::Daily Radio Program
SPEAKER 04 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon taking your calls. If you are interested in asking questions about the Bible or the Christian faith and discussing them here, we’ll be glad to talk about them. If you disagree with the host, maybe you’ve heard me answer some previous question, and you thought, oh, that’s not the right answer, and you do know the right answer, feel free to give me a call. We’ll be glad to talk to you about that. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. 5737. A couple of announcements, things happening this week in Southern California. This Thursday night, I’m speaking at a men’s gathering at a Starbucks in Covina, California. I think it’s at 611 South Citrus Street, if I’m not mistaken. It’s at our website. From 630 to 8, I’ve been asked to speak on the subject agnosticism, atheism, and anti-theism. And we’ll be talking about that outside, probably, at least the only other time I’ve been there before they met outside. It’s a pretty good-sized group, too. They wouldn’t fit inside. And so if you’re interested, Thursday night, 630 in Covina, California. And the information, if you didn’t get it, is at our website, thenarrowpath.com. Then on Saturday morning, we have a monthly Bible study for men also, and that’s in Temecula. And if you’re interested in that, you can find information about that also at our website, thenarrowpath.com. All of that information and similar information would be found at the tab that says Announcements on our website. We have a couple of lines open right now. If you want to call, this is a good time to try to get through the number. 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Rez calling from the Bay Area. Hi, Rez. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, Steve. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m fine.
SPEAKER 02 :
I want to, first of all, just thank you for all the years I’ve been listening to you. I appreciate the fact that you’re very logical and balanced and not super religious and emotional, because that has helped me through the years kind of figure out what’s important in my walk and what isn’t. So I just wanted to first of all say that because you’re one of the only people that I can listen to on the radio without feeling like it’s theatrics. So that’s important. You’re real, and I thank you for that. You’re welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t know any other way to be.
SPEAKER 02 :
Go ahead. What’s your question? There was two different conditions that I dealt with as a Christian. The first one was I believe there was a lot of religiosity and scrupulosity involved where I believed that if I did anything outside of the church or Christian faith, that that was somehow evil or demonic or something, whether it was listening to music or anything like that. It became really bad to where I couldn’t even go into the supermarket because here overhead there would be playing music and I had to leave. And it just became a very weird way to live. And I don’t wish that upon anybody. So what was your question again? My second way that I’m living now, and I wanted to ask you if you’ve thought that this is the more practical way to live as a Christian, is I have strong faith. My faith has never been stronger. I just have this childlike faith, but I just live my life. I’m not overly concerned about too many things. Obviously, I don’t engage in things that make me feel but I have a pretty good gauge on what to stay away from now.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Well, then, in other words, you’ve gotten over the legalism. That’s good. You’ve called a lot, and sometimes I can tell from things you’ve said in previous calls that you were pretty much in bondage to a legalistic, earlier Christian exposure, as a lot of people are. I knew somebody who had that very problem that you just described, if they were in a supermarket, And the music that was playing was secular music, which, of course, it was. And she just couldn’t stay. She had to leave. She was so tormented by it. That is a really strange legalistic weakness, and it really makes Christians fragile. I mean, Christians should be the least fragile people in the world. We should be the most secure and the most balanced. I mean, I realize not all Christians are, but we should be. And so we should recognize that when someone’s that bound up in a legalistic thing, that that is not healthy. And that’s not really specifically Christian. That’s very religious, though. Now, you’re talking about just living your life without too much worries about it. I would say that’s the safe thing to do if you are totally devoted to Christ. If you’re totally devoted to Christ and you desire to do his will, and that’s what’s important to you, You don’t have to worry about whether he’s going to be offended that you will, you know, listen to something in a marketplace, you know, that’s not a Christian song. Now, you do need to gauge, you know, your spiritual temperature by what kinds of things you seek out for entertainment or for what you seek out to fill your mind and your soul with. Obviously, a person who loves their wife doesn’t go looking for places to look at other women. Now, if they do go and look at other women and have fantasies about them, then they don’t love their wife. That’s just the problem. They don’t love their wife. And if you love God, you’re not going to be drawn to things that are contrary to him. I mean, except maybe momentarily. I mean, Christians have temptations like anybody else does. The Bible tells us about that. But the thing is that you’re not going to be seriously drawn. You’re going to try to avoid things that You know, draw your mind away from God. But that doesn’t mean that everything that isn’t religious draws your mind away from God. God is over everything. You know, the Jews took all kinds of oaths to keep themselves honest by invoking sacred things. And so, you know, I swear by God or I swear by the temple or I swear by Jerusalem. You know, these were invoking spiritual things to keep them honest. But Jesus said, yeah, don’t swear by those things, and don’t even swear by your own head. You can’t even turn one hair white or black. And there’s everything about your life. You know, God’s related to everything. He’s the one who gave you your hair color. You know, you can’t live your life without reference to God. You may live your life ignoring God, but… He’s not uninvolved. God is involved in your life, and the desire should be that you find God and you find ways to glorify God in everything you do, even things that other people do not for God. I mean, when you go to work and you’re working at a job, somebody else who’s not a Christian is maybe doing the same job in the same place, but they’re not doing it for the glory of God, and you are. You’re doing the same secular thing, but you’re doing it with a mind to glorify God. And you want to glorify God by the way you work, by the testimony you are to others around you, even by the money you make being used in ways that glorify God and that promote his kingdom. So, in other words, the Christian life is not a religious life where you’re only allowed to do religious things. It’s a righteous life. And an awful lot of things can be done. that aren’t specifically religious. But if you love God and you’re seeking to glorify God, if that’s your life motive, everything turns into, you know, it’s as good as if it was religious in a sense, even if it’s secular, because you’re doing it to the glory of God. So anyway, I’m glad to hear that you’ve come out of that somewhat and that you’ve been helped here. Thank you for calling. Josh from Phoenix, Arizona is next. Josh, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, Steve. Don’t envy me that it’s 102 degrees where I am right now in Phoenix. Firstly, I wanted to say, Steve, I agree with you on your view of Ezekiel being fulfilled in the past. However, I was listening to a poem you took last week, and I’ve heard the explanation before, given that the way sacrificed in an alleged third temple would be sort of thumbing the nose at God. But I heard a teacher I listened to, Mike Winger, kind of a light charismatic. He’s really not sure what his position is, but he answered a question about this very thing on Friday. And he made two arguments I hadn’t heard before, saying that it wouldn’t be an affront to God. And first thing he pointed out that Paul made a sacrifice to end his Nazarite vow. And then secondly, he argued that the apostles and early Christians continued to celebrate the Passover, which would include the sacrifice portion with the lamb, and citing that it was a memorial type of the sacrifice. So I could ask you, what would you say, why if Paul and the early Christians did it, would it be an affront to God now if there was indeed a third temple built, assuming that the Jews doing that would be followers of Christ and along with the Christians?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Paul, you know, when he went to the temple, he went there at the request of James, who was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Paul didn’t spend much of his adult life in Jerusalem after he became a Christian. He spent his life in Greece and Turkey and Syria and places like that, and in prison an awful lot. But he made occasional trips to Jerusalem. And when he did, he deferred to the spiritual leadership of the church there, which was James. And James told him, you know, we’d like to, you know, the people here think you’re kind of against the temple and stuff. So maybe you can show them you’re not. We have some guys here who have Nazarite vows, these four guys, and they have to go pay some fees to end their Nazarite vows. So if you go and pay their fees with them, then people will realize you’re not against them. Now, Paul was not against the temple. He just saw it as, I think Paul just saw it as unnecessary. But if there were people who thought it was necessary… then he was not going to rain on their parade, and he certainly wasn’t going to try to cause divisions by stumbling them and profaning what they thought was holy. Now, the temple was holy. It’s just it was obsolete. When Jesus died, there was no need for any of the temple sacrifices anymore. But Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9 that when he was with Jews, in order to reach them, he lived like a Jew. When he was with those who were under the law, he acted like one who was under the law. So that he’d win those under the law. He didn’t believe he was under the law. And he didn’t go there in order to meet some kind of spiritual obligation. He went there in order to reach out to Jewish people. He also said that when he was with people who were without the Jewish law, people who were Gentiles, he lived like a man without the law. So he could take it or leave it. And in that case, because of his diplomacy with the church in Jerusalem, which had misgivings about him because he was not bringing his Gentile converts into Judaism, and he was not making them circumcise themselves. This was something that the church in Jerusalem kind of misunderstood, and so Paul wanted to make it very clear he wasn’t trying to start a rival party. And so where Paul said that’s in 1 Corinthians 9, verses 20 and 21. So I believe that he, you know, I don’t know that he went in there thinking, I need to offer these sacrifices to glorify Christ. I think he wanted to glorify Christ in everything. Offering the sacrifices was just a thing to be done to help unite the church who, you know, the church in Jerusalem was somewhat divided from his Gentile mission. So he tried to bring some unity, but, you know, he didn’t go because he thought going to the temple was an important thing. Now, if they build a temple and they’re looking to animals, sacrifices to atone for their sins, then how is that not a slap in the face of Christ? Now, what else would they have animal sacrifices for? The idea of a third temple, if we’re talking about one that’s built before the second coming of Christ, would be to offer animal sacrifices instead of the sacrifice of Christ. It’s basically saying we don’t recognize the sacrifice of Christ. We’re going to go back to what Moses gave us to offer animal sacrifices for an atonement. That is a slap in the face of Christ. Paul didn’t do that. Paul didn’t go to the temple looking for atonement through animal blood. Paul would have violently opposed that. No one asked him to do quite that. But if the Jews today build a temple, they are not following Christ. They won’t be building it to glorify Christ. They’ll be building it as a substitute for Christ. Christians for 2,000 years have recognized no temple is needed. because Christ’s sacrifice is enough, and it has made the others obsolete. The Jews have never accepted, that is the people of the Jewish religion, have never accepted Christ’s sacrifice, and if they build an animal sacrifice temple again, that would be simply solidifying their rejection of Christ as the final sacrifice. Now, some people believe there would be a temple built in the millennium, and maybe that’s what Mike Winger is referring to, I don’t believe there’s a future millennium. I don’t believe there will be a future temple there. But some people have said that, you know, in the millennium, everyone will be worshiping Christ. And so if they go to the temple and offer animal sacrifices, they’ll do it sort of as a memorial of Christ. Sort of like we take the bread and the wine as a memorial of his death. That in the millennium, believers in Christ will, you know, slaughter animals. sheep and goats and bulls and stuff like they used in the Old Testament as a memorial of Christ. I don’t believe there’s, first of all, this is not taught in Scripture anywhere. Secondly, I can’t imagine that it’s an improvement over what Jesus himself set up as the bread and the wine. Can’t we just do that? Isn’t that what he said will be? the way to memorialize him. Doesn’t the Bible say that God never had a pleasure in the death of bulls and goats and in the sacrificial system? It was a necessity until Christ came. It was not necessary after that. Why would God reinstitute in the millennium if there was such a place and time? Why would he establish something he had no pleasure in when it was first brought? It was a teaching device. It was Paul says in Galatians, the law, which is the sacrificial system, you know, was a teacher to bring us to Christ, not something that we adopt after we’ve come to Christ. So, you know, I like Mike Winger, by the way. I’m not trying to put him down. He and I, you know, he’s a Calvary Chapel guy and I used to be a Calvary Chapel guy. I think Mike Winger does a lot of good work. And we’ve met, we’ve had lunch together and stuff. So, I mean, I’m for him. But as a dispensationalist, he would see that differently than I would. And I don’t agree with the argument that since Paul did that when he went to Jerusalem, that that somehow makes it right for temple sacrifice to be normalized as a Christian practice, or certainly not as a Jewish practice among people who are not Christians either. So those are my thoughts on that particular point. I had not encountered it from my point of view.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. And you know, Steve, I have heard that it’s similar to if a Christian today goes through the Passover, the Christian version of Passover. I know that Messianics have their own version of the Haggadah. I used to be sort of Messianic myself. um, is that sort of the same thing? Um, even though there’s no sacrifice involved or, or do you think that’s a completely different issue?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think it could be, I mean, I’ve been to a messianic, uh, Seder, uh, my friend, Moish Rosen, who started the Jews for Jesus. Um, I went and saw him officiate one in, in the seventies. And, um, You know, all he did was he said, this is what the Jews do. They take this and they take this and they do that and they say this. And we believe it represents Christ in these ways. Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with breaking bread and remembering Christ. In fact, that’s exactly what Jesus said to do. And therefore, I don’t think that… to do it with the trappings of an older traditional Jewish Seder is a problem. I don’t think any Christian has gone to a Messianic Seder and thought, I’ll be right with God because I went here. I sinned this week, but at least if I go to this Seder and go through this thing, then it’ll atone for my sins. I don’t think anyone’s ever believed that. I don’t think the Jews believed that either. But the shedding of blood is a different matter, because blood was shed for the remission of sins, and Jesus’ blood was shed for the remission of sins. So to go back to the blood of bulls and goats just seems a bizarre suggestion, especially in view of the fact that the Bible doesn’t ever teach that it’s going to happen. By the way, the only place one would find a suggestion of a temple during the millennium is, if you believe in a millennium, and you read it into Ezekiel chapter 40 through 47 or into Zechariah 14, both of those places talk about sacrifices and a temple. Both of those places talk about Levitical priests offering the sacrifices. And so, you know, that’s where they get it from those passages. But those passages are not talking about a future millennium. That’s where we differ. They believe those passages are describing a future millennial reign after Jesus comes back. I don’t. I see nothing in those passages that would suggest that. So I think both of them are referring to the Old Testament’s second temple. But that’s another story. Actually, Zechariah might even have in mind a spiritual temple, the church. It’s hard to know because Zechariah is awfully hard to understand. But there’s nothing in either of those passages that speak of a thousand-year millennium. And the Ezekiel passage, which has the most detail, it doesn’t just have priests offering sacrifices. It’s got priests getting married. It tells who they can marry, who they can’t. Yet if this is in the millennium after resurrection… In the resurrection, no one’s getting married, so how is that happening? And it specifically says in Ezekiel, specifically says in Ezekiel, they offer these sacrifices for an atonement. In other words, it doesn’t say they do it as a memorial, as dispensations sometimes say. In the millennium, we’re going to offer these animal sacrifices as a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice. Well, there’s not a word of that in Ezekiel, but there’s twice or three times it mentions them there offering these sacrifices for an atonement. So that’s some theological thicket they have to get through there if they’re going to try to make that a millennial temple. Yeah, it’s easier just not to do it. Easier just to take it for what it says. All right, Josh, good talking to you.
SPEAKER 09 :
I really appreciate your work. Thank you. Have a good one, Steve.
SPEAKER 04 :
God bless you. Bye now. Okay, another Josh. Joshua from Houston, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi, hello. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, so my question is about a Christian couple. They did IVF, in vitro fertilization, very early into their Christian walk, and they currently have about eight IVF embryos. These eight IVF embryos are two weeks old, and they are frozen, according to what my friends told me. I believe they had about 11 embryos. They miscarried two. And the third embryo that they did successfully birth was born with some very serious deformities and medical conditions. So my question is, because they asked me, what is my opinion? Should they attempt to have the eight embryos?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, if they don’t, well… I mean, I don’t even understand how in vitro fertilization works. Do they have to implant it in the couple? I mean, I realize these embryos are probably in a test tube somewhere or in a Petri dish or something. I don’t know where they are now. But do they have to implant them in the womb of the wife in order to have the baby? Or could they be implanted in somebody else’s womb who wanted a baby? I don’t even know. You know, in vitro fertilization has this drawback. And that is they usually take several eggs, I think, and several sperm, if I’m not mistaken, and they create as many viable embryos as they can. Some of them may die, and they want to make sure one of them makes it. So, yeah, if they make, like, would you say 11 embryos? Well, that’s 11 babies there. But usually, after one is implanted and successfully born, the others aren’t wanted. They’re just tossed. or at least they frequently are. And if they’re tossed, that’s like having eight abortions. These are real babies. They’re real babies made up of your eggs and your sperm. They just not happen to be implanted in the right place. You see, the whole pro-abortion industry argues that something is not a baby until it’s come out through the birth canal and it’s breathing. Pro-life people generally argue, no, the baby is alive in the womb. And it’s not a different creature, just because it happens to be inside a womb, than when it comes out of the womb. It’s the same creature, same individual, same baby. Now, we could argue similarly, if that baby’s not in a womb yet, but it’s in a petri dish, but it’s a viable embryo, it’s a baby. And it doesn’t matter if it’s in a womb, you know, in a refrigerator somewhere, undeveloped, or… Having been birthed through the birth canal, that’s a baby from start to finish. So I don’t know what their options are. I really don’t. Now, if they’re saying, well, we would try to bring these eight embryos to birth, but the one we did had severe, you know, birth defects. There’s a couple things I would say about that. One is I don’t know if all the embryos are alike, like twins or something like that, and therefore whatever birth defect that one had, they would all die. be guaranteed to have. I just don’t know the science. I don’t know how they do this. But I do know that if you find out that the baby in your womb had serious birth defects, you should still have it. You don’t kill it. We don’t kill the handicapped, the disabled, you know, in this country. In some countries they have, in ancient times they did, but we’re a country informed by Christian morals and we realize that human life is valuable even when it’s a disabled person, and even if they’ve got serious health issues. Now, I don’t know. I didn’t get them into the situation, and I’m not probably going to be able to get them out of it, but my thought is they should treat those as babies and do whatever has to be done. to bring them to maturity. Otherwise, they’re killing babies, I think. That’s how I understand it. And so I will say this. One might say, well, I don’t want to bring a severely disabled or disfigured child into the world. Yeah, well, there’s always that chance. Whenever two people have sex and they get pregnant, there’s always that chance. And What do we do about it? We recognize that God loves that child, that no matter how deformed it is or whatever, it’s still made in God’s image. It’s still valuable. We know of Christian witnesses, strong witnesses, who were born without arms and legs and things like that, and yet they’re glorifying God. You can’t really say, well, because there’s a disfigurement here, God doesn’t want it to be born. That’s you playing God. And I don’t think we’re allowed to do that when it comes to gambling with human lives. It’s possible that they would say, well, we can’t raise eight babies, especially if they’re all severely deformed. Yeah, but there are people who will adopt them. There’s many people who will adopt handicapped babies and stuff. So I would just say, realize they are babies, and I don’t know what the options are, but I would certainly be looking into the ones that won’t kill the babies. Sorry, I can’t help anymore. I don’t know any more than that. All right, you’re listening to The Narrow Path. We’re going to take a break for 30 seconds. Our website’s thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 05 :
We highly recommend that you listen to Steve Gregg’s 14-lecture series entitled, When Shall These Things Be? This series addresses topics like the Great Tribulation, Armageddon, the rise of the Antichrist, and the 70th week of Daniel. When Shall These Things Be? can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 04 :
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’d like to be on the program, the number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844. We do have some lines open, by the way. 844-484-5737. I want to remind you that this Thursday night we have a Men’s Bible study in Covina, California. It’s at a Starbucks. Information about that for this Thursday night is at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under announcements. All right. And we’re going to go to the phones now and talk to Paul in Anaheim, California. Hi, Paul. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Paul, are you there? Well, he’s been waiting a long time. Hi. Are you there?
SPEAKER 07 :
I’ve been waiting a long time. My name is Marco.
SPEAKER 04 :
Marco?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, sir. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. It says Paul on my screen, so I don’t know if there’s another person named Paul. No? Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m from Anaheim, California, sir.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Yeah, my call screen must have heard your name wrong.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Sir, I want to tell you, I’ve been hearing you for a long time, and this is the first time I call. So my question really quick is in the book of Daniel, the 70th week, there’s three numbers there, Mr. Greg. One is the 1,260, and then at the end of chapter 12, the very end of the verse, and then it says another 1,290, which is 38 days later, and then 1,335. That’s another 45, total of… 75 days later, after that 2,260, would you elaborate on that, please?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you know, you waited so long to get on the air. I hate to be such a disappointment to you, but I don’t know. I’ve taught through Daniel probably 20 times, verse by verse. Mm-hmm. And whenever I get to these last verses in Daniel 12, I say, I don’t know what this is talking about because there’s nothing there to guide us. Now, I do sometimes. Yeah, I have heard people say, well, this number means this and this other number refers to that. And, you know, if you’re going to make it up, feel free to make it up however you want to. That’s what they’re doing. There’s nothing in the Bible to tell us what it is. For people who don’t know what we’re talking about, here’s what it says in the last, well, not the last three, but two of the last three verses in Daniel. Daniel 12, 11 and 12. From the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination of desolation is set up, There shall be 1,290 days. Okay? That’s like three and a half years plus one month. Then it says, Blessed is he who waits and comes to the 1,335 days. Okay, that’s from 1,290 to 1,335. That’s a 45-day difference. And that’s all you get. It doesn’t say, what’s the difference? What are these days? In fact, even what is the first number from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away? Okay, that’s a starting point. But it doesn’t say what the end point is. There’s like, it says there’s 1290 days from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away. So what? What? Well, we’re not told until what? Just from that, there’s that many days. And then it says, blessed is he who waits and comes to the 1,335 days. Well, where’d those come from? Where’d those other 45 days come from? For that matter, where’d the 1,290 come from? What are we talking about here? The only event marking either the beginning or end of either of these numbers is In verse 11 is when the abomination of desolation is set up. Okay. From that, it’s 1290 days. And blessed are you if you last another 45 days after that. Okay. End of book. No explanation. Okay. I got nothing. I got nothing. I definitely have looked into this. more times than I can recall. And frankly, you know, if somebody thinks they really have an answer, I’d love to hear it, but I kind of doubt that they do, because nobody has any more information than you and I have. We’re looking at it, and what does it mean? Well, there’s a period of time, 1290 days, from this point to who knows what point. Okay, and then there’s another number. It’s like 45 days longer. Now, some people have thought, that the abomination of desolation, this is kind of a dispensational view, that the abomination of desolation refers to something that happens in the middle of the tribulation, and that the Antichrist will set up an image of himself in a temple that is a third temple that they believe will be rebuilt. So they believe there will be a third temple, an Antichrist reigning during the seven-year tribulation, In the middle of that time, three and a half years into it, they believe he’ll set an image of himself in the temple, and they call that the abomination of desolation. Now, the Bible nowhere identifies the expression abomination of desolation with an Antichrist setting an image of himself in the temple. Just saying. Daniel three times uses the expression abomination of desolation. One of them is in chapter 9, verse 27. where he’s talking about after the Messiah is killed, then there’s going to be an abomination of desolation. Now, Jesus was probably talking about that in Matthew 24, when you see the abomination of desolation. Stand where it ought not. Know that the time is near for the destruction. of the temple, the desolation. Now, Luke 21 tells us that that particular abomination of desolation occurred in 66 AD when the armies began to surround Israel and the Christian Jews fled to the mountains. So that happened around 70 AD with the Roman invasion. So that’s that one. Then there’s another abomination of desolation mentioned in Daniel 11. Verses, well, verses 29 really through 35. And one of them, verse 31, the forces shall be mustered by him. By who? Well, in this case, it’s Antiochus Epiphanes. This was 168 years before Christ. Forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortresses, And then they shall take away the daily sacrifices and place there the abomination of desolation. Okay, but this is not the one Jesus was talking about. Jesus talked about one that was future from his point of view. He told his disciples, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, he had to be referring to the one in Daniel 9, 27, which Daniel 9 places after the death of the Messiah. But this one is almost 200 years before the death of the Messiah. just approximately 200 years, it’s 168 B.C., and Jesus lived about 30 years into the Common Era. So we’ve got another abomination of desolation, this one earlier, actually, done by Antiochus Epiphanes, and no one has any doubts about what that is. Interpreters recognize that is when Antiochus Epiphanes set up an altar to Zeus and sacrificed a pig on it in the Jewish temple. That would be the second temple. Okay, which was destroyed later. So there’s those two. One abomination of desolation, which Luke identifies as Jerusalem surrounded by armies that happened within a generation of Jesus predicting it, as he said it would. Then there’s an earlier abomination of desolation alluded to in chapter 11, which was Antiochus Epiphanes, two centuries before Christ died. And now we’ve got the passage you brought up. Daniel 12, 11. From the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination of desolation is set up, there should be 1,290 days. Till what? We don’t know. Now, if he’s talking about the abomination of desolation and the sacrifice being taken away, that was mentioned in the previous chapter, in verse 31, then it’s talking about when Antiochus Epiphanes defiled the temple. And from that point forward, it would be 1290 days to something. Now, I will say, I don’t know the exact number of days, but it was closer to three years that the temple was defiled after Antiochus did that. And there was the Maccabean revolt and the Maccabean wars. And the Maccabeans drove the Syrians and Antiochus people out. And then they rededicated the temple and the temple was back in use again. That was, you know, that was three years after it was defiled. And the Jews celebrate that with Hanukkah every year. But three years is not quite the same as 390 days. So, I mean, 1209 days, excuse me. So I’m not really, I don’t know what we’re going to do with that. Maybe it’s symbolic. But then what’s the other 45 days? I do not know. I do not. This passage has always been impossible for me to make any confident statements about. So I’m afraid I have to apologize to you for that. Even though you waited a long time to be able to ask that question. The true answer is I don’t know.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. I just want to tell you that. Did you say that on your website you have studies like that, right? The ones you mentioned was awesome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, of course, yeah. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. There’s over 1,500 lectures of mine there, including my verse-by-verse teaching through the whole Bible, including Daniel, including Revelation, including all those. And when I say verse-by-verse… I know some pastors teach, they say, verse by verse. At least the ones I sat under, they skipped a lot of portions because they didn’t really teach verse by verse. They didn’t have time. But I ran a Bible college for 16 years, and I taught through the Bible, and I gave myself a lot of time. So it’s very in-depth verse by verse teaching. So anyway, yeah, check it out. It’s free. Everything’s free there. You can listen to all the lectures free. And there are also lectures on topical subjects, hundreds of them, that are also pretty in-depth searches. So I’m sorry I just can’t answer that question. There are questions I cannot answer. There’s probably a lot of them. And that certainly is one that I’m aware of.
SPEAKER 07 :
What you told me was awesome. What you just mentioned, all the other, the two abominations, it was awesome. I want to learn about that. I want to learn all that. And then thank you so much for your time. And I know you got out of college. I don’t want to make them wait. Thank you so much. You have a blessed day. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, brother. Great talking to you. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Likewise.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Let’s talk to Rick in La Habra, California next. Rick, welcome.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hey. Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question. I’ve been reading your book, The Four Translations of Revelations. I’m sorry. Four Views.
SPEAKER 06 :
Four Views. Revelation Four Views. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 11 :
Which is excellent by the way, but but here’s my question because it’s Challenging to know which way is on the right path. Do you have an opinion on that on which view is correct?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah Okay, you mind sharing that with us I’m not sure well, no The truth is that again we were talking about my lectures on my lectures up through verse by verse through revelation a website I do and I do make it very clear what my views are, but I also mention the other views. The truth is my view of Revelation is a combination of two other views, partially preterist and partially idealist. Now, that doesn’t mean I mix the two views all the way through. It means there are portions of the Revelation I take as a preterist, and there are portions I take as an idealist, and there are reasons for it. And I’m loathe to even get into it because of the reasons, well, the reasons are so involved. But again, if you listen to my Revelation lectures, especially verse 10, I mean chapter 10 of Revelation, that’s where I believe it transitions. I believe it’s talking about 70 AD before that. And I think at that point you move into a small section, what’s referred to as a small book or a small scroll that John has to eat. which I believe represents the contents of chapters 11 through 13. I take those chapters in an idealist way. Those who don’t have my book might not know what an idealist way is, but my book will tell you. You don’t have to buy my book. I don’t sell books, but you can get it from my lectures. They’re free. Anyway, so my own view kind of has both. But the point of my book is it doesn’t matter what my view is. I didn’t write my book to promote my view. I wrote the book to educate, not to indoctrinate people with my views. The point of the book is to give the best arguments for and against each of the four views all the way through the book of Revelation. And You know, the fact that you couldn’t tell what view mine was means I succeeded because I didn’t intend to advocate any one view, but to simply present the best arguments for and against each of the four views. But, yeah, to me it doesn’t matter if people, you know, take the view I do or not. It’s not going to be a – it’s not on the test. You know, it’s not on the final exam when you stand before God. God won’t care whether you took any of each of the four views. It’s just not one of the concerns that God has. But, you know, people who, I mean, I like to know stuff, even if it’s not on the test. So I study the whole Bible. But there are some things I study realizing that, you know, if I get it wrong, so people get a lot of things wrong, including me, apparently. All right. So I appreciate your call, brother.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you. God bless. God bless.
SPEAKER 04 :
By the way, the book he’s talking about is called Revelation for Views, a parallel commentary at Amazon. If you look up my name or just look up that book, it is available. I just don’t sell them, but Amazon does. All right, let’s talk to Michael in Englewood, California. Hi, Michael. Welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Steve. Good to hear from you. I have a quick question, and I’ll take the answer offline. Does it seem like Matthew 721 says,
SPEAKER 04 :
somewhat conflicts with what paul wrote in romans 10 13 um romans 10 13 i was thinking maybe whoever calls on the name of the lord should be saved is that where he says that yes okay yeah well of course paul is quoting joel there joel chapter 2 the last line in that chapter is whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved which Peter quotes in Acts chapter 2 and Paul quotes in Romans 10 and this passage you think it might be in conflict says not everyone who says to me Lord Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of my father in heaven so these are people who are saying Lord they’re calling him Lord and yet they apparently aren’t saved because Jesus says many of them he’ll say I never knew you too um So, you know, what’s it mean to call on the name of the Lord? I believe what it means is to call out to surrender to Christ as your Lord. To call him your Lord and to mean it. Now, if you call someone your Lord and you mean it, it means you believe you’re their slave. You’re their servant. Because a Lord is a master. And so if Jesus is Lord, then if he’s my Lord, then I’m his servant. So whoever acknowledges that, whoever calls out to him as Lord and acknowledges him as Lord, assuming they mean it, well, what’s going to happen then? They will do his will. Jesus said, why do you call me Lord, Lord? You don’t do what I say. In Luke 6, I think it’s verse 40 or 46, I forget which. I think it’s 40. But the point is that… You know, people can say Lord with their mouth, but calling on the name of the Lord means something more than just making an opportunistic call. you know, cry with your mouth just because you want to go to heaven. But if you don’t want him to be your Lord, then it’s not going to work. It’s when you are surrendered to him as your Lord, when you’re acknowledged him as your Lord in reality, not just, you know, in words only. So Jesus is saying there are people who do say, Lord, Lord. In fact, you know, almost everybody who addressed Jesus in the Gospels, many of them either called him teacher or Lord, and not all of them were disciples. But to call him Lord, you know, the word Lord sometimes in ancient speech, including Greek and Hebrew, meant sir. You know, it’s like a respectful way of addressing a man. Sir, Lord, my Lord. You still see that in some of the more formal, older English, you know, and that was definitely true in Greek and in Hebrew. In Hebrew, the word Adonai, in Greek, the word Kyrios meant Lord, or it was often used to mean Sir. So, anyone says, Sir, Sir. Well, okay, you may call me Sir, you might even call me Lord, but If you’re not receiving me as your Lord, then it’s just so many words, and it won’t do any good for you. Remember, Isaiah said, and Jesus quoted him, These people draw near to me with their mouth, but their heart is far from me. Now, God is not fooled. God is not dependent on assessing people by what they say. Although their words will be taken into account on the Day of Judgment, If they say things and then their actions prove they don’t mean them, well, then what they said is going to be of no value to them. So it’s not really a contradiction. Jesus said many will say, Lord, Lord. But that’s not the same thing as what Joel is talking about or Paul or Peter when he quotes Joel. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord, that’s calling out to Christ himself. as Lord to save you. And so Paul says in Romans 10, 9, just a few verses earlier, he said if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you’ll be saved. It’s when you confess him as your Lord and mean it in your heart that you’re saved. And if you do mean it in your heart, it’s going to show up in your behavior. So that’s what he’s, that’s what Paul means and that’s what That’s what I think those verses are talking about. All right, let’s talk to Cole in Omaha, Nebraska. Cole, welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hi, Steve. In 1 Timothy 4, 1 through 5, Paul says that deceivers will come in and tell people to abstain from certain things, but that God made all those things good. At the end, in 1 Timothy 5, it says that those things are made holy by the word of God in prayer. Specifically, what does… What function does prayer have in making those things holy?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, prayer is, of course, speaking to God. And I think probably what he has in mind… is giving thanks to God, receiving with thankfulness. When Jesus received the fish and the loaves before he broke them up, he blessed God, he gave thanks, and then he began to break them up to receive it with thanksgiving. And I think that that’s what’s suggested in the previous verse. The previous verse says, Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it’s received with thanksgiving, for it’s sanctified by the word of God in prayer. Now, when it says it’s sanctified by the word of God… I believe it means by Christ’s word. Christ has sanctified all foods. In Mark chapter 7, it tells us that when Jesus spoke and said, it’s not what goes into a man’s mouth that defiles him. It’s what comes out of his mouth that defiles him. He said, because that comes out of the mouth. The heart. And it says in verse 19, Mark 7, 19, he said, Thus Jesus purified all foods. Okay. He sanctified all foods by his word. And Paul said in Romans 14, 14, I believe and I am persuaded by the Lord Jesus Christ that nothing is unclean of itself, meaning food. He said, I’m persuaded by Jesus about that. What Jesus said about that has persuaded me. Nothing defiles a person by eating it. All foods by the word of Christ, by his pronouncement, are now declared clean, or they’ve been holy, they’ve been sanctified. So when Paul says all food is sanctified by the word of God, I think he means by the declaration of Christ, that word of God, and through prayer, which he’s probably referring just back to what he said in the previous verse, offering thanks, for it I would say possibly if the food you’re being given you know if it’s sanitation or the healthiness of it is in question perhaps prayer would be you add some prayers to that too you know okay God this is all I got I’m thankful for it but please don’t let it make me sick you know The main thing is that you’re acknowledging God in the food, in eating, in drinking. Whatever you do, you do all to the glory of God. And you’re thanking God for what you’ve received and possibly praying, too, that it’ll be healthy and wholesome. That’s how I would take it. Hey, I don’t have much time left, but Kyle in Sacramento, do you have anything you can do with a minute or two?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, quick question. Do you think that Jerome’s use of the word Lucifer, light bringer or light bearer, do you think that was a mistranslation?
SPEAKER 04 :
No, Jerome was correct to use the word Lucifer because he was translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin. And Lucifer is a Latin word that means light bearer. Or, you know, it comes from, you know, lumens. You know, I mean, it’s like it has to do with light. It’s related to the subject of light. Lucifer means a light bearer. The Hebrew word in the Old Testament that he was translating from also means light bearer. So he made a good translation. The problem came. When English translators, translating from the Latin initially, later they did so from the Hebrew, but the first English translations were made from the Latin. When they came to that, they were translating into English all the Latin words, but they came to it with Lucifer, and they should have translated it, too. If they had, it would have said light bearer. How are you fallen from heaven, O light-bearer? Because that’s what the Hebrew says, and that’s what the Latin says. But the English translators treated Lucifer as if it was a proper name. Now, frankly, the Latin didn’t. The Hebrew doesn’t use it as a proper name. But for some reason, the English translators, while translating all the surrounding material from Latin into English, just kept that Latin word untranslated and used it like a name. And that’s how the word Lucifer came into our English Bibles to look like it’s a name. But Lucifer is not a proper name. And by the way, it’s not found anywhere else in the Bible either. The word Lucifer is found in the older English translations of Isaiah 14, 12. And it’s not found anywhere else in the Bible in any translations because the word only appears that one time. And it appears there by mistake. because the English translators did not translate the word Lucifer as they translated all the other Latin words around it. Now, later on, when English translations were made using the Hebrew itself, some of them kept the word Lucifer just because it had become a convention. They had already begun to think of Lucifer as a name, and therefore, even though they used the Hebrew text, they just put in the word Lucifer. I’m thinking of the King James Version, especially in the New King James, But most modern translations, which translate Isaiah 14 directly from the Hebrew, they don’t have the word Lucifer in there. There’s no reason to have it in there. They would just translate it along with the other Hebrew words in the sentences around it, namely as light bearer. I’m out of time, but I hope that’s clarifying for you, brother. I appreciate your call. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are listener supported. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to thenarrowpath.com. P.O. Box 1730 Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can do it from our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
