In this episode of The Narrow Path, Steve Gregg tackles a variety of poignant questions from listeners. Starting with an exploration of faith and healing, the episode delves into a detailed discussion about whether supernatural healing is guaranteed to believers. Gregg also touches upon the profound topic of martyrdom and how Christians can reconcile fear with faith when facing persecution. This leads naturally into an examination of how martyrdom has played a significant part in Christian history and personal faith journeys.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, feel free to give me a call. If you have a disagreement with the host, also feel free to give me a call. If you want to give a little sermon or just add some more on a subject that’s already been discussed, I’d ask you not to call because we have our lines full with people who actually have questions. I don’t mind if you call to disagree and to prove an opposite point, but we do have some people who call fairly frequently. I won’t name any. When they do call, it’s often the case they don’t have a question and they don’t really have a disagreement. They just have something more to say on a subject that has already been discussed with a previous caller. I’m sure that everybody listening has, or I shouldn’t say everybody, but lots of people are listening today. have more they could say than I get around to saying here on the program to each caller. The truth is I have more I could say, too. If you go to my website, you’ll find that everything people call about, I have lectures on. And usually I can talk for an hour or 90 minutes on any given subject and not run out of things to say. So, you know, if I don’t say the thing that comes to your mind, oh, I’d like to say this, it’s not because I couldn’t. Except I couldn’t if I was going to give time to all the callers. on Wednesday. That’s day after tomorrow, Wednesday, at an event in the evening. If you’re interested in that, if you live nearby, maybe in San Jose or Santa Cruz, somewhere around there, you might want to look that up on our website, where it’s going to be. It’s actually going to be at the Paso Tiempo Inn, just outside of Santa Cruz on Highway 17. Then I’ll be speaking in Monterey on Friday, and I’ll be speaking in the San Jose area, Morgan Hill on Friday. Saturday. So several different locations, and if you live in any of those areas and want to take in one of those events, feel free to do so. You can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and click the tab that says Announcements, and there you’ll see the dates and the times for all of these speaking engagements up in the, well, it’s going to be in Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Jose. And I think I’m leaving something out. No, that’s it. That’s it. All right. So, again, the information, specific information about those meetings is at the website, thenarrowpath.com. And you can look under announcements to find that out. Okay. We’ll talk, first of all, to Gil calling from Long Island, New York. Hi, Gil. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, my friend. Good afternoon. God bless you. Yes. I’m blind, as you know, and somebody anointed me with oil, and they told me to believe because I’ve been having pain in my eye. I know that in Mark 11, 24, it says, Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. But I also look at 1 John 5, 14. How do you get faith to believe? I mean, I want to believe. There’s a verse that says, Help thou my unbelief. I believe it’s in Matthew. how do I believe so that I can be healed? Because I’ve been having pain in my eyes. I might have surgery in April and stuff like that, you know, because I found some problems.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
And she also prayed for my eyes to be healed. That’s another thing. I don’t have a faith that that’s going to happen, but I believe maybe the pain will go away.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right. Well, yeah, there are really two very different positions that Christians could take from Scripture, and I take one of them. But the one I don’t take… is the one that indicates that God always wants to heal our physical sicknesses, that physical sickness is not in the will of God for anyone at any time, that Jesus died, among other things, to get us healed from our sicknesses. They would say that healing of sickness is part of the atonement. And, of course, he died for our sins, too, but they would say there’s kind of a two-pronged intention. When Jesus died, he died for our sins and for our sicknesses. And these people would generally say, if you don’t get healed, maybe you’ve got sin in your life, or maybe you don’t have enough faith, and you really have to believe for your healing. And what that means to them is that you have to just believe that that healing you’re praying for is going to happen. Or even if you don’t pray for it, you can just confess that you’re healed on the basis of Christ’s atonement. This is the one view that’s out there. And these people would suggest that it’s never okay to say, well, maybe God has a purpose for you being sick. You know, if you’re disabled or sick, it may be that God is doing something in your life through that, which could not be done as well, as only he would know, if that was not present. Now, that’s one view. Now, the other view, and what I believe is more biblical, is that healing, that is supernatural healing, is not guaranteed to anybody anywhere. It’s true, God does sometimes heal us even not supernaturally. Sometimes people get healed without prayer and they get healed just over a period of time of certain sicknesses. And there are people who get healed miraculously. I do believe in miraculous healing. But I don’t believe that miraculous healing was purchased for us in the atonement. If it was… then Jesus is getting ripped off because he paid for all of our healing, and we’re not getting healed, all of us. I mean, most Christians do not get healed of every disease they have, and that includes the ones who are confessing that they are well. That includes the ones who have 100% faith that they’re going to be healed. Many of them do not get healed. It’s not a guarantee. See, we know that Jesus died for our sins, and we can count on that because there’s never been a case where where somebody came to Christ on his terms and didn’t get forgiven of their sins. It happens every time. Sickness, however, healing of sickness doesn’t happen every time. No matter how much faith you have, no matter how holy you live, no matter how exceptional you are in the Christian faith, even if you’re Paul and you have a thorn in your flesh that you pray three times and God would take it away, and the Lord says, no, I’ll give you the grace for it. It’s advantageous for you to have this weakness because of my strength. is made perfect in your weakness. Or if you’re a Timothy who’s got frequent stomach infirmities, probably amoebic dysentery from drinking third world water, and Paul says, well, take a little wine with that. That will help balance things out. You know, he didn’t say get healed. He didn’t say claim you’re healed. There was a man named Trophimus that Paul traveled with until Trophimus got really sick, and Paul had to leave him behind. Paul said he’d left Trophimus sick in Miletus. He didn’t say he was well but failed to have the faith to be healed. His sickness is something that exists. It exists in the Old Testament. It existed when Jesus was on earth. He didn’t heal everybody. He healed lots of people because that was part of what he was here to demonstrate, that he was the one who fulfills the prophecies about the one who would heal the nation of their spiritual sicknesses. His healing of physical sicknesses demonstrated that, just like his physical turning water into wine proved that he was one who spiritually healed. is the true vine and creates the fruit of the vine as a vine does. I mean, Jesus’ healings and his miracles were demonstrating something about him and about the kingdom of God. Now, those things he demonstrated are still true. He still is those things. But the Bible does not indicate that at all times equally there will be miracles happening. Now, they could happen any time. I believe in miracles to this day. I believe there are miracles today. I just don’t believe that the church has been promised miracles whenever we’d want them. If God promised us miracles every time we wanted one, and all we had to do was have faith, there wouldn’t have to be any laws of nature at all, because a miracle would violate the laws of nature every time we wanted it to. And we’d always want it to. I mean, we’d want to violate the law of gravity so we could float around and And go places we’d like to turn invisible so it could spy on people and they wouldn’t know. There’s all kinds of things we’d like to do that would be a violation of the laws of nature and that would be miracles. But you see, God isn’t just interested in sensational miracles. We are. But he’s not. Miracles do not impress him. He’s got a million of them. He created the universe as a miracle of speaking and existence. So he’s not as impressed with miracles as we are. He’s impressed with character. When Paul wanted a miracle to heal the thorn in his flesh, which was, I believe, an eye problem. No one knows for sure, but it seems like it was from other things he said. Jesus said, hey, my grace is sufficient for you. I’m not going to heal this because while you’re weakened by this, My strength is made perfect in your life. And Paul said, okay, then I’ll rejoice in my infirmities because of this. In other words, the Bible does not teach that healing of the sickness is always God’s desired response. Now, you mentioned Mark 11, where Jesus said, Whatsoever things you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. And then you counterbalance that, rightly so, with 1 John 5.14, which says, And this is the confidence we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, then we know that we have the petitions that we desire of him. Now, those two things sound like they either contradict each other or supplement each other. And when it comes to prayer, prayer is the whole of our interaction with God. It’s our communion, our communication with God. And there’s a lot to it, just like there’s a lot to our communication with anyone else. Not all communication is the same. Not all of it has the same results. But it’s a complex thing, our relationship with God. And lots of things are said about prayer. We’re told that we have to pray in faith. Okay, that’s one thing. We need to pray in the name of Jesus. That’s another thing. We need to pray according to the will of God. Well, that’s another thing. we need to pray with good motives, says James. James says you ask and you do not have because you ask with wrong motives. Okay, well, that’s another thing. In other words, there’s lots of aspects of prayer that make it suitable. It’s not just faith, as maybe Mark 11, 14 would suggest, taken by itself. It’s not just that you’re asking something in the will of God. It’s all these things. It’s a whole process. It’s a holistic relationship with God, and each verse about prayer tells us one aspect of it, but not to the exclusion of the others. So when I say these verses that you mentioned together, they don’t contradict each other, but they do supplement each other. When Jesus said, whatever you ask for, believe that you receive it and you have it, that’s not to be taken out of context with the other things he says, like when the Bible says we have to pray according to the will of God. What if I… Pray that I will win the lottery. And I’ll just make myself believe it’s going to happen. But what if it’s not the will of God for you to win the lottery? Well, then that verse isn’t saying all I need to know about prayer. We need to take the whole counsel of God, the whole teaching of God about prayer and petitions and communication with God. Now, as far as you say, how can I believe for healing? Well, the woman who told you that God wants to heal you, she may be right. She might be hearing something from God that I don’t know about you because there are people who know things about people that I don’t know anything about. So I’m not going to say that it isn’t God’s will to heal you. But how can you believe for healing then? I personally don’t prefer to use the expression to believe for healing. I think we believe God. We believe in God. Faith is a relational thing. description of how we are toward God. He’s trustworthy. He’s on our side. He’s our friend. He’s a father who cares about his children. He’s made promises. He can be counted on. That’s saying more about his character than anything else, that we have a relationship with somebody we trust. Now, when I was growing up, my dad would give me things I needed, but he sometimes didn’t give me things that he didn’t think I needed. even if I ask for them. Now, it’s not that he didn’t love me, but it’s just in the nature of fathers and children, fathers give good things to their children as the father evaluates goodness. That is, whether it’s an appropriate thing, whether it’s something that’s going to be the best thing. Only God knows what’s really the best thing for me, and therefore, when I’m sick, I don’t just assume, okay, the best thing is to be healed, and so I’m going to ask God to heal me, and I’m going to just trust him to do it. No, I’m going to trust God himself to either do that or do whatever else is best. In other words, I’m not trusting in a result. I’m trusting in a person. I’m trusting in God. And I know that he can do anything that needs to be done for my good. And if I’m yielded to him, if I’m submitted to him, and I make my request to him of something I would like, and if he thinks that’s the best thing, he’ll do it. If he doesn’t think it’s the best thing, He’ll do something else, and I trust him in that. If he doesn’t do what I ask him to do, I trust him still. I trust that he’s got a good reason, that he’s got something better in mind. And I often give the example of Lazarus’ sisters. This is what I always give in this case because it’s a good biblical example. Lazarus’ sisters sought for Jesus to come and heal their brother. He was sick to the point of death, and he was a good friend of Jesus, so they figured he’d respond. And when Jesus heard he was sick, he did nothing. The Bible says he just waited around for Lazarus to die. Now, after that, he went down and raised him from the dead, which apparently Jesus thought was a better thing than healing him. The sisters couldn’t imagine anything better than healing him. When you’re sick or somebody who loves is sick, you can’t imagine what would be better than for God to heal him. But sometimes God has more imagination than you do. Sometimes God’s going to do something that’s more important, more lasting. more significant more edifying than the thing we’re asking for and so when we pray we do what jesus said jesus said father if it’s your will let this cut pass from me but not my will but yours be done that’s how we pray we don’t pray that our will will be done we pray that god’s will will be done we let our requests be made known to god according to philippians 4 but the truth is our requests are simply that children asking their father for something that they would like for him to do and leaving it with him to decide if that’s the best thing or not, and trusting that if he does something else, then that’s the best thing. What he does is better, even if it’s not what I prefer. Remember, Christians are people who have resigned themselves to the will of God. We have denied ourselves and taken up our cross. That’s in the very act of becoming a Christian. And as such, we are now concerned more about what God wants than what we want. We certainly have strong feelings about what we’d like many times. But once we find that it’s not what God wants, we learn to resign ourselves to it and do the will of God in the midst of whatever situation God has chosen for us. Now, I don’t know this woman who told you that God wants to heal your eyes and so forth. I hope he does. I hope that is what he wants to do. And you said, how can you trust God? Trust that he’s a great physician and he’s a great father. And if healing your eyes is the best thing for you and for him and for his kingdom and for all concerned, then that’s certainly what he’ll do if you’re trusting him. But if you’re trusting him and he doesn’t heal your eyes, you have to still be trusting him to be doing the right thing when he doesn’t do what you ask. So in other words, you don’t believe specifically to be healed. You believe in God. You believe for God’s will to be done. You may ask that you be healed, knowing that God can do that if he wants. And having that faith that God can heal you. And that if that’s truly the best thing, that’s exactly what he’ll do. But also knowing sometimes he has something better in mind and he may not. I cannot imagine how hard it is to be blind, Gil. I sometimes think of all the disabilities that would be one of the hardest for me to adjust to. And so my heart is really with you in this. I certainly would love to find that God healed your eyes. But I just, in the real world of walking with God and biblical Christianity, the truth is not everyone who wants you to be healed, including yourself, will get their way. But what you want most is that God gets his way. And there are people who are disabled. I think of Johnny Erickson Tata, who got a neck injury when she was 19 years old in a diving accident. And she’s in her 70s now. And she’s been in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the neck down for, what’s it been, 75 years? No, I mean 55 years, excuse me, something like that. And then she’s also a cancer survivor. She got cancer. I think she survived that. So she’s had some real rough goes. But these things have made her not only very godly, because if you respond to your disability in a godly, trusting way, it draws you nearer to God. But also, her condition has put her in the position to reach out to a certain community, in her case, people in wheelchairs, in a way that she could have if she wasn’t disabled, but they know she’s been there. I’ve had some trials, too. They’re not physical in my body, but some of the trials I’ve had that have made my life very hard at times have put me in a position where, when I meet people who are in that condition, I can speak to them as one who knows, and they can appreciate that. God knows what’s necessary. I don’t. So, Gil, I gave you a really long answer, but it’s one because I take your question very seriously, and I care about your situation, but those are the answers I would derive from Scripture, and I don’t agree with those who say God always wants to heal. He’ll always eventually heal when we rise from the dead, like He didn’t heal Lazarus, but he raised him from the dead. Well, he’ll raise you from the dead someday, too, whether he heals you beforehand or not. All right. Tom in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey, Steve.
SPEAKER 05 :
How are you doing? Just stumbled across your content a month or so ago, and I’m really appreciating, first off, this forum because I’ve been searching for an answer on this for a long time, and I I’m really interested to get your perspective on it. So I’ll try and keep this short. I do need to frame it a little bit. Martyrdom has been something that’s been somewhat of an obsession for me, probably in an unhealthy way. Ever since I was a preteen, and I remember our church showing us back in the late 70s of Beef in the Night, which had this kind of horrific guillotine scene at the end of it, and just really stuck with me, kind of was refreshed again. When I heard about the tens of thousands of guillotines the government supposedly has in our country’s dumbs, you know. And anyway, so, you know, I know Jesus and the scriptures are very clear that we should expect persecution. I also know that the scriptures are very clear in this, and I think this is the most prevalent commandment is to fear not. You know, I’ve got this book here of 365 verses, but that pastor… Sure.
SPEAKER 09 :
Let’s get to your question as quickly as we can. I don’t need to know about the book.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, my question, I guess, then, Steve, is how do you square, you know, fear or not with, like, you know, the persecutions? And I’m reading about Fox’s book of martyrs here. I mean, being put into a… I mean, what sane person doesn’t fear those things? Do you feel… I’m searching for some nugget that God may… provide some supernatural shielding during these persecution moments. But it’s like, you know, kind of. OK, I hear your question.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Yeah, I hear your question. Well, in some ways, you’re a lot like me, because ever since I read Fox’s book of martyrs, which when I was 17 years old, I’ve always thought it’d be a glorious thing to be a martyr. I’ve always thought that since we’re certainly not going to escape death ultimately, I mean, we’re all going to die. And we only get to do it one time. What could be more meaningful than to die meaningfully, to die for Jesus? I mean, someday we’ll be in heaven with all the other people who’ve died various ways. And I think those who’ve died for Jesus will be the ones who feel the most satisfied with their death, as opposed to dying in an accident, or especially as opposed to dying in some stupid way. But, I mean, everyone’s going to die. We should never resist. the possibility of dying for Jesus. In fact, we should even think that’s a great privilege. We should make ourselves martyrs, you know, just to be stupid, but we should not be afraid to be martyrs. Now, how do we deal with the… Jesus said, if anyone come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. He said, whoever will seek to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it to eternal life. So… When he says, if you seek to save your life, you’ll lose it. Well, we seek to save our lives all the time simply by not doing things that would be fatal for us to do. We’re smart. Wisdom avoids doing stupid things that will kill you unnecessarily. That’s not what Jesus is talking about, though, when he talks about don’t seek to save your life. What he’s saying is you need to bear a cross. Your cross is going to include persecution, in some cases even martyrdom, And you might prefer not to be a disciple, so to avoid those kind of things. No, then you’re seeking to save your life at the expense of doing the right thing. The right thing is to follow Jesus, whether it’s going to cost you your life or not. Something’s going to get you. Something’s going to cost you your life someday. And certainly, when you do die, you’ll be much happier to know that you did that because the way you died is because you were being obedient rather than disobedient. Now, do we fear death? I would say, for example, right now, if I heard that the building I’m in is going to be bombed in the next 20 minutes, I would probably, instead of finishing the radio program, I’d probably get off the air and I’d probably go to another place, not this building, because I don’t want to be bombed unnecessarily. I mean, you do wise things that don’t involve compromise in order to stay alive and to prolong your life. And you’re stewarding your life this way. God’s given you life. You should take care of it. But if I heard that, you know, terrorists have locked all the exits of the building, we’re stuck in the building, and they’re going to bomb the building in the next 20 minutes, I think, well, that’s different, you know. But, I mean, I guess now I know how I’m going to die. I’ve never had any doubt that I’m going to die. Never knew how. I guess this is how. I wouldn’t be afraid to die. I’ve been in airplanes that were facing such turbulence and lightning storm stuff. I literally thought, well, this could be one of those that’s going to go down. You know, it’s in bad shape. But I just thought, well, if it does, okay, this is how I’m going to die then. I don’t care. However God wants me to die, you avoid fear. By caring only for the will of God and trusting God that you will not, while you’re trusting him, you will not die in some way that he doesn’t want you to die. The angel of the Lord encamps around about those who fear him and delivers them, it says in Psalm 34. And God’s got enough angels to protect you from dying if that’s his will. But it’s always his will for us to die sometime. So, you know, I’ll let him send the angels if he wants to save me. I’m going to do the will of God and leave the consequences with him. That’s what I would suggest. then just don’t be afraid. I mean, once you know that the dangerous thing can’t be avoided, then just accept it and say, well, this is when I’m going to go see Jesus. Wonderful. Hey, I need to take a break. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
The book of Hebrews tells us do not forget to do good and to share with others. So let’s all do good and share The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg with family and friends. When the show is over today, tell one and all to go to thenarrowpath.com where they can study, learn, and enjoy with free topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all The Narrow Path radio shows. And be sure to tell them to tune into the show right here on the radio. Cheer listeners supported The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Share and do good.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. 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, or you have a difference of opinion from the host and want to balance comment. I would be glad to hear from you. It looks like we have one line open at the moment. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Our next caller today is Bob in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Hi, Bob. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, thank you, Steve, for taking my call. I certainly enjoy your program. The question I have is probably a the left field. But anyways, I published a book recently called Scripture and Poetry. And I’ve been giving the books out freely. But recently, there was a gentleman came to me and I sold him a book. And that night I came home, the word I got was freely you receive, freely give. So Saturday, I’m going to a book fair. All your material, you give away free. Help me understand how I can continue this freedom, giving away freely. Well… Yeah, I hear you. I hear you, yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, first of all, the material in your book, if you feel like God has given you those insights that you wrote about to bless the body of Christ, I assume he gave those to you freely, and so you can give out those insights freely. However… the book in which they’re printed, you may not have been able to publish for free. I mean, there is a certain cost to publishing books. And so if you recovered your cost while getting the information out free, that would be – I mean, I don’t do that. I don’t sell my books at all. But, I mean, that would not be in violation of freely you receive, freely give. So, I mean, you know, if you buy cartons of your book – and you sell them for the exact price or whatever that you put into them, then you’re still giving away the information. It’s the physical book that costs you money, and you’re recovering your costs. When I ran a Bible school for 16 years, we housed students, adult students, for nine months in our dormitories and stuff, and we fed them. And we had classes like six hours a day, most of which I taught, And we were trying to decide how to afford this. And what we decided is we’ll charge for a room and board the cheapest we can, you know, give it to them. We’ll give it to them for that cost. And we’ll charge no tuition. So we’re giving the word of God freely. But the room and board didn’t come to us free, and so we had to recover it. Actually, we charged $200 a month for food and a bed. Okay. It costs the students $200 a month for a room and three cooked meals and then six hours a day of classes. But, I mean, the idea is to make it available to people as inexpensively as possible. Now, I’ve had people say, well, if you just give your stuff away, people don’t value it. You need to sell it, and then they won’t throw it away or whatever. Well, I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, that’s between them and the material. My books can be bought at Amazon, but that’s the only reason is because I can’t afford to go buy the books and send them free to everybody. I assume you can’t either with your book. I don’t sell books. You can’t buy my books from our website. When I travel, I take a limited number of books with me. I usually fly. I can’t take a lot. But I take some to give away to people. And if I could take cartons of them, I’d give them away to people. I just don’t like to travel that heavy with boxes of books. But I just know that, you know, I’ll give books away to those who ask for them. But most people don’t ask for them free. Most people, I guess, assume they could buy them. And if they can buy them, they can. You know, do I get part of that? I do. But I’d be glad to give up my royalty in order to make it cheaper at Amazon. But The publishers make those decisions. I don’t. So anyway, you know, you just form your own policies, you know. The truth is I could probably sell some of my stuff because some of it cost me something to do, to make. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to sell anything. Someone asked me yesterday at a meeting, you know, why don’t you sell your stuff? And the reason was that 55 years ago when I went into ministry, I decided I did not want my ministry in any way to be A business. To me, there’s a difference between giving things to people because you’re serving God for free. You’re his slave. You’re not a paid laborer. You’re not a contract laborer. You’re a slave of God. So you just serve his people free as much as you can. And other people, you know, people do like to sell their stuff and merch and maybe charge for their speaking and stuff like that. That’s between them and God. To me, though, that’s too much business. In fact, it’s hardly distinguishable from business at all. I’m not sure what part of that is ministry. To me, business and ministry are different things. When I went into the ministry, I made a conscious choice not to be going into business. So that’s why I don’t sell anything. But you can do something else. I mean, as long as you’re not just trying to make money off the word of God, and it doesn’t sound like you are. Then, I mean, if you recover your costs, I don’t think you’re doing anything that offends God. God, no one has to do what I do. I do what I do because I love to do it that way. And I’ve always wanted to do that. I always have. But you’re going to have to do what he wants you to do. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah, that’s it. And you know what? I feel, I honestly feel that I just give it away. Yeah. If you can afford it, go ahead. That’s all we provide. I can afford it to a point, sure. So, okay, I thank you so much for your insight because it pushed up the shelf. I think we covered the cost.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you this. My policy when people wanted to order stuff from me because we used to have We used to have all my lectures on cassette tape, and people would order those. There were hundreds of them. And other things like my books and so forth. I mean, my policy would be in those days free as long as the supplies last, meaning I can’t predict that I’ll be able to send out thousands of tapes or books to people at my own expense. If I can, I will. If I can’t, I’ll just have to say, sorry, we’re out until next time, until I have more money to buy more. But that’s still being free. It’s just saying you can have these things for free as long as the supply is there. As long as I can eat the cost, I’ll do it. But, of course, now with the Internet, all my stuff is online, so we just make it online for free, and it doesn’t cost me anything, so it’s not costing me to give it out to thousands of people. Now, that’s the wonderful thing with the Internet. But, you know, God will have to guide you in the way that you distribute your ministry to others. And I would just say if you really believe in your book, if you really believe that this is something God gave you for the body of Christ, then do it until you can’t afford to do it anymore. I mean, I’m not saying impoverish yourself, but, you know, figure out in your budget how much can I put out to buy books and give them away to people. It might not be much, but whatever God has provided for you will be the thing that determines the answer to those kinds of questions. Hey, I appreciate your call, brother. We’re going to talk next to Ed in Detroit, Michigan. Ed, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. How’s it going? Proverbs 15, 20, but a foolish man despises his mother. What do I do about that if my mom really doesn’t really want to have a relationship with me?
SPEAKER 09 :
You honor them. To despise your mother, the word despise in the Bible usually refers to not respect, to show a little respect to. Despising to us means I absolutely loathe somebody, I hate them, or something like that. But that’s not really what the word usually means in the Bible. It usually means to disrespect somebody. or to have little regard for somebody. And so he that despises his mother is doing the opposite of what the commandment is, to honor your father and your mother. Now, honor them. And if she says, I don’t want anything to do with you, say, okay, I’ll honor that. I mean, I think that’s a bad choice you’re making. I think when you’re old and dead or dying, you’re going to wish you had your kids around you, but, you know, I can’t force myself on you. So it’s a sad thing when parents come to that point. Now, do you have any idea why she doesn’t want anything to do with you? Is it something you’ve done, or has she just got issues?
SPEAKER 08 :
I think it’s just issues, divorce with my father, and I always say that I look like a father and such things like that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, we had a friend like that, a friend whose mother and grandmother were not very receiving of him, and we wondered if it was because he reminded her of the father or something, but It’s such an immature and, frankly, evil thing for a parent to blame the child for mistakes that they themselves made. Yeah. But, you know, send her a Mother’s Day card every year, a birthday card. Just say, I’d love to talk to you sometime whenever you’re wanting to. And then just give her as much liberty as she insists upon.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’ve gifted her a Bible. That’s… I’ve done that, trying to just spread the gospel to her, but she just, yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate it, brother.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s a strange thing for a mother to be that way, but there’s not much you can do to change her, probably.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 09 :
Just be loving. All right. It’s hard to hear about this.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, you’re good.
SPEAKER 09 :
Sad situation. God bless you. Bye now. All right. Let’s see. Rez in the Bay Area, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, Steve, I wish I would have known you were in Petaluma. I only live about 10 minutes from there.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, well, I’m in the house every day for a week or two, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s great.
SPEAKER 09 :
I never show up somewhere by surprise.
SPEAKER 10 :
Were you at a church over there?
SPEAKER 09 :
In a house.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, okay. Excellent.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, so what’s your question?
SPEAKER 10 :
I’m having a hard time understanding something and coming to terms with it. So it seems like people criticize Islam because there are some Muslims who take the Quran out of context and they murder people based on certain verses. However, yet it seems like right now and for the past couple of years, the Zionists in Israel have been using the Old Testament to justify their crimes against the Palestinians and other people in the world as saying they’re God’s chosen people. That’s the first question. The second question is they also take how the world is awakening to the atrocities that they’re committing as prophecy in which everybody is going to come against Israel, but yet they’re going to prevail against everybody. I think it’s the war of Gog and Magog. So those are my two questions.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right. Well, first of all, people who take the Koran to say that they should kill all infidels may not be taking it out of context. I’m not an expert on the Koran. I know there are peace-loving Muslims who say that that is taking it out of context. And there are other Muslims who say, no, that’s not out of context at all, that there’s some early parts of the Koran where Muhammad urged, you know, kindness toward people of the book, the Jews and the Christians, and then later parts of the Koran where he said to kill anyone who won’t convert. And so, I mean, I don’t know the context because I don’t study the Koran. I do know the context of the biblical instructions to the Jews, and there’s nothing in the instructions given to Moses or Joshua that tells them that they should kill Palestinians. the people that they were told to replace were the Canaanites. And the Canaanites are gone. And so, I mean, there was no mention of the Palestinians, who are, you know, Arabs of various kinds, that were in Palestine before Israel became a nation. So certainly what God told Joshua to do did not apply to the Palestinians. And some people say, well, Well, God gave them the land, and if taking the land means killing the people, that’s what it takes. No, that’s not quite how it was. God gave them the land, conditionally, and told them, if you do the right things, if you obey my commandments and keep my covenant, you can stay in the land. If you break my covenant and do the wrong things, you will be expelled from it. God said, I’ll make the land vomit you out, just like it vomits out the Canaanites before you. The second thing to consider is that the Canaanites were not like the Palestinians. The Canaanites were horrible pagans. I mean, they were sacrificing their babies to demons and things like that. The Palestinians are the ones that are not Muslims. A lot of them are Christians. There are a lot of Christian Palestinians, a lot more Christian Palestinians than Israeli Jewish Christians. And so, I mean, it’s not similar. God was judging the whole society of the Canaanites for their horrible wickedness, We don’t know that the Palestinian dirt farmers who got run off their farms and lands when Israel became a state and the Israelis took some of the territory from them, we don’t know that those Palestinians were bad people. I mean, they weren’t Christians, but neither are the Jews. The Jews aren’t Christians either. The only people that are God’s people are Christians, people who follow Christ. Jesus said if you don’t honor the Son, you don’t honor the Father who sent him. Well, okay, Jews don’t honor Jesus. Muslims don’t honor Jesus. Islam as a religion does honor Jesus more than Judaism as a religion does. But most Jews in Palestine aren’t even Jewish by religion. Only about 20% of the population of Israel are Jewish by faith. Only half of 1% are Christian by faith. And the rest are secular. The Jews who are, you know, killing Palestinians, they’re… They’re not carrying out some kind of a mission like God gave to Joshua. And anyone who says they are is going to have to look for all kinds of tenuous connections that make it similar. But it’s not similar. The Canaanites were a people under curse. The Palestinians, we don’t read of that being the case with them at all. A lot of them are very innocent, harmless people. Yeah, I know Hamas and the leadership of the Palestinians has been some pretty wicked people. And there’s been some wicked people in Israel who’ve done terrible atrocities, too. You’re going to find bad people in every country, including this one we live in. But, you know, wiping out a whole society should happen only when God has said it has to happen, and he hasn’t said that about the Palestinians. So there’s no excuse for any kind of atrocities done today on some kind of a basis of what God told the Jews back when they were first taking the land. Now, as far as prophecy is concerned, You said people are saying the prophets say that all the nations are going to come against Israel, but Israel’s going to prevail. Well, it did say that, and then it happened. The prophecies they’re referring to are, as you said, the Gog and Magog War, but also Zechariah chapter 12 through 14. But those prophecies, in my opinion, have been fulfilled in the past. They’re not about today. And even, let’s just say someone disagrees with me and says they are for today, they are for the end times. Okay, well, That doesn’t mean that Israel gets to be bad guys, too. In those prophecies, Israel are being persecuted, presumably innocently, by people who are really nasty people. Well, Israel today, yeah, they’ve got some nasty enemies, but Israel’s a pretty nasty enemy to other people, too. We simply don’t have a righteous nation over there. There’s not a righteous nation in Israel. There’s not a righteous nation in Palestine. So what do we have there? We have secular nations at war with each other. Very similar to what we have in the Ukraine and Russia. Secular nations, both of them bad guys in many respects. A lot of people innocent who are getting killed. It’s a secular war between secular entities. Nothing that’s happening in Israel today is fulfilling anything that the Bible predicted. And I say that not just as a hyperbole or not as some kind of a an irresponsible, off-the-top-of-my-head kind of thing. I did teach through the Bible 16 times, verse by verse, all the prophets in 16 years when I ran my school. I’m definitely familiar with what the prophets do and don’t say. And I’m also familiar with when they were fulfilled. And I can say there’s nothing going on in Israel today that is predicted to happen in the end times. So I realize that I’m maybe in the minority in saying that, But I don’t say that, say, and so just shut up and believe me. No, I say that with an open microphone so you can call in. If someone says, wait a minute, Steve, I know some prophecies that are being fulfilled there today. Hey, I’ve got a public phone number here. I’ll talk to you on the air. You can quote the verses. We’ll talk about them. We’ll look at the context together. We’ll see if you’re right. And in other words, if I’m making statements that sound controversial to you, Just know I’m not saying them like most radio programs have it, where they just say it and you can’t say anything back to them. You can call me up. If you disagree with me, I’ll put you at the front of the line. Love to talk to you. All right. So, Rez, no. I mean, I don’t think that the Muslims or the Jews have any right to, you know, try to annihilate each other or commit genocide against each other. I think they’re both bad when they do that. Now, what do I think about the nation of Israel in general? In general, I’m pro-Israel. A lot of people say that, you know, if you don’t think the Jews are the special people of God, you’re anti-Semitic. That’s not true. Why would you have to believe that? I don’t think the Irish are the special people of God or the Brazilians, but that doesn’t make me anti-Irish or anti-Brazilian. I just believe all people are alike to God. Jew, Gentile, you name it. God loves them all. And he’s angry at all the ones who don’t follow Christ, so… There’s nothing anti-Semitic about this. And in general, at least most of my life up to the present moment, I’m relatively pro-Israel. Conditionally, you know, if they do bad things, I’m not for that. But I’m not anti-Israel. I’m not one of these people who say Israel has no right to exist. If we start saying that, we can say America has no right to exist. You know, if somebody lived here before we did. And we took the country through war. That’s about average. That’s how all nations exist today is they took it from someone else the same way. And Israel took land from the Palestinians through war and through UN mandate. We might say it was a bad decision of the UN, but it’s done now. And we can’t say they don’t have any right to exist any more than we can say we don’t have a right to exist or any other country that’s sitting on land that someone else lived in before they took it over. Anyway. geopolitics is one thing. The Bible and Christianity address them, but not in the way that some people think. They don’t address them in the sense of predicting these things. All right. Let’s talk to Wendell from Evansville, Indiana. Wendell, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 02 :
Steve, I agree with your partial preterism and the early date of Revelation, but With that in mind, I would be expecting the letter to be written to Jerusalem, not the seven churches of Asia Minor. I hear you. It just kind of took me off balance there, and I was wondering what your thoughts are about that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, it’s a good point. This question is often raised. Of course, I’ve thought about it myself many times. For those who don’t know, what you’re referring to is that people like myself think that the book of Revelation… which is seven letters to seven churches in Asia, has as its subject matter the impending war between Israel and Rome, which eventually ended up with the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jews throughout the world. And so it’s largely talking about the Jewish war, but it’s written to people who lived in Turkey, pretty far from Jerusalem. And so what Wendell’s saying is, if this is true, if it’s about the Jewish war, why wasn’t it sent to Jerusalem? Why wasn’t it sent to the church there? Well, there’s a couple of reasons I would say possibly. One is simply that God had already given them this warning in the Olivet Discourse. Jesus, who is sending this letter to the seven churches of Asia, had already sat on the Mount of Olives and warned about this very thing in similar detail. So a lot of the language of Revelation echoes language in the Olivet Discourse, and told them it would take place in that generation, and that Jerusalem is going to be surrounded by armies and things like that, and take it over. So in other words, the Jerusalem church had gotten this straight from the mouth of Jesus some 30 years earlier or so. So he didn’t have to send them a special letter about it. But again, the question would be, but why do the people of Turkey need to know about it? I mean, why do the churches there care? I mean, they’re not in Jerusalem. They’re not even in the battle zone. They’re not going to be directly affected by this. Well, that is probably true. But again, John had a relationship with the church in Ephesus. He had lived in Ephesus when he wasn’t in Patmos. And Ephesus was the main city in Turkey, in Asia Minor. And Paul had established all the churches in Asia Minor probably a little bit earlier than this. And, you know, very possibly Paul was either in prison or dead by the time this revelation was given. And John, perhaps as a resident of Ephesus, Probably the last living apostle was the one that God chose to reveal this to and sent it to the churches of Asia. Now, why would they care? Well, I think they might because I care. I find it interesting. It’s interesting to me to read about what God did in the destruction of Jerusalem. Not that I like it, but it’s fascinating because it has to do with a very major thing. the end of the old covenant and the independence of the new covenant without the temple and all that stuff. And this is very spiritually significant to Christians of all time, not least those of the first century who lived just across a little bit of the Mediterranean from Israel. We have to remember, too, that there were a lot of Jews in the churches everywhere. When Paul evangelized that region, he went to the synagogues first, and although not very many Jews were converted – The first people converted were Jews and synagogue members. So there was a Jewish population in every church, and they would be interested in this because their families and stuff were there in Jerusalem. Like I said, there would be lots of people who would be interested in it besides those who lived in Jerusalem. Obviously, it would be most relevant to ones who did live in Jerusalem. But see, Jesus… had said to the disciples, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its desolation is near. Then you who are in Judea flee to the mountains. And they did. The church in Jerusalem actually fled. According to Eusebius the historian, they fled at the beginning of the war. That would be around 66. At the beginning of the war, before the war broke out, Jesus appeared to the Christians in Jerusalem and told them to flee. And they did. So the church wasn’t even in Jerusalem anymore by the time that war was in full swing. They had left the country. So, you know, they had already benefited from the information because Jesus had given that warning. But to have this kind of a revelation given concerning that matter for all time, I’ll say this, as a partial preterist who believes that’s what it’s about, I don’t think that that’s uninteresting to me. I think it’s very fascinating. But I also personally think that some parts of Revelation are not just about AD 70. I personally think that parts of it are about the church age that we live in, but I don’t have time to go into that now, but my lectures on Revelation bring out which parts those are. Anyway, it’s a good and challenging question, and I appreciate you asking it, but I’m out of time. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We are listener-supported. If you want to help us out, thenarrowpath.com is the place to do it.
