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Join Steve Gregg as he opens the lines to explore profound questions about the Bible and Christian faith. From understanding the real essence of the Gospel to unraveling the role of faith in salvation, Steve guides listeners through a spiritually enriching journey. Delve into insightful discussions on what it truly means to embrace the message that Jesus is king and what the implications are for believers and non-believers alike.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour one more time this week. Monday through Friday we’re on and we take your calls. If you have questions you’d like to call in regarding the Bible or the Christian faith, we can talk about those. Maybe objections, differences of opinion from that of the host. whether you’re maybe not a Christian and your objections are, frankly, objections to Christianity entirely, or maybe you’re a good Christian and you just have a different viewpoint, you’re welcome to challenge. You’re always welcome to do that here. The number to call is 844-484-5755. 37, and I notice our lines are full at the moment, but call in a few minutes and lines do open up, and we’d love to hear from you. Steve from Tucson, Arizona is our first caller today. Steve, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
My question is, what is the gospel? I would also like to tell you a little bit about my thoughts. There’s so much that I could say, but out of consideration, I’ll make it brief. I’ve heard you speak that it’s not biblical to to ask Jesus into your heart and someone might say how can you be right and all the other pastors and evangelists be wrong just like when Martin Luther presented his ideas I believe the message in mainstream evangelism is incomplete I was just hoping that you could summarize who Jesus is who are we and what are we supposed to be doing I would like to be able to witness to unbelievers and watered down Christians sure
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I’ll tell you, when someone asks, how could you be right and everyone else be wrong? Steve? Yeah. I personally believe that anyone could be right if they say what the Bible says, because the Bible is right. The writers of the Bible were right. Jesus was right. And so it’s not really hard to be right if you just say the same thing the Bible says. It’s pretty easy to be wrong, too. And that would be to say things that aren’t agreeable with what the Bible says. Now… when I say it’s not biblical to say a sinner’s prayer and ask Jesus into your heart, I’m not saying it’s anti-biblical. I’m just saying it’s not in the Bible. You can’t get that from any passage in the Bible since the Bible never represents anyone doing that or telling anyone to do that or telling us to tell anyone to do it. In other words, uh, asking Jesus into your heart is simply not a phrase. It’s not a biblical phrase. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. Uh, Although, I will say this, if we’re going to make up a phrase that the Bible doesn’t use, we better have some justification for it. And if we do use that phrase, we might need to clarify what in the world that’s referring to. Unfortunately, it’s not obvious to someone who’s not raised in a Christian culture that what it means to ask Jesus into your heart. Usually they would think, you know, where’s he? I guess what he’s listing, I can ask him right now, ask Jesus come into my heart. Okay, what does that mean? What did that do? What am I expecting? What’s expected of me? You know, if I ask Jesus in my heart, does it like, okay, so somehow he comes inside of me and then I’m, you know, everything’s different? Well, maybe, but that’s not how salvation is described in the Bible, but It might happen when you’ve done that because the Bible doesn’t set up a formulaic thing that you always have to jump through these hoops or these steps to become a follower of Christ. Certainly there are things that have to be involved. Peter made it clear, for example, when he was asked on the day of Pentecost, what should he do? What do they have to do? He said, well, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Well, those are important things. He didn’t even mention faith. I guess he assumed they already had faith, or else why were they asking what they had to do? They believed his message, so he didn’t have to tell them, believe it. He just told them, repent and be baptized, and you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, other times, Peter did mention believing, and obviously Paul did too. Sometimes they mentioned believing and repenting. Paul used both expressions together on occasion. Of course, being baptized was very frequently mentioned, and both by Paul and Peter, and, you know, basically Paul. It’s a normative Christian thing when you come to Christ and you repent and you believe, you get baptized. But that doesn’t answer the question of what the gospel is, which is what you asked. But when it comes to asking Jesus to come into your heart, I’m not saying that would never do the trick. But it’s not asking Jesus to come to your heart that is ever represented as the means of getting saved. You’re saved by surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, because the message that you’re submitting to is that God has made this same Jesus, whom you crucified, Lord and Messiah. Now, the word Messiah means the anointed king. So the announcement of the gospel, and remember, the gospel is news. The gospel is not a sales pitch. The gospel is not an appeal. The word gospel means good news. It’s good tidings. It’s the kind of thing, it’s information that is declared to people. That’s what news is. It’s information. And the news is God has done something in Christ. What he did was he’s redeemed us by Jesus’ death on our behalf. He has resurrected Jesus from the dead and exalted him to his right hand where Jesus is now enthroned, which means Jesus is the king now. These are things that happen. This is the news. This is historical information. That’s the good news, that God has done this. Now, there’s, you know, responses to it. You know, we could encourage people to surrender to Christ. That would be a reasonable thing. You know, we don’t have to use those words all the time. But if somebody doesn’t understand that that’s a proper response to the realization that Jesus is the king, well, then we could tell them that. If they say, what do we have to do? Well, you know, they need to know at least that they need to repent of their sins. They need to believe in Christ. And believe in Christ doesn’t just mean, you know, to believe that the facts about Jesus are true facts. But more than that, it’s to rely and to trust. That’s what faith is. We need to put our trust in Christ. That means we come into a relationship with him of trusting him. And that’s the rest of our life. By repenting, we’re turning from our sins. By trusting Christ, we’re embarking on a new kind of life, which is based on having given up our sins and trusting what Christ said and trusting in him personally. In our life, it’s a relationship we enter into. Being baptized is commanded, which, of course, is a response to that good news. Because it is the sign of acceptance of this. Now, see, when we declare the gospel, which is Jesus is king, and, of course, there’s other things attached to that. He became king by submitting to his father unto death, and through death, redeeming those who would live for him, and rising from the dead into a newness of life, being exalted to the right hand of God and enthroned there. All those things are kind of part of the story of Jesus becoming king. The bottom line is he’s the king. That’s the apex of the message. To mention that he died, that he rose again, obviously very important. In fact, in the New Testament, when you read Peter or Paul preaching the gospel, invariably, they seem to at least summarize some things about the life of Jesus, just to make sure that their hearers knew who they’re talking about here. Peter would tell the Cornelius household, he’d say, this Jesus of Nazareth, you know, was a man who went around doing good, and God attested to him by his miracles. Peter said the same thing in Pentecost. This is, you know, Jesus is the news. Jesus is the Gospels. when you meet someone, they may know some things already about Jesus, and they may know very little about Jesus. So you’ve got to make sure in a presentation of the gospel. that they know who you’re talking about. This is a historical person who lived in Israel, and he was the fulfillment of the promises of God and the salvation of the world and the hope of Israel. These are all things that are subtexts here, and sometimes mentioning them or summarizing them is seen to be part of the present version of the gospel. But, of course, the apex of the message is, is not just that Jesus lived and did these things, important as that is, and if people don’t know that, they should be informed. But he died, and he didn’t just die, like, tragically or accidentally, or like everyone dies. He laid down his life. He gave himself up to die as an atonement for our sins. And then he rose again, so he’s alive now. So unlike the founders of other religions… or even unlike animal sacrifices that people used to offer for the atonement of sins, he is no longer dead. He is alive. And not only alive, but exalted to reign at the reign of God. Now, as you know, I’ve just summarized things that all Christians know if they’ve read the Gospels, and which many people who aren’t Christians know some of those things, too. In other words, not every detail is essential to every presentation of the Gospel to an unbeliever. they might already know some of this stuff. It does no harm to mention it, even if they do know it, but it’s important that they know it. They need to know who Jesus was. They need to know that he died and rose again. They need to know that he’s reigning now. So when we say, you know, Jesus is reigning and that’s the good news, yeah, that’s sort of the conclusion of a narrative. which the whole narrative is the good news. Interestingly, the Gospel of Mark, which obviously has the narrative of the life of Jesus, as the other Gospels do, Mark begins with the words, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So he said, okay, I’m about to tell you the Gospel. And then he gives a whole story of Jesus, focusing especially on death and resurrection of Jesus. But there’s a sense in which that whole thing can be summarized into much smaller presentations. But the message is the same. The message is the story of God sending Jesus, who Jesus was and what Jesus did, and what his status is now. Now, I have to say, almost all evangelicals are reasonably good evangelists. On all those points, except sometimes maybe a little weak on the last one. What I mean is, at least I don’t know any evangelistic Christian who would not mention who Jesus is, that he died, that he rose again. These are all pretty standard inclusions in most evangelical gospel presentations. That Jesus ascended would sometimes be mentioned, but it’s not always seen as important as some of the other parts, like death and resurrection of Jesus. and that he ascended is not the whole thing. It’s he ascended to a particular status. God has made him king and lord. So the message that we have for the world is there’s another king. There’s a lord. God has assigned Jesus to that role, and he’s therefore assigned everything in heaven and earth to be subject to him. Jesus, when he rose from the dead, he said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. That’s part of the gospel statement. Jesus has all authority. He’s the king over all. He’s the ruler over all. And what that means to the listener, if they’re not a Christian, is, okay, you’re living in a world and a universe that has a king, and maybe you didn’t know that. Or if you did know it, maybe you haven’t responded to that adequately. Because if you have a king, it’s incumbent on you to serve your king, or else you’re simply a rebel against the crown. And that cannot be done safely. It certainly cannot be done without, you know, a settling of the scores by the king against rebels. So, I mean, some people, when they talk about, you know, the gospel, they want to emphasize heaven, hell. If you accept Jesus in your heart, you’ll go to heaven. You won’t go to hell. That is true, but it’s not really found in any of the gospel presentations in the book of Acts where they ever mention heaven or hell when they’re preaching to unbelievers there. So, I mean, obviously, it could be mentioned. It doesn’t have to be mentioned. The point is the gospel is not a story about how to go to heaven or how to avoid hell. It’s a story about Jesus. It’s a story about who Jesus is and what his privileges are. He’s a king. And it is the imposition on people’s conscience, the reality that they are either submitted to the king or they’re in rebellion against the king. And if it’s the second, they’d better get submitted because it’s very important if God has assigned Jesus to rule over you that you let him rule over you. So submission to Jesus as your Lord and king Not just, you know, once by asking Jesus in your heart, whatever that means, but your whole life. You’ve turned your life around. Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean you said a prayer. Becoming a Christian means you’ve changed course in life and you’re his follower for life. And if a person says, well, I got baptized when I was a kid. I accepted Jesus at church camp. You know, that’s about it. Well, that doesn’t matter. The question is, are you following Jesus now? Are you following the shepherd? Are you one of his sheep? And that’s the challenge we have for the unbeliever. The message is Jesus is the king. A lot of other things attached to that message is part of the narrative. And to mention any of them that are necessary to mention is fine as part of the presentation. But what people need to be left with is the knowledge, not that Jesus just died for your sins so you go to heaven, but he rules over everything. And he will judge everything as part of his domain. And we are living either in awareness of that or in unawareness of that. And to be unaware of it is not safe at all. And, of course, not only is it not safe, but if we don’t know it, we miss out on the whole purpose we exist. We exist to be part of his kingdom. We exist to be part of his movement with him as our king and lord. So that’s basically it. Now, I didn’t just give a presentation of the gospel that you should package up and say, okay, I’ll memorize all that, and that’s what I’ll say. I’m just telling you what the gospel is. I don’t have a packaged presentation. When I talk to people about Christ, I’m interested in knowing what do they know already, what is their present response to Christ, and whatever part they don’t know, I’d like to let them know. I can fill them in. Whatever part of the response is not adequate, well, I can urge them to make that response. So I’m not one who packages the gospel into programs or steps or things like that. I just soon just say the gospel is Jesus is king. Salvation comes from embracing that fact. And when you do embrace that fact, that means you’re his follower. You’re obedient to him. He’s your Lord and you’re his servant. And you like that fact. That’s okay with you. That’s exactly what you want. And that’s what makes you a Christian. All right? Okay. I don’t know if Steve’s still there. Thank you for your call. Barbara from Roseville, Michigan. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. Now I have two questions. People are starting to name their children Messiah. I handle medical records. Should I refuse to call someone? By that name, Messiah, is that like unlawful? And then my other question was, why would a third of the heavenly hosts want to leave heaven? Because I’m striving to get there. I know about Satan, why he wants to leave, but I don’t know why the others would follow him. So I’m just going to hang up and listen.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Well, I don’t know for sure that a third of the heavenly hosts ever did leave heaven. The Bible doesn’t mention it. The Bible mentions in 2 Peter 2 and in the book of Jude, that some angels have sinned. It doesn’t say how many or what percentage or what fraction of them did or exactly under what circumstances they did. We’re simply told they sinned. There’s a possibility, and I think many would take this view, that Peter and Jude are alluding to angels sinning in the days before the flood. And they think that there’s a reference here to angels sinning by taking human wives and so forth. And they think this is connected to Genesis 6. Now, that may be true or it may not be true because those New Testament authors don’t make that connection unambiguously. but the idea that a third of the angels fell and left heaven with Satan, that’s just never stated in Scripture. The only verse that might come close to saying something that sounds like that is in Revelation chapter 12, and I think it’s verse 4, could be verse 3. It talks about the dragon, who is Satan. With his tail, he drew a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the ground. Now, a third of the stars… many people think is a reference to a third of the angels, and that with his tail he cast them to the ground would suggest that he fell and they fell with him. Now, there’s no mention here of these stars rebelling or anything like that. But if we have a mindset that is referring to angels falling, then we assume, I guess, he cast them to the ground by tempting them to sin. The Bible doesn’t teach that. That’s simply not anything the Bible teaches with any clarity in any place. But, I mean, it’s a possible interpretation. However, the idea of stars being cast to the ground, in Revelation is seemingly an image borrowed from Daniel 8, verse 10. That’s the only other place we read of someone casting stars to the ground. And Daniel 8, 10 is a prophecy about Antiochus Epiphanes, the wicked persecutor of the Jews, the Syrian tyrant in the 2nd century B.C., It says in Daniel 8.10 that he cast some stars to the ground, which is the imagery that also we get from Revelation. But in the case of Antiochus, he didn’t cast down any angels. It almost certainly refers to the persecution of godly people. The godly Jews, in this case, are the stars, which fits with other usage in Daniel. Daniel 12 also says that those who turn many to righteousness will shine like the stars. meaning godly people are compared to stars. So if Revelation is using the imagery the same way Daniel does, then casting stars to the ground doesn’t mean you’ve gotten them to rebel. It means you’re crushing them, you’re defeating them, you are hurting them, you’re persecuting them. And that’s what Antiochus did. That might be a reference, that might be what The dragon is doing too. He’s doing what Antiochus did, persecuting the saints. And therefore, the saints might be the stars rather than angels. So, I mean, there’s ambiguity there. Certainly, it’s sometimes been understood that way. But I cannot confirm or disconfirm, certainly not from Scripture, that there are a third of the angels that left heaven. Some have. There’s mention of it. How many have, we don’t know. And why they did, we’re never told. So that’s going to have to remain in the realm of the shadowy, unrevealed past, and maybe we’ll understand it better some other day. Now, as far as naming children Messiah, I’ve actually never encountered that phenomenon. I’ve never known anyone who did. I remember Grace Flick of the Jefferson Airplane back in the 70s. She had a child, and she tried to name him God, but I’m pretty sure that was not allowed, and I don’t know if the child has another name now or if she just Unofficially called him God. Obviously, to do that is blasphemy. I mean, because obviously your child is not God. And the word God would refer to divinity. Now, the word Messiah might or might not refer to divinity. A Jewish person thinking of the Messiah might not be thinking of God or the Son of God at all. It might be just thinking of a person like David. And they might even be suggesting their child is the one who is supposed to come like David and be the Jewish Messiah. Yeah. But a Christian or anyone who thinks in Christian terms, by Messiah, they’re going to be thinking of Jesus. And obviously, to call a child by that name is to misrepresent his identity in a way that strikes me as somewhat blasphemous. Now, you said, should you refuse to process that word? I’m not sure. I mean, I can see how some Christians might say, I’m not going to go through with that. Or they could just say, I’m just a paper pusher. I’m not naming this kid Messiah. It’s the parents that are committing this sin. I’m just registering their actions. And if I register what they did, I’m not saying I approve of it. I’m just saying this is what they did. They named their kid Messiah. So, you know, I’ve never been in the position that you’re talking about that you’re in, but I could easily see if you would say, I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I mean, if someone’s going to do this, it’s got to be someone other than me because this child is not the Messiah. And by naming him that, you’re certainly implying that he is. And you, of course, could not approve of that as a Christian. Steve from Phoenix. Hello.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, I had a question. Earlier this week you had mentioned about the conditions for – the Jews being the chosen people. I was wondering what topical lecture of yours might touch on that in more detail?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, quite a few because it comes up a lot in the Scripture, and I have verse-by-verse lectures through the whole Bible, so it would come out there in many places. But I would say there’s a lecture series that I know it would be explained in at my website at thenarrowpath.com. Under the tab that says Topical Lectures, there’s a series called What Are We to Make of Israel? And I do go through. Can you not hear me? You cannot hear me? Okay, I’m not sure what our problem is. Is my voice not coming through?
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, I see your problem.
SPEAKER 01 :
Your problem is I think you’re listening to your radio, and that’s confusing because the radio is saying in your ear what I actually said to you 30 seconds ago. It’s delayed, so obviously that’s very confusing. I’m hoping you can hear me. And what I’m saying is my series called What Are We to Make of Israel, which can be heard free on our website like all the other lectures, is at thenarrowpath.com under Topic Lectures. And I do go into a great deal there.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Next question, how about the Ashkenazis and the Khazarians, being Israelites and Israelis?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, there’s some controversy about that, but many people believe that the Khazarians are the ancestors… And my radio is off. I’m listening on the phone. Can you not hear me? I’m not sure what our problem is here. I’m going to go ahead and keep talking as if you can hear me, because I don’t know otherwise. Okay, the Khazars, the Khazarians, are an Eastern European people living, I think, in the 8th century, a long time ago, who I believe the king was converted to Judaism. They were not Jewish people, but they were converted. The whole nation pretty much was converted, as the story goes. And the Jews who were persecuted throughout much of Europe, many of them went to Khazar or Khazaria, because it was favorable toward the Jews. It was a Jewish, religiously oriented Jewish country. Now, of course, if a lot of Jews went to that land, then they would intermarry. And so it’s the case that probably a lot of Jewish people today, perhaps the Ashkenazi Jews, are descended from these people. Now, what would the implications of that be? Well, I’ve got to take a break at this point, but I’m going to come back to it. Because we’ve just begun to mention it. So I’m going to hold off until this break has passed. And we have another half hour coming. And then I’ll try to finish answering that question. And take the remainder of the calls that are waiting. So stay tuned. And I will be back soon. The Narrow Path is listener supported. If you’d like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path. P.O. Box 1730. Temecula, California. 911. Or just go to our website. You can donate from there or just take everything free, thenarrowpaths.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 04 :
Toward a Radically Christian Counterculture, as well as hundreds of other stimulating lectures, can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from the Narrow Path website, www.thenarrowpath.com. There is no charge for anything at the Narrow Path website. Visit us and be amazed at all you’ve been missing. That web address, www.thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour. We’re taking live calls, but I’m not going to give out the phone number at this point because our lines are full, and I’m not sure that we will have time to take more calls than we already have waiting. If we do, I’ll give that number out again. We were talking before the break with Steve from Phoenix. One of the questions he had was about modern Jews, especially the Ashkenazi Jews. Now, maybe some of you don’t know, never heard of Ashkenazi Jews. There’s basically two different streams of the Jewish race that are identified today as the Ashkenazis and the Sephardic. Now, the Sephardic Jews are largely from southern Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East, obviously close to the Mediterranean. Many of the Jews that are in those regions are called Sephardic Jews. They have something of a different line of their ancestry than the Khazars, Ashkenazi. The Ashkenazi are from like Eastern Europe, Russia, Poland, things like that. And What we were talking about is the fact that in that very region, in the ancient world, not recently, but like in the 8th century, I think it was, there were the Khazars or the Khazarians. And the Khazarians were converted to Judaism. And so because that made a friendly environment for Jews in a time where most countries persecuted them, lots of Jews moved to that region, which is no doubt why there’s so many Jews in Russia and Poland in modern times. That’s the very region. But the thing is, there’s some people say, these Jews that are Ashkenazis, these ones from this region, they’re not really Jewish. I mean, they’re not really blood Jews. They’re religious Jews, it may be. Although some of them are not even that. A lot of them are secular. But some have challenged whether they are even ethnically related to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And there’s been debate about that. There certainly are people who’ve presented DNA evidence and so forth that suggest, no, these really are Jewish people. I don’t know how to evaluate that evidence. But I do know this, that lots of Gentiles became Jewish, identified when they were converted up in that region, and actual Jewish people moved to the region. And with Gentiles who are converted to Judaism, there’s no restriction on the Jews marrying them. So, you know, no doubt hundreds of thousands of actual Jewish people intermixed and intermarried with, you know, persons who are actually Gentiles but who had converted. To what degree that was true, I do not know. But certainly the number cannot be zero. And it’s no doubt significant. But I’m not one of those people who say, well, they’re not ethnic Jews. No doubt most people who identify as Jews probably do have some ethnic Jewish blood in them, though there could be a great deal of intermarriage, which means they’re not 100% descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But then it never was necessary to be. You know that the 12 sons of Jacob were only half Abrahamic. they all married women who were not of their family, which means they married Gentiles. And that means that every one of the 12 tribes of Israel, right from the day one, as soon as the 12 sons of Israel began to build families, their families were half Abrahamic in their bloodline and half Gentile. So, you know, you’ll never find anyone who’s 100% Abrahamic in their bloodline, but it never was necessary. what was necessary to be regarded as Jewish was not an ethnic thing at all. It was you had to be circumcised. And a Gentile could be circumcised, and then he would be part of Israel. It says in Genesis 17 that any Jew who does not circumcise his child or any Jew that’s not circumcised is cut off from Israel, cut off from the family. They’re not part of it. So, in other words, it doesn’t really matter their ancestry or their bloodline. The question is, are they meeting the conditions of the covenant? Now, then when someone says, well, the Ashkenazis, they’re not really Jewish. They’re really Gentiles. They’re really Caesareans. I think, I don’t know if that’s true or not. Perhaps it’s partially true and partially false. I have no stake in the matter. I have nothing to prove because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if someone’s Jewish or not. It has never mattered if someone’s Jewish or not. What matters is if people are faithful to God’s covenant. Now, since God made the covenant with Israel, most of the people who came into the covenant did so by being in contact with people of Israel. And therefore, the Jews are the ones most likely to have been a part of that covenant. although Gentiles were in it too. But it makes no difference. Once a Gentile is in the covenant, he’s no different than the Jew in the covenant. That’s what the Old Testament says. He’s like a native of the land, it says. Now, okay, so in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, a person could be included in Israel, regarded sort of like a Jew, no matter who their ancestors were, as long as they were in the covenant. But that covenant’s over. And since that covenant’s over, it doesn’t define who God’s people are. It doesn’t define who God’s Israel are. It’s never been an ethnic designation completely, and it’s even less so now because more and more Gentiles have come into covenant with God through Christ. So, yeah, I can’t answer. I don’t know if anyone can answer with certainty to what degree modern Ashkenazi Jews have Khazarian ancestry. Some of them almost certainly do. perhaps a significant amount, maybe most of them, but we don’t know. And thankfully, it’s not an issue we need to know anything about because I don’t care what race anyone is. I don’t care if you’re Japanese or Korean or Chinese, if you’re, you know, Mexican, Argentine, Venezuelan, Colombian, you know, if you’re Nigerian, Kenyan, you know, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what your race is. What matters is if you’re right with God, and that’s not based on your race. That’s based on your faithfulness to him. So, again, it’s an academic question that I don’t think any of us know the answer to completely, and it’s not even important enough to even care whether we know the answer to it as far as I’m concerned.
SPEAKER 02 :
The whole issue would be even in the New Testament when Jesus says there is no longer Jew or Gentile.
SPEAKER 01 :
That is the teaching of the New Testament. So if every Ashkenazi Jew could be proven to be a true Israelite ethnically, or if every Ashkenazi Jew could be proven to be strictly Kazarian and not Jewish at all, it would make no difference at all. The way that they would be saved is the same way anyone would be saved, through Christ. And in Christ there’s no distinction between Jew and Gentile. Hey, I appreciate your call. Let’s talk to Jason in Salem, Oregon. Hi, Jason.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Steve. It’s nice to talk to you again. My question today is about this sort of dispensationalist talking point about the Jews coming back to their land in unbelief. I keep hearing him talk about that as if it’s some kind of prophecy that’s kind of supposed to justify the fact that Israel today is very secular, but that’s okay because we’re all going to get saved at the end. But they never actually, I’ve never heard them say, like, what address or, you know, reference that is that they’re referencing with the Jews coming back to their land in unbelief. So I was wondering if you knew what they’re talking about there. And also, I think I heard you say recently that there’s actually a prophecy that’s kind of the opposite, that I think it was not when they were in Babylon, that they would come back after they, or in belief, or once they turned back to him, then he would come back to their land. And I’m sure you did give the address for that, but I can’t remember what that was. Sure.
SPEAKER 01 :
I’d be glad to.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’d be great.
SPEAKER 01 :
Glad to. First of all, we need to understand there are no predictions of the Jews coming back to their land in any state of mind that apply to anything later than 539 B.C. Before 539 B.C., the nation of Judah went into captivity in Babylon. This was predicted. Isaiah and earlier prophets had said it would happen. Contemporary prophets who were alive at that time, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they said it would happen. There’s plenty of predictions that God would scatter Israel into all the lands that Babylon had conquered and be part of that Gentile world. But then many of those, most of those prophets also mentioned God’s going to bring them back to their land. Okay? And he did that. Now, after he did that in 539 B.C., there were no more talk about that. The Bible doesn’t talk about it anymore. There’s nothing in the New Testament, nothing in the later books of the Old Testament that anything written after this happened. Of course, not many Old Testament books were written after this happened, but some of them were. And so there’s not really any additional return to the land after they’ve returned from Babylon ever mentioned. in the Bible, because after it happened, the Bible just doesn’t mention it anymore. So there’s no reason to believe that God would bring Israel back to their land at any time other than the time that he actually did. Those prophecies were fulfilled, and they were fulfilled 500 years or more before Jesus was born. But they did not come back in unbelief, and there’s never a prediction that they would. Now, people who say, that the Jews are predicted to come back to the land in unbelief, a lot of times they’re mistakenly thinking that these prophecies are talking about the end times. But they’re also mistakenly saying that the Jews spoken of in these prophecies are in unbelief. There’s no reference to this. Generally speaking, when you ask about this, they’ll talk about Ezekiel chapter 36 and 37. That’s usually the prophecies they go to. But these do not say anything about anyone coming back in unbelief. In fact, these prophecies… are about the return of the exiles from Babylon. They even say so. I mean, the prophecies actually are saying that the Jews were scattered like dry bones in Babylon, and God’s going to bring them back. But he doesn’t say he’s going to bring them back in unbelief. He just says he’s going to bring them back. And he doesn’t mention them being in belief or not at that point. No, later he says, and then he’s going to pour his spirit out on them. But that doesn’t mean that before he poured his spirit on them, they weren’t believers. God poured out his spirit at Pentecost. But lots of Jews were believers before that. In other words, they usually say, well, see, it says he’s going to bring them back first to the land. And then he’s going to pour his spirit out. So when they come back, they’re not yet saved. Well, wait, you can’t jump to that conclusion. The outpouring of the spirit on the Jews happened on the day of Pentecost. Never before and never after as a group. And therefore, you know, we know there were Jews saved in the Old Testament. The prophets are certainly saved. David was saved. Abraham was saved. So to say that God had not yet poured his spirit on them when he brought them back from Babylon is not saying they were unbelievers. So there’s nothing that actually identifies exiles coming back in unbelief. But there’s lots of passages. that identify them coming back in faith. In fact, that faith is the requirement. The main one is the very first time God really gets into the subject. And this is back in Deuteronomy when Moses predicted that they’re going to be scattered because of their unbelief into the lands. But he says when they repent, though, God will bring them back. You see this, for example, in Deuteronomy 30. This is much earlier than the other prophets that confirm it. But early on, Moses said in chapter 30 of Deuteronomy, verse 1, Now it shall come to pass when all these things have come upon you, the blessings and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among the nations where the Lord your God drives you, and you return to the Lord your God. Oh, okay. This is while they’re in the nations. This is while they’re not brought back yet. This is when they turn to God in the nations where they have been driven. He says, and you return to the Lord your God and obey his voice according to all that I command you today. And you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. So, I mean, it’s very plain. While you are scattered throughout the nations, if you turn back to God. If you repent, if you do his will, then he will gather you back into the land. And he talks more about this in verses 4 through 9, talking about how he’ll gather them back and all of that. And then he ends that in verse 10, saying, If you obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep his commandments and his statutes, which are written in the book of the law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. So, obviously, he’s saying this is the condition. I’ll bring you back if you do that. Now, when the Jews came back from Babylon, the whole nation had not repented, but God didn’t bring the whole nation back either. The prophets would later say that the ones that will be brought back from Babylon would be the faithful remnant. The faithful remnant will be brought back. The unfaithful Jews would not be brought back. And by the way, unbelieving Jews have still remained scattered throughout the world for thousands of years since that time. They never did all come back. Even now they haven’t all come back, although some unbelieving Jews and a few believing Jews have come back. But that’s not prophesied. There’s no prophecy about that. But the point is, the people who did come back from Babylon were the believing ones. In fact, it says in Ezra chapter 1, which is talking about this very thing, about the the coming back of the exiles from Babylon, it says that all those whose spirit the Lord moved came. So those who came back from Babylon were the Jewish people whose spirit the Lord moved. They were the faithful remnant. They were not the unbelievers. So there’s never a prediction. I won’t go into all the prophecies relevant to it, but you can also listen to my lectures on this, what are we to make of Israel. But it’s very clear in Scripture. God said, when you’re in captivity, if you turn back while you’re in those nations to God, God will respond by bringing you back to Israel. This happened in 539 B.C. It has not happened any time since. And there’s no prediction that it’s going to happen again. It did. It happened 2,500 years ago. No need for us to look for a future fulfillment without any additional predictions in hand. So, that’d be… Yeah, that’s that. All right, let’s talk to Michael in Denver, Colorado. Michael, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for joining.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call, and thank you for the very fascinating program as always. And I just have a quick question, and I’ll listen over the radio. So there’s been a new claim that a key message spoken by Jesus was secretly removed from the Bible. It’s begun to spread around social media. So there’s been several users saying, on social media that revealed that the verse Matthew 17, 21, where Jesus said, but this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting, was missing from several various versions of the Bible. This verse from the King James Version of the Bible, it actually refers to an explanation by Jesus to his disciples about why they failed to cast a demon out of a boy and And some of the users have claimed that the U.S. government played a hand in this, kind of removing that Bible verse, allegedly to cover up Jesus’ teachings on how to be healed from sickness and disease naturally, and kind of interpreting the verse as Jesus saying, if you fast and pray, you can naturally be healed. And so my question kind of surrounding this is how do you interpret this verse to be in its original form, and what are your thoughts on these new kind of revelations?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, first of all, there’s nothing legitimate in that whole scenario that these people are saying. First of all, it is true that some of the manuscripts do not contain those words, this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting in Matthew. Okay. The manuscripts that do not contain it are the oldest manuscripts available. They’re written in the 4th century. It’s later manuscripts, and a great number of them, that contain it. But, you know, it’s obvious that the American government had nothing to do, and I’m not sure why the American government would have any interest in this. Why would the government, if there’s something in the Bible that says fasting is going to make you well, I don’t see this as a governmental concern unless we’re saying, oh, this big pharma, you know, big pharma doesn’t want you getting well. So I guess they pressured the government to take it out of the Bible. The government of the United States has had never any control over the contents of the Bible. We have 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek. None of them were made any later than the founding of America. They are hundreds of years old, even well over 1,000 years old in many cases. And so the idea that the American government… It’s amazing how stupid… Theories can be that come from people who have no idea what they’re talking about, that they’ve got an agenda. And that’s just the case with the people you’re talking about. Now, did Jesus actually say those words? According to the oldest manuscripts of his writings or of his speaking, no. He didn’t say those words. At least Matthew doesn’t contain them. Now, it is possible that Jesus did say them and that even Matthew wrote them. But somebody who was copying it early on accidentally left it out. because it’s not impossible for people to accidentally leave stuff out. But in the fourth century, there’d be no reason why someone would specifically be determined to leave that line up. There was no heresy in the church that was somehow connected with or challenged by that statement. Now, what’s interesting is there’s a parallel to that. I don’t remember if it’s in Mark or in Luke. I think it’s Mark, but it could be Luke. Or the same statement. You know, it’s a parallel to this. And what it says there, and this is in all the manuscripts, including the oldest, he said, this kind does not come out except by prayer. Now, again, fasting is not mentioned there, which means this, that all the manuscripts, let’s say it’s Mark. It could be Luke, but I think it’s Mark. All the manuscripts of Mark have Jesus saying, this kind does not come out but by prayer. Some manuscripts of Matthew, some of the later ones, have him saying, this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting. The whole statement is omitted from some of the Matthew manuscripts. And obviously the part about prayer is included in all the Mark manuscripts. But the part about fasting is not in the oldest Matthew or even in any of the Mark manuscripts. So what do we make of that? I don’t know. It’s possible that Jesus said this kind does not come out but by prayer and fasting. And some of the manuscripts of Matthew, though not the oldest ones we have, include that. Some of them don’t include it. It’s not uncommon for things to accidentally be passed over when someone’s copying a document, and some may have left it out. Mark’s gospel does not include any statement at all about the fasting, but he does include the part about prayer, which means Jesus did say something like that, even though Matthew left the whole statement out, which means Jesus said more than Matthew’s gospel says in the Old Testament. And he might have said, who knows, the whole amount. It’s a complex thing when you look at varying manuscripts that differ in slight ways from each other to know what the whole history of the statement was and how it came from the mouth of Jesus into the records of these different guys and then in the copying of these documents. It’s well known. A lot of these things exist. Nothing very essential does, although if someone thinks that the statement about fasting is essential, then that would be a concern. I don’t see anything wrong with taking fasting as being part of this, even if Jesus didn’t say it. Praying and fasting is sometimes done in the Bible for special needs. And, you know, to do so in connection with casting a demon out would be, even if Jesus didn’t say it, it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a useful thing. So all I can say is there’s some question about what Jesus actually said there in that one line. Mark reads it more fully. than the older manuscripts of Matthew do. Both of them might leave part of it out. None of them are adding something, I don’t think, that Jesus didn’t say. But some of the later manuscripts of Matthew do add it. Anyway, the history of the statement and the literary history of it is somewhat ambiguous, not alarming. Not extremely significant. But if someone says, okay, I’ll bet this is left out because someone’s got a conspiracy to leave fasting out of the Bible or to leave anything Jesus said about fasting out of the Bible. Well, even the manuscripts that omit this statement in Matthew include Jesus talking about fasting in other places, like the Sermon on the Mount, for example. And in Matthew 12, there’s another place where Jesus is talking to the Pharisees about fasting. So the point here is, of course, that fasting is not excluded from any of the manuscripts of any of the Bibles. That one verse that mentions fasting, it’s questionable whether that was in there or not. Even if it was not, and we thought it was, we’ve done no harm by fasting. But we do a lot of harm when we begin to say that our Bible manuscripts have been tinkered with by the U.S. government in the interest of the pharmaceutical companies. Really, how did they get away with that? I mean, these manuscripts that have been in museums and in the custody of scholars for hundreds of years before America was created, how did the American government get at those and make changes? And is it really that important that they should? Why would they want to? I just see this as the same kind of nonsense that people online are continually saying about the Bible. Different kinds of statements, but equally nonsensical, very commonplace. Our next caller is Ron from Vancouver, British Columbia. Ron, welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 01 :
Go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. If you can’t hear me, I’m going to take another caller. Let’s talk to Brandon from Phoenix, Arizona.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hello, are you there?
SPEAKER 01 :
I don’t know why people have trouble hearing me.
SPEAKER 04 :
I can’t hear you.
SPEAKER 01 :
You cannot hear me.
SPEAKER 04 :
I cannot hear you. Hello.
SPEAKER 01 :
Did you hear me say you can’t hear me? No. Okay, there is a problem. There’s some kind of a problem, and I don’t know what it is. I can hear you. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do about this. Jeff from Portland, Oregon, can you hear me?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, there’s Steve. Just a quick question. I… People believe that the millennial kingdom, Christ will come at the end and he will rule and reign for a thousand years. And I was just curious what the idea is that would happen after that thousand years. Well, according to that… Wouldn’t it be an eternal kingdom and not just a thousand years and then there’s something else that’s going to happen? Right.
SPEAKER 01 :
I don’t know. Yeah, in the Bible, in the Old Testament, Christ’s kingdom is always said to have no end and to be forever and ever. So obviously it would not be limited to a thousand years. The only reason people have said that it’s a thousand years is because they’re interpreting one passage of Scripture to say so, and that’s Revelation 20. Revelation 20 does mention a thousand years. I believe it’s symbolic of a much longer period of time, and I don’t think it’s talking about a period after Jesus comes back. The premillennial view thinks that Jesus is going to come back and establish a thousand-year kingdom on earth. That’s a very common view. It’s not the most common view that Christians have held throughout history. Throughout history, most of them have believed that the thousand years is symbolic for the age of the church. This is the view of essentially the whole church from at least 300 A.D. to 1800 A.D. And it’s still, it’s very possibly still the majority view, though it’s hard to say. You know, no one has taken a head count. But the thing is that it’s a very, very common view. Many denominations hold it, and other people do too. So, yeah, the idea would be on the amillennial view, the thousand years simply symbolizes the age of the church. And the end of that period of time represents the second coming of Christ. The premillennial view holds that the kingdom of Jesus is indeed temporary. It’s only a thousand years, even though the Bible always says it’s eternal. But then they believe it ends. And then they say there’s a new heavens, new earth after that. And that is the eternal state. So, I mean, that’s how they would see it. I don’t think that’s correct, and I think it has far more problems that it creates than just taking the way the church always saw it, because I think the way the church always saw it makes a lot more sense biblically. I’m out of time, but I have lectures on that at my website under the series, When Shall These Things Be? You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path, and the website I mentioned is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let’s talk again Monday.
