In this episode of The Narrow Path, host Steve Gregg delves into the evolving landscape of the Anglican Church as it appoints its first female Archbishop of Canterbury. The conversation provides a critical analysis of liberal denominations and their departure from traditional biblical teachings. Steve discusses the profound significance and implications for the Anglican and Episcopal communities worldwide, offering insights into what it means to remain true to the gospel in an ever-changing religious landscape.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live. This is a typical thing for us on weekdays. We’re doing it for about 29 years now each weekday, taking your calls for an hour per day live. You know, if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, you can call it. We’ll talk about those things. If you see things differently than the host, I want to present an alternate viewpoint. We’d love to take your calls about that, too. The number is 844-484-5737. It looks like our line’s just filled up, but if you want to call in a few minutes, lines will be opening up, and you can reach me here at 844-484-5737. So, since our lines are full, we’ll go directly to them and talk to Michael from Denver, Colorado. Michael, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
Steve, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. So great to talk with you again. And I wanted to ask you about something that, well, it was actually on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, a lot of the papers today. The Church of England yesterday installed the first woman to lead the Church of England. Right. Yeah, it’s kind of interesting. It marked the first time that a woman is going to be leading the Anglican community. I’m just wondering kind of your thoughts on the significance of that, you know, the first woman leading the Anglican community. And it serves— branches of the Episcopal Church in the U.S., and that has over 100 million members. And, yeah, I was just kind of interested in getting your thoughts on that. Sure.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, there are many denominations that have gone away from Christ or they’ve reinterpreted Christ in a way that is untrue to the gospel. And certainly not only the Anglican Church. There are lots of churches, lots of what we call liberal denominations, Now, liberal denominations doesn’t necessarily refer to politically liberal, although many times the liberal denominations have conformed to the liberal political agendas to a great extent. The Anglican Church, for example, has long ago begun to favor not only female priests, but homosexual priests and marriage of homosexuals to each other and so forth. Of course, when they began to do that, they decided that Christ will no longer be the head of their church. Of course, the Anglican Church was founded by King Henry VIII on the assumption that the King of England is the head of the church in England. He broke away from the Catholic Church, which typically saw, of course, the Pope as the head of their church, and Henry wanted to do something the Pope wouldn’t permit, namely divorce his wife and marry his mistress, and so he broke away from the Catholic Church and proclaimed that he, the King of England, was the head of the church. Well, Okay, well, as soon as a man is the head of the church, other than Jesus, it’s not the church of Jesus. Jesus is the only head of the only church there is. Now, there’s lots of organizations called churches. Some of them are denominational. Most of them probably are, and many denominations. But the real church is comprised of those who are following Jesus Christ as their head, meaning their Lord and their King. He’s the one, just like the head of your body, directs the actions of your body. So Christ directs the actions of the true body of Christ. Now, any group that wants to can start a corporation and run it for centuries if they want to and call themselves a church, but that doesn’t make them a church. Just because somebody decides that they’re going to call their organization a church, that doesn’t mean they are. A true church is basically comprised of the community of people worldwide who follow Jesus Christ. Now, somebody who believes that same-sex marriages can be embraced by the church and conducted by the church is simply departing from what Jesus said. Jesus defined marriage for us in Matthew 19, verses 1 through 9. He made it very clear. He said marriage is when a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and the two become one flesh. There’s no other definition of marriage. in the Bible, and certainly Christ confirmed the one that was there, all the way from Genesis 2, verse 24. As far as women clergy, well, obviously a church is free to ordain women clergy if they want to, but they’re not going to be following Paul’s instructions. Paul gave qualifications for bishops. Now, by the way, the Archbishop of Canterbury is not the head of the Anglican Church. The Crown of England is. But Archbishop of Canterbury is the highest ecclesiastical official in it, just like the Pope is in the Catholic Church. So that seat was unoccupied for a while. I don’t know why they didn’t choose somebody earlier. But the Anglican Church didn’t have an Archbishop of Canterbury. Now, they do this woman that they’ve selected. Now, she’s entirely woke. by the terms that that term would be defined. And so the church, or the group that calls itself the Anglican Church, is continuing the same path that’s been going on for some decades now. But the church, the real church, is comprised of everyone who’s a true follower of Christ. God knows who they are. They are in many churches. There might even be some of them in the Anglican Church. I’m not saying there aren’t. I’m just saying that the organization certainly is not the Church of Jesus Christ. Neither is any organization. The Church of Jesus Christ is a spiritual fellowship of those who have been spiritually born again and who have Christ’s spirit in them and follow faithfully Christ as their head. That’s what a body does. That’s what a body is. That’s what the church is. So, You know, we’ll hear about things like this. We’ve heard similar things, not quite this crazy, but we’ve heard similar things from the Anglican Church for several decades now. You’ll find the same thing to be true in many of the Methodist and Nazarene and Presbyterian and other denominations. It’s not uncommon these days for groups that call themselves churches to just act on their own in rebellion against Jesus Christ. And, you know, when Jesus says something and the church says, yeah, but we’re going to say the opposite thing of what he says. They’re simply rebelling against the king. And they are basically decapitating themselves, cutting off the head, Jesus. Now, that’s my opinion. And it certainly fits with everything I understand the Bible to say. But there are people who think of churches in terms of organizations. The Catholics certainly do. The Anglicans do. Most denominations do. But the Bible doesn’t know about these organizations. Jesus never knew about them. The apostles never knew of any such organizations. They only knew of a global community comprised of everybody who loves Jesus and follows him faithfully. And these organizations came along really centuries after the apostles were dead. So, you know, what we may say about these organizations is insofar as any group of people follows Jesus, they are part of the church. It doesn’t matter if they are in one organization or another or in none at all, but they’re part of the body of Christ. And so you say, how significant is it that the Anglican Church just appointed a woman to be the Archbishop of Canterbury? Well, it’s significant for them, I suppose. It’s another step in the direction of rejecting what the Scripture teaches. But for the true church, It’s kind of irrelevant since, you know, people in the true church do not mistake these organizations for church. So, you know, that’d be my nutshell evaluation of what you asked. Thanks for your call, David. All right. Let’s talk to Daniel in Atlanta, Georgia. Daniel, welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, Steve. Thank you so much for taking my call. I recently stumbled across your content on YouTube and you’ve been an inspiration to me, so I appreciate all that you do. My question today is regarding your teaching on Zechariah 14. That was a very light bulb moment for me and it all makes so much sense. I agree pretty much with everything that you have taught on that. I had a question, though. I know that you see the fulfillment of Zechariah 14 in AD 70. My question is, Do you see any sort of inaugurated fulfillment or anything that we can draw from the text in Matthew 24, precisely Matthew and Mark’s renditions of the Olivet Discourse, where you see the glory of God departing from the temple and the person Jesus Christ who then goes and sits on the Mount of Olives? Is that reading too much into the text, or is there anything to be drawn from that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, of course, the Olivet Discourse doesn’t, Jesus doesn’t mention anything about the Mount of Olives, though Jesus and his disciples are seated on the Mount of Olives when he gives that discourse. He makes no actual reference to the location, so there’s no predictions about the Mount of Olives in the Bible, you know, in the New Testament, certainly. Of course, people, you know very well, people say that When the angels said that Jesus would return in the like manner as they saw him go, which was from the Mount of Olives, some people say that’s predicting that he will come back to the Mount of Olives. Well, they can read it if they want to, but that’s not what it says. It doesn’t say anything about him coming back to the Mount of Olives. It says he will come back in the same way that they saw him go. It doesn’t say whether or not it will be. in the same place as he left from, and it could be or not. You just simply have no prediction there about that. The only thing that has led people to believe that Jesus will return to the Mount of Olives is, of course, Zechariah 14 and verse 6, or verse 4, excuse me. And I don’t believe there’s any reference to Jesus in that. Now, you asked, I think what you’re asking is when Jesus left the temple and sat on the Mount of Olives, and decreed the doom of the temple. Could this be relevant to, you know, you’ve got the destruction of the temple mentioned in Zechariah 14, or of the city, basically of the city of Jerusalem being destroyed in verses 1 and 2. And in verse 4 it says, In that day his, that is God’s, feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Are you inquiring, I’m not sure, are you inquiring whether Jesus actually speaking from the Mount of Olives on that occasion could be related to that prediction. Is that what you’re saying?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes. Sorry, I don’t know. I didn’t answer that or ask that question in the most eloquent manner, but kind of seeing that as the fulfillment, like the inauguration of the fulfillment with the consummation of that fulfillment then occurring in AD 70, but where we see like, you know, Jesus kind of acting out what we see in Zechariah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. We couldn’t be sure of it, but you certainly couldn’t rule that out. As you know, I believe that God’s feet standing on the Mount of Olives is simply a repeat of what happened in 586 B.C., where Ezekiel chapter 11 says that God’s feet would stand or that God himself would stand on the Mount of Olives, which means he’s left the temple area and the temple is now going to be destroyed by enemies because God has abandoned it. It’s Ichabod. The glory has departed. So, and when, you know, when it says in Zechariah 14 that God will again stand on the Mount of Olives, I believe it’s simply saying that God has abandoned the temple, and it’s now Ichabod, and the Romans will now be able to come and destroy it, just as the Babylonians did when Ezekiel made the same prediction. Now, but you’re saying that the fact that Jesus walked out of the temple for the last time, pronounced his doom, and gave a sermon about the doom of the temple there on the Mount of Olives, and he is, of course… God in the flesh. So could this be like an emblem of God’s abandoning Jerusalem, standing on the Mount of Olives and so forth, which is more figuratively seen in 70 AD, but maybe in some almost literal sense in Jesus in Matthew 24 and Mark 13, speaking from that location. You’re asking that, it seems to me. And I’d say the answer seems you could see it that way. I wouldn’t teach it as a certainty, but there’s certainly nothing I know that would rule that out.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Daniel. Good talking to you. Thanks for calling. Okay, John in Salyersville, Kentucky. Welcome to The Narrow Path again.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, Steve. Hi. I was listening to your program earlier this week. You brought up a point about Jesus said, be you perfect for I am perfect. Uh-huh. You really helped me. I’ve never caught that in context like you brought it out when you meant perfect love.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right.
SPEAKER 11 :
I really appreciate that. I called last Friday about the subject of Easter.
SPEAKER 02 :
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER 11 :
You asked for references.
SPEAKER 02 :
Which you sent me.
SPEAKER 11 :
I sent you an email Friday evening.
SPEAKER 02 :
I got it.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes. Oh, you did? Okay. All righty. But I had another question. I see what you think. I believe that God is one person. Hebrews 1 and 3 says Christ is the image of his person, not his persons. And also 1 John 3.16 says God laid down his life for us. He laid down his human life for us. So I was wanting to get your opinion on, you know, God was in Christ. and all that, I was going to get your opinion on that subject.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you know, I am Trinitarian, and it sounds like maybe you’re saying you’re not. Are you oneness Pentecostal?
SPEAKER 11 :
No, I don’t claim denominations. I grew up in oneness Pentecostal, but they have a lot of traditions that I don’t agree with. It ain’t biblical.
SPEAKER 02 :
I see. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, one is Pentecostals believe there’s only one person, one God, who was manifest as God in the Old Testament and as Jesus in the New Testament and as the Holy Spirit ever since Pentecost. Am I correct?
SPEAKER 11 :
I think so, yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that’s how I understand it. Yeah, well, of course, the way that differs from the Trinity doctrine, which most Christians hold, but of course the question is, is it true or not? But the Trinity doctrine is that God does not exist as a changing person. He wears the hat of the Father for 4,000 years, then he puts on the hat of the Son for 30 years, and then he puts on the hat of the Holy Spirit for 2,000 years. But rather that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit coexist simultaneously, and the way that the Trinitarian doctrine has traditionally stated is that there are three persons. Now, whenever I discuss this, I mention the Bible doesn’t say there are three persons. The Bible doesn’t use the word persons in describing the distinctions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So I’m not sure that I would press for that wording, even though that’s in the traditional creeds. What I would say, though, is I think there are distinctions that Jesus himself makes between himself and the Father and between himself and the Holy Spirit that render it difficult to take the modalistic view that the Father just became the Son and so forth. I do believe that the Father was in Christ, to be sure, reconciling the world to himself. I believe that God manifested himself in Christ. But here’s how I tend to see it. Now, I’m not saying I’m right, because this is deep waters, you know, here. But what I will say is that, you know, in the Old Testament, there were numerous times when Yahweh, God, appeared in a human form or in other forms. In the form of a burning bush, in the form of a pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire. We call these theophanies. And several times in human form, as in, for example, Genesis chapter 18, when it says Yahweh appeared to Abraham. And Abram looked up from his tent, and there were three men there, and two of them were angels. The other one is said to be Yahweh, and they ate together, and they talked together. So Yahweh actually took on a physical appearance or form so he could eat food and so forth. Now, what do we make about that? Because Yahweh, of course, was still everywhere else in the universe. I mean, if somebody was calling on Yahweh from the other side of the world, While he was standing there talking to Abraham, certainly Yahweh was there too. He fills the universe. He’s not just found in one spot. So how I understand it is God is, and this is a theological, there’s the universal presence of God. And there’s the manifest presence of God. The universal presence of God is, you know, he’s a spirit, and he pervades his whole universe. In him, we all live and move and have our being, the Bible says. And, you know, David said, if I ascend into heaven, you’re there. If I ascend into Sheol, you’re there, too. If I take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, well, there you are, too. Your hand has guided me there, too. So, you know, God is everywhere, and he’s still everywhere.
SPEAKER 08 :
He’s everywhere.
SPEAKER 02 :
When he manifests himself in one place. So I think that when God manifests himself in the Shekinah glory, in the tabernacle, that’s where he was manifesting himself to people, in that spot. But he was also everywhere else in the universe. That manifestation was, I liken it to him just sticking his finger into our world, you know, in a way that can be seen by us. And, again, I’m not saying that this is a perfect description because I don’t know what a perfect description would be. But it seems to me not impossible to say that God was wrestling with Jacob one night, all night long, in a physical form. And God was everywhere else, too. And I think when Jesus came, I think that was God sticking his finger into our world, too. I think he was in Christ, and that was a physical manifestation of him in a human nature. but that he also existed throughout the universe at the same time. And I think when Jesus said, My Father is greater than I, I think he’s referring to this larger, unrestrained presence of God, whereas Jesus, taking on a human form and a human personality, actually seemed to have a different, in a sense, personhood than before.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, the way I see it is that God says to us, there is but one God, the Father.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
And… Well, Christ to me was the body of God. God’s flesh, his body. It was made of a woman. Well, I believe that the man that ate with Abraham was Christ in his spiritual body. And he returned back to his father in the glory that he had before.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I’m not going to say you’re wrong.
SPEAKER 11 :
He was resurrected. I don’t know. It’s just something that I believe, you know.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Well, John, I’m not going to say you’re wrong about that because you could be right. I think these are mysteries deeper than God has entrusted us with. I mean, there are things here about the nature of the ultimate being of God for which we have no actual earthly analogy. You know, we don’t have. People have their analogies. I’ve heard all kinds of analogies of the Trinity, you know, that people try to give. And each one of them seems to have its own charm and each one of them seems to have its own deficiencies. So I don’t know if there’s really anything on earth. I mean, Didn’t the Hebrews, when they came through the Red Sea in Exodus 15, say, Who is like unto you, O Lord, among gods? Who is like you? Implying no one is. God is incomparable to anything we know. So I think there’s room for different ways of explaining these things. But still, we have to understand if we’re going to follow Scripture. that God was in Christ intruding into our lives, into our world, so that he could redeem us and begin his kingdom here. Anyway, that’s how I see it, and I know different people would explain it differently. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be entitled to. I appreciate your call, John. All right, Gil from Long Island, New York. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome. Hey. You’re a really great comfort to me when I’m eating dinner. I always listen to your show when I’m in the nursing room.
SPEAKER 02 :
Great. Hey, we only have a couple of minutes. Only a couple of minutes for your question. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, all right. I have two different questions. One is on one topic and one is on another. So maybe you could put me on the break. There’s a prayer that says, defend us in battle. And then it says, protect against the wicked snares. And then it says, rebuke him. That prayer of St. Michael says, when did the church come up with that? Because I find it interesting and unique, the prayer.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I don’t know when the church came up with the prayer of St. Michael. I’m going to assume it’s known within Catholic circles. I’m not a Roman Catholic. I’m not familiar with that prayer. I don’t find the Bible presenting that prayer for us, for example, as an exemplar of prayer for us to imitate or to use. Not that I’d be against it. If its contents are good, there’s nothing wrong with praying good prayers, even if somebody else formulated them some other time, as long as we really mean them and we’re really expressing our own thoughts. But I don’t know the history of that prayer at all. What was your other question?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, my other question has to do with that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, my wife just looked up. She said it was introduced, what, 1884? Pope Leo’s somebody. Oh, thank you, 1884. You got it.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. I’m sure you heard of Norman Geisler. I think a book he wrote called Christian Ethics. And he talks about, I forgot it because I haven’t read it in years, moderate Calvinism and Calvinism. What’s the difference between the two? And are there anything that you find in favor of the moderate Calvinist view?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, moderate Calvinism is just Arminianism with some borrowing from Calvinism. Norman Geisler also wrote a book called debating with James White, as I recall. James White is a Calvinist full-on, and Geisler was taking what he called the moderate Calvinist view. You can’t be moderately Calvinist if we’re defining Calvinism as the five points. If you accept any of the five points, you cannot disconnect them from any of the other because they are logically connected like links in a chain. If you take total depravity the way the Calvinist does, you have to take unconditional election. And if you take that, you have to take limited atonement and irresistible grace and perseverance. These would all follow logically as an unbroken chain if you accept the first. Now, Geisler wanted to accept a few of them. And I have to say, when I was growing up, the Baptist church I went to, we thought we held about three of those. But it really wasn’t the case that we held three of those. The truth is that we held three points that were kind of sounded kind of similar to the Calvinist points, but they weren’t really as the Calvinists saw them. So if I had debated a Calvinist back then, I would have said, well, I agree with you on total depravity. And then when they would start talking about it, I’d say, well, I don’t believe that, because what they’re believing is far more than what anyone could justify from Scripture at all. And I think Geisler, I don’t know, I think he was just kind of walking the tightrope there, trying to trying to not denounce Calvinism entirely and not fall into its errors. I think he would have been probably wiser not to refer to his view as any kind of Calvinism, because it wasn’t. And James White made that very clear. So, yeah, I don’t think there’s such a thing as moderate Calvinism. I think you’re either a Calvinist or you’re not. If you hold any of the five points, you’d have to hold all of them. I don’t hold any of them, and therefore I’m not a Calvinist. But, you know, when someone calls themselves a moderate Calvinist, it’s probable that they’re trying to stay in the good graces of, you know, all evangelicals, the Calvinists and the non-Calvinists. And to me, it’s sort of like in the Civil War, the guy who wore a blue coat and gray pants, and they shot at him from both sides. I think that if you’re a moderate Calvinist, the Calvinists are going to attack you, and the Armenians will too. I might as well just be biblical and not try to keep everybody happy. Hey, I need to take a break here. I appreciate your call, Gil, and God bless you. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour, so don’t go away. Thenarrowpath.com is our website. We are listener supported. You can take anything from the website for free. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 09 :
If you call the narrow path, please have your question ready as soon as you are on the air. Do not take much time setting up the question or giving background. If such detail is needed to clarify your question, the host will ask for such information. Our desire is to get as many callers on the air during the short program. There are many calls waiting behind you, so please be considerate to others.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are live for another half hour, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible, there’s one line open right now. You can call in. It’s 844-844-8444. That number again is 844-484-5737. Our next caller is David from Mesa, Arizona. Hi, David. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thanks, Steve. I just had a couple questions, both related. Number one, I was wondering, after the temple was destroyed and the Jews didn’t have that for the sacrifices, How did they go about explaining that in their own thinking or theology? How does that work out today for Jews, what they think about that? Also, too, when I went to Jerusalem, they showed us a place, and I know this is a dispensational thing in regard to the rebuilt temple or the rebuilding of a future temple. They showed us a place called the Temple Institute where supposedly they’re remaking the instruments for the new temple. So I was just wondering, do Jews today actually believe that one day there will be a new temple where there will be sacrifices? Or is that only a Christian idea that is going on there?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, the Jews at the Temple Institute believe that they will rebuild the temple, and I don’t think they’re Christians. Dispensationalist Christians are very much in favor of the building of a third temple. The New Testament would not be in favor of it, of course, because the New Testament indicates that that temple is obsolete, and that’s why God allowed it to be destroyed almost 2,000 years ago and never be rebuilt. Now, is it going to be rebuilt? I don’t know, but the Bible doesn’t predict it. If it is, it will not be something that Christians should smile on any more than if we built a Buddhist temple or a temple to some other religion. Because Judaism, which is the only religion that that temple would serve… rejects Jesus Christ. In fact, the very building of a temple would be for no other reason than to offer animal sacrifices. That’s what the temple was for. And anyone who would begin to offer animal sacrifices is basically saying, we reject the Christian idea that Jesus was the final sacrifice. We’re going to go back to the bulls and goats and lambs and so forth. And this is our way of rejecting Christ’s sacrifice. So the temple itself, the whole raison d’etre for for it existing is to reject christ and his sacrifice and to to basically you know thumb the nose at christianity so you know yeah jews jews uh many jews would be glad to do that but not not extremely many uh realize that in israel there’s only really less than 20 percent of the jewish people in israel are even jewish by faith or observant jews um You know, most Jews are secular worldwide and in Israel. In fact, perhaps in Israel, the percentage of secular Jews is perhaps a little larger than worldwide. Most of the Jews in Israel are neither Jewish by faith nor Christian. And so they couldn’t care less, obviously, about the temples. The Temple Institute is made up of a different type of Jew who, you know, they are observant and they do think the temple should be rebuilt and sacrifices reinstated. Once again, Christians should have not the slightest interest in that project and certainly not do anything specifically to support it, although we wouldn’t say they can’t do it if they want to. It’s just if they do, if we would encourage them to do that, we’re encouraging them to basically give Jesus the finger pretty much is what they’d be doing. Now, as far as what Jews today think about atonement, it’s true that God said in the Old Testament that he gave them the blood sacrifices for an atonement of sin. And ever since the temple was destroyed 2,000 years ago, there had been no blood sacrifices for atonement of sin. Now, Christians, of course, understand that to me because they’re not needed anymore. Jesus offered his sacrifice. That was the final sacrifice. And so within a generation of his time, the temple went down. and there’s no alternative sacrifice available, which would suggest that God has already made provision for the Jews, if they would, to be atoned for by the atonement that came before the temple was destroyed. That is Christ’s. But the majority of Jews in those days, as well as now, reject Christ. They don’t believe Jesus was the Messiah. They don’t think he was significant at all, except as a false Messiah or a false teacher. And so, of course, they don’t receive Christ. And so, what do they care about atonement? Well, there are, of course, observant Jews who do care about atonement. And if you ask them, what do you do in place of the animal sacrifices that you can’t offer now because the temple’s not there? You see, they can’t just start offering animal sacrifices in their backyard and They have to have the Levitical priests. They have to have the altar in Jerusalem. They have to have the stuff that’s part of the whole ritual of the temple worship to offer those sacrifices. And they don’t have any of that. And, you know, they might not ever have it again. If they do, it won’t be from God. It will be from their own doing. But, you know, if you ask a Jew, okay, now that you don’t have animal sacrifice, what do you do for the atonement of your sins? An observant Jew would probably say, well, we have the day of atonement, Yom Kippur. And we fast. We fast on Yom Kippur. And that’s the best we can do. You know, the best they can do, really, there’s no reason to believe that’s good enough. Nowhere in the Bible does it ever say that fasting atones for sin. And even on Yom Kippur, when the Jews under the law were required to fast on Yom Kippur, they were also required to offer a whole bunch of bloody sacrifices in the Holy of Holies. on Yom Kippur. So they’re not doing that. So in other words, what they have, ever since the temple was destroyed, Judaism is a man-made religion. God ordained Judaism in the time of Moses, and Judaism was a religion of animal sacrifices and a tabernacle or temple. and a priesthood and all that, those things have not existed for the past 2,000 years. Therefore, any Judaism that exists is not really Judaism according to the Old Testament. It is a man-made religion. It’s what we might call rabbinism, which refers to the rabbis. The rabbis have what they did after the temple was destroyed. Rabbis had to get together and decide how in the world do you continue religion. the Jewish religion without the temple, which is its center. And they came up with the Talmudic rules. The rabbis came up with essentially the Talmud. Now, the Talmud was the traditions of even more ancient rabbis. Even before the temple was destroyed, the traditions of the rabbis were verbally in circulation. But after the temple went down, they had to write them down so they’d have a religious document they could They could actually practice. They can’t practice the Torah because, you know, what is it about a fifth or a fourth of the Torah is about the animal sacrifices. They can’t do that. So they encoded the traditions of the elders that didn’t have to do a sacrifice in what’s called the Talmud. And so modern Judaism, if it’s Orthodox Judaism, is called Talmudism. It can be described as Talmudism or Rabbinism. That’s created by the rabbis. In either case, it’s man-made. It’s not God-made. Now, Orthodox Jews sometimes will say that Talmud is the oral law that God gave to Moses. Moses wrote down some of the law, 613 commandments, which we have in the Torah, and that’s the written law. But they say Moses also gave an oral Torah, an oral law, which is passed down through, I guess, through the priesthood and then to the scribes and through Ezra and so forth, and now it’s taught by the rabbis, and that’s what’s in the Talmud. So it’s a little bit like what, say, Roman Catholics do. Roman Catholics say, well, we have the written scriptures in the Bible, but we also have the traditions of the church that have been passed down, and they would say the traditions are of equal value to the scriptures. Protestants, of course, don’t believe that. And the Jews, Orthodox Jews, at least the Talmudists, believe that the Talmud is on the same level with the written scriptures of Moses because they believe there are traditions passed down from the time of Moses. But there’s no reason to believe that. In fact, it’d be very strange if that were true because the Talmud consists of the varying opinions of different rabbis throughout history. up until the time the Talmud was written. And Moses certainly wouldn’t have passed down those discussions of different rabbis who lived long after he was dead. So, you know, they’re just, like any religion that rejects Christ, they’re trying to come up with some alternative. Anything except Jesus, as far as many of them are concerned. On the other hand, many Jewish people are coming to Jesus. But the largest number of Jews… want very little to do with the Jewish religion or Christianity. So, you know, Christians make a big deal about the atonement of Christ, of course, because it’s very important. But the Jews, they have to downplay it, downplay blood atonement and say, well, you know, the Day of Atonement, we fast, and that’s going to have to be good enough. I don’t think it is. At least biblically, it’s not. Thank you for your call. Let’s talk to Ron in Indianapolis, Indiana. Hi, Ron. Welcome.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hello, Steve. How are you today? I’m doing well. Steve, yesterday I believe you made a comment about ICE being, their intention was to detain criminals. There have been two people killed in America by ICE. How do you reconcile that as being ICE detaining criminals? Because I don’t believe either of those two people were criminals.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, they were both interfering with law enforcement, and I don’t think ICE, I mean, obviously, the particular ICE agents that fired the shots that killed those two people, those guys did intend to kill. They both, in both cases, an argument can be made, and the claim is made, that the ICE agents saw themselves in mortal danger. One was about to be run over by a car. People on the other side who were anti, I said, no, he didn’t think that. And yet you see the camera angles, and sure, he even got hit by the car. The woman was told to stop. She was told to get out of the car by law enforcement. She refused. She tried to flee, and she hit an ICE agent, and he apparently thought he was in a lot more danger maybe than he was. And, you know, in those tense situations, it’s really hard to make a snap judgment, but he did. fired on her. That’s no doubt what law enforcement are trained to do. If someone’s coming at you with a car and they’re seeking to evade arrest, which is what she was doing, well, sometimes they get shot. Too bad, too, because she wasn’t otherwise doing anything that would be a capital crime. But, you know, sometimes when you play stupid games… You end up getting stupid prizes, you know, when you come to interfere with law enforcement. That’s exactly what she was there doing. There’s no question about that from anyone who knows the story. And the other guy was a little more questionable. He was a violent kind of a nut kicking cars and things like that. That’s not a capital crime. But he was carrying a gun interfering with law enforcement. As I understand, he was trying to prevent ICE from arresting a particular person they were arresting. They got into a scuffle. And they saw his gun, and, you know, I wasn’t there, but the things I just said I believe were verified. And he got shot. He probably shouldn’t have. Let’s just say the ICE agent who shot and killed him probably shouldn’t have. Okay. So we’ve got, you know, tens of thousands of ICE agents making encounters with people all over the country, and at least one of them seems to be too trigger-happy and kills them. Now, frankly, I think in almost any city, that kind of thing happens on occasion with regular police, even if they’re not very trigger happy. I mean, police sometimes make wrong decisions, and some of them accidentally kill people or kill people on purpose. It doesn’t really reflect on the whole operation. We’re talking about tens of thousands of ice agents carrying out their duties, and one of them, seems to have shot a person probably unnecessarily, though it wasn’t a guy who brought a gun to a resistance situation. I’m not excusing the killing of that guy. I wasn’t there, and you weren’t either. But officers on the site, you know, they give an account, and I don’t know. Let’s just say both of those people were killed wrongfully, okay? I’m not going to say it wasn’t so, but I’m not sure it was wrong for both of them. But let’s say it did. Okay, so out of, what, tens of thousands of encounters with rough people and a bunch of civilians on the street trying to throw things at ICE and get in their way and so forth, a couple of violent situations break out and law enforcement kills a couple people under questionable circumstances. I’m not going to justify it. I’m going to say that’s a pretty low body count for the amount of violence that the protesters were bringing, you know, in these cities. So, you know, I think they were doing law enforcement. I believe they were trying to detain lawbreakers. And interestingly, the two people who got killed were not the ones that ICE was trying to capture. They were people trying to interfere with it. And they both had, you know, weapons. One had a car, which is a very deadly weapon, and the other had a gun. So we got a couple of civilians interfering with law enforcement, and they get in a scuffle and get killed. That’s sad, very sad. I mean, it shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t have to happen. If they had stayed home and let police do their business, no one would have been killed. But the thing is, ICE is out there to detain the lawbreakers. These people made themselves lawbreakers, but they weren’t the original targets. They just made themselves targets, and unfortunately, sadly, they got themselves killed. I think it’s very sad, honestly. All right, let’s talk to David in Chico, California. David, welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
I have two questions. My first is from Deuteronomy 28, verse 7 and 25. Both end in 7. It doesn’t seem to fit. Can you clarify that for me?
SPEAKER 02 :
28-7, which says… And 25. And verse 25. Okay, so the Lord will cause your enemies to rise against you to be defeated before your face. They should come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. That’s verse 7, right? Verse 25 says the Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You should go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. Yeah, that’s the other one. You got a problem with those two?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, I’m reading the New Living Translation, and it says it differently. It says they will scatter you from seven, both verses.
SPEAKER 02 :
Scatter you from seven?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, that’s why it’s not clear what it means.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, seven ways. Oh, they’ll come from one way and scatter you from seven? That is, from seven ways? It just says seven. It doesn’t say seven ways. Well, but what does it say? I don’t have the NIV. I don’t use that Bible. But what does the earlier part say? Read about the blessings? No, no, no. Read verse 7 for me in your NIV.
SPEAKER 06 :
The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven directions.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, seven directions. So they’ll come from one direction and scatter in seven. That is in seven directions. Okay. I guess that sort of makes sense.
SPEAKER 06 :
It just wasn’t clear. All right. Another question is, Lederer mentions several times the book of instruction. What is the book of instruction?
SPEAKER 02 :
The book of instruction, you say? Yes. Yes. Where are you finding it? I don’t use the NIV. I probably have a different term in the Bible I use. Where are you finding that?
SPEAKER 06 :
I didn’t write that part down, but it’s mentioned several times. It could say the book of Torah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, no, it’d be the Torah, probably. I mean, the word Torah means direction, or we could say instruction. it also is more commonly translated the word law. But Moses, you know, gave them the Torah. And that would be the book of God’s directions to them, God’s instructions to them. So, you know, he urges them to keep it or they’ll be in trouble.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, okay. It seems like they didn’t have the Torah at this point in Deuteronomy, did they? I mean, they didn’t have all of it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, it is. Deuteronomy is the last book of it. Yeah, so… Moses gave them the Torah at Mount Sinai 40 years earlier. So they had the law. He gave them the law in Exodus, especially chapters 20 through 23. There were other rules for the priests and so forth in Leviticus and certain penalties prescribed for the magistrates to dish out in Deuteronomy and some other places. But the truth is that the law… was no doubt the commandments found in the Ten Commandments and in what they call the Book of the Covenant. Exodus chapter 20 through 23 would be the core of it, and they got that 40 years before the Book of Deuteronomy, and they were supposed to be following it all that time.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Thanks for your help.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, David. Thanks for your call. Let’s see. Eddie from New Haven, Connecticut. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 01 :
Steve, great show as always. Thank you. My question is, Steve, we were speaking the other night, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. And we were reading it. It hit me like a ton of bricks where the rich man said, I’m tormented in this flame. Let me go back and warn my brothers. And I guess Abraham said to them, oh, they got Moses and the prophets. They’ll be fine. Even if some came back from the dead, they wouldn’t believe anyways. And I was like, wait a minute, that’s the whole crux of Christianity. So you’re saying even if someone comes back from the dead, they’re still not going to believe.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right.
SPEAKER 01 :
So I looked at that, and I said to the guys, wow, it’s almost like downplaying, and Jesus is telling the story. It’s almost like downplaying the resurrection. Yeah, even if someone comes back from the dead, it’s going to mean nothing. It won’t do anything.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, not that it’s nothing. Not that it’s nothing. It’s just that they who are already rejecting what God has said, and these were Jewish men. I mean, Jesus is telling a story that’s taking place in the Jewish context. These five brothers that were disobedient, like the rich man himself had been, they were Jewish. And it means they’re supposed to follow the law and the prophets, but they weren’t. And Abraham said, well, they don’t need someone to come back. They have the law and the prophets. God’s already spoken to them. And he’s saying, well, they don’t listen to the law and the prophets. Oh, so they don’t listen to God? Well, people who don’t want to listen to God, they don’t want to listen to God, apparently. You can put anything in front of them they want. And you see this, for example, when Jesus rose from the dead. Most of the Jews did not believe. Now, Jesus was speaking to them in another passage, in John chapter 5. And he said in verses 45 through 47, The last three verses of John 5 says, In other words, God has already spoken to you through, you know, a prophet with excellent credentials. And you don’t listen to him. Well, then you probably won’t listen to me either. I mean, people who won’t listen to God when he speaks to them, they’ve got something wrong with their heart. And someone whose heart is hard, you can’t make them believe. You can put a miracle in front of them. You know, I’ve asked atheists, what would it take for you to believe in God? They say, well, if he just write it across the sky, I am Yahweh, believe in me. I’d believe them. No, they wouldn’t. No, they wouldn’t. They’d see it’s a hallucination. It’s a trick. It’s a hologram. They’d make any excuse they wanted because they don’t want to believe. If people don’t want to believe, you can’t make them believe. You know, even when Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, the Bible says there were some who saw it there, and they went and reported it to the Pharisees. Okay, so these people saw a man rise from the dead. The Pharisees heard from their co-conspirators that it had happened. And the Bible says they didn’t believe. They decided they better kill Lazarus, too, because through him many were believing in Christ. So you have to understand, and Jesus certainly did, that there are people who just don’t want the truth. And they prove it by not following the truth they already have. And if they don’t follow the truth they already have, it’s because they don’t want the truth. And therefore, they’re not going to believe the truth no matter what you put in front of them. That’s what Jesus is actually saying there and what Lazarus, the story of Lazarus the rich man is getting across. Okay. Tom from Denton, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello, Steve. We enjoyed seeing you in Dallas here a few months ago with Dr. Brown. I hope you’ll come back soon. I had a good talk with you. I enjoyed it very much. I’ve got a question. Good. I’ve got a question about who does the drawing. I got in a conversation with one of my Calvinist buddies, and of course we know that the Father draws, and later we see that Christ draws. But Does the Holy Spirit actually do the drawing? And if so, where in the Bible is it stated that way?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you know, Jesus said, if I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. Then, of course, Jesus also said, that’s in John 12. In John 6, he said, no one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. So we’ve got these references to… We’ve got these references to Jesus and the Father drawing, and I don’t think these are different from each other. I think it’s just God drawing. Christ and his Father are drawing people, and they do it through the Holy Spirit. Now, the Bible, I don’t think, talks about the Holy Spirit drawing. I don’t think it uses that term, but it speaks similarly, where, of course, Jesus said, when the Holy Spirit comes, I think this is chapter 16 of John, He says in verse 8, when he comes, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and judgment. So the Holy Spirit convicts the world. And that’s what it takes, I think, for somebody to get saved. They have to be convicted by the Holy Spirit. And the Bible talks elsewhere. In Hosea, it says that when God brought Israel out of Egypt, he used the same word, draw, helko, in the Greek. He says, I drew them with gentle cords of kindness. Although they did rebel, so they didn’t follow him. But God is drawing us in many ways. And I think the Holy Spirit is the one who’s doing it. But to say the Holy Spirit is doing it is not saying something different than that God is doing it. Because what the Holy Spirit does, the Bible, Jesus in the same discourse, the Upper Room Discourse, indicate that the Father and He are one. doing what the Holy Spirit is doing. For example, he says in verse 23 of John 14, this is in the upper room also, John 14, 23, Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we, that is my Father and I, will come to him and make our home with him. Now, who’s he talking about there? He’s talking about the Holy Spirit coming. He’s just been talking about that earlier. He said, I’m going to send you the Holy Spirit. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you, meaning through the Holy Spirit. And so the coming of the Spirit, it’s the Spirit of Christ. It’s the Spirit of God. It’s God and Christ, you know, appealing, coming, dwelling by the person of the Spirit. And I think that the drawing of God is the Holy Spirit’s work in drawing us. So, again, the word draw is used somewhat sparingly in Scripture. So we don’t have any particular passage where the word draw is used in connection with the Spirit. But the drawing of Christ and the drawing of God of people to himself, in my opinion, is done through the Holy Spirit, convicting the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. That’s how I have always understood it, and I think that’s probably correct. Anyway, I’m sorry to be out of time, Tom, but it’s great talking to you. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are listener-supported. We don’t interrupt the program with any commercials because we have no sponsors and we have nothing to sell. We just do this every day, and the Lord provides. If you want to be one of the people through whom he provides, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and see how to donate, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
