Dive into a rich discussion surrounding classic Christian literature including the works of George Mueller and A.W. Tozer. Explore how these books influenced believers and non-believers alike, and discover which books are considered essential by today’s Christian leaders. This episode also opens up a nuanced conversation on newly released works and their trustworthiness in an era dominated by digital advertising.
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 week the afternoon. And you can call in because we’re live. Now I will say this, there are some stations that are not carrying the program live and you may be listening to a recorded broadcast from earlier in the day. If it’s 2 p.m. Pacific time, that’s when the program is live. So if it’s any other time than that, then you’re listening to a recorded program. But we have a live program on almost all the stations we’re on because we like to interact in real time with the audience. We’d like you to be able to call in. In fact, that’s the whole format of this program. You call in if you have questions about the Bible, about the Christian faith, anything like that, or a disagreement with the host you want to talk about, you’re welcome to call and we’ll talk about it in real time. And the number to call is 844-484-5737. Now, right now our lines are full, but they open up throughout the hour, and there will be some of these lines opening up, and other calls will be taking them. One of those could be you. The number to call at that time is 844- And since our lines are full, it would seem appropriate for us to go directly to them and talk to Kerry in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Kerry. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, Steve. I’d like to talk to you about some Christian books and get your opinion. First of all, Because you have mentioned him so often on your show, George Mueller, I read a biography on him. And what a blessing that was to read about that godly man. Oh, yeah. I’m hoping it’s going to change my life.
SPEAKER 04 :
And there’s more than one. I mean, I’ve got, I think, five or more biographies of George Mueller on my shelf. I’ve read them all. And he also wrote an autobiography. So there’s a lot there on him.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. I know you have mentioned A.W. Tozer several times, and I’ve noticed on Facebook that they’re advertising a new, never-released book of his, something about obedience. I don’t know the exact title, but I’ve looked for it in other bookstores and things, and I can’t find it. And I’m a little bit leery about buying anything off of Facebook. I’ve been burned before.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I’ll tell you what. Tozer wrote so many books that you could spend a lot of time reading his books without ever picking up a new one. I don’t know about the new one. What has happened? Tozer died in 1963, and many of his books have come out after his death. And the ones that have… have been either collections of his sermons, because he was a pastor for many years, or else they are collections of his editorials. And his editorials are really fabulous, really. I mean, he wrote several books that everyone loves. I mean, if you ask any evangelical leader to list the ten favorite books that they most highly recommend, This question has been put to them many times. I know I saw this in Christianity Today a few years ago. A.W. Tozer’s book, The Pursuit of God, is on everyone’s list. There’s just not anyone who gives their ten top books and doesn’t include The Pursuit of God. I have read The Pursuit of God, I think, 20 times. I started reading it when I was in my early 20s, when I discovered Tozer. So that’s a great book of his. And then there was one he wrote as kind of a prequel to it. It came out originally under the title The Divine Conquest, but the same book exists now with a title very similar to the other book, only this is called God’s Pursuit of Man. So the most well-known book is The Pursuit of God. And then this other one, which is sort of a companion, and also an excellent book, is called God’s Pursuit of Man, or if you find an older copy, it may be called The Divine Conquest. Now, he also wrote a book called The Knowledge of the Holy, which many people find among their favorites. It’s on the character traits of God, the attributes of God. But most of his books, and there are probably scores of them, are simply collections, either of his sermons or, more often, of his editorials. He was the editor of the magazine for his denomination, which was the Christian Missionary Alliance denomination. for years. And it came, I think, twice a month. And he had an editorial in each one. So there’s hundreds and hundreds of editorials that he’s written. And they’re all really good. And in fact, some people say that was the only magazine that people purchased or read just to read the editorials because it was so good. The first I was exposed to Tozer was through one of those books. It was called Man, the Dwelling Place of God, which these books usually have I think it’s maybe 40, might be 30-something editorials in each collection. And they’re not all on the same subject. They’re just, you know, collected editorials. But they’re all, I mean, usually they’re about a page and a half long, the kind of thing you can read rather quickly. It’s pretty full of challenging and edifying stuff. And he was just an incredibly godly man. So, you know, I don’t know about another book that’s been released, you know, that they’re advertising on Facebook. That’s possibly the case. I haven’t seen that one, but I have over a dozen of his books, certainly. And, you know, they’re all good. They’re all really good.
SPEAKER 07 :
Also, another book that’s being touted on Facebook is Charlie Kirk, and it’s about observing a Sabbath.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
I haven’t read it. I don’t know his position.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. But I was wondering… I haven’t read it either, and I don’t observe the Sabbath as he did. So, I mean, I would probably see it differently. I mean, if someone says, well, how do you know until you read it what arguments he’ll make for the Sabbath keeping? Well, I doubt that he came up with any arguments that haven’t been used by the Jews and the Seventh-day Adventists and all the Sabbath keepers I’ve known for the past 50 years. And I’ve heard all of those, and I’ve certainly made my own decisions about it from reading the scriptures through dozens of times. And so, you know, I don’t know that I’ll read the book. I like Charlie Kirk. I’m not, you know, I never was a real follower of his activities, but it was kind of hard not to see what he’s up to because he’s in the news a lot. But, yeah, I think he’s a great guy. I think he’s a great man. But he and I would have a different position on Sabbath, I think.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, what do you think about just as a principle of observing a day of rest?
SPEAKER 04 :
You might call it that. No problem. That’s probably a good idea. That’s probably a good idea. It was kind of built into the work week, you know, in America from the earliest times. I mean, of course, we mostly have a five-day work week now and a two-day weekend, but I think that Sunday… for a long time was considered to be almost a mandatory day off because stores were closed and no one was doing business on Sunday for many years, even when I was a child. There were not many stores open on Sunday except maybe the supermarkets and stuff like that. So, I mean, yeah, obviously there’s some wisdom in taking at least a day off to rest. Some people think God mandates it. I don’t know that that’s true. I mean, in the Old Testament he did, but that was a different religion than ours. We’re Christians. And so, yeah, I mean, read it. If he says, hey, I got tremendous benefit from taking this day off, I know that, you know, Orthodox Jews sometimes will advocate it, obviously, too, as a general principle for people, though they don’t believe that Gentiles are required to keep it, I don’t think.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. Well, thank you, Steve. God bless.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Kerry. Thanks for your call. Rad in Roseville, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
You’re welcome. I have two questions. First, when you were talking with a caller yesterday, you said Revelation is not described in the end times.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
And I know parts of it describe like the throne room of God and such, but so what does Revelation describe if it’s not the end times?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, John himself says numerous times that these are things that must shortly take place. These are things that are about to happen. The time is near, he told his readers. Now, John didn’t write to anyone living in the 21st century or even the 20th century. He wrote to people in the first century, and we know who they were. They were seven churches in what’s now Turkey. Most of those churches are not there anymore. In fact, most of those cities are not there anymore that they were in. But But at the time, there were seven churches in that area that he wrote to. And so he told them that they should pay attention to what he’s saying because it was shortly going to happen. Now, I believe that was true. I believe the things that he predicted, like the things in Ezekiel and Daniel and things like that, came to pass in the first century. And so I believe, when you say what was it about, I believe it’s primarily… about the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in a war from 66 to 70 A.D. But there are many ways of looking at Revelation that don’t see it my way, but still don’t think it’s about the end times. A very popular view is called the historicist view, which believes that Revelation is talking about the whole age of the church, kind of going through it from John’s time to the end times. And the idealist view is a view that it’s more of a symbolic drama that applies to the church of all time. So there’s quite a few views of Revelation besides the most well-known view today, which is that it’s about the end of the world.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right, right. Okay, my second question is, in the verse-by-verse section of the Neuropath website, I’m going through your lesson on Daniel chapter 7, and in there you say, the Bible never applies the term Antichrist to a particular tyrant or a particular world ruler, because that’s a dispensation application. So I was curious, what does the Bible apply this term to if it’s not a person?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, exactly, me too. Well, and, you know, you discover when you study it and look for it in the Bible that sometimes the things we’re told as if everyone knows this to be true, they’re just not in the Bible. If you look up the word Antichrist in a concordance, you’ll find it only appears in two books of the Bible. One is the first epistle of John, and the other is the second epistle of John. Now, the second epistle of John doesn’t say anything about Antichrist that isn’t already found in first But what we do have in 1 John 2, verse 18, and following it says, Little children, it is the last hour. He’s telling his readers in the first century. It is the last hour. And as you have heard, that Antichrist is coming. Even now, many Antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. And he says, They went out from us, but they were not of us. And then he goes on to say in verse 22, Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. So anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ is Antichrist. Now also he uses the term in 1 John chapter 4 where he said in verse 2 and following, he said, By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of Antichrist, which you have heard was coming and now already is in the world. So John said the spirit of Antichrist is that spirit that denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Anyone who denies that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, is Antichrist. He said there’s many Antichrists, therefore we know it is the final hour. And he says… We have heard that Antichrist was coming and now already is in the world. So, you know, this is not, John’s not talking about something that would happen 2,000 years after his time. He’s saying, hey, it’s already here. We already have Antichrist here, and therefore we know that the anticipated Antichrist, you know, and whatever his appearance heralds, is now.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Ed. Good talking to you. Okay, John in Detroit, Michigan. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. I really appreciate being able to talk to you. I have a question. Where in the Bible does it say that God wishes all to be saved?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, he says that more than one way and in more than one place, but the one you’re thinking of probably most is is in 2 Peter 3, where it says in verse 9, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but he is longsuffering, which means patient, toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Now, that’s one of the places where it says that God’s not willing that any should perish, but all come to repentance. But also in 1 Timothy chapter 2, Paul said in verse 4 that God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. So we’ve got that, we’ve got Paul, and we’ve got Peter saying it. But this is even, in a sense, true in the Old Testament. God gives this information, for example, in Ezekiel chapter 33 and verse 11. I’m turning there. It says, Now he’s saying, I don’t want anyone to die. I don’t want anyone to perish. I don’t want the wicked to be lost. I want them to turn. I want them to repent. I want them to be saved, which is, of course, what Peter said in 2 Peter 3.9 that we looked at a moment ago. So those are some of the scriptures that say that.
SPEAKER 08 :
Now, where is it in Timothy again?
SPEAKER 04 :
1 Timothy 2.4. 1 Timothy 2.4? That’s correct.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, now… How do you reconcile God wanting everyone to be saved with, I guess it’s the Calvinist view that God has chosen us, we have not chosen God?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, well, I don’t. I don’t think those two can be reconciled. Calvinism is not the doctrine of the Bible. It’s not the doctrine of the first three centuries or four centuries of the church. It was near the end of the fourth century that Augustine first came up with the ideas that we call Calvinism. And so the first 400 years of church leaders and teachers and fathers, they didn’t believe in Calvinism. They taught the opposite. They had heard such views, but they thought those were Manichaean views. Now, Manichaeanism was a heresy. All the church recognized it as a heresy. It was a form of Gnosticism. And they recognized this idea that God ordains everything that happens and nothing happens except what he ordains. He’s elected all that would happen. That comes out of a different religion than Christianity. Now, it did come out of that other religion, and it came into Christianity through Augustine. Augustine was a Manichean, actually, and then he became a Christian. But when he became a Christian, he was not entirely free from his Manichean beliefs. And he did write against Manichaeanism, but later in his life he began to affirm Manichaean ideas. He didn’t call them that, but they are ideas that were never found except in Manichaeanism before his time. So the Calvinist views that you mentioned are actually views that were considered to be heretical views for the first 400 years of Christianity until they were brought into the church through Augustine. Now, God wants everyone to be safe, which proves that Augustine was mistaken about this and that Calvin’s mistaken. Calvin was an Augustinian. So was Luther, by the way. He was an Augustinian monk before he was a Christian. So the Reformation was Augustinian in these views, too. And that’s why so many Protestants are fond of Calvin. They say, well, this is the view of the Reformers. And I say, yes, it is. It is the view of reformers. But the reformers are not infallible. They didn’t write scripture. They were just like all the Christians before them. They read the scripture, and they understood it the best they could, and they taught it the way they thought they saw it. And all honest Christians have always done that. It’s just that no honest Christians who were doing that ever were Calvinists before the time of Augustine. And yet Calvinism was something from Augustine that they retained in the Reformation. But there were other, you know, later people in the Reformation, like Arminius later on. Still there was Wesley, of course, and others who were famously not Calvinistic. Now, you know, Calvin taught. that God doesn’t want everyone to be saved. If he wanted them to be saved, they would, because God is sovereign. He saves anyone he wants to save. And therefore, if anyone doesn’t get saved, then he didn’t want them saved. I don’t know if they put it in those terms all the time, but certainly that is their belief. This is their idea of the sovereignty of God. God can sovereignly save anyone he wants to, and he can sovereignly damn anyone he wants to. And if he sovereignly does something, it’s because he wants to. So the fact that many people end up in hell means that God didn’t want them to be anywhere else than in hell. That’s his sovereign choice. And therefore, he clearly did not want them saved. So there’s no way that Calvinism can argue that. that God wants all people saved. And usually they don’t try to. Now, verses like this, they sometimes try to apply to the elect. They say that, well, God does want all the elect to be saved. And they say that Peter is saying God doesn’t want any of the elect to perish, but to come to the knowledge of the truth and to repentance and so forth. And that when Paul said he wants all men to be saved, he means only all the men who are the elect. This obviously requires ignoring what is said and inserting words that Paul and Peter didn’t write in order to support a doctrine that Christians never held until the late 5th century. So, to my mind, Calvinism is on very flimsy ground. It has a lot of famous supporters, but so does non-Calvinism, like all the church fathers were non-Calvinists. But, yeah, Calvinism has great influence in the Western church. never followed Augustine. Augustine is considered to be the father of Roman Catholicism and the father of the Reformation, which is all the Western European Church. The Eastern Church never got into Augustine at all, so they never got into these errors. Anyway, that’s the history of that.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right? Is it possible for an elect individual to…
SPEAKER 04 :
To not be saved? Well, people are not elect in the sense that Calvin said. God elects Christ. He has chosen Christ. It says that he is God’s servant who was chosen or elected. And that we, if we are in Christ, we share in that status of being chosen. It’s just like people in Israel in the Old Testament. Israel was the chosen race and the chosen nation. And a person could be in Israel or not by choice. It wasn’t just something you were born into. You could be converted and become an Israelite. Or you could be born Israelite and be converted into paganism and not be an Israelite anymore. In other words, this is not something that people were individually chosen to be in Israel. But whoever was in Israel was in the collective chosen group. The God chose Israel as a group. And so it’s a corporate election. And Jesus in the New Testament is treated as the new Israel. He is the real, the true Israel. And so as people to be chosen in the Old Testament had to be in Israel to be chosen. Now you have to be in Christ. You have to be in the chosen one. And you can choose that. You can do that on your own. God doesn’t choose who will be and who will not be in Christ. He chooses all who are in Christ. That is, because they’re in Christ, they belong to the chosen one. They’re the chosen people in Christ. Because Paul sees Christ as corporate. We are members of his body. He has one body with many members, and we’re all members of his body, if we’re Christians. So if we’re in Christ, in his body, his status of being chosen is ours. So we can be called the chosen in him. And that’s what the term Paul does use in Ephesians 1.4, I think it is. So, yeah, it’s not that God chose some individual to be saved. He chose Christ. And he chooses to save all who are in Christ, which is, of course, the decision each of us has to make. Will I be? Will I not be? That’s up to me. That’s why Jesus warned his disciples as branches in the vine that they must remain in him. He said if they don’t remain in him, they’ll be cast forth as a branch and withered and burned. So if they’re attached to him, they’re in him. And they share in his life and his chosenness, his status. But if they don’t remain in him, which is on them if they don’t, well, then they’re not chosen anymore. Not because God made a choice for them to be or not to be in the vine, but because they chose not to be in the vine. But the vine is chosen. And all who are in it are part of the chosen in it. So there’s, you know, it’s like if you invited people to your party and you said, you know, anyone can come to my party. All you have to do is wear green because it’s St. Patrick’s Day. And people who choose to wear green and come to your party, they’re the ones that you chose to be at your party. You didn’t know which ones would and which ones wouldn’t, but you chose all who fit that description to be in your party. And we were all who fit the description of being in Christ. God has chosen as a collective group, not because he chose which ones would be, but he chose that all who are in Christ would be. And that’s up to each individual. That’s why each person is responsible before God. for being saved or not. If God is the only one who made a decision about this, if God decided that some people would not be saved and they had no chance, then where’s the justice in him punishing the ones who aren’t? The only reason they’re not is because he wouldn’t let them. He didn’t choose them. This is unavoidable. This is Calvinist theology. God did not choose the ones who don’t come to Christ. If he had chosen, they would come to Christ. So why punish them when they can’t come to Christ? And he sends them to hell for not doing what he gave them no power to do, which he could have as easily as not. You know, this is a strange God. It’s not the God of Christianity. It’s not the God of, let’s just say, historic Christianity. It’s the God that some Christians have, in my opinion, mistakenly embraced as the God of the Bible. But fortunately, the God of the Bible does not describe himself in those terms and is not that kind of a God. Hey, I need to take a break. We have another half hour coming up. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. If you’d like to help us stand there, we are listener supporters. You can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and you can see how to donate there if you wish at thenarrowpath.com. All the resources there are free, so go and take them. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, and then we have another half hour.
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. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith. We’d be glad to hear from you. Our last open line just got filled, but These lines will open up. All of them, I hope, will open up in this half hour. And maybe you can slip in there, calling randomly this number, 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. See how slowly I say that? You know why I do that? Because I’ve listened to a lot of talk shows, secular and Christian, over the years. And on occasions, I’m glad I don’t want to call in because when they go over that number, they just race right through it as if, you know, my mind is that fast. And I almost never can remember a phone number unless it’s mentioned more than once and slowly. So the reason I give it slowly and more than once is I really want you to call. I kind of suspect that when a talk show gives the number so fast that only the brightest can remember it. Maybe it’s sort of a natural selection of callers. The brightest people will be able to get the number, and others will not. I want everyone to be able to call. And so that’s why I give the number. But you can’t get through right now. But if you call in a few minutes, probably you can. All right. Let’s talk to Bruce in Albany, Oregon. Bruce, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, Steve. I had a question on… I found out that some people believe that the Jews were punished with the Holocaust for killing Jesus. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, no, it’s more nuanced than that. I mean, the Bible did say, Moses told them, this is in Deuteronomy, in the latter chapters of Deuteronomy, Moses made it very clear. I mean, God did. He was speaking through Moses. Moses was a prophet speaking God’s words to them, saying, listen, if you obey the commands of God, if you keep the covenant, if you avoid worshiping other gods, then you’ll have it made. God will give you no crop failures, no… No failure of your livestock to multiply. Even your own wives will not miscarry their babies. And you’ll have great harvest seasons. You’ll prosper. I’ll protect you from your enemies. All this stuff. But the other side is, if you break my covenant, if you disobey me, if you rebel against me, if you worship other gods, well, then all the bad stuff is going to happen to you. And he lists a lot of it. If you want to see it, it’s in Deuteronomy chapter 28. It talks about all the horrible things that would happen to them, which did, in fact, happen because they did violate his covenant. One time they did it, and God sent them into captivity in Babylon. But he told them he’d bring them back, and he did. He did bring them back. But then they did all the bad stuff again, and he warned that he was going to send them off permanently. And he did that in A.D. 70. And, you know, Jesus, in his prophetic action of cursing the fig tree, said, you know, no one will ever eat fruit from you again. And it withered up and died. So, predictably, no one’s going to, you know, Israel’s not going to be producing the fruit that they had 1,400 years to produce and refuse to. They’ve had their last chance. In the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 21 of the keepers of the vineyard, he said God sent them, one servant after another, meaning the prophets in the Old Testament, to get them to produce the fruit. And they killed the prophets and beat them and threw them out of the vineyard. And he says, last of all, now he sent a series of messengers to give them a chance to repent. This is going to be their last of all chance. Last of all he sent his son. And they killed him too. Now, if Jesus was the last of all opportunity for them, that would explain why Jesus would say to the fig tree, no one will ever eat fruit from you again. You’ve had your chance. Now, In Deuteronomy, when he said that they would be rejected if they would violate his covenant, he said all kinds of things about how they’d be scattered throughout the world. They’d be insecure. They’d be hated by lots of people. They’d be so insecure that they’d flee when a leaf is moving because they’re so fearful that something in the bushes is coming after them. He said, in the morning, you’ll say, would to God it were evening. And in the evening, you say, would to God it were morning. In other words, you’ll never be at peace. And he talks about how other nations would abuse them. Now, God doesn’t actually say that he will do those things necessarily, although he does say that he will drive them out of their land. That would be his action, he said, in Deuteronomy 28, 63 or thereabouts. But most of this stuff would happen just because they’re not under God’s favor anymore. The Jews, or Israel, was the only nation that God ever made a promise to that he’d shelter them from all that stuff if they obey him. He’d give them good climate, good harvest. He’d protect them from all their enemies. I mean, all the good stuff would happen to them. All they had to do was just keep his covenant, which, by the way, was not very demanding. His covenant, you know, it just meant you have to be a good person and intend to do what God said. But because they couldn’t even get over that bar, he said, well, you’ll be driven out of the land and all this stuff will happen to you. Now, he’s not saying I’m going to make it happen to you. He’s saying it’s going to happen to you because people who hate you will be allowed to do it because I’m not going to protect you anymore. I will protect you if you’re obedient to me. If you’re not, I will not. You will not be my special people. He made it so explicit again and again. And so, of course, as Jesus made it clear, when God sent his son, it was the last of all opportunities for them. And he said they killed him, too. So he said, well, what’s going to happen to them then? Well, the answer is given in the passage in Matthew 21 is that he will miserably destroy those wicked men and give his kingdom or his vineyard to another nation that will bring forth the fruits of it. And that’s what Jesus then said. Therefore, the kingdom of God is taken from you. That is from from Israel, the nation that had it first and given, he says, to another nation, which would be, of course, that which is comprised of the faithful Israel and faithful Gentiles. who follow Christ. So, you know, did the Holocaust happen as an act of judgment from God upon the Jews? I wouldn’t say that God was directly involved in it. I don’t think God was pleased with it. I mean, Jesus, when he knew what was going to happen to the Jews in Jerusalem, he wept over the city. He said, if only you had known. You know, this was your opportunity, and you didn’t recognize it. Now, he says, your enemies are going to come around you. They’re going to set up siege mounds around you. They’re going to knock your walls down. Not one stone will be another. Your children will be crushed by them. You’ll be crushed by them. You’ll be carried into all lands. And he wept to say he didn’t want that to happen. They were choosing that. They were choosing to reject God. and his protective promises that were part of his covenant, and bring these kinds of things on themselves. Now, I’m not blaming the Jews who, let’s just say, were in Europe during the Holocaust for what happened to them. It’s like people, some Christians have been known to call the Jews, modern Jews, Christ killers, which is not fair. That’s ridiculous. they weren’t there when Christ was crucified. It’s true that certain Jews did pressure the Romans to kill Jesus, and those ones who did certainly were Christ’s killers, but that doesn’t mean that anyone living today is guilty of that particular crime any more than anyone else. So, I mean, it’s wrong to think that the Jews who suffered in the Holocaust were specially being punished by God for what happened to Christ But it’s more that their ancestors did what God told them not to do. And they reaped upon them and their children and their children’s children, you know, the consequences that God said they would face if they did that. And again, it’s not necessarily said that he’s the one. who’s making that happen to them. He’s just not, I mean, there are some of the things in it that he says he would do, but the specifics, something like the Holocaust, God didn’t say that he did that, but they were left without his protection, and then if you’ve got people who hate you, and you don’t have God on your side, then, you know, the chips fall where they may, and sometimes they fall in horrible places. So, I mean, Christians should never be in favor of things like the Holocaust, And I don’t think God was in favor of the Holocaust. God’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And the Jews who died there weren’t necessarily wicked any more than anyone else. But the Jews have been… hated by many nations all through their history. Some people say that’s because Satan has a special anger toward them because they were the avenue through which Jesus was brought into them. And maybe so. Maybe so. Because Jesus came through the Jews. Maybe that’s why the devil hates them. And that is a theory I would not renounce. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But it could be. So I would see it’s more the devil acting through his agents that caused the Holocaust. The reason the Jews were not spared that by supernatural intervention is because their nation was no longer under the protection of God as a special people. And that’s because God told them that would be the case. Both Jesus and Moses said it. So whether you read the Old Testament or the New, You get the same information. It’s a terrible thing, what’s happened to many of the Jews. And I’ve got not a thing in the world against the Jewish people. But I do read the Bible. And when the Bible says things, I’m not going to shy away from them if they’re politically incorrect to say.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, well, thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, Bruce, thanks for your call. Let’s see. Dean in Index, Washington. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Dean.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. Hey. I got two questions. At the end of Ezekiel 8, there’s a reference to the men putting the branch to their nose. What does that mean?
SPEAKER 04 :
No one knows exactly what it means. It’s clearly a reference to an idolatrous practice. The chapters 8, 9, and 10, and 11 of Ezekiel are all about kind of the same thing, and namely that Ezekiel was carried away supernaturally in a vision from Babylon to Jerusalem, and seeing in the temple the kinds of abominations that were going on, and some of the things were like, You know, they were worshipping toward the sun. They were worshipping the sun. They were worshipping pictures of animals in a hidden compartment below the temple. And it does mention women apparently weeping for Tammuz, one of the pagan gods. And then it talks about people who put a branch to their nose. And it’s not entirely, you know, clear just because we don’t have detailed information about all the pagan rituals throughout history. But it’s obvious in the context that it’s one of the pagan things that they were doing, one of the things that was of a piece with the other things in the whole context, that they were doing a lot of pagan stuff. Some commentators have speculated the meaning, putting the branch of their nose and what the pagans might have meant by doing that. I have never read anything very convincing on it, and I’ve talked through Ezekiel many times, but all I know is Many times the Bible referred to practices that were well-known in the time that’s being described, but are not well-known to us today because apart from their passing reference in the Bible, other literature has not preserved knowledge of those practices for us.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. So then at the beginning of 9, when it states that there’s six men, And then there was another one that had writing equipment and they came to stand beside the bronze altar. And he was to make the marks on the people that were… Sighing and crying over the abominations done in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Other than Exodus and Revelation, are there other scriptural verses that state a mark being put on God’s people?
SPEAKER 04 :
those are the main ones of course Exodus I think what you’re referring to is the blood on the doorpost of the Israelites so the angel of death passed over in Ezekiel 4 a mark is put on the foreheads of everyone in Jerusalem who has a broken heart over the sinfulness of the nation like God does and so they are the people who are the faithful remnant who would not be destroyed in the coming Babylonian invasion and so They were marked for preservation, and they would have to be seen as the ones who escaped and survived the Babylonian destruction. All the others who didn’t have the mark on their forehead were to be wiped out. That’s what that vision is pointing out. And then, of course, Revelation chapter 7 borrows this imagery from Ezekiel, because there’s a great destruction, I believe, of Jerusalem again in A.D. 70, just like there was in 586 B.C., and God is, before it happens, marking for preservation. the faithful remnant in Israel, by symbolically putting a seal or a mark on their forehead. So, the idea of God marking these people, this is not a literal mark, there’s probably not literal angels with swords doing this, it was the Babylonians, not six men with slaughter weapons in their hands that killed these people in Jerusalem, it was the Babylonians. But the vision was symbolic of, it’s like God’s going to unleash judgment on the city. And But before he does, he’s going to identify which persons do not deserve the judgment. He’s going to put a mark on them. Just like there was, as I said, blood on the doorposts in Israel that spared the Israelites from the angel of death. And just like in Revelation, the faithful remnant of Israel, which would be, of course, the Christian Jews, were spared when God wiped out Israel again later on in AD 70. That’s what I see as the meaning of those passages.
SPEAKER 05 :
And this is a matter of saying to live our lives to the character that God is instructing us to, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it would be an application. Yeah, this is, you know, Ezekiel 9 is not written as an exhortation to you and me. But, of course, many things in the Bible, which are written about Israel or other people, you know, we can learn a lesson from it. And that’s the whole idea, you know. I mean, Israel were supposed to be God’s faithful people. But there were great consequences for trampling on the spirit of grace as they did. And so also, you know, we are God’s people. And, you know, so there would be similar lessons to be learned if we trample upon the grace of God. God doesn’t have any reason to show us special mercy, and our nation could be judged. But that God identifies before a general judgment is carried out, he identifies, you know, who are his people would be a general rule. We see it repeatedly in the New Testament and the Old. And so we could take that. Now, that would mean, of course, that if we want to be of that number that are spared, we ought to make sure that we are on the same wavelength with God himself, that the sins of the nation that he grieves over, we do too. Even Lot did. It says in 2 Peter 2 that Lot vexed his righteous soul day after day in seeing and hearing the unrighteous and unlawful deeds that Sodom was doing when he was in Sodom. Now, he’s not an exceptionally righteous man, though he’s more righteous than the city, and his heart was grieved over what what was going on that displeased God. So, I mean, certainly Ezekiel 9 is talking about those people who are attuned to God and on his side, and therefore offended as he is at the idolatry of the city. He sees them as his own, and that’s true of all times. That would be a lesson to us, to be sure. Make sure that we also are on God’s side, because he does judge eventually those who are not.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Let’s talk to Ed in Detroit, Michigan. Ed, welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. How’s it going?
SPEAKER 03 :
Good, thanks.
SPEAKER 06 :
I have a quick question. I just got devoted to Christ back in September. Now I’m studying my Bible. And as I know that the Bible in its entirety is very important to I’ve just finished the book of Genesis, and I’m reading Exodus. I just finished Exodus chapter 22.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, now you’re in the hard part. You’re in the hard part now.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I realize that I’m taking it as a history lesson. And I finished, I don’t know which chapter it was, but I know that I finished the Ten Commandments. But what am I to really internalize? other than just the history lesson that I’m kind of taking in right now.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it’s a little bit like what I was saying to the previous caller, that when you’re reading Ezekiel about God judging Israel by the Babylonians and him showing special preemptive mercy toward those who are his faithful remnant, that’s not really written about us, but we can see, oh, okay. you can learn from history. You know, people who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. You know, so I mean, it’s like, okay, Israel is given all kinds of grace from God. He gives them these rules. They’re not bad rules. They’re not hard rules. Some people say, oh, it’d be impossible to keep the law of God. Really? All you have to do is not be a wicked person. All you have to do is not oppress people and not, you know, victimize people and not Worship idols, you know, that should be the easiest thing in the world. It’s just that people don’t live the way God wants unless they want to. And the Israelites didn’t want to, apparently. Now that we can learn lessons. In fact, we’re supposed to. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul actually goes through. In the first 11 verses, 1 Corinthians 10, 1 through 11, he talks about Israel going through the sea, eating the manna in the desert. you know, rebelling against God and God judging them, and those kinds of things. And it says in 1 Corinthians 10.6 and in 1 Corinthians 10.11, both places he said, these things happen as an example for us. Actually, in the Greek, it’s a type of us. They are a foreshadowing of our own experience. So, you know, we’re supposed to learn from their example and from what God did. That’s I mean, Paul specifically mentions the Exodus and Numbers material in that connection. And other books, too, like when you read about the book of Job, about what he goes through. Well, it says in the book of, what is it, James, I guess, that we’re supposed to remember. Where’s the James from? Remember Job, you know, to be encouraged. 1 Peter chapter 5, he says that. So, I mean, stories in the Old Testament, we’re supposed to relate with and be like the people who are obedient to God in those stories. Although most of the people in those stories are not obedient to God except for the main characters. And so, you know, we see what it’s like to walk with God. What happens to people who don’t? That’s the kind of thing we learn. Now, you don’t have to be looking for spiritual or mysterious meanings on every page of the Old Testament. It’s just read it with a desire to learn. And, you know, and realize that there will be some things that will strike you. I mean, ask God. Ask God to speak to you as he wishes. And there will be times when he speaks to you and gives you very specific parallels and lessons and so forth. But if he doesn’t, you don’t have to strain over it. I mean, just get to know the Bible. Getting to know the Bible isn’t the same thing as getting to know God, because a person can know the Bible without knowing God. But it’s hard to get to know God without getting to know the Bible. Because this is where God has opened himself up to us. He has revealed his mind and his heart to us. And anyone who wants to have a real relationship with God is going to be desirous to have all the information of that type that is available. You know, you mentioned you just started reading the Bible. Congratulations, by the way, for just committing yourself to Christ recently. I was just thinking this today. Just today on Audible, I downloaded the whole Bible in the New King James, which is the version I read most of the time. And I thought, you know, it takes 91 hours for this guy to read the whole Bible on this. I thought, I’m going to listen to an hour a day and I’ll be done in three months. I could go through the Bible four times in a year if I listen to this an hour a day. And I thought, you know, I’ve been through the Bible 40 times or more myself, but But, I mean, you can’t do it too often. I mean, you know, listening to someone speak it and reading along could be a very helpful thing. And if you don’t get it the first time through, if you read it through twice or three or four times a year, many things will come clear the second or third or fourth or fifth time. After all, you should be reading it for the rest of your life. I mean, the Bible is not the kind of book where you read it through once after you get saved and say, okay, I checked that box. I’ve read the Bible. No, the Bible is not that kind of book. It’s food. The Word of God is food for your soul. The Bible says, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby. I’ve known people who have said, well, I’ve read the Bible. I pretty much know what’s in there. Yeah, okay, but I’ve eaten food before, and I pretty much know what it tastes like, too, but I still have to eat it all the time because I need to be fed. And so I would recommend someone, actually, this is the beginning of the new year, might be a good resolution. Say, I’m going to read the Bible a half hour a day or more. And if you read it a half hour a day, you’ll get through it in six months. You get through it twice in one year. And the more times you read through the Bible, you won’t just get head knowledge, unless that’s all you’re looking for. But you’ll get understandings. the more you read the same material, especially after you’ve read the rest of the material, and you’re going through it again, you’ll see it in the context of the whole. And every time you read through it, it’ll be more so. You’ll see more of the questions that were unanswered the first time you read through. More of them will be answered every time you read through because you’ll have now sort of a general idea of what the Bible says as a whole. And every time you read through it, you’ve got more of that understanding. I mean, there’s no passage in the Bible that I read that doesn’t, in my mind, call to mind all the other stuff in the Bible on the same subject. I mean, it’s just natural when you’ve gotten familiar with something. And I highly recommend that, because then you’ll be thinking about it day and night. The Bible recommends that you meditate day and night on the Word of God, so you’ll be like a tree planted by rivers of water. whose fruit is produced regularly and the leaves do not weather. And, you know, it’s a very highly valuable thing. And so I commend you, by the way, for starting to read through the Bible. But don’t get hung up if there’s things you don’t understand, because there will be. There’s going to be plenty of things. Like that caller who said, what does it mean to put the branch to the nose? Hey, I’ve read the Bible more than 40 times. I don’t know. And I’ve taught through Ezekiel bunches of times. But there’s things you won’t know. But don’t get hung up on those. Just apply the things that are clear. And the more times you read it and the more you think about it, the more things actually will be clear in future readings.
SPEAKER 06 :
Sweet. Thank you so much. Great show. I really appreciate you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thanks, Ed. Good talking to you, man. You too. Bye. Bye. My apologies to those that did not get on the air tonight, today. But Lord willing, we’ll be around Monday through Friday next week and you can call in then. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We’ve been on the air for over 28 years now, daily. And we do this same format every day. We also have a website where we’ve got archives of past programs you can listen to all you want. My lectures through the entire Bible verse by verse are there. You can listen to those for free. There’s hundreds of topics I’ve taught on Everything at the website is free. You definitely need to go there and use it. It’s thenarrowpath.com. We are listener-supported, and if you want to help us stay on the air, you can donate from there as well, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
