more important and much more relevant to our Christian lives.
SPEAKER 11 :
All right. Well, a couple of questions or points, Steve. You know, Calvinist versus Arminianism, I said in the group that it would be very difficult if God picks and chooses who he will and who he will have not, than to put that person who he did not into hell eternally. I said that that would be like punishing a blind person for not being able to see, and you were the person that made that person blind. I don’t know if that argument holds water. Sounds pretty good. Somebody said that all Calvinists don’t believe that. So are there degrees of Calvinism in the sense that some don’t believe that God picks and chooses who they will? Because then it seems to leave kind of a question mark.
SPEAKER 08 :
Anyone who labels himself a Calvinist… and thinks that God does not do all the choosing of who’s saved and who’s not, is not aware of what the word Calvinist means, and they shouldn’t be using it until they decide they want to be a Calvinist. A Calvinist believes that the fate of every human being before the foundation of the world was determined by the sovereign decree of God. This is stated to be so in Calvin’s writing. It’s stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith. It’s stated in all the standard Calvinist works. Every real Calvinist knows this. That means that before anyone was born on this view, they are either doomed to be lost or they’re destined to be saved. Now, if they’re destined to be saved, they will be saved no matter what. And if they’re doomed to be lost, they’ll be lost no matter what. There’s really no choice they’re going to make that has any significance except whatever choice God makes them have because he’s already determined which choice he’s going to make them have. Some Calvinists go further than others in taking this to its logical conclusion. There are some Calvinists who would like to say, well, God only predestined who will be saved. He didn’t predestine who will be lost. That’s kind of disingenuous because they really do believe that God could save everybody if he wants to. They believe that everyone needs to be saved because we’re all wretched. And God could save as many as he wishes. He could save 10%, 50%, 90%, or 100%. God can save anything he wants to save. And therefore, if God has looked at the mass of all humanity who will ever live, and selected some and said, okay, those are the ones I’m going to save, knowing full well that the ones he doesn’t choose have no option but to go to hell, well, then he has chosen who’s going to go to hell. And he’s done so, according to Calvinism, based on nothing in themselves. That is, the choice between the elect and the reprobate, which are the terms that Calvinists use, is not made by consideration of anything in the person himself. It’s just strictly a sovereign choice. We might say arbitrary, though I think Calvinists would object to the word arbitrary, but there’s really nothing about it that’s non-arbitrary from our point of view. You know, a choice that God made about them before they were born. So that would mean that everyone you see walking around was doomed to be lost before they were born, or they were destined to be saved before they were born. Calvinism teaches that without any ambiguity and without shame.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, that answers that question, Greg. And then, like I said, if you believe that, then eternally punishment would just not make sense. I couldn’t see how you could be a Calvinist and believe in eternal.
SPEAKER 08 :
As I point out in my book, I do talk about the Calvinist dilemma with reference to hell. But then I talk about the Arminian dilemma. Now, I’m an Arminian, but there’s still an issue with an Arminian dilemma. Who believes in the traditional view of hell, because the traditional view of hell is that God’s going to keep people alive supernaturally forever and ever to torture them. OK, right. That’s what the traditional view teaches. Armenians, at least, say, well, you have a choice about where you’re going to go there or not. Arminians also believe that God knew that some people would choose to go to hell rather than to be saved. But what Arminians often stop there rather than saying, but God also has a choice of what is going to happen to those who reject him. That is, he had a choice about what hell is. What is God’s attitude toward those who reject him? According to the Bible, he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Jesus, from the cross, speaking about those who crucify him, said, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they do. It doesn’t sound to me like God is the kind of God who just wants to take out his pound of flesh on people because they were nasty enough to ignore him for a few years of their lives. If he has calculated… on his own, without any coercion from anyone else, that whoever rejects him, he’s going to torment them forever. And that, by not letting them die, which they would naturally do if he left them alone, but he’s going to keep them alive so they can be tortured for billions and billions and billions of years. We have to at least say that God’s a very vindictive God when he could have done something different. much kinder to his enemies. He could have annihilated them. Or he could even give them more chances for salvation after the grave if he wants to. He could do whatever he wants to do. So the real issue here is how does any view of God, how is it reflected in any particular view of hell?
SPEAKER 11 :
I agree with you and I do not believe, let’s say, the traditional view. I find that goes in the face of righteous and just and the other words that we attribute to our Father. So
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, well, even if one could satisfy himself, as most Christians do, that eternal hell is somehow just, in other words, that there’s some sense in which sinners deserve it, even if we couldn’t argue that hell is unjust, we can certainly say it’s not loving. That is, it’s not a loving thing to do your enemies. Jesus said how we should treat our enemies. He said, love your enemies. Do good to those who persecute you. Bless those who curse you so that you’ll be like your father. And yet most Christians believe that the father isn’t anything like Jesus said. He doesn’t love his enemies and do good to those who hate him and bless those who curse him. He torments them forever and ever. Now, of course, they believe that because they think the Bible teaches that. And that’s why my book is there to actually study what the Bible actually does teach or not.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, we are enjoying it, Greg. We’re about halfway through. I thought your third chapter was really sweet and beautiful. Anyway, we’re on the fifth chapter. We’re just going to head through it.
SPEAKER 08 :
You’ll make it through the whole book if you don’t get all your eyes scratched out.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, I’m the can opener anyway in the group sometimes.
SPEAKER 08 :
Opening the can worms? Okay.
SPEAKER 11 :
I appreciate your time, sir. You have a good afternoon.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, brother. Good talking to you. Cindy from Michigan, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
I just wanted to ask you, when you’re born again, I believe that God wants us to witness to unbelievers, but I’m not sure how to do this. Would you please help me to understand this? I want to be able to be a blessing to people, not telling them what they have to do to be saved. I just don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.
SPEAKER 08 :
Maybe you have a different ministry than evangelism. Paul didn’t say everybody’s an evangelist. He said God gave some evangelists. He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. And that’s not everybody. That’s just some people. There’s a lot of people who have other gifts. They’re not apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, or teachers. There’s a lot of people who are just the saints. In fact, Paul said that God gave those ministries for the purpose of equipping the saints. So the saints are someone else. Most of us are just saints. Most of us are just Christians. And among the Christian community, God has given some who are apostles and some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. And the rest of us are something else, you know, none of the above. There’s lots of gifts. Paul said one of the gifts is helps. Another gift is giving. Another gift is showing mercy. I once had a caller call me and say he didn’t think that Mother Teresa was saved because she didn’t evangelize people. And I said, well, I don’t know that she was ever called to be an evangelist. She seemed to be very gifted in the area of showing mercy. And that’s a different gift than evangelism. And I said, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if when you and she stand before God, God might think she did better at fulfilling her gift of mercy than you did with your gift of evangelism, if you’ve got it. You know, you can’t be judging another man’s servant. Some people are called evangelists. Some are not. Now, all Christians, of course, are called to be loyal to Jesus. And when you’re loyal to Jesus, there are situations where you would speak up for him. There’s times when somebody’s speaking ill of him or somebody’s asking you about him and you’d speak about him. And you’d maybe defend him against someone who’s speaking wrongly about him or whatever. That loyalty, of course, has got to be in every Christian. Every Christian, it says in 1 Peter 3.15, has got to be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for your faith. You don’t have to be an evangelist to do that. You simply say, well, I’m a believer and here’s why I believe in Jesus. And that is witnessing. That’s witnessing, but it’s not necessarily evangelism because you haven’t necessarily presented the whole gospel. You can if they want to hear it. But not everyone is out there presenting the gospel. It doesn’t really take everyone doing it. Because in the early church, for example, there were 3,000 converts on the day of Pentecost. We read that those 3,000 people every day were doing certain things. What were they doing? They were listening to the apostles teaching. They were eating together. They were praying together. And they were fellowshipping together. The Bible says they continued in these things daily. Well, then who was reaching out to the lost? The next verse says, and with great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of Christ and many people were being saved. So we had 3,000 people who were not evangelizing and 12 people who were. But what were the 3,000 doing? They were being the Christian community. They were being the net into which new fish would come. They were being the family that would disciple the converts. They were being a witness by their changed lives, corporately and personally, of what Christ can do simply by being true Christians and living like it. And then when the apostles went out and preached… The Christian community and its sanctity and its unity and all that stuff served as a witness, a silent witness, and the apostles speak out loud. The idea that we’re all supposed to be out on the street preaching or going door to door, we’re all supposed to evangelize everyone we meet, the Bible doesn’t say that. That’s mixing up gifts. And a person with a gift of helps, a gift of giving, a gift of serving, a gift of showing mercy, a gift of leaving, a gift of administration, exhortation, these people wouldn’t necessarily be out evangelizing. I mean, you can. My thought is that every Christian is to be totally loyal to Jesus Christ in doing what he calls them to do. He might give them opportunities to speak for him to an unbeliever. If so, wonderful. It’s a great privilege to do that. But if he’s got you busy doing something else and you find that you’re not really getting out there and having conversations with unbelievers, that might have a lot to do with what your calling is and what your gifts are. So you indicated that it doesn’t seem very natural for you to go out and tell people about the Lord. And I think there’s a lot of people like you. Their temperament is not such that they go out and strike up a conversation with strangers. Some people find that easy. Some would find that almost impossible. The ones who would find it almost impossible should not think, that they’re letting Jesus down, because if it’s not something they do readily, then it’s probably not their gifting.
SPEAKER 05 :
I read the Bible, and I try to memorize Scripture so I could be able to witness to people. But my memory isn’t that great. And so I can’t remember.
SPEAKER 08 :
Sure, I understand that. And probably most people would tell you the same thing, that they wish they could memorize Scripture more and wish they had all the right answers to get people in, but they just don’t. And if you don’t, then is that really your fault? I don’t think so. I mean, if you could wave a magic wand over your mind and say, now I can magically remember all Scripture, you’d certainly do it. But if God hasn’t given you that ability, then he hasn’t given it to you. That’s not your fault. I mean, God’s the one who gives the gifts or withholds them. He’s given you some gift. And if you find that your gift is not in the air of speaking to others, then whose fault is that? It’s not yours. Most of us would love to have a lot of gifts that we don’t have, but you don’t get the ones you choose. God chooses them for you. And so you’re… Your obedience to God is in being faithful in the use of what are gifts he’s given you. And don’t compare yourself to others and say, oh, boy, they preach, they lead people to the Lord all the time. I wish I could do that. I must not be a very good Christian. Well, if you’re gifted to do that, you’d probably do that, too. But not everyone’s called to do the same thing.
SPEAKER 05 :
I feel much better now.
SPEAKER 08 :
Let’s talk to Grace from Salt Lake City. Grace, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Have you heard of sleep paralysis?
SPEAKER 08 :
Sleep paralysis. Well, I’m not sure that I have, but I can sort of picture what it might be. I mean, there’s all kinds of things that happen to people when they sleep, including night terrors and sleep apnea and things like that. But I’m not sure that I’m aware of people who become paralyzed during sleep. But I guess it wouldn’t surprise me that there would be such a thing.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I think it’s a name that they give it. It affected me so much that I… went trying to find some answers. And so I thought, well, I’m going to call Steve.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, are you actually experiencing this?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I have, like, four times. And the most profound ones came before I was going to Israel, a trip to Israel. And what happens is I was awake laying in my bed on my back, and starting some prayer, and I could feel it coming across the room, this heaviness, and it’s almost like it was on my chest and pushing so that I couldn’t breathe.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, now you are talking about something I’m familiar with, because I’ve had many people talk about that. Yeah, this is something that strikes me as demonic. That doesn’t mean you’re demon-possessed. It just means that there’s a demonic attack. Lots of people have testified to this, and they generally speaking would say they wake up in the night, they feel as if somebody is laying on top of them, but there’s no one physically there. They feel the pressure. And then sometimes they feel like they’re choking. You sound like you said you have terrible breathing at those times. Everyone who’s ever shared that with me, and I’ve heard from people all over the, frankly, all over the world, people have told me about this over the past 50 years I’ve been in the ministry. It seems to be very commonplace. I’ve never had the experience myself, but it strikes me in every case as demonic. And the people who’ve told me their stories often don’t know that anyone else has ever had that kind of experience. But they have always said that when it seems terrifying to them, they just call out the name of Jesus. and that everyone who’s ever shared with me so far has said that when they called out on Jesus, the thing went away. So, I mean, I’m just giving you anecdotal information. I’m not giving you some kind of a medical or even a biblical analysis. I’m just saying this is a very commonplace thing, apparently.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, do you believe in anointing the room like my bedroom?
SPEAKER 08 :
You know… I’ve never gone into that kind of stuff. I definitely believe in spiritual warfare. There’s nothing in the Bible about anointing a room or the windows or the doors. Sometimes Christians have done that just to, I don’t know, maybe to give themselves some assurance. Sometimes people do that thinking they’re putting some kind of a barrier up so the demons can’t come in. The barrier to the coming of the demons is not going to be oil in the room. It’s going to be your own faith in Christ. So I’m going to urge you to be strong in your faith and to cry out to Jesus and to pray. And if you need help… That is, if you need other Christians to join you, then find them. And I don’t think anointing the room is going to make much difference. If someone wants to do that, I don’t think it will hurt as long as you don’t put your faith in that oil, because then it becomes superstition. But yeah, boy, I wish we had five more minutes or ten to talk about this, but I’m going to be cut off here in 15 seconds, so I apologize. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are listener-supported. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, the address is The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. God bless you.
