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Join Steve Gregg on The Narrow Path call-in show as he takes listener calls on a diverse variety of complex spiritual issues. From discussing the validity of Calvinism and contrasting interpretations of biblical events, to tackling the sensitive topic of depression and spiritual health, this episode dives deep into understanding faith amidst challenging realities. Special guest listener Denny seeks insight on the Millennial Reign, while Lori’s question about the medicinal use of herbs highlights the intersection of modern medicine and spiritual beliefs. Don’t miss how each discussion brings fresh perspectives and thoughtful engagement with these significant topics.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
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, taking your calls so you can call in during this hour if you’re listening to the live broadcast, which most of our stations are carrying it live. You might be on one of those unusual stations that doesn’t carry the program live but carries it later in the day, and therefore it’s not live for you. But during the live broadcast, which is 2 o’clock… Pacific time in the afternoon and 5 o’clock Eastern time in the evening, and whatever time it is for you if you live in between those two coastlines, it’s live. And you can call in with questions you have about the Bible or the Christian faith, and we’d love to talk to you about those. Or if you’ve got some issues with something that’s been said on the program before, you disagree, Maybe you’re not a Christian and you disagree with Christianity and the Bible altogether. Maybe you are a Christian and you see some issues differently than the host. We welcome you to call in and express your differences of opinion. We’ll talk about those together. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Tonight and tomorrow night, I’m still in the Seattle area, and I’m going to be speaking in various locations. I think the meeting tonight is already full, but tomorrow night we’re meeting in a little church in North Bend, and I don’t think they’re full. I think they probably have room for more. If you want to join us, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under announcements, and you’ll see the time and place of the meeting tomorrow. tomorrow night, and that’ll be my last evening meeting before I head home from Seattle. And so you can check that out. Our website has all my speaking engagements there, time and place, and we welcome you to join us if you wish. We’re going to go to the phones now because most of our phone lines are full. Denny from Emlinton, Pennsylvania is our first caller. Denny, welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call.
SPEAKER 04 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Steve, I sent you an email a week ago. It’s called the Millennial Reign. I just wondered if you received it or not.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I may have. I can’t really recall. I’ve been teaching mornings and nights and doing radio shows every day for the last, you know, this week. And I often don’t get back to look at my e-mails on a regular basis. Sometimes people have to wait a long time before I actually see their e-mail. And frankly, sometimes I never see them because by the time I get back, there’s so many that are backlogged. The best way to get in touch with me probably is not by email. But on the other hand, it may be there. It may be in my inbox. I don’t recall.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. I really appreciate your knowledge of the Bible, and that’s the reason I sent it. It’s actually 10 pages long, you know, like 8 1⁄2 by 11.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is something you wrote?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, something I wrote. And I sent it to you because I wanted you to check for loopholes, you know, in it. Or anything, because like I said, I trust your knowledge of the scriptures.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I appreciate that. Let me just say, people often send me books they’ve written, articles they’ve written, position papers they’ve written, and they ask me to critique them. The truth of the matter is, I hardly have time to read my emails, much less large attachments and books that people send me. I don’t mean to say that they aren’t important to me. It’s just that I’ve got finite time and opportunity.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, you’re right.
SPEAKER 04 :
But, you know, if you wonder what my thoughts are about the Millennium, I have fairly thorough lectures on it, and you can listen to those, and then you’d know whether I see it the same way or not. But I have not looked at it.
SPEAKER 03 :
I have listened to it, you know, and I kind of wanted, you know, you to kind of pick it. It just seems like this is something I’ve been wanting to write quite a while. But anyways… It includes Gog and Magog and the white throne judgment. That’s how I see it, and I just want to make sure that I’m not forgetting something. That’s the reason I sent it to you, because I know, like I said, I trust your knowledge of the Bible.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I appreciate that, but like I said, I have not had a chance to see it. Perhaps I will find it when I get back to my inbox.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I wonder if you could find, or if you had a a fellow member of your church to just look at it and just maybe he could look at you because I realize you’re very busy. And that’s the reason I sent an email because I kind of stumble along when I’m on the phone here and I don’t want to take up his phone time.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I’ll try to get a look at it. Honestly, like I say, people are always sending me things to read. And my biggest problem is on my desk I have a stack of half a dozen or more books that I’m planning to read when I get around to it. These are books from things I need to read, things I feel I need to study these subjects. And mostly, I have to say, mostly eschatology is not one of the front burner things I’m reading on at this point. I mean, obviously, not that I have nothing to learn on it, but it’s just not the highest priority. So, you know, there are other things I have to read. And I don’t say any of that to discount the value of your work. I’m just being realistic. I don’t know if I’ll have time to read it. I’m a very slow reader, too. That makes it only worse. I have things to read, and I read very slowly.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I know you said, like, it takes you three minutes to say yes or no. I appreciate that. Okay, Danny.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I know it’s there now because you told me, and I’ll try to have a look at it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, thanks again there, Steve.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Danny. Thanks for your call.
SPEAKER 03 :
God bless you.
SPEAKER 04 :
God bless you too, sir. Lori in Detroit, Michigan. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks so much for your program. So here’s my question. I guess I want to get your thoughts on, so I’ve used antidepressants in the past and have found the side effects not to be favorable, so I’ve just quit taking them. On the other hand, I have experimented with edibles like marijuana edibles and recently tried a controlled dose of psilocybin my question is from a spiritual or Christian standpoint is not using these products as recreational but more medicinal do you have any thoughts on what would be like appropriate or you know just from a Christian standpoint because I do feel guilty about using these products
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Well, a couple of things come to my mind. First of all, I would say that medicinal herbs, which are also used recreationally by people to get high, I think that, of course, getting high on them is an abuse of them. But I think there are medicinal herbs that God has created for helpful things. alcohol being frankly one of those medicinal things that God created which people can abuse and And there’s nothing wrong with using alcohol if you’ve got alcohol in your cough syrup Or are you using alcohol to clean wounds or something like that? Or to disinfect things that’s a very good thing God made Alcohol as a good thing, but obviously a good thing can be abused and especially when somebody uses something recreationally simply to get high and That is not what God made these things for. He doesn’t want us, you know, vastly altering our mental state with any kind of substance if we can avoid that. Now, psilocybin, you know, mushrooms or marijuana, frankly, I’ve never used either substance. I’ve never used drugs at all. But I do know, I certainly know that marijuana has some medicinal value for some people. I don’t know what the medicinal value would be for psilocybin, but I can’t say that it has none, only because I’m ignorant. I don’t know. What I do believe is that there are medicinals that God has made to benefit man in a fallen world, to help treat problems. I mean, even Proverbs 31 tells that giving a person in agony alcohol can be a merciful thing and a good thing to do. In other words, I suppose when you’re going to cut his leg off because he’s got gangrene and you’ve got no anesthesia, giving the guy a pint of whiskey is what they used to do so that he’d feel less pain. Now, you wouldn’t want a guy to be drinking a pint of whiskey on other occasions, but in a case where it’s a merciful intervention, then maybe so, maybe so. And I know that there’s substances in marijuana that are, you know, pain relieving and so forth. And I’m not against the use of them, although I would be against using marijuana to get high. Exactly. As far as psilocybin goes, I have no knowledge of what its value is. But that’s only one thing I want to say. I want to say that, I mean, even opium, you know, is a product that comes from nature. but obviously it can be abused, but it has its good uses, too, for painkilling. So there’s that. And then there’s the other question of the nature of depression itself and what is the cause of depression. Psychiatrists have told us, of course, that depression is caused by some kind of biological condition, and that it needs to be corrected by using some kind of substances. When we have certain kinds of biological illnesses, a lot of times medications are needed to balance things out. I’m not as convinced as some people are that depression is very often caused by a biological condition. or even a genetic condition. I’m not saying it can’t ever be. I’m just saying I’m not as convinced as some people are. We live in a day where everything that makes us uncomfortable is said to be a sickness, and they always have a drug for it, even if it’s not really a sickness, because frankly, being very depressed can be an appropriate response to certain phenomena in the world, to get depressed about world hunger, or children being trafficked, and things like that. I mean, that’s a very depressing reality, and if You know, there are things that happen. You lose loved ones. You have a major loss in your life and you go through a spell of depression. That’s not a medical condition. That’s just part of the full range of human emotions and human experiences. There’s nothing evil about being depressed. Now, of course, there’s also depression that can be caused by things that are not right. like simply self-pity. You know, I just wish things were better for me. I’m so depressed. Other people have it better than I do. Life is hard. And obviously self-pity is something that needs to be corrected, but not with medications, but with repentance and with the spiritual adjustment. So obviously some conditions are caused by physiological issues. Some are not. Some are simply emotional issues. Now, unfortunately, we live at a time where it’s very common for certain doctors to just treat everything as if it’s physiological, even in cases where it may not be. So that if you’re just feeling depressed for several weeks or something or months, instead of exploring whether this is a legitimate, healthy response to certain things in your life, many times they’ll just go, here, take a few of these and you’ll feel better. You know, back when I was a kid, the Rolling Stones had a, song called Mother’s Little Helper. It’s talking about how hard it was for women to take care of their kids. So they go running for the shelter of Mother’s Little Helper, which was a pill, you know, and that was in the 60s, you know, but, you know, that’s become kind of the norm in modern times. So I’m saying that when it comes to depression, I can’t really say what the cause or the cure of any particular case of depression may be, because there may be something physiological. or there may not be, and I’m not in a position to diagnose it. What I will say is that our current medical culture is much too promiscuous in the diagnoses of physiological causes for emotional states that are really not sick. They’re not sicknesses. They’re just part of the unpleasantness of the human experience, which we all go through and we can grow through. You know, if we never had any trials, never had any disappointments, never had any depression, we’d be very shallow people and very fragile people. And God uses trials, of course, to build us up. Now, again, I don’t know your situation. I don’t know if there’s anything, I mean, people who have a thyroid problem or a hypoglycemia or some other issue like that might indeed have a physiological cause of their mental disturbances. But I actually think more often it’s probably not physiological. It’s probably just part of managing your spiritual life. And by that I don’t mean that if you’re depressed that you’re blowing it spiritually. I think Elijah was depressed spiritually. I think John the Baptist at one point was depressed in prison. I believe depression is a fairly normal experience for people who go through really hard times. And it’s not unhealthy. It’s something you endure. It’s something you grow through. It’s something you deal with, just like other things that are unpleasant in life. If it is not that, if it is really something caused by medical issues, then I’m not opposed to medical interventions of certain types. So I don’t know what’s the cause in your case.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, for me, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder years ago, and I have anxiety and PTSD. I’ve been on medication that’s prescribed, but my thought was the medications I’ve taken really don’t work for me, the side effects and so on. I’ve worked on my… spiritual aspect of helping to improve my relationship with God and so on. But I’m like, man, these other things make a huge difference in helping me.
SPEAKER 04 :
I can say that when it comes to taking something to help you with something that may be a medical condition, if there is an herbal or a natural substance that that is well known to be helpful in that situation, has no harmful side effects, I would always favor that over something that’s merely a product of the pharmaceutical laboratories. Because partly, partly because many pharmaceutical drugs, especially psychotropic drugs, you know, for psychiatric issues, a lot of those, the people who invent them don’t even know why they work. They don’t even know what they do. All they know is they’ve tried gazillions of substances on patients, and this one seemed to get some effects, so they test it for safety and market it. And in many cases, they don’t really know exactly why it works, but it works, so they sell it. But again, they are often using things like that, which they don’t know for sure what the long-term effects will be, It’s a manufactured substance. It’s not natural itself. And who knows, but that there may be unforeseen problems with it. And that can be true of natural substances, too, but much less likely, because I believe that God created natural substances. And, you know, like I said, alcohol, like marijuana. Now, I’ve never smoked marijuana or even taken any form of medicinal marijuana in any form, and I’m not inclined to do so. But I do understand that lots of people have gotten kinds of relief from it. I do consider marijuana a natural substance. It’s not created by man.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I will tell you just to break in very quickly because now you have to go. You know, for years, I had smoked pot for years, and I quit. Like last year, I gave it up to strengthen my spirituality. And I’m like, man, I don’t want to go back to getting high. I just want to… reduce my anxiety, and just use it very, very controlled. So I guess that’s what I’m asking. Should I just not do it? I know you can’t tell me, but it’s like I just wanted your view, and I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER 04 :
The truth is, of course, I’m not in the position to diagnose what is causing your depression. And therefore, without knowing that, I can’t tell you what the right answer is to it. I do know, again, like I said, much of it is spiritual. Some of it may be physiological in some cases. And the truth of the matter is, if I told you not to take anything and then you did something crazy like killed yourself, I could be sued because I don’t have any license to give medical advice, which is unfortunate. Or maybe it’s fortunate because I’m not qualified to give medical advice. But I would say… If you’re going to take something, if I had to take something, and I had the choice between something natural and something that’s just pharmaceutical, I would favor the natural. But I’ve been depressed before. I’ve had many things in my life that are worthy of being depressed about, but I don’t live in depression. I mean, there are seasons of depression and depression. and other things, because that’s the full range of human experience. But to my mind, our mental well-being is largely based on our spiritual well-being. But where there is a physiological cause, then there may be a physiological response needed. So you’re going to need someone who knows more about your situation than I do, and probably who knows more about the general subject than I do. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your help. All right. And I’ll just give this one last thing. I know me. I don’t know what everyone has to do. I know what I would do, but I’m kind of a stubborn guy. If I was very depressed for a long period of time, instead of taking any substance for it, I’d be seeking to draw nearer to God. And I’m not saying that that’s what you’re lacking. I’m just saying I would always take a spiritual approach over any kind of medicinal approach if that was an option to me. And it usually is. But I’m not saying everyone has to do what I would do. Like I said, I’m a stubborn purist. And I don’t even take medications for much of anything. I hardly, you know, I don’t take medicines. Not that I would never do it. I’m ill-disposed, so I would also be ill-disposed to take anything for depression or anything like that. But that’s just me. That’s not medical advice.
SPEAKER 07 :
Great. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 04 :
Have a good holiday. God bless you. You too. Bye now. All right. Let’s talk to James in Memphis, Tennessee. Hi, James. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello, Steve.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you for taking my call. Look, in 2 Luke 24 and 13, there are the two disciples that are on their way to Emmaus, and they are joined by Jesus. One disciple is named, and the other is not named. Do you have any idea of who that disciple would be?
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I don’t know who that other disciple is. It is interesting that Luke names one of them. He says there’s two of them, and he says one of them was Cleopas, you know what I mean, or whatever his name was. And he doesn’t say who the other one was. Now, if this was in the Gospel of John, I would see this as an indicator that it was John himself, because in his Gospel… He often names all the disciples except himself. And he’ll just call himself another disciple or the other disciple or the disciple that Jesus loved or something like that. John never mentions himself by name, even in stories where he was a player in the story. That was John’s method. Luke probably was not doing that. Some people thought it was Luke. Some people thought since John did that, maybe Luke did too. He talked about two disciples, gives one of their names and not the other one. Some think, well, maybe that was Luke. But There’s good reason to believe that Luke was not around Jerusalem in those days. He was a Gentile. He probably was not in Jerusalem or Emmaus or anywhere like that. He’s not really introduced into the book of Acts until Paul’s second missionary journey up into Asia Minor and stuff. So I don’t think it was Luke. But if it was not Luke, we have no real indicator of who it was or even why Luke didn’t mention him by name.
SPEAKER 09 :
Steve. Yes, sir. Would you consider John 19 and 25?
SPEAKER 04 :
John 19 and 25? Yes. Do I need to turn there, or can you tell me what it is?
SPEAKER 09 :
There are three women by the cross with Jesus being crucified.
SPEAKER 03 :
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER 09 :
There are three Marys named Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary The sister of Mary. One Mary says she’s the wife of Cleophas.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, so this could be the wife of one of those disciples. Yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Had you considered that maybe this unnamed disciple was Cleophas that’s named, and this Cleophas the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus? Could it possibly be that this woman, this unnamed disciple, was Cleopas’ wife, and they’re both returning home? And they’re joined by Jesus?
SPEAKER 04 :
I’d have to look at it again, but I believe that Luke 24 mentions that the two disciples were men. I may be wrong. Let me see here. I’m looking at it right now. Um… Two of them. Okay, it doesn’t say men particularly. So maybe you’re right. That could be. I wouldn’t swear to it.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, we couldn’t swear to it, but it’s a strong possibility, being that he’s named it. There are two different Gospels, and knowing how the Spirit of God works, comparing Scripture with Scripture,
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I mean, you’re making a good point. Although the disciple’s name in Luke 24 is Cleopas, whereas in John 19 it’s spelled as Clopas, which could easily be an abbreviated form, just like Silas is short for Silvanus, for example. So it’s very possible that Cleopas was also Clopas. And so, I mean, it’s a good suggestion. I don’t know if it’s a correct one, but it’s not a bad one. So I’m not going to fight you over that one, because as far as I’m concerned, there is a possibility that you’re correct.
SPEAKER 09 :
And I was thinking that if that be the case, then Jesus, he did not… It’s not recorded that he appeared to his mother Mary, but if that be the case, he did appear to her sister. And being that Jesus was trying to downplay, you know, the mother Mary worship, we would see why he didn’t appear to it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, that’s an intriguing suggestion, and I’m not opposed to it. I’d have to give it a lot more thought and look into those passages more deeply to know whether that’s the best suggestion or not. But to me, just as I sit here, it sounds reasonable.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, thank you for taking my call, Steve.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, James, thanks for your call. Listen, we’re not done, but we have a break here. We have another half hour coming up, so don’t go away, and our lines are mostly full. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. If you’d like to help us pay the radio bills, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away. We have another half hour to go.
SPEAKER 01 :
As you know, the Narrow Path radio show is Bible radio that has nothing to sell you but everything to give you. So do the right thing and share what you know with your family and friends. Tell them to tune in to the Narrow Path on this radio station or go to thenarrowpath.com where they will find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all the radio shows. You know listeners supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg? Share what you know.
SPEAKER 04 :
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 one open line on our switchboard. If you want to call, the number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. We’re going to go back to the phones, of course, now and talk to David from Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, David. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Steve. Steve, if you’re presented with a person that’s having a problem with a drug problem or alcohol problem specifically, those two usually these days, one of them or the other form, don’t you think that presenting them to the, maybe to invite them to read from the Bible, the Gospel of John, specifically to help them with their spiritual problems, Because it is a spiritual problem that all these drug heads are on, I think, and alcoholics for the most part.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they can have a physical problem, too, because of their spiritual compromises. You know, you’re not just born addicted to drugs or alcohol, but obviously many people are more susceptible than others to becoming enslaved to those things if they use them. Other people sometimes use them and don’t become enslaved to them, but Different people have different struggles. But, yes, I believe that drug addiction and alcohol addiction begin as spiritual problems. And they remain spiritual problems, but they sometimes develop also a physical component so that you can’t, for example, just stop taking heroin and be fine with it. Unless God works a miracle, and he does sometimes. I know people who stopped using heroin and had no withdrawals because they got saved, and that’s just what God did in their life. Similarly, some people are so addicted to alcohol that they cannot really stop drinking without going through physiological DTs and problems, though other people, sometimes God just delivers them, and they don’t go through that. So it’s different for different people, but I have to say, Anyone who understands chemical addiction knows that there is a physiological aspect to it, though you would never experience that simply by behaving yourself. You discover if you have that problem by doing the wrong thing. And so, yeah, there’s always a spiritual aspect to a person’s problems with that, although sometimes once they’ve decided to get their heart right with God, and they do get right with God, They still have these physical issues to deal with. Now, you mentioned would it be best to have them read the Gospel of John. I don’t know. I’m not sure what the best part of Scripture would be. I’m not sure why the Gospel of John, more than any other part of Scripture, would address their issues. But I certainly believe in the efficacy of the Word of God, and certainly the Gospel of John is a rich book. I think that many books of the Bible, especially New Testament books, would be helpful to them. And I agree with you that there is a spiritual issue there. But the spiritual issue, once somebody has become, let’s just say, an addict, if we’d use that term, or I’d say in bondage to a certain kind of substance or sin, the spiritual issue is that they need to repent of that, of course, and they need to decide that that’s not what they want to do anymore. That’s what they want to overcome in their life, and they need to trust God to help them do that. But having made that choice, then it’s maybe a combination of things. Among those things would be spiritual warfare. Another thing would be simply self-discipline. But honestly, these days, you meet an awful lot of people who are really struggling to be Christian, and they don’t have it seems self-discipline just really is evasive to them. They have a really hard time doing it. And in that case, and I think many people would be in this case, I think they really need to have some kind of accountability and a close accountability with people who are committed to helping them beat it. You know, some kind of intervention by other members of the body of Christ, maybe some mentorship, maybe some very close supervision, maybe even rehab. I don’t know. But I mean, there’s, I do believe, ideally, a person who’s got an addiction should, and ideals are one thing and realities are sometimes another, should be able to trust God, discipline themselves, resist temptation, walk in the Spirit consistently, and not succumb to this kind of a thing. Because the Bible says God will not let you be tempted above what you are able to handle. And he will at least provide a way of escape. so that you can take that way of escape instead of succumbing. And I agree with that. I think all Christians have to agree with that. But I also would agree that we’re dumb sometimes or weak or we’re just distracted or we’re not thinking right. And for one of those reasons or some other, we forget. Or by the time we think, oh, wow, I’m in the throes of deep temptation, we realize that we passed the off-ramp a long time ago. You know, God did provide a way of escape. But we’re now in a portion of the road that doesn’t appear to have an offering. And so people do, even who are, you know, committed to following God, often have struggles with discipline and so forth. In fact, everyone does, but some have worse than others. Yeah, I think that reading John, reading the Gospels, or even more so doing so in the fellowship of a committed group of Christian friends who are not only reading and discussing the truth of God with you and implanting that in you, I think that’s good. That’s important. It’s also important, I think, for someone who’s really weak. to have the support of what early Christians had. In addition to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they had the Christian community. They had a committed body that was looking out for each other. They had shepherds who were intensely watching over the flock to make sure if there’s weak ones that they were supported and held up. Like I said, that’s ideal. I’m always in favor of the ideal. Reality is that some people don’t have that kind of fellowship. Some churches don’t do that. Some churches are not very helpful. It’s like I think the ideal is that when you become a believer, you get baptized. That’s obviously the Christian ideal. But I’ve known people who get saved listening to the radio or reading a tract And they don’t know anyone who can baptize them. Sometimes they visit several churches, and none of the churches want to baptize them unless they want to join their church. I mean, there’s the ideal, and then there’s the sub-ideal. And the modern church, in many ways, often conforms to what the sub-ideal is. So where there’s not the ideal, where you don’t have a caring community that will really lay down their lives to help you get over something that’s a life-dominated problem and help you learn to walk in the Spirit and to wage a good warfare against it, there may be other things needed. I wish there were not that need because the body of Christ should be able to handle that. We just have a very, in many respects, deficient expression of the body of Christ in many of the churches. So it may not be as simple as just say, hey, read the Gospel of John and you’ll get over your alcohol addiction. You might. And like I said, I’ve seen people who were alcoholics or drug addicts who got saved. They got dynamically saved. They were delivered instantly from their addictions and so forth. And then I’ve also known others who were equally committed in their conversion who really struggled with some things for a while and needed the help of the body of Christ, needed the help of learning certain disciplines and so forth. So it’s not a one-size-fits-all. Certainly the answer is yes. Applying the Word of God through the power of the Holy Spirit to your life, that’s the answer for everybody. But the ability to do that or the knowing how to do that is something that some people really need someone, as it were, spiritually holding their hand for a while until they learn those things. Anyway, I think your suggestion is good. I appreciate you sharing it. Let’s talk to Jan from Algonac, Michigan. I don’t know if I pronounced that correctly. Hi, Jan.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, Steve. It’s Algonac. Algonac. Thank you for taking my call. Appreciate it. Algonac.
SPEAKER 04 :
Never heard of it. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 02 :
Algonac, yep. Just a quick question. You had a caller yesterday talk about some of the bigwigs, John MacArthur, people that really push Calvinism. I’m not a believer in the Calvinistic series. But would that be considered a false teaching in God’s eyes, let’s say, if someone’s really pushing, hey, this is it, this is it, and follow this way, and we really know that John 3.16 is the way, would that be a false teaching that someone’s kind of pushing out that might, you know, let’s say it’s John MacArthur. You mentioned, hey, it’s not a problem for him because he’s in heaven. But he… Pushed the Calvinistic way his whole ministry, which I did like his ministry. He’s a great teacher. But what are your thoughts on that? I just don’t know. Yeah. I can’t come into my head. All right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure. Let me jump in here because there’s a lot of noise on your line there. Any teaching that is not true is, by definition, a false teaching. Now, false teachings fall into various categories, and so do false teachers. False teachings are inevitably taught by teachers. If the teachings are false, then insofar as the teachers teach false teachings, they are false teachers. However, I want to say this. When the Bible warns against false teachers, I don’t think it just means teachers who are making an honest mistake in their theological understanding. I think false teachers in the Bible are referring to people who are false Christians, who are teachers, as they claim to be Christian teachers. But that claim is a false one. They’re really heretics. They’re really, you know, not really submitted to the gospel. They’re really deliberately teaching what the apostles did not teach and things like that. That’s what I think the Bible refers to as false teachers. Heretics who are spreading heresy deliberately because they don’t want to submit to the teaching of the apostles and things like that. Now, we’ve got a different problem now, and that is the apostles aren’t exactly here. Now, obviously, much of what the apostles taught is very evident from the letters. In fact, I think everything we really need to know is evident in the letters. I think that anyone who really wants to follow Christ can all they need to know from what the apostles have written and what Christ has said. There are things, though, that we don’t need to know but would be valuable to know. And on those, sometimes the epistles and even Jesus’ teaching are not explicit. Or maybe a little ambiguous. And for that reason, people who are equally interested in being good teachers, Christian teachers, faithful teachers, still get things wrong because some things are less clear. And if Paul was here, we could ask him. If Jesus was here, we could ask him what he meant by that. But what we’re working from is their writings. Now, the Catholic Church thinks, yeah, that’s the problem with Protestantism. You can’t ask the apostles. We can because our pope is an apostle. All the bishops are apostles. They believe in apostolic succession. So, see, that’s the weakness of the Protestant churches because Protestants can teach almost anything and still be considered Christians. Whereas in the Catholic Church, they have a centralized authority that tells them what to think. If something’s ambiguous in the Bible, no worries. the Pope and the College of Bishops will figure it out for you. You just believe what they say. Well, that’d be fine if they were right. That is, if they were right in saying that the bishops are the apostles. The Bible never gives any hint of apostolic succession and indicates that the apostolic authority is passed down to us through largely what they wrote and by people repeating what they said. Now, what that means is there are things that we can know with certainty because anyone can read what the Bible says and say, oh, that’s obvious. No honest person could miss that point. But then there’s other things that, well, an honest person could make a mistake about this point. And there’s actually quite a few of those. But fortunately, those are not the things that determine our salvation. And in many cases, they don’t even determine much the way we live our lives. We can live a holy life believing one or another thing about this subject, Calvinism being one of them. A Calvinist can, and many Calvinists have, lived holy lives, and certainly are believers in Christ and certainly are going to heaven. And so can many non-Calvinists, as we said about them. Certainly Spurgeon, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, they were Calvinists who lived godly lives, as well as many thousands of other people, no doubt, in history. But so the Wesleys and Finney and others were not Calvinists and they lived godly lives too. It’s obvious that if you can believe, if you can be on either side of the aisle on a certain subject and it doesn’t have any negative impact on the way you live for God, it’s not an important subject. At least not important enough to divide over or to describe somebody as a heretic because they teach it. If that person that you’re calling a heretic Because living a godly life, loves God, loves his brothers, does everything Jesus said they’re supposed to do as a Christian, well then calling them a heretic is a rather uncharitable thing. And maybe you’re the one who’s being disobedient because Jesus said to love each other. It’s okay to disagree about something and not renounce somebody. You can renounce a doctrine without renouncing that person. I’m not a Calvinist, so I’ve spoken and written against Calvinism. But I don’t renounce R.C. Sproul or John MacArthur or John Piper or, you know, Douglas Wilson are some of the people I’ve debated who are Calvinists. I don’t renounce them. As far as I know, they’re godly people. And I don’t think their Calvinism has made them less godly. So, as I say, there are things that are apparently not as clear as other things, and those are the things that good Christians sometimes interpret differently. And if that interpretation does not have any negative impact, on their Christian life, then it’s not a hill to die on. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no disadvantage to being wrong, because obviously being right is better than being wrong. Jesus said the truth will make you free, and I think to the degree that your doctrines are not true, you are not quite as free as you would be if you understood the truth more accurately. That’s why our whole lives should be lives of learning. and trying to get closer to the absolute truth. None of us is omniscient. None of us knows all things. Paul said we know in part. But, you know, we can get better. We can get smarter. We can get more right if we’re humble and teachable. And that’s good, because the more truth we understand, the more ways we are freed up from mistakes. And in the case of Calvinism in particular, and Arminianism, these two positions… actually have a very different way of understanding the character of God. They say very different things about God. Now, that doesn’t mean they have a different God. It means I think someone is mistaken about God. And I don’t think God gets angry at people because they make honest mistakes. And I think that the people who are Calvinists, who we’ve named, were not deliberately trying to deceive people like they knew that Calvinism was wrong, but they taught it anyway. No, I think they believe firmly that that’s what the Bible teaches. And if they were wrong, then it was an honest mistake, in my opinion. Now, God’s the judge of that. I am not. So we’ll let God make the decisions about that. But to my mind, if you say, well, do you think Calvinists are false teachers? I would say, well, they are teaching something that I think is actually false, but I don’t think they know they are. I don’t think they’re false Christians. I think they’re sincere teachers. And by the way, I don’t think I’m a false teacher either, but there are probably some things I teach or have taught that that are honest mistakes. I’m certainly not deliberately teaching anything I know to be wrong, but I don’t know everything. So some of the things I teach could be wrong. That doesn’t, I think, make me a heretic per se, unless I’m denying some essential thing about Jesus or God. And I don’t think, well, I mean, some would say Calvinists do deny something essential about God because they say he doesn’t love everybody. But what they have is There is a tension. There is a tension between different doctrines that are about God. And one of them is a tension between their stress on the sovereignty of God, which I think they misunderstand, and the doctrine of God’s being love, which is also true. I mean, God is sovereign, and he’s also love. And I think some people stress one or the other. And in a sense, it bumps out the other one if they don’t consider all the data And that’s what I think often is true when people have wrong doctrines. It’s not that they’re rebelling against Scripture. It’s that they’re emphasizing one doctrine of Scripture in an imbalanced way, in a way that kind of cancels out another important doctrine of Scripture. That may just be the human condition in the sense that we can’t hold everything in our minds at one time and know what the perfect balance is of them, so we do our best. And if we get something wrong, hopefully we can be led to the truth instead. If we never get there, that is if we die with these mistakes, I don’t think it’s going to count against us on the judgment day. After all, we’re not going to be judged by our theology. We’re going to be judged by our works. At least that’s what Jesus said and Paul and James and John. And Peter, you know, those guys, they all said we’ll be judged by our works, not by the perfection of our theological understanding. So, you know, calling someone a false teacher depends on what you mean. If I want to say this teaching that someone is giving is, as I understand it, a false teaching, that doesn’t mean I’m condemning the person as what the Bible would call a false teacher, though technically false. If you’re teaching something that’s not true, then in that respect you’re false. But I don’t think you’re condemned if you just simply don’t understand something correctly, though you’re seeking to be faithful to Christ and his word. And those men we mentioned that you’re asking about, I think they were in their own understanding being faithful to God and his word. And I’ll let God be the judge of their hearts because I don’t know their hearts, but I’m not inclined to give them a detrimental assessment. All right, let’s talk to Marta in San Jose, California. Hi, Marta.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome. Hi, thank you so much for your ministry. I’m so glad I can call you. I wanted to ask you regarding Jesus said, you are of your father, the devil, for not believing him. And my… My thinking here is that there are many religions that are against Jesus. They are anti-Christ. Therefore, I am deducing that these religions are worshiping the wrong God as opposed to the right God with the wrong doctrine. What do you think?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, God certainly knows the answer to that question. People who don’t teach the truth about God, but they hold some other religious ideas, okay, you’re saying they may be worshiping the wrong God. And you may be entirely correct. There is, in my mind, though, the difference, a difference, between worshiping the wrong God and having the wrong opinions about the right God. In other words, the right God is the one who created heaven and earth. The right God is the one who, you know, judges all men according to righteousness and is committed to the redemption of sinners and sent his son Jesus and so forth. That’s the God that really exists. That’s the real God. Now, this is kind of like the previous question. It’s best for us. to have the right opinions about God. Insofar as those opinions can be ascertained, we want to have the right ones instead of wrong ones. How many ways can we be mistaken about God, though, before it is said we have a different God? Like I said, some people who are not Calvinists, like myself, but I don’t say this, many people who are not Calvinists say that Calvinists have a different God. Now, what I would say is they have a different description of God based on I think, a mistake they’re making. But does God think that it’s a different God they’re worshipping, or that they are simply children who misunderstand their father, but he’s really still the same father? It is possible for a group of children who have the same father, especially if they’ve been separated from him for a long time, to form different opinions in their minds of what their father is like. And some may have very wrong opinions about their father. Others may be more or less correct, but He’s still the father. You can have a wrong opinion about your father, and that doesn’t change the fact that he’s the same guy. But there are men who are not your father, too. I mean, there are different people who are not your father. But even if you and several others have the same father, it doesn’t mean you will understand your father equally well or think of him properly. So the real difference is, are we talking about a different father? Are we talking about different opinions, some of them right and some of them wrong? about the real God. And this is what God himself will have to decide. He knows how to answer that question.
SPEAKER 06 :
And why did Jesus say, you are of your father the devil?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, he didn’t just say, you are of your father the devil because you don’t believe in me, although he did castigate the Pharisees for not believing in him. He said, you are of your father the devil because you want to do what the devil wants to do. He says, you want to kill me, and your father the devil is a murderer from the beginning. You’re just like him. Now, in other words, he’s not just saying you’re trying to worship the true God, but you’re just missing it by accident. He’s saying you’ve got entirely different standards. The God you really are serving, the one that you resemble, the one who’s your true spiritual father, is the opposite of my father. Now, he did say that in the same conversation, which of course was John chapter 8, he said, my father is the one that you say is your God. Now, it’s interesting because the Jews did not believe in a trinity. I do. I think Jesus did. He didn’t talk about it much, but I think that he believed in a trinitarian idea of God. The Jews did not. And yet he said that his father, which is truly the true God, is the same God that they were saying was their God. In other words, it was the same God, but they didn’t have the right opinions about him. And it’s interesting that Paul in Athens told the Athenian pagans, you have an altar here for the unknown God. He says, this God that you are worshiping ignorantly is the God I’m right now going to tell you about. Which means that Paul’s God, the Christian God, the real God, was being ignorantly worshipped by these people. That’s how Paul said it. He said, this God whom you ignorantly worshipped, I’m here to declare him to you. So, I mean, we sometimes think that our ideas about God are what makes him God. But God is more than the combination of things we say or think about him. We could think some very wrong things about God. And I think some theologians do. But it may be the right God that we have the wrong opinions about. And that’s a very different thing than saying, I’m going to go after the opposite of the right God. I’m going to worship Satan. I’m going to do what Satan does, not what God does.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, thank you for that so much. I will continue to pray about this because in my mind, I just want to believe that anybody that is anti-Christ is of the devil.
SPEAKER 04 :
Mm-hmm. I can understand that, and you may be right. You may be right, but I think that, but again, when the disciples first started following Jesus, when they left their nets, they didn’t know about the Trinity. They were Jews. The Jews didn’t know about the Trinity. Jesus, as far as we know, never gave them a teaching about the Trinity. They were true followers of Jesus. And the God they worshiped was, in fact, the triune God. They just didn’t know it. They had a deficient understanding. But it was the same God that they were following when they were following Jesus. It’s just they didn’t have as much understanding of his nature. And so I’m not trying to say people who aren’t Christians are saved anyway. I’m saying I will leave it to God, who knows the heart, to decide whether these people are worshiping an actually different God or the God they’re worshiping They simply don’t know him very well, but it’s the same one. I’m not making a decision about that. I am making a decision to close the program, though, because I’m out of time. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
