This special “Best of The Narrow Path” broadcast features some of the most compelling listener calls and thoughtful biblical discussions from past episodes with Steve Gregg. The program opens with a deep theological question about God’s justice, contrasting passages from Ezekiel, Deuteronomy, and Exodus, and exploring whether God’s actions are ever contradictory. Steve explains the difference between human legislation and divine prerogative, addressing questions about Egypt’s firstborn, accountability, and God’s sovereign justice.
The conversation shifts to cosmic curiosity as Rebecca calls in to ask why God made the universe so vast and whether life might exist on other planets. Steve
SPEAKER 11 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 from Steve Gray and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 10 :
Our first caller today is Alec calling from Salinas, California. Alec, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good morning, Steve. Good morning. If I could, I just want to read three quick verses, and then I have a couple of questions. The first one is Ezekiel 18.20. It says, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. And then the second one is Deuteronomy 24.16. The father shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin. And then finally, Exodus 11.5, it says, And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die from the firstborn of the Pharaoh that sits upon the throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill. So my question is… First of all, do you see a contradiction in those three verses, and do you think that is something a just God would do?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I do think it is something that a just God did, because I believe God is just. As far as a contradiction, I don’t, because in Deuteronomy 24, this is not making a statement about all events in history, that innocent people will never die for their father’s actually many people died in every war that their fathers started, and many times children have died in wars, and that’s not just biblical wars, just throughout history. If it was a prediction that there would never be a case where a child died because of his father’s sins, then that would certainly be a false prediction. But what Deuteronomy is doing is giving legislation about how Israel was supposed to legislate penalties for criminals and God was forbidding them to execute the whole families of the children of criminals just because a man was a criminal you couldn’t kill his whole family for that and in some societies in the age or they did that kind of thing God said no you can’t do that you can only kill the guilty party and likewise in Ezekiel he’s talking about the judgment that’s coming on Jerusalem with the Babylonian invasion and he’s saying that the the Jews were saying that Well, our fathers have sinned and now we’re suffering these consequences. And God says, no, people are suffering consequences for their own sins. You’re not suffering the consequence of your father’s sins. The person who sins is going to suffer the consequences of it here. And he’s talking specifically about the judgment that God was bringing on Jerusalem in that case. Actually, those who weren’t sinning against God fled to Egypt and were not destroyed in that. So it was a prediction about this particular event. But neither of these statements are general statements that you’ll never find a child dying for his father’s sins. Actually, to tell you the truth, every aborted child often, well, not everyone, but a great number of aborted children die because of their parents’ sins. The children are innocent enough. Likewise, the children in Egypt who died, if they were infants or very young, they certainly were not dying for their own sins because they hadn’t committed any, although many of the firstborn probably were not infants and may have been adults. You know, when a child dies in a general sweeping disaster, the child dies innocent before God. And as I understand it, you know, everybody dies, whether they’re innocent or not. We’re all going to die. The best of people are going to die, and the worst of people are going to die. It’s universal. Everyone’s going to die. The question is, what is God going to do about people after they die? As far as I’m concerned, as I understand the Scriptures, children, when they die, die on good terms with God. I believe that there’s an age of accountability when a child dies before they’ve reached that age of accountability, that they die on good terms with God. So any truly innocent party who dies in a general calamity, you know, I believe dies on good terms with God if they’re really innocent. And then, you know, their eternity is really what matters a lot more than how long any of us live. I mean, if somebody doesn’t believe in eternity, then of course they wouldn’t be sympathetic toward this answer, but the Bible clearly teaches there is an eternal destiny for every person. And that being so, whatever ends up being our case in eternity is far more important than the few days we live on this earth. Now, in the case of the children dying in Egypt, this was a case of a general judgment on a nation, a partial judgment, which took only the firstborn in that case. In other cases, where God sent fire and brimstone, on Sodom and Gomorrah, of course that took out everybody, men, women, and children, and many innocents died in that case. Same thing with the flood in Noah’s day. There are many situations in the world, tsunamis and earthquakes and wars and terrorist attacks and things like that, where innocent people die, not because they’ve necessarily sinned, but because there’s a bunch of people die in one location, and they happen to be among them. Now, the words in Deuteronomy, are not talking about that kind of thing. It’s talking about how the judges of Israel are supposed to administrate punishments to criminals. And it’s made very clear that they are not supposed to punish the families of the criminals just because of the criminals’ crimes.
SPEAKER 07 :
But aren’t the first two verses showing God’s character? Shouldn’t there be like a consistency? You know, if God is telling you, this is how I want you to conduct yourself because… That is the way I conduct myself. I mean, isn’t there a contradiction there?
SPEAKER 10 :
Not exactly, because there are some, it’s like, you know, if there’s a bank being robbed or a crime being committed in progress in our town, if I pull out a gun and shoot the criminal, I’ll probably go to jail because I’m not authorized to do that. But if somebody who’s authorized to enforce the law shows up and it ends up being a gunfight and he kills the criminal, there’ll be no prosecution against him for that because he’s not me. I’m an ordinary citizen, and that person is an authorized government official, you know, a law enforcement official. God is the judge of the universe, and frankly, he decides how everyone will die and when they’ll die. An awful lot of people die due to no fault of their own. I mean, there are babies who die at birth or shortly after birth. There are good people who die, missionaries who catch Ebola because they’re trying to help people in a foreign country or people who are innocently driving on the freeway and a drunk driver hits them and kills them. These kind of things happen all the time. This is the way the world is. Now, we could say that in every case when someone dies, God could have prevented it because he’s sovereign. He can do what he wants. Or we could say, well, God has declared that everyone who has ever sinned is going to die. And this being so, the real issue is not when or how. We die, but on what terms with God we die. And as I said, God has the right to take out a whole society if he wants to. He’s God. But he’s not inconsistent in telling us not to do that. Now, if he does tell someone to do that, like he told Israel to do that to the Canaanites, God’s authorized to do that as well. One thing that we need to take into consideration is we don’t have God’s authority or his prerogatives. He does desire for us to have his character. He wants us to love even our enemies, and he loves his enemies. When he wipes out a society, it’s not because he doesn’t love people. It may seem like it, but of course at the judgment is when we’ll see what his love looks like. When people die, it doesn’t mean God was against them. Children who die, for example, like the firstborn of Egypt, if some of them were babies. God wasn’t against those babies. It was a punishment on the parents. But likewise, David lost a baby through his own adultery. You know, God took the baby, but the baby is not lost. The baby is with the Lord, I believe. So to say that God can do certain things in the administration of justice in the universe, or even since he has the authority to decide when I will die or when anyone else will die, because everyone’s going to die sometime, the only question is when, and that’s God’s prerogative, is not the same thing as saying, therefore I have the right to decide when someone’s going to die, because I don’t. I’m not God. God is in a position of governance.
SPEAKER 07 :
universe that is not paralleled by anyone else’s position i’m not a parent but i’ve heard it said that uh there was nothing more painful than than losing a child and i can just imagine uh people in egypt you know losing a child for something they had absolutely no say in you know uh well actually they did have a say in it because they could put blood on their doorposts as god said to do and then the angel would not strike their home there actually was given a warning to them
SPEAKER 10 :
that if they would do a certain thing that God commanded, and many people did it and were spared, that they would be spared. And there were even Egyptians, not only Israelites, who did that, who were afraid of what might happen, and they followed God’s instructions, and they were spared. So nobody lost a child in that particular incident, except people who just refused to do what God said, in which case they had even been warned what would happen if they didn’t. But I guess they just took their chances. and taking your chances that God’s going to not fulfill his threats is not a very wise thing to do.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thanks for taking my call, Steve.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, Alec. It’s hard on our emotions to think about these subjects, but, you know, the world is full of things that are very hard on our emotions, and we just have to kind of look at them as much as possible rationally and say, well, what’s really going on here? What’s the, you know, what principles does God operate upon? And I’ve looked at all those things a great deal, and I personally don’t think There’s anything there that reflects negatively on the character of God. Only if God would send people to hell and torture them forever when they had no opportunity to go anywhere else. That would reflect very negatively. But that people die… See, I had a wife who died when she was 25 years old. I didn’t expect that to happen. She was a good person. It was through no fault of her own. It was a careless driver that hit her. And she was killed instantly. And that was something that I didn’t see that coming. But… When people asked me if I was angry at God for that, I thought, why in the world would I be angry at God? You know, when I married her, I knew she was going to die. I didn’t know she’d die at age 25. But I knew I was marrying a mortal human being who would die someday. And that it wouldn’t be happy for me when she died. Whether she died at age 25 or age 85 or 95, it wouldn’t be happy. It’s the fate of all people. They all die. And God, I feel, has every right to decide when I will die, when my children or my wife will die. Certainly I will be sorry when they die, if they die before I do. And I was very sorry when my wife died. But I didn’t ever think that God needed to explain himself, as if somehow my family was the one that was supposed to be immune from what all people experience, namely death, nor that we have any claim on ourselves dictating how God’s going to let us die or when. The real issue is, do we die prepared to meet God? If we’re prepared to meet God, Paul said to die is gain. It’s not a crisis for the person dying, only for the survivors. As you said, it is very hard for people to lose a family member. Alec, I appreciate your call very much, and thank you for talking to us today. All right, let’s talk to Rebecca. Rebecca asked,
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, great to talk to you again. Ah, yes. My question today is, why do you think God made the universe so big, and do you think there could be life on other planets?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I mean, there could be life on other planets. We don’t know what God may or may not have done in that respect. If it was proven that there was life on other planets, it would not have any negative impact on the Christian faith. On the other hand, you know, the evidence that there is life on other planets is still I think, nebulous. We haven’t really gotten any signals from life on other planets, although the SETI project has been endeavoring to search the skies for any kind of radio transmissions from other galaxies or other solar systems and has gotten nothing for many decades. Of course, there are sightings of things that people think might be from other planetary planets, but of course, what they really are is not really known. They may be the products of intelligent life somewhere else in the universe, or they may be something else that we don’t know about that’s not being made known to the public. So I can’t really argue whether there’s likely to be life on other planets. I can say that if it turned out that there was, it would not contradict anything that the Bible says that I know of, and therefore it would not have a negative impact on our faith in the Bible. Why did God make the universe so big? Well, I’m not sure. how big it needed to be for his purposes. I guess some people think, why is the earth so small? They say, how can you think that God’s focus of activity is on such a small little particle out in the huge universe as the earth is? You know, compared to the universe, we’re smaller than a grain of sand. And therefore, to think that earth is the center of God’s activity means and relations with his creatures. It seems arrogant on the part of many people who look at the Christian view about that. Yet I would say, well, how small do you want the universe to be in order for the earth to be comparatively large? You could make the earth a million times larger than it is. It would still be a speck in the universe. I assume the earth is the size that it needed to be in order for God’s purpose to be fulfilled. Why he filled space with other planets and other stars and systems like that is not something he’s revealed to us. So I don’t know the answer to that. Size is not what determines the importance of a thing, of course. I’d rather have a large growth on my arm than a small malignant growth in my brain. The size of the thing isn’t what matters. It’s the importance. It’s location. It’s what’s going on there. And so to say the earth is small compared to the rest of the universe doesn’t tell us one thing about its importance. Man is small compared to a mountain, but a man is far more important than a mountain in the grand scheme of things, at least in terms of the progress of human history. The size of the earth in comparison to the large universe doesn’t have any bearing on Christian claims about God’s focus upon the earth, at least as near as I can tell.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, Rebecca, thanks for your call. God bless you. All right, we’re going to talk to Ken from Diamond Bar, California. Ken, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, hello. I have a biblical genealogy question. This is on Genesis chapter 5 and 11, Adam to Abraham. Now, these two chapters seem to cause a lot of emotion.
SPEAKER 05 :
Really?
SPEAKER 08 :
They are very precise, and they give extra detail and no indication of gaps, and it’s deeply concerned with numbers and ages. However, the ancient Hebrews also foremost seemed concerned with projecting perfection, fullness, with their numbering and supplying a non-breaking link from Adam to the flood. So my question is the Genesis genealogy account, is it supposed to be historical, or can we just view it as presenting a complete linkage pattern with perhaps the word son, meaning descendant?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. Well, it’s… It has been taken both ways, and you mentioned it’s an emotional subject. I’m not sure who would find it an emotional issue to dispute whether any generations are left out or not. I personally don’t think any generations are left out, and it looks to me as if it’s meant to be a complete genealogy. But I’m very much aware of the fact that begot… some people say, means not just simply to become the father, but to become the ancestor of somebody. And so if it says at such and such an age, so-and-so became the ancestor of someone else, but he did so by begetting the grandfather of that person or something, and thus in doing so became the ancestor, I can see that people could argue that. That doesn’t seem very natural to me. It doesn’t seem like a natural way of understanding it. On the other hand… I can’t see why I would get emotional if somebody had a different view than I had on it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. Okay. I guess it’s the chapters where someone wants to age the earth or age how long ago Adam was.
SPEAKER 10 :
I realize that. That’s the whole reason for the argument is to put the creation of Adam further back and than the 6,000 years that the genealogies would suggest. But again, that’s even something I’m not sure why anyone would get emotional about. Why would I care if Adam was created 6,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago? I mean, I have an opinion, but if someone differed from my opinion, I can’t imagine what would be at stake.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, okay. So there’s no reason for those two chapters to really be controversial, right?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I mean, controversial, I would say the passages seem pretty clear. But if somebody says, you know, I’m seeing a possibility of taking it a slightly different way, and if they’re doing it honestly, even if I think they’re making a mistake, I can just say, okay, you can see it that way if you want to. I don’t see why it has to be a big controversy.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, and something very related. I’ll be quick. I don’t know if there’s anyone else on the line. This is just something that occurred to me. Okay, you have the 70 weeks of Daniel. Now, 7 is the numeric symbol of perfection. 10 is the numeric symbol of fullness. Why can’t that be explained as really a prophecy of 69 weeks? with the one extra week added on just to reach that so-called magic hole 7 and 10.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, in other words, the prophecy really is fulfilled in 483 years with the coming of Christ the first time. Correct. And because that comes so close to 490 that it’s just rounded up, to make it 70, because that’s a nice round number, just like we might… Well, some people believe, for example, that in the book of Judges… where every judge is said to have ruled for 40 years and then died, except for Gideon, who ruled for 80 years and then died. Some people say, well, isn’t that coincidental that 12 different judges would all come to power and die after they judged Israel for 40 years and not 41 or 39 or any number of that? And then, of course, Saul reigned for 40 years and died, and then David reigned for 40 years and died, and Solomon reigned for 40 years and died. So it does, you know, it almost begins to look like a round number, like meaning a generation. And there are people who suggest that to be the case. Again, I don’t have the, I don’t have enough knowledge, I don’t know if any of us do, to know that this was not a literal number. They could have, it could have been literal in every case. It seems very coincidental, unless, of course, it’s providential. If God wanted them all to be 40 years, then it would be 40 years. But, There are people who take some of these things as round numbers. And so the same kind of person might understand the 70 weeks simply to be rounding it up from, you know, it really was 69 sevens, but that’s so close to 70, and 70 would be such an important symbolic number that they just round it up. Again, I don’t see a need to explain it that way. I’ve got no problem with the 70 weeks being literal. But… Once more, if somebody saw it a different way, it’s not one of those things I could easily get excited about.
SPEAKER 08 :
It would get rid of that awkwardness of stretching it out to the stoning of Stevens or to 70 AD or either 2000 plus year gap. Yeah, if you make it a literal 70 weeks, you do have to explain…
SPEAKER 10 :
what happened to the last three and a half years after Messiah was crucified? And you’re right. Some people would suggest that that takes us up to the stoning of Stephen or to the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Some might say there’s a short gap from there until the three and a half years of the Jewish war ending in 70 AD. And some people make, of course, a huge gap of 2,000 years between the 69th and the 70th week. There’s all kinds of conventions that people use for this kind of thing. And some of them, I think, are more tolerable. than others but it does create a difficulty no matter which view you take and so i guess the question would be which difficulty are you willing to live with right okay let you do it okay ken thanks for your call good talking to you i appreciate your call today all right our next caller is um dale from oregon and we’re going to be taking a break at the bottom of the hour if we have to interrupt we’ll take you again at the beginning of the second half hour but go ahead
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, thanks, Steve. Your earlier conversations were on divorce. I have a question on the other side. What are the implications in marriage as far as the need for a state-approved document, or can you just take your vows before God to be married?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, first of all, the Bible does not require a state document for marriage at all. And I’ve often thought that it was a mistake that the church made in joining itself with state power to allow the state to license marriages and divorces for the simple reason that, of course, the state back then understood what marriage and divorce was back in the English common law. Nowadays, the state has no idea what marriage is. Obviously, they’ll marry people of the same sex. They’ll marry people who have been wrongfully divorced. They’ll marry anyone who wants to be married, frankly, nowadays. And they’ll grant divorces to anyone who wants to be divorced. So, in other words, the state doesn’t have the competence to license marriages and divorces, and they’ve proven it by not even knowing who they should marry or who they should divorce. However, I don’t think it’s wrong to get a state license if you get married, but the Bible does not require it. The Bible does not require that the state be involved at all in marriage. Some people choose it because they feel there’s some kind of legal protection, but the state won’t protect it. The state does not protect marriage. And so, you know, in biblical times, people not married by the state They were married by the community, by their parents. The parents of the bride and the parents of the groom would agree to the marriage, and they’d have a public ceremony with the whole village or their friends. I think marriages should be witnessed, preferably by the entire families of the couple, maybe even by the whole church. But I don’t think that the state has to be allowed involved in the situation. All right, we’re going to be taking a break in about a minute. I thought maybe, okay, I’ve got a few seconds before the music starts playing. Some of the stations that carry this program take only the first half hour, but we do go on for an hour. And if you’re listening to a station that drops the second half hour, you can still hear it if you go online at our website, thenarrowpath.com. You can hear the whole program streamed from there. You can also get the app for your phone from the normal places you get your apps, and it’s thenarrowpath.com is the app, and you can hear the program live or later from your phone every day that we’re on. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry, and if you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to us at thenarrowpath, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. We do get enough support to stay on, but you might be not surprised to know that we don’t have as much support as some of the bigger programs have, partly because I do say things that people don’t like once in a while. If you’d like to keep the program on, you may want to consider it. Or you can donate from the website if you wish, which is thenarrowpath.com. Those of you who are staying with us, please stay tuned for 30 seconds, and we’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 12 :
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 today but everything to give you. When the radio show is over, go to thenarrowpath.com where you can study, learn, and enjoy with 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 listeners supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. See you at thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 11 :
This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is pre-recorded.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 from Steve Gregg and The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 10 :
Dale, from Oregon, we were just talking to, are you still there?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, I am. I have a further question.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
If I were to want to say my vows before God and not have the license, would that have to involve a pastor? Would his license be in jeopardy to say the vows without having a state-approved license? Or what process would you suggest to go through to be married without a… state license?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, first of all, the Bible doesn’t say that anyone in particular has to officiate. I think that Christians, when they get married, should get married before a Christian fellowship. I mentioned before our break that I think their parents on both sides should be there and approving, if possible, their family and friends. But But I think that a marriage is adding a family to the body of Christ. Even if the two individuals were already in the body of Christ, they’re now going to be a family in the body of Christ. And the body of Christ has every reason to have an interest in hearing the vows made so that they can hold the couple accountable. Now, the person who’s up front, if there’s someone officiating, does not have to be a minister, right? We don’t have any such thing as ordained ministers in the Bible, not the sort that we think of now as ordination. There are people, of course, that the apostles laid hands on and made elders out of them, but the Bible doesn’t say that they had to be involved in the weddings. Although in the second century, Ignatius, one of the church fathers, the bishop of Antioch, he actually wrote in his letters that people should not get married without a bishop present. But he didn’t think they should take communion or be baptized or do much of anything of importance without a bishop present. And he was certainly going beyond Scripture in that. I can’t see any reason to object to having a minister do it. And when I was married, I had a minister do it, although I didn’t feel it was absolutely necessary. I just think, why buck that particular tradition? If I recognize a man as a minister of God and I’m making vows before God and before a church, You know, there’s certainly nothing wrong with having a minister do it. Now, of course, if a man’s not a minister, there will be no option of getting a state license unless he’s a judge or a seat captain. But I think that, you know, as far as a minister risking his license by marrying somebody and not going forward and getting the court to approve it, I don’t know that there’s any such risk. A man who cared about that might look into it. Of course, there’s nothing in our land that forbids people simply to live together without a marriage license. People do it all the time. In fact, I think the majority of couples are doing that now. being living together without a marriage license. I don’t think it’s right. I believe it’s a sin to live together unmarried. But the state doesn’t require a license to live together. So if that couple, foregoing a marriage license from the state, nonetheless allows the church to license their marriage, as it were, to hear their vows and give their approval, I would think that is every bit biblically as sound. I’ve said for many years, probably as long as I’ve been on the air, which is about 20 years now and longer, that I think the church should be licensing its own marriages, because the church has a different standard for what a marriage is than the state has. And the state’s license doesn’t really count for anything, except for some kind of legal thing. It doesn’t have any moral value, because the state, again, will marry people who aren’t even eligible for marriage, according to Scripture. And they’ll divorce people who aren’t eligible for divorce, according to Scripture. So the state really is absolutely incompetent when it comes to the issue of marriage and divorce. It has become more so in just the past few years. So I think the church is going to be sorry if they link their marriages too closely with those that the state approves of. And there are many people who are saying the same thing I’m saying, although I was the first person I knew that said it because I was saying it decades ago. But I’m now hearing more mainstream people saying, you know, the church is going to have to pretty much have their own, you know, religious ceremony, covenant that’s not related to the state if we’re going to avoid, for example, marrying same-sex couples or whatever. But as far as your own desire to do so, I would just say, If there isn’t a minister you know, if there is a minister, if you’re in a church and there’s a minister in the church, I think if he wants to do the ceremony and wants to do it the way you want it done, then I think that would be fine and good. If he doesn’t want to, then the Bible doesn’t say that there has to be a minister there. But, of course, the more you deviate from the customary way of getting married… the more you’re going to raise eyebrows about your marriage in the future from people. And if you don’t mind that, then if you just want to go by what the Bible says, I believe that you make vows to each other that are witnessed. And I think the more witnesses, the better, because to tell you the truth, the purpose of witnessing somebody doing their vows, the purpose of going to a wedding, is not just so you can have champagne and dance afterwards. The reason you go to a wedding is to hear two people make a solemn, lifelong commitment to each other, sworn in the name of God, and holding them accountable to it. The more people who are willing to hold them accountable to it, the safer that marriage is going to be when they are tempted to break it up. And almost all people, at one time or another, have some measure of temptation to break their wedding vows. I’m very thankful in a marriage where I’ve never had that temptation, but I certainly know of very few marriages where there’s absolutely no temptation whatsoever in that area. So when there’s temptation to break the vows, that’s where the people who heard those vows are supposed to knock on your door and say, hey, you can’t get out of this. We heard you promise God, and we heard you promise your spouse. No doubt your spouse would never have agreed to have children with you, if they’d known you were lying when you made that oath. And you, you know, the children are now going to be endangered. And anyone who says that children are not endangered by divorce is simply like an ostrich with their head in the sand. Although ostriches don’t really put their head in the sand, this person really does have their head in the sand. If they think that children are not negatively affected by divorce, they always are. And some of them disastrously so.
SPEAKER 09 :
So anyway… A couple of other just thoughts that I’m arguing, because I agree with you, but arguments that have come to me. Well, if they do that, then you’re not abiding by the laws of the land, and we’re to abide by the laws of the land. The other thing is, what kind of an example are you setting to those around you if you don’t… have a marriage license and you get married.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, if anyone’s concerned about that, then there’s not much problem getting a marriage license because anyone who wants to can get one these days. But as far as abiding by the laws of the land, there’s no law of any land in the western hemisphere that I know of today that requires people to get a marriage license before they live together and have kids. There’s no law forbidding anyone who wants to live together and have kids together. So if you don’t get a marriage license and you live together and have kids, you’re not breaking the laws of the land. You may be breaking the laws of God if you have not been married in his sight. And being married in his sight is not at all the same thing as being married in the sight of the state.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. And in this case, there’s no, I mean, they’re older people and there’s no children involved. It’s made more for a financial decision. And people have said, well, if you trust God, you wouldn’t be worried about your finances. But if they get married, they lose a portion of their finances. Okay. Don’t get married. They continue to have a plan.
SPEAKER 10 :
I’ll tell you something slightly humorous and maybe a little shocking. I knew a couple that were happily married and are still happily married. And about 20 years ago, they got a legal divorce, though they never moved out. They never ended their marriage because there was a marriage penalty on taxes. And it happened at the time. I think Bill Clinton was the president at the time. And they objected to putting more money into his programs, and so they thought, well, we’ll file as two single people. Now, obviously that’s kind of shocking, and I’m not saying that’s a good thing to do, but I understand the mentality of people who say, listen, a legal paper of marriage only has tax ramifications. It doesn’t have anything else anymore. It doesn’t have anything else anymore. You can have two people who are not at all able to marry inside of God who get a marriage license from the state. And you can get two people who have no right to be divorced getting a divorce from the state. But, of course, we have an awful lot of people who don’t think outside the box, and they don’t think biblically. They think instead of traditionally, and you’re going to find some people would object if you don’t have a marriage license and you’re married in some other way. I guess that’s just something you’ll have to weigh the risks about.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Thank you so much. I agree with you, and you just reinforced my mind, but I think it’s more the traditional church or the traditional thinking that… is arguing with… It is.
SPEAKER 10 :
It is the traditional thing. But I’ll just tell you in my own case, I have believed this way for decades. But when I got married, I was… about six years ago, a little less than six years ago, we got a marriage license anyway because we were concerned about the testimony. We knew that there are people who are just wrapped up in such tradition, and we found no harm in it. We considered that that’s not what makes us married. What makes us married is that we made a vow before God, and we’ve got to keep that vow whether the state requires us to or not. But we got a license anyway simply to avoid offense, and that may be something you should pray about too.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Thank you so much, Steve.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right. God bless you. Bye now. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have a website, thenarrowpath.com, where you can avail yourself of hundreds of resources that are free. Everything we offer there is free. Now, you can find my books mentioned there, but we don’t sell them. We don’t sell them, but someone else does. I wrote a book many years ago back in 1997, which is still in print, uh… from thomas nelson publishers it’s uh… called revelation for views a parallel commentary and uh… in in twenty thirteen i wrote a book on the three views of hell called all you want to know about hell three christian views of god’s final solution to the problem of sin these books both are published by thomas nelson and are both for sale but not by me because uh… it’s one of my convictions that we don’t sell anything in this ministry uh… but thomas nelson sells them and so you can get a christian book dot com if you want to or Amazon.com or preferably go to a local Christian bookstore and order it so that those people can stay in business if possible. Okay, let’s talk to Reggie from Des Moines, Washington. Hi, Reggie. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good afternoon, Steve. I just had a simple question about the earlier callers and the idea of getting married in the eyes of God and surrounded by Christians versus the legal governmental fashion and having it done with someone with a license. But it sounded like there was kind of a monetary impetus for doing so by the one gentleman caller. And wouldn’t that put him in a position of then being a liar when you have to fill out the forms that say we’re single to the government to avoid taxes? It seems kind of like approaching the idea of marriage from the wrong viewpoint.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I would never allow financial or economic considerations to determine a thing like that if I were making a decision about it. I suppose the person could argue this way, that if they don’t have a marriage license from the state, then as far as the state’s concerned, they’re not married. Even if they tried to claim to be married, the state wouldn’t recognize it because they don’t have a marriage license. So they would have to say – they’d have to file as single – Even though they’ve had a religious ceremony, they consider themselves married. They’d have to file a single because they don’t have a marriage license. And that is confusing. I’m not necessarily recommending that people not get a marriage license. I think it’s less complex if you get one. And I think that someday churches may, as a matter of course, issue their own licensing to their own members who get married. And it may be that the state will be so far removed from any conception of marriage that And it’s thinking that Christians could ever approve that they’ll just eventually stop getting marriage licenses from the state. But that’s not the point we’re at yet because Christians still find it. There’s no real problem that I know getting a marriage license. Now, many years ago, someone told me that the laws of the land state. that if you get a marriage license from the state of California, for example, which is where I live, then any fruit of that marriage, your children, are considered to be property of the state of California. Now, I’ve heard that from a number of sources, but I haven’t really seen it on the books, so I can’t verify that that’s true. But if that is true, that would be maybe one reason for people to not want to get a license that way. But, yeah, you wouldn’t want to lie. It’s just that if you don’t have a state marriage license, then according to the state, you’re not married.
SPEAKER 04 :
Maybe we’ve reached the point where the legal form should say something, you know, married and married by what organization because, I guess… Now, with same-sex marriage, people who are those of faith may consider that the legal definition no longer sort of applies to them because it’s too broad. So it’s really sad to get into mincing words over such an idea as to be a holy concept.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and the only reason we’ve been put in this position is because marriage has been politicized. Exactly. It’s been politicized. Marriage is a divinely instituted thing. institution. God created marriage in the Garden of Eden, God defined it, God regulated it, and Christians and societies that respected Christianity have for centuries and centuries and centuries allowed the Christian definitions to prevail. But because so many political countries were considered Christian, especially in Europe, It was just a natural thing, I suppose, in people’s minds that the Christian state would license Christian marriages. But, of course, the founding of America introduced a new phenomenon, a separation of church and state. Of course, that term is not used in our founding documents, but that’s nonetheless how people understand it. So that the state now can license marriages that have nothing to do with Christianity, that is, that even violate the terms of Christianity. And that is causing, of course, churches to be put into sort of a hard position that they shouldn’t have been put into. I mean, there should never have been any attempt to redefine marriage. For a very long time, even before same-sex marriage was permitted, the state would not in any way prosecute people of the same sex who lived together. It should be that those who wanted to change the definition of marriage should have made up their own word instead of marriage and used it to define as they wish. But instead, their own desire to redefine the word marriage has put everybody else, the other 97% of the human race, in a position to have to make qualifications when they talk about what they call marriage. And it puts the state beyond the realm of being able to be trusted with the institution of marriage, protecting it. They don’t protect it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I don’t know why people had a problem with the idea of religious marriage versus civil union. We have words, and we can specify with them. But I do think it was a really helpful discussion. I do disagree just a tiny bit that I honestly think that having read about The many, many people who cite our Declaration of Independence, that the idea, when they mentioned God there, was it within the Christian realm?
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, yeah. No question. No question. Those people came from Europe, from Christian countries. And so most of them, when they said… Well, of course, they didn’t say God, but they said the Creator in the Declaration of Independence. Of course, they meant, in most cases, they meant the Christian idea of the Creator. There were some deists also among them who had a slightly different view, but I believe that it was primarily a Christian idea of God they had.
SPEAKER 04 :
and many, many of them graduated from what we would call now a seminary. So it’s really interesting. But thank you so much for the discussion, for your show, and God bless you, Steve.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, Reggie, thanks for your call. Good talking to you today. Our next caller is Randy calling from Alhambra, California. Randy, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning. I’d like to ask, how is Jesus’ power made perfect through our suffering? I’m going to go ahead and hang up and listen to your answer. Thank you.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right. Thank you for your call. Well, you’re referring to what Jesus said to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, when Paul said he had a thorn in his flesh that tormented him, buffeted him, and three times he prayed that God would take it away from him. And he said Jesus spoke to him and said, My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in your weakness. And then Paul says, therefore, I will rejoice in my afflictions and my infirmities and weakness and so forth. He says, because when I’m weak, then I’m strong. What I understand to be meant by this is that when we are strong people ourselves, we tend to depend on ourselves more than on God. We are such people as more naturally trust in that which can be seen than that which cannot be seen. Even though the unseen world is just as real, we might even argue that it’s more real than the visible world, we are accustomed to taking in reality through our senses, and they take in only the natural physical world. And therefore, it’s more natural to for us to find security in something visible. A wall built around our castle. Soldiers well trained and armed to protect us. Money in the bank. Physical health and strength ourselves. There’s all kinds, anything that we have physical that could defend us, we tend to trust in it. It’s very hard not to trust in things which provide a measure of physical and natural security. But as long as we’re trusting in something else, we’re not trusting in God. It’s really pretty much against our nature to trust in something invisible when there’s something visible to trust in. We might say, yeah, I trust God, but the money I have in the bank is really very comforting because if the economy crashes, I’m glad to know that I’ve got something laid away besides God. Well, to the degree that we trust in things that aren’t God, we are not in that measure trusting in God. The Bible says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. But we will lean on our understanding. We will lean on our wits. We will lean on our resources if we have them. And good health and physical strength, those are among the things that we lean on. If I’m healthy, I don’t feel that mortal. I feel like I’m pretty able to handle the world. But when I’m sick or weakened or… you know, in pain or something else, this reminds me that I really am not in control. I really don’t have what it takes to defend myself against all the challenges of life. I’m barely, you know, coping with my sickness by itself. And when we are weakened like this, then it becomes incumbent on us to find something to trust in, and we can’t trust in our own strength anymore because our strength is diminished. or taken from us. And that’s when Christians are more capable of fully trusting in God. I say more capable because even as a Christian determined to trust God, if I have other things besides God that I can trust in, my nature as a human being will be to look to those things first. You know, sometimes when people have exhausted all their resources, and they’ll say, well, there’s nothing left for me to do but trust God, you know, as if that’s the ultimate tragedy. Now I have to trust God because I have nothing else to trust Him. Well, unfortunately, that’s the way we often are. We can trust God in measure, even when we have things, but when we don’t have things, or we don’t have health, or we don’t have whatever it is that has really given us some sense of security, well, then we have to trust God, and we do. if we’re Christians, more than we trust ourselves, simply because we can’t put any of that confidence in ourselves anymore. When God said to Paul, my strength is made perfect in your weakness, I think one of the things he’s saying is, as long as you’re weak, you’ll realize your dependence on me. And depending on God is really what strength is. Our strength is from the Lord. He’s the one who enables us as we put our trust in Him. But if we don’t put our trust in Him, then, you know, we have our own strength and God withholds assistance until we look to Him. There’s a great verse, probably the favorite of many people, in Isaiah 30 and verse 15, which says, For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength. That is, In just putting your confidence in God and quietly resting in Him, that’s your strength. That is your salvation. And when we have something else we can put our confidence in, as I said earlier, it’s not really that natural to fully put our confidence in God. When we have been stripped of other things that have given us a measure of confidence, we sometimes don’t even realize that we were finding any of our confidence in those things until they’re taken from us. I mean, when we have good health, we hardly ever think about having good health. We’re aware when we lose it, but we’re not aware when we have it very much. And we would never say most of the time, at least we wouldn’t be conscious of the fact that I’m putting a lot of confidence in my good health and my strength. But as soon as you take that from us, then we find, wow, I was counting on that a lot instead of on God. And so God took from Paul some of his natural, I guess what we could say, confidence in himself and afflicted him with a thorn in his flesh. And when Paul wanted it removed, Jesus said, no, this is actually going to be a good thing. My grace will be sufficient for you. And there’s more to it than that. Because, of course, if you are strong and you accomplish great things for God, many people will, you know, give you the credit for that instead of God. They’ll say, well, that person’s really talented. You know, what a good singer that person is. What a good singer. preacher that is, what an intelligent debater that is or whatever. I mean, if you’re really good at something and you do the work of God with that strength visible, people are going to see that strength, that natural strength and say, man, that guy really has a lot of talent or something. Whereas if you are weak, if you don’t visibly have a lot of natural charisma or strength, and yet God uses you, the glory goes to God. Because people say, well, that’s got to be God. Because look at him, that guy, that woman. She’s not much, but look what God has done through her. And that’s, I think, also part of the reason that God’s strength is made perfect. In our weakness, his strength is more manifested in the work being done through us when we are weak than his strength is visible. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. As I mentioned, we are listener-supported. If you’d like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. It’s also possible to donate from the website, although everything at the website of value is free. And the website is www.thenarrowpath.com. And don’t forget there’s a Narrow Path app also for your phone if you want that. God bless you.
