Join Steve Gregg on The Narrow Path as we delve into the intriguing discussion around America’s possible role as Mystery Babylon in Scripture. Uncover the symbolic mentions in Revelation and the insights on why modern times may be misrepresented. Additionally, Steve addresses other prophecies, like those in Daniel, and whether they point to our current era or were fulfilled in ancient times.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon with an open phone line for you to call if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith and you’d like to ask those for us to discuss on the air. You are welcome to do so or you can call if you disagree with the host and want a balanced comment. We’d be glad to hear from you too. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. We have a couple of lines open right now, so if you call now, this is a good time to get through. The only announcement I need to make, I guess, is that In a couple of weeks or so, I’ll be starting a teaching itinerary in Oregon where I’ll speak 11 or 12 days. in different places. And if you are in Oregon listening, you may want to check our website to see where those places are. You go to thenarrowpath.com and look under announcements, and that’s where you’ll find that information. Apart from that, I don’t really have any announcements to make, so I’m going to go to the phones and talk to Carolyn in Seattle, Washington. Hi, Carolyn. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you. Do you believe… America is mystery but Babylon, and if not, why not? If so, why so?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I don’t. I don’t believe that America is mentioned in Scripture. I just saw a YouTube clip just the other day of someone saying that it was clearly a reference to America, and that’s certainly not the first time I heard that. In fact, The first time I heard something like that was way back in 1972 when I was in Europe, and I asked one of the pastors there what they believed and what European Christians generally believed Mystery Babylon was, and they said New York City, which obviously is kind of the same thing as St. America. But I don’t think so, and my reason is because I don’t believe Revelation is about modern times. I believe that Revelation is about times that were fulfilled shortly after it was written, which is what actually the book tells us. It says these are things that must shortly take place. And it said the time is at hand or the time is near. Repeatedly it said those things. So I’m going to have to assume that unless John was mistaken, but sometimes it was an angel speaking, not a John. So I don’t think the angel would be mistaken. The things in Revelation are not about our times, but they’re about a time that was, as the book frequently says, shortly beyond the time of its writing. They were soon to take place. So I don’t think America existed close enough to that time to be considered in the frame of reference. Now, Babylon in Revelation is said to have been the one who She is drunk with the blood of martyrs and drunk with the blood of the prophets and the apostles. When Babylon falls, the prophets and the apostles are said to be vindicated by her death. Well, there’s a couple of great cities that could be blamed for the death of the apostles. Some of them were killed by the Romans, and there are people who think that Babylon is Rome. However, Jesus indicated that it was Jerusalem upon whom the guilt of all the prophets and martyrs would come. And, of course, they killed some of the apostles, too. Notably, James, the first of them to die, was killed by them. Peter was arrested there but escaped. And James, the brother of Jesus, died in Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem, according to Jesus, one only needs to read Matthew 23, and you’ll see Jesus says that the blood of all the martyrs, the guilt of it was going to come upon Jerusalem, and he said it will happen in this generation. So that is his own generation. So I believe probably that since Babylon is the one who’s punished for the blood of the martyrs, That is probably a code name for Jerusalem. Now, it might seem strange for Jerusalem to be called Babylon, although it wouldn’t be any stranger than for America or Rome to be called Babylon. In Revelation, chapter 11 and verse 8, the city where our Lord was crucified is what it’s referred to. Of course, that’s Jerusalem. It says it’s spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. Now, I don’t think it’s any stranger to call Jerusalem Babylon. than it is to call Jerusalem Sodom and Egypt. And yet, in the latter case, it’s indisputable. The city where our Lord was crucified is said to be spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. So my impression is that the book of Revelation gives symbolic names to entities, including Jerusalem. And I think Babylon is probably a symbolic name for Jerusalem.
SPEAKER 09 :
So if you don’t think that Revelation is about current times, where would you find about it? Is there any prophecies in any other books that talk about now?
SPEAKER 02 :
I don’t think so. You know, I don’t think so. There are people who do think so. I mean, a lot of people take prophecies in Isaiah and Jeremiah and certainly in Ezekiel and Zechariah, maybe Joel chapter 3 and some others. A lot of people think those are talking about modern times. But I don’t think in the context they are. As near as I can tell, there’s nothing in them to suggest that they’re talking about the end times. In fact, in many cases, they’re talking about things that happened after the prophecy was given, but long ago from our point of view. For example, Zechariah chapters 9 through 14 are very commonly applied to modern times, or at least to the end times, by prophecy teachers. But I’ve talked through that book many, many times, and my lectures are online about it. But I think the evidence is that Zechariah chapters 9 through 14 are not talking about the end of the world. There’s no reference to the end of the world. There’s no mention of end times or last days in it. And in that section, there’s about half a dozen verses here and there, which are all quoted in the New Testament. And generally speaking, it’s very clear they’re talking about their own times. That is the New Testament times. So at least that’s how the apostles understood them when they quote them. So I don’t think that it’s correct. I don’t know why the prophets would speak of the end times. It wouldn’t be relevant to their readers at all. And, you know, it’s not the purpose of prophecy to tell us how the world’s going to end. The purpose of prophecy is to exalt Jesus Christ. and to inspire faith in him. And, of course, he’s the main subject of prophecy. So I just don’t see it as the purpose of any of the prophets to talk about the end times. I’m not sure that any of them do. I don’t think they do.
SPEAKER 09 :
How about Daniel that talks about seal it up until it’s not for you to know until the end time?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, it says until the time of the end. The end of what? Well, I think perhaps the end of the 70 weeks. Daniel chapter 12 you’re referring to continues from chapter 9 I believe where we’ve got the 70 week prophecy which prophesies a period of 490 years and that period of 490 years is from the going forth of a Persian decree to release the Jews to go back to Jerusalem from their Babylonian exile over 5 centuries before Christ from that point to the coming of the Messiah is said to be 490 years. And I believe that most of Daniel, after that point, is talking about that period of time. Once again, I don’t know for sure of anything in Daniel that’s talking about the end of the world or the end times, but when he says these things are sealed up until the time of the end, I’m not really sure that we can say the time of the end, would be synonymous with the end of time. The end of time would be, of course, the end of the world, I suppose. But the time of the end, we’d have to ask, the end of what? And since Daniel has already been revealed to him, has had revealed to him that there’s this period of 490 years, I’m thinking maybe the end of that period is what’s being talked about. And that happened in the first century A.D.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Thank you. That was enlightening. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Carolyn. God bless. By the way, my lectures on Daniel, my lectures on Zechariah, my lectures on every book of the Bible, verse by verse teaching, are found for free at my website, TheNarrowPath.com.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I’ve had my nose in quite a few of those. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. All right. Thanks. Good talking to you. Bye now. Okay, let’s see here. We’re going to talk to Dawson in Jackson, Michigan. Dawson, welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello. Can you hear me okay?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 07 :
All righty. Well, I’ve listened to you for a while. It’s the first time I’ve called you. I’ve got a very simple question, and then I’ll hang up and take your answer. Fine. I just want to know, how do I walk in the Spirit? And that’s my question.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Well, that’s a very good question, a very pertinent one. I appreciate your calling. Yep. Thank you. All right. Well, walking in the Spirit, of course, is something that every Christian is expected to do, but how do we do that? We’re told in Galatians 5.16 that we should walk in the Spirit so that we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Well, that’s a good goal, to not fulfill the lust of the flesh. How do we do that? He says, I say, again, I say, walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. That’s in Galatians 5.16. And then in Romans chapter 8 and verse 4, Paul says that we, in our lives, we fulfill the righteous requirements of the law when we walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. So we’re told to walk in the Spirit, and it will result in our living a godly life. In fact, I believe every moment that we are walking in the Spirit, we are living a godly life. We don’t walk in the Spirit all the time, as we should, unfortunately, and therefore we sometimes stumble. But we are supposed to perfect the habit of walking in the Spirit at all times and therefore living free from this power of the flesh and its domination over us. So how do we do that? Well, the first thing, I think, is we really need to be filled with the Spirit. I mean, that’s where Jesus said you’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you’ll be my witnesses. He said in Luke chapter 24, he said, tarry in Jerusalem until you’re endued with power from on high, the promise of the Father. He’s talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them at Pentecost. Now, I believe what happened to the disciples at Pentecost is the common privilege of all Christians today. who desire it. It says in Acts 2, I think it’s verse 39, Peter’s talking about it. He says, For the promise is for you and for your children and for as many as are far off and as many as our Lord shall call. So, I mean, everyone that God calls, everyone who’s far off either in time or geography from Jerusalem in the first century, that promise is for them all. Namely, what promise? He says, repent and be baptized, everyone you view, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. for the promises to you and your children, as many as are far off, and so forth. So the promise is the giving of the Holy Spirit. Now, the thing is, I believe that there’s different, what should we say, I usually say different kind of relationships that people have with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God’s Spirit, is Him. And I believe that everyone who’s born again, the Holy Spirit has come to live inside of us. But the Bible also speaks of those who are Christians but who yet need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And that’s why Paul in Ephesians 5.18 tells Christians who already have the Holy Spirit, he says, be filled with the Holy Spirit. And I believe that being filled with the Spirit is that fullness that provides the power to live, you know, to overcome sin, to overcome the flesh. And I believe we see a lot of people who are born again but who do not succeed very well in overcoming the flesh. And it must be, according to the Bible, that they are not walking in the Spirit. So how do we do that? Well, first you have to be filled with the Spirit. And how’s that happen? Well, in the Bible, Jesus said that the spirit is given to those who ask God for for him. There’s indications in Galatians that the spirit was given to them through faith. So we have to ask with faith in many cases in the New Testament. We read of people being having hands laid upon them. to be baptized or filled with the Spirit, though we don’t read of it in every case. So I can’t say that’s an absolute necessity, but that’s a normative thing often in the New Testament. And once we have been filled with the Spirit, we need to walk daily in the Spirit. Now, what does that mean? Well, what’s the metaphor of walking mean? Of course, it’s not really talking about literal walking, like walking across the room or walking across town. Walking is a metaphor for living. And every moment is like a different step, or every decision we make is a different step in a journey that we’re walking on. So every step has to be taken in the power of the Spirit. I believe if you read Romans 8, you’ll find that just like regular walking, a person walking in the Spirit needs to be guided by the Spirit. When you’re walking, you need to have some kind of guidance. If your eyes work, that works well. If you’re blind, you have to have some other way of knowing which direction you’re going and whether you’re about ready to step off a curb or go against a red light or something. I mean, I’m always amazed that blind people can manage those things. It’s wonderful that they can. But the only way I know at this point in my life how to guide myself is through looking, looking and seeing, being guided by, you know, my target that I’m aimed at. And so to be guided by the spirit is part of what it means to walk in the spirit. And then, of course, to walk in the power of the spirit. I see these two points made by Paul in Romans 8 after he talks about walking according to the Spirit in verse 4. He says this. He said in verse 13, he says, By the Spirit you do it means that you’re, of course, being enabled to by the power of the Holy Spirit. You can’t destroy your own flesh. By flesh, he’s not talking, I think, about doing harm to your physical body. He’s talking about following the desires of the body, the deeds of the body, the flesh, the fallen behavior. And then the next verse, it says, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. So being led by the Spirit and being enabled by the Spirit to overcome sin and the flesh are, I believe, what it means to walk in the Spirit. Now, this is a large subject that can be unpacked in great detail. And I would recommend a book I’ve written. It’s free. You can listen to it for free on audiobook from my website. It’s called Empire of the Risen Son, Book 2. There’s two volumes, obviously. Empire of the Risen Son, there’s Book 1 and there’s Book 2. And there’s several chapters in a row in Book 2 about walking in the Spirit. There’s a whole chapter about being led by the Spirit. I think it starts around, let’s see, Book 2, Chapter 5, which is a chapter called Walking as Jesus Walked, which is about walking in the Spirit. And then there’s also a walking in the power of the Spirit. This is the next chapter, chapter 6. I’m looking at it right now. Obviously, I’m leafing through. And then chapter 7 is being led by the Spirit. So, obviously, I mean, these are the things you’re asking about. How do we walk in the Spirit? Well, the whole teaching of Scripture is about that. And those chapters in that book are answering that question in scriptural detail. So rather than trying to cover the whole Bible in one answer, let me recommend that you go to thenarrowpath.com. At thenarrowpath.com, there’s a tab that says Books. When you go there, you’ll see pictures of all of my books, including Empire of the Risen Sun, Book 1 and Book 2, both very valuable books, I feel. And I’ve often said of all the books I’ve written or ever will write, they are the most important. And this is in Book 2, Chapters 5 through 7. The audio books are there. I mean, you can buy the books, hard copies, but for free you can listen to the audio books. So there’s a place to click on there and you can listen to them so you don’t have to buy them. Because I’m not a book salesman. I don’t care if anyone buys my books or not. But I hope they’ll read them or hear them or something, somehow get that information. So that’s what I would recommend, to go to thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says books. And then, you know, read those chapters. Empire of the Risen Sun, Book 2, Chapters 5 through 7. or listen to them. I hope that’d be helpful. Okay. Let’s talk next to Mark in Clifton park, New York. Mark, welcome to the narrow path.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you for having me, Steve. How are you?
SPEAKER 02 :
Good. Thanks.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good. All right. Was queen Vashti justified in disobeying King Xerxes request to have her with him?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, he didn’t apparently think so. Um, You know, I don’t know what God thought about it because, frankly, I’m not really sure I know what his request was. Some people claim, and I think this goes beyond what the Scripture says, that he was asking her to come out exposing her body in such a way as to elicit, you know, lust for his guests. He’s showing off his wife with her great body and looks. And… and that he was asking her to be inappropriately immodest, in which case I would think she had grounds to say no to that. We don’t read that that’s what he’s asking. Some teachers suggest that. All we really read is that he wanted to have her come out and meet his guests because he did want them to admire how beautiful she was, but that doesn’t mean she was to come out immodestly dressed. And therefore, if that’s the case, then his request was not necessarily inappropriate. So, you know, I don’t know how God felt about it. The main thing is the story doesn’t really evaluate it from God’s point of view. It just says that’s why the king divorced her and sought another wife, who turned out to be Esther. Hmm.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi. All right. You’re right. You’re right. Okay. I get it. I get it. It’s not the main gist. It’s not consequential, but I was curious, so I appreciate it. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Mark. Thanks for your call. Good talking to you. Yvette from Tampa, Florida. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi. Yvette, are you there? Is your phone silenced or something? Oh, well. I’m going to have to move along if you don’t answer. And you’ve been waiting a long time. I always hate to move. Can you hear me now? There you are. There you are, yes. Just in time. I was about to move on. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, no. Thanks for taking my call. I just have a quick question. In the Bible, it says that once you get divorced, you cannot remarry. Do you think that applies to a divorce due to physical abuse?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, there’s a few places that speak about divorce in the Bible. Of course, there’s the Old Testament. It has a couple of places. Deuteronomy 24, where it would appear that a woman who’s divorced by her husband is free to remarry. Then we have the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus spoke of this actually twice in Matthew. Once is in Matthew 5.32 and the other is in Matthew 19.9. And in both places he seems to say that if a man divorces his wife, apart from the cause of adultery, or he says fornication, but then he causes her to commit adultery or if he remarries, he commits adultery. So obviously, you know, the situation he envisages is a divorce, but where there’s no freedom on the part of the man or the woman to remarry. But he mentions an exception there. He says anyone who does this for any cause other than fornication is guilty of doing this. So it sounds like it’s saying that, you know, you’re not free to remarry if you are divorced, if you divorce someone else on the grounds that is less than their marital unfaithfulness. On the other hand, it implies that if the divorce takes place because of marital unfaithfulness, sexual unfaithfulness, then it’s a different ruling, and presumably it means they could get married. Now, of course, sexual fornication is not the same thing as physical abuse. We also have what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7, verses 12 through 15, where Paul seems to say, that a Christian man or woman who’s married to a non-Christian partner should stay in the marriage unless the non-Christian partner insists on not being in the marriage anymore. Now, I would say that in some cases, a man who simply abuses his wife and does not behave as a partner at all might be seen as one who is not content to dwell as a partner to her. And Paul said, if the unbeliever departs, the brother or sister, meaning the man or the woman in that case, who did not depart, are not in bondage. And I think that would suggest a freedom to remarry. Now, to make a long story short, divorced people are not free to remarry unless, as Jesus put it, there has been something like adultery in the marriage. And then the innocent party could seek a divorce. Paul is talking to a slightly different situation where there’s a believer married to an unbeliever, and he said the believer should do everything they can to remain in the marriage unless the unbeliever wants out. If the unbeliever wants out, then the believer is free, presumably free to remarry. Now, what about a man who’s abusive to his wife? Right. It depends on whether God sees that abuse as tantamount to the unbeliever departing, even if he doesn’t leave the house. If he doesn’t want to stay a husband, he doesn’t want a wife, he wants a punching bag. I could see that as being a case of an unbelieving husband essentially refusing to be a husband and perhaps applying Paul’s words to that situation, perhaps legitimately. If there’s any question about that, however… I would just say a woman who is suffering physical abuse should leave to a safe place and live in that safe place until her husband is safe to go back to. And if he’s never safe to go back to, then she never goes back to him. But I would, I don’t know, I would discourage her from thinking in terms of remarriage until her husband did something like cheat on her. And by the way, This is very often the case, you know, an abuser, when his wife is no longer there, ends up having affairs. I would say a woman whose husband is having affairs is very clearly free. The woman is free. If he is simply an abuser, I think she needs to get out of there, but I’m not sure if that frees her from her wedding vows. I would not consider myself free in such a case. Hey, I need to take a break, but I hope that may help you a little bit. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming up. Don’t go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be right back. Don’t go.
SPEAKER 01 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. Welcome to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you, but everything to give you. When today’s radio show is over, we invite you to study, learn, and enjoy by visiting thenarrowpath.com, where you’ll find free topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all the Narrow Path radio shows. We thank you for supporting the listener-supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Remember, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. I’m looking at a switchboard that has a couple of lines open right now. So if you call now, you have a great opportunity to get through and we will no doubt be able to get to your call in this remaining half hour. Do not delay, however, because those lines may fill up and you just might not be able to get in. If you want to get through, this is the time to call, and this is the number to call, 844-484-5737. I’m going to give it one more time. It’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Hank from Youngsville, North Carolina. Hi, Hank. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello there. Hi. Hi, Steve. Thank you very much. I’ve been listening to your verse-by-verse commentary on the Book of Acts. Especially chapter 27, well, the whole book is fascinating. Chapter 27, considering Paul on his last journey to Rome, my question is, in your opinion, why was Paul so severely tested? And is there anything that we could use as an example of how God deals with us in this day and age, and especially today? with his church in this day, if we take this as an example of what Paul had to go through.
SPEAKER 02 :
So, you’re saying, why was Paul tested so severely?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. All right.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’ll be glad to talk about that. All right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, thank you, answer all fear, and I appreciate it very much.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. Thank you. Well, this is of a piece with the general question of why do Christians have to suffer at all. and there are reasons for it. And Paul was a Christian, and he was a prominent one, and he suffered. Actually, one could argue he probably suffered more than any other first century Christian did. You know, we read about many of the things he went through there in the book of Acts, and he did go through a great deal. We also read a place where Paul actually begins to enumerate his sufferings. In 2 Corinthians 4, And, you know, he talks about how he’s in, he says, are they, meaning his people who are critics of him, are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths. Often from the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. meaning stone with rocks. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeys, often in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, and in perils among false brethren. In weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Now, those are his external things. And by the way, this was one of his earlier epistles. So all these things had happened fairly early in his ministry. Most of what we read in the book of Acts, especially chapter 27, that you mentioned the shipwreck there, he hadn’t even had that yet. That hadn’t even happened when he wrote these words. And yet he had already been shipwrecked, what, three times before that. So that would have been the fourth time. Yeah, why was he tested so much? Well, I have a lecture series called Making Sense Out of Suffering, and I think Paul was an example for us all to see how we need to be strong in the face of tests. We need to be obedient, even when it’s costly. Because Paul says that, for example, in 1 Corinthians 4, He’s contrasting his sufferings with the comforts and prosperity that the Corinthians are seeking for themselves. He says, we, meaning the apostles, are fools for Christ’s sake. But you, meaning the Corinthians who are living differently, you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are distinguished, but we are dishonored. Even to this present hour, we both hunger and thirst. and we’re poorly clothed, we’re beaten and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands, being reviled, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure it. Being defamed, we entreat. We have been made, as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things until now. Now he says this, I do not write these things to shame you, but as my own beloved children I warn you. So he says in verse 16, Therefore I urge you, imitate me. In other words, imitate me in enduring hardship. Paul is assuming that everybody’s going to endure hardship. And the extreme hardships he went through should cause them to not feel too hard about their own hardships. None of them are going through as many things as he has. He says, but they should accept hardship. That’s part of being a Christian. And that’s something many Christians forget, is that part of being a Christian is hardship. But why does God allow it? I mean, was God angry at Paul? The opposite is true. When Paul prayed in 2 Corinthians 12 that God would take away some of his extreme sufferings, Jesus said, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in your weakness. That is, in the trials you’re going through, Christ’s strength can be manifested through them. In 2 Corinthians 1, it’s interesting because he says in verse 8, 2 Corinthians 1.8, We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble, which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Now, here he gives us a partial answer to your question. Why did he have to go through all that? He says in verse 9, Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves already. That means so that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. In other words, Paul says, the trials I went through when I was in Asia, which are different than the other ones we’ve read about in the other passages, he says we were tested above measure, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of survival. But he said that was so that we wouldn’t trust in ourselves, but in God who can raise the dead. That is falsehood. If you have no assurance that you’re going to be able to even survive and you don’t have any power to change that fact, what do you have left to do but trust God knowing that, well, maybe I won’t survive. I’m going to die sometime. Maybe this is the time. At least. I trust God that if I die, he will raise me. Eventually, I’ll be raised from the dead. I have eternal life. And that’s one reason that Paul was allowed to suffer so much. He set an example of others who didn’t suffer as much, but probably whined more. And he’s basically saying, this is the normal course here. This is the normal course for following Jesus. Now, it’s not the same for everybody. Because obviously many of us have never suffered the things Paul has. But some Christians have in history. I mean, people like Richard Wurmbrandt, who was a faithful pastor in Romania under the communists. He spent 14 years tortured on a regular basis in a communist prison. Three of those years were in solitary confinement. And, you know, it’s a terrible thing he went through. Yet he became a great encouragement to other Christians who necessarily have to suffer, too, because in the world you have tribulation, Jesus said. But he said, in me you’ll have peace. So we live in two realms. We live in Christ where we have peace, and we live in the world where we have tribulation. Some of us don’t have very much, and some have had a great deal. But those who have had a great deal, like Paul, become an encouragement to us. Because Paul said, for example, in 2 Corinthians 4, in verse 16-18, he says, Therefore we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing. Yet the inward man is being renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment. is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we do not look at the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. He says, I feel like my body is rotting away every day, but I’m being renewed inwardly every day. And he speaks of his afflictions as light afflictions, which are but for a moment. Now, Paul’s afflictions were not light by any comparison of anyone I’ve known. They were very heavy. But he’s saying they’re light compared to some other things like the glory that is worked in us through them. In another place in Romans 8, 18, he said, I’m convinced that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that should be revealed in us. So, you know, we have the promise of eventually we’ll have no more sufferings. Eventually we’ll have no more pain of any kind, no more death. And we’ll be glorified and God will be glorified in us. And he says that makes it worth it. It says the sufferings aren’t even worthy to be compared with that glory that will be revealed in us. So why did Paul have to suffer? Well, for at least a few reasons I’ve suggested. Another probably is for his own improvement. Because to be made like Christ requires that we suffer. Because Christ did. Christ was made perfect through the things he suffered, it says in Hebrews. And, you know, I don’t think we’ll be made perfect any more easily than he was. I don’t think it’ll be a lighter course for us. It shouldn’t have to be. Christ shouldn’t have to have suffered more than we would to be perfect. But that’s what the Bible says. So if we ask, why did Paul suffer? I guess the short answer is pretty much because suffering is normal. And the more you take a stand for Christ, as he did, the more opposition and persecution you get. Paul said to Timothy, all who would live godly in Christ Jesus, must suffer or will suffer persecution. I’d recommend if this whole concept of suffering in this world as a Christian is disturbing or confusing, one of the lecture series I have, it’s a short one compared to some of them. It’s only four lectures, but it’s free at the website. You can listen to it at thenarrowpath.com. Under topical lectures, there’s a series called Making Sense Out of Suffering. It’s only four lectures, but it answers your question considerably more in detail. And that’s what I would just recommend you to consult that for a better answer, a longer answer than what I can give you right here. I appreciate your call very much. Let’s talk to Dennis from Tecumseh, Oklahoma. Dennis, welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. I have fond memories of your visit here three years ago. Oh, yeah. Here’s my question. I’ve never heard it asked before, and I hope it doesn’t fall into the category of idle curiosity. I think it is a serious question, and I know there’s no firm, clear Bible answer, but here it goes. I’d like your thoughts. It’s about, you just mentioned us being glorified along with Christ, and my question is about Christ’s resurrected and glorified body and ours. on the new earth, this body that Christ had, it said he had flesh and bones, and it had special properties, but he was three-dimensional, near as I can figure out. And with millions of people on a new earth, the kind of Hallmark card idea of You know, I’m going to walk hand in hand with Jesus along. We’ll have a long conversation. How does that work out in this semi-physical realm? Have you thought about that? You’re kind of a deep thinker. I imagine maybe it’s crossed your mind.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, I’ve thought about it many times. I don’t know the answer. You know, I think what we could say is that although I believe we will still be in time and space and that our bodies will have physical dimensions in space and so forth, yet as Jesus’ body did after he was raised from the dead, yet his body also seemed to have a different kind of relationship with space. He could appear in a spatial dimension and then disappear and then appear somewhere else in another part of the country or whatever. we don’t have a teaching in the Bible about how these bodies are going to be. And everything we know about Christ’s resurrection body comes from, you know, anecdotes for the most part and a very few things he said about it. Like when he said, touch me and feel me. See, a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me have. Okay, so he said he didn’t have flesh and bones, but he clearly was physical and could be touched. I mean, he encouraged them to touch him. but he could also seemingly defy time and space in some ways. I have a feeling that in the new creation… Things are, I mean, natural laws may be different than here in how many ways I do not know. So, I mean, I believe, you know, I don’t believe that we’ll be less accessible, that Jesus will be less accessible to us individually when we’re in our glorified bodies than now. I mean, we can all approach him now from all over the world. I don’t know. I mean, we do so partly because it’s not a spatial thing. We don’t have to go anywhere geographically or into space or something to encounter him. It’s a spiritual connection. I’m not sure it won’t be similar there, although we will also be able to see him. You know, your question, as you said, is a matter of curiosity, and I don’t know the answer. But I will say that, let’s just say if Jesus was in this world right now, ruling the world, right? You know, I’m sure that and he would welcome each of us to visit him. I’m sure that we’d all be able to do it. But we’ll also also be busy about other things, you know, just like that. I mean, if the let’s just say if the governor would welcome me anytime I wanted to come into his office to see him. And given the governor I have here in California, I wouldn’t really have any interest in seeing him. But let’s just say I did. If I did want to and he would welcome me, that doesn’t mean I’d be with him every moment in that sense. You know, I’d still have to do my work. I’d still have to maintain responsibilities and things like that. But if I could see him, you know, anytime I wanted to, that’d be a wonderful thing. I mean, I don’t know how that will be with Jesus. You’re right. I mean, we’re not told.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it’s beyond my comprehension for sure. A quick second question if you’ve got the time. Go ahead. Okay. Did you watch the Charlie Kirk Memorial? And if so, what did you think of it?
SPEAKER 02 :
I didn’t watch it. I was busy with something else, but I have heard clips from it today. And from the clips, I gather that it was quite a Christian memorial. focus, you know, as opposed to a political one. Of course, he was both a Christian leader and a political character. But it seems to me that, well, one thing I did hear, I heard the vice president say that in the last 11 days, he’s talked about his faith more than his entire political career previously. And someone like, what was it, Marco Rubio, who preached the gospel. You know, he actually talked about it. Jesus came, he died for our sins, rose again, he’s gone, he’s coming back. You know, he… And I don’t know, I mean, Marco Rubio might have always believed these things, but I don’t know of any time in his political career where he stood up and preached those things. And the thought I had was we might have a lot of maybe previous to this nominal Christians in government office, a lot of them, but who’ve never really been very sold out or never outspoken or, you know, whatever. who may just come out and be more bold from this point on. You know, Paul said when he was in prison in Rome, he wrote to the Philippians, he said there’s a lot of brethren who, because of his suffering, have become much more bold in coming out and preaching their faith. And I was thinking, you know, maybe God is kind of just giving these politicians who’ve always claimed to know him, an opportunity for them to realize that, well, maybe I haven’t been as sold out as I should be, in contrast to Charlie. Now, I’m not going to make Charlie out to be the greatest Christian in the world, but I think he was a good one. You know, I don’t share all his theological views and things like that, but I think he was a true and good Christian man and a very good example in many respects to the youth and to older people like us, too. But I would say that it may be that by the death of one political figure, although he didn’t hold political office, he was definitely a political figure, and maybe Charlie, among our political figures who profess Christ, he might have been the one who was most ready to go, most ready to see Jesus. But it may draw… nominal Christians in office to come out more, I mean, just to challenge themselves to be more consistent Christians. I don’t know to what degree that will happen, but from the speeches, I heard it sound like that might be happening in some of their cases. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you, Greg. I encourage you to catch the rest of it, and we can talk more.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Dennis. God bless. Let’s see here. We’re going to talk to Tim from Worcester, Massachusetts. Tim, welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. How are you? I really appreciate your show and all that you do. My question is in regards to the Dead Sea Scrolls. And I guess my main question is, are there any parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls that seem to challenge or maybe even instead confirm the Bible that we read today? Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I don’t think so. I mean, there’s a sense in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were very helpful in confirming the text of the Old Testament for us because everybody knows we don’t have the original writings from the hand of Moses or Isaiah or David. You know, we have copies of copies of copies of copies. They’ve been copied over the centuries. And, you know, one assumes that in the process of copying hundreds of times the same document, little changes may enter, and they may even accumulate into great changes. And eventually we might have some significantly changed documents that we don’t know about, but we’ve lost some of the integrity of the documents through the process of this kind of transmission through time. But to quantify it or to know how much that is the case is not always possible. But until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the late 1940s – the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament that were available to us in Hebrew were the Masoretic Text. And the Masoretic Text dates from like a thousand years after Christ, which means at least 1,500 years after the Old Testament was written. So, you know, we had like a 1,500 year gap between the writing of the Hebrew Bible and the the oldest manuscripts available to us. And one could argue, well, an awful lot of changes could have happened in 1,500 years of copying, so we can’t even be sure how accurate our Hebrew manuscripts are in terms of the originals. Well, when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, of course, they were written before the time of Christ, so they chopped off at least 1,000 or 1,100 years of the gap between the time of original writing and our oldest manuscripts. The Dead Sea Scrolls became our new oldest manuscripts, and they’re only within a few hundred years, relatively few hundred years of the time of writing of the Old Testament. Now, when they were able to check those Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament against the Masoretic text that we already had, with a thousand years gap between them, which means that from the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the time that the Masoretic text was produced by scribes, a thousand years of copying had gone on. And we didn’t have any documentation of that copying, but we could compare the earlier ones, which were a thousand years earlier, with the older ones, and when we did, it turns out that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament in the Dead Sea Scrolls was about 95% identical to the Masoretic text, which still raises questions about 5%, but still, I mean, it shows that in a thousand years of copying, no more than 5% of it was altered, and the 5% that was was not anything very significant. In most cases, what we called differences were things like the word order of a sentence, not the contents of the sentence, but the word order, or the spelling of a name or a place, or a grammar being a little different. In other words, the 5% of change that had occurred was of no consequence. I mean, in the sense that it didn’t cause us to lose any of the information that we needed from it. So the Dead Sea Scrolls were very useful in that sense. Now, the Dead Sea Scrolls didn’t only contain the text of the Old Testament. There were quite a library the Essenes had or the Qumran community had in their scrolls. So there was a lot of stuff besides Bible. But I don’t believe there’s any New Testament material there because the Essenes were not Christians. though I did hear some years ago that some scholars think there might have been a fragment of the Gospel of Mark found, which would be surprising and interesting because, again, Mark was written as a Christian document, and the Qumran community were not Christians. They were Jewish in their faith. But, I mean, their library might easily have contained, you know, books that weren’t from their own tradition. And I’m not sure, I’m not sure anyone is sure, but some might be, that Mark was represented in any degree in their library. If it was, that becomes, again, one of the earliest copies. of the Book of Mark in existence. I don’t think they have the whole book, but they might have had a fragment of it. Anyway, I’m a little unclear on whether that report about Mark is true or not. I’ve heard it, but I don’t study the Dead Sea Scrolls much, so it’s not something at the forefront of my studies, and I can’t be sure about that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, Steve, one last quick question. Would we, you know, as readers, be able to go into the Dead Sea Scrolls and maybe check the validity of Mark, even a small portion of it being in the Dead Sea Scrolls?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, if it’s there.
SPEAKER 03 :
We can look up on our own?
SPEAKER 02 :
I honestly don’t know. I’ve never looked for it. Of course, the Dead Sea Scrolls are written in Hebrew, so you won’t be able to read them unless you know Hebrew. But, of course, if somebody has found a fragment of Mark in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and, again, I’m not saying they have. I’m saying I heard that they had. If they have, and if somebody has translated that into English, or into Greek even, maybe it was even in Greek, then I guess that could be compared with the other manuscripts we have. I have not heard of that being done yet.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Okay. I appreciate your time, Steve. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, thanks for your call, and I’m sorry to say all my lines are full as we end the program today. My apologies, but this is only Monday. We have four more programs this week, so I hope some of you who were not able to get on today will call back hopefully tomorrow or the next day, and we can talk to you. God bless you all. You know, we’re a listener-supported ministry. Our website, as we’ve said a few times, is thenarrowpath.com. That’s thenarrowpath.com. If you want to donate to help us stay on the air, you can do so from the website. You can also write to us if you want to donate some other way. And you can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Hey, we’ll talk again tomorrow. God bless you. Have a good evening.
