The Narrow Path 8/14

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We've been having, as you may know, if you've been listening in the last couple of days, we've been having a few technical difficulties with the Internet in the studio. But I think I think we've got it working now. So we may have a program that works just like normal today. Be great. You're listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live, as usual for an hour with an open phone line for you to call. If you have questions about the Bible, you'd like to ask or like to engage in a conversation about some point of disagreement with the host. Feel free to give me a call.

The number is eight four four four. Eight four.

Fifty seven. Thirty seven. And right now the lines are mostly open. So you could probably get through if you call right away.

Eight four. Four. Four. Eight. Four.

Fifty seven. Thirty seven. Our first caller is Robert from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Robert, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hey, how are you doing today?

Fine, thanks.

All right. My question is, when you're preaching the gospel tune and believe it.

How much of the Bible do you think you should be acquainted with before doing that? And I mean, like your kind of reading through it and learning it and you get an engaged with someone here at the time frame of doing that.

Should you refrain from maybe preaching it or does it really matter how much knowledge you.

Are you talking about yourself or someone else or talking just in general?

Yeah, me definitely. Anyone in general. But person.

How long how long you've given a Christian.

I've been a Christian for a long time. And this year I've just been can get a lot more to doing self study and I have to go grab it reading the Bible. But, you know, I'm trying to make changes to that.

That's a great decision, you know. This is an interesting question, because the question is how much expertize do you need to have in your knowledge of the Bible before you begin to preach it to other people? Of course, a couple of questions that are part of this are a, do I really understand what I'm talking about well enough to make it clear to somebody else? And that's one of them. And the other is, what if they asked me questions and for ask for clarification? And I don't really I'm not sure what the Bible says. Now, this can be the case, even if you've learned a lot about the Bible over the years, but you've recently begun to restudy or re look at certain things so that some things are less clear than they were before. Now, by the way, being less something's been less clear in the Bible is not a sign of weakness. It's much better to know that something is unclear than to think it's clear and have their own opinion about what it means. If you know that, it's unclear. That means you're it's part of the learning curve you're on. Whereas if you don't know, if you don't know, it's unclear and you think it's clear, but you've got their own ideas about it, then you're kind of stuck. So I think it's a it's a it's a fine thing for people to recognize whether they do or don't have a good grasp of the gospel. You realize your own salvation is based on the fact that you love and trust and follow Jesus. Of course, you know, he died for your sins and rose again. These basic things. He's the son of God and that he is the Lord sitting at the right hand of God. And you're his follower. Those are things that you know about yourself. And those will never be unclear matters in the Bible. And if you know that much, you can certainly share that much. Now, what if you start talking about details of how the atonement works or the Trinity or things like that, you're gonna get in perhaps over your head with an unbeliever, because, frankly, even even profound theologians often don't have super clear ideas about that. There's differences of opinion and there's and there can be. It's not a problem. It's not a problem because you don't have to talk about the Trinity or even necessarily the Atonement when you're preaching the gospel. Now, that might surprise people. So I say you don't necessarily have to type of atonement. But the apostles, Peter and Paul, when they preach the gospel, the Book of Acts, they didn't really mention the atonement in their sermons. You can read Acts Chapter two or Chapter three Acts Chapter 10 or Acceptor 13 or any of the sermons Paul preached the next 14 or 17 and just read the sermons. There's no mention of the atonement in there, no mention of how Jesus death atones for our sins. Now, all that's really Nesser is that God knows how that works. And I don't have to know how that works. I just have to know that I'm a follower of Jesus. I can be very childlike. Remember the man who is healed of his blindness, the man who is born blind in John Chapter nine. He was testifying that Jesus had done it while the Pharisees didn't want to hear that. They didn't like the idea of Jesus working miracles because that might give him too much credibility. And so they kept asking him, you know. You know why? You know, to tell him a different story, sort of this how how he got healed. He said, listen, I keep telling you the same story. Why do you wanna hear it again? Do you want to become his followers, too? And they say we are Moses father's followers. But you're altogether born in sin. We know this man is a sinner. They said, because he healed on the Sabbath. And so the man who suddenly faced with the theological conundrum, he knew Jesus had healed him. But now the theological experts were telling him that Jesus was a center, was not right. And and the man said, well, I don't know if he's a sinner or not. I don't know that kind of stuff. But I do know this. I was blind and now I see. Now, he didn't have a very sophisticated, created understanding of the Gospels, certainly. He didn't even know very much about Jesus. He knew that Jesus had healed him and he was loyal to him. And that loyalty to Christ is what makes you a true Christian. Now, a person who becomes loyal to Christ will want to, like yourself, be able to communicate truth to others and will want to understand it yourself. And that's why you're reading the Bible as much as you are. I just think. That you don't have to wait until, you know, to sort out all these questions before you can talk to others about Christ. You might not stand out on the street corner, start preaching the gospel that way, because you may have to be I don't know. You may need to know your stuff better if you're being that public about it. But you can talk to your friends and you can answer people's questions to ask you about things you know about. Now, honestly, there are things that you perhaps you say, well, I don't really know that much about that. And you should never be ashamed to say that you should. If someone says, well, what about this? What what's got to go to do about the people who never heard the gospel? You know, why does God let babies Zeil be born? It was, you know, blind and so forth. Well, people bring up all kinds of questions that you may not know the answers to. And the answer is, I don't know. And there's nothing wrong with not knowing. They don't know either. So you're not any stupider than they are. Nor do you have to know. You don't even have to know the answer to those questions to know Jesus.

You may eventually learn the answers in the course of studying the Bible, or you may not learn them until you go to heaven. But knowing them, as valuable as that might seem to be, is not essential in order to communicate. Christ, you know, people bring up really hard questions. You can say what the blame is or I don't really know much about that. I haven't. You know, you could say I haven't studied that yet or I have studied that. But there's more than one possible view and I haven't sorted out. But or you could just say that's not really that relevant to what I'm talking to you about. Well, I'm talking to about as Jesus is the king. He's the Lord. And, you know, you don't have to answer every question because you can't I can't answer every question. People ask me questions. I don't know the answer to to. And I've been doing this for 50 years. So don't wait until you know everything, but be careful about sharing things you don't know or things you're not sure of. You can even say, you know, to a certain question, well, I've heard an answer like this to that question before, but I haven't studied it out. So I'm not sure I'd I'd affirm that that's the right answer. But I do know this. Jesus is the Lord Jesus is the one that God has made king and given all authority to. And he requires us to submit to him and be his followers. You know that you can do that from the day you know Christ, even if you haven't read a single Bible verse, as long as you know that information.

All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, Robert, I appreciate your call and I appreciate your concern about that. God bless you. God bless.

Thanks for joining us. All right, Richard from San Diego, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Okay. Thanks for answering the phone and taking my call. Okay, Steve. Like in, oh, when Paul was gone to Damascus and Egypt sees that, you know, Jesus has this confrontation with them. I can only know some people say he got knocked off a white horse and I just won out. How come? You know, I don't see where is you know, see where there's a white horse in the Bible. You tell me that there is none. OK. Because I I've heard, like, preachers say that and I had a Bible with a picture of him on a white horse. No, just one word. They somehow the white horse thing.

So somehow the story has taken on that that detail that isn't mentioned in scripture. I guess the assumption is that because he's traveling internationally, he he probably had a beast. He was commissioned by the Sanhedrin. So he's probably not on foot. They probably gave him, you know, transportation and and a horse or or a donkey would be the most common in those days in the days of Jesus. I think that camels were not as common in the Middle East as as they are now. That's what I've read. I think horses and mules or donkeys were more common. So I think the assumption is, you know, if I told you, you know, I've I'm going to be visiting San Francisco this weekend, which I'm not. But if I told you that, I wouldn't have to tell you I'm getting it to somebody. I'm either flying or driving and rather than, say, walking. Now, if we say, well, Saul was making a trip from Jerusalem to Damascus where he couldn't fly and he couldn't drive, but he could ride a horse, and he's probably doing that. But we don't. It's only a guess. And it certainly is not one of the things that matters very much.

OK. Because I was just wondering why, you know, like, yeah, he's on a white horse, you know. And I just don't word where they come up with that, you know.

Yeah, they didn't. It's it's not actually stated. All right. Thanks for your call, bro.

Oh, OK. Thank you. OK, bye now.

OK. Dennis from Denver, Colorado. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Yeah. Thank you. First time caller, I raced for a while. I appreciate your insight. It really helped a lot. Great. Thanks for calling. So I got it. I've got a quick question. I've got a friend who, you know. Oh, I you know, I'm I'm six, seven years old, been born again maybe 20 years ago. And the Bible is definitely the center of my life.

But we had a little disagreement yesterday about tided. And I know the Old Testament equal to me subscripts is that you need to try. And I understand that, you know, you have to support the church.

But I thought that was Old Testament law. And when Jesus came, he he said, don't change my status.

We're not obligated to tide and and and support the church for sure, but not obligation. So what I do. So what's your what's your take on it?

OK, well, your friend has on his side the majority of pastors of churches who would say that you should ties to them or to their church. You have on your side the scriptural data. There's no New Testament reference to the need for Christians to tie the word tithe is mentioned in the New Testament and never mentioned as a Christian duty. For example, it's mentioned in Hebrews Chapter four, Hebrew 77. It tells us that Melchizedek received a tithe from Abraham. Well, that doesn't tell us anything about Christians in the New Testament, does it? And and Jesus and Matthew, 23, 23, was rebuking the Pharisees who were not Christians because they did they did tithe. But they didn't do more important things than. Like he said, you've neglected the weightier matters of the law. Justice and mercy. Faithfulness is that these you ought to have done without leaving the other undone. In other words, you should have done the weighty things and not leave your tithes unpaid. Now, they had paid their ties. We said that was a lot less important than than what they neglected now. OK. So he said you should have paid your ties and they should have. They were they were Jews living under the laws part of the law. But he's not talking to Christians. You're not talking with anybody under the new covenant. There's nothing in the New Testament that would suggest that tithing is something associated with Christian behavior, because the tithe, which is an old English word, that means tenth the tenth of your income are basically have your produce of your ground usually was given to the temple to support the Levites and they would give a tenth of that to the priest to support them. Now, we don't have the temple, we don't have the Levites, we don't have the priest. So the whole purpose of the time doesn't exist anymore. Now, we do have people who need support. We have people who are in full time ministry. And we also people were just poor. Poor people need support. And the Bible never tells Christians to give a tenth of their income for these purposes. But it does tell us to be generous and to give in to in my opinion, most of us in America have enough that if we give only 10 percent, we're not really being very generous at all. We're we're still spending 90 percent on our own stuff and what we want. But I'm not going to judge any particular person for how much they give or don't give. I'm just saying that 10 percent would not be enough to be considered generous, in my opinion, for most Americans. And as far as supporting the church, the Bible doesn't ever talk anywhere about giving money to support the church because the Bible doesn't know of the church as an entity like we have it today. The church is a family of God, the churches, people. Now, when your church tells you to give tents to them, what they mean is they've got a budget, they've got salaries to pay, they've got a building to support. They've got lights to keep on and things like that. So they're talking about a corporation with with the kind of expenses that a corporation has. Now, part of their money that they get probably helps some poor people. They probably have a little bit budgeted for that, but maybe a little bit for missions. But most churches, when they say you have to give to the church what they mean by the church is this entity, this corporate entity that has all these expenses in their budget, which the early Christians in heavy those they didn't have buildings. They didn't have paid clergy. They didn't have secretaries. They didn't have light bills. Now, I'm not saying that those aren't you know, those things don't have to be covered if they exist. But early church didn't have those things. And giving to the church didn't mean giving to an organization and then giving to people.

For example, the main giving we read about in the New Testament in the Book of Acts is where people sold houses and lands and brought it to the apostles feet to be to to build a big building right now to distribute among the poor because there were poor people and people are the church. The needs of people are the needs of the church, not the needs of a building or as a salaried staff and things like that.

Now, if you like having a church as a building and salaried staff, then you should probably. And you use it. You should probably contribute something because they do have expenses. But certainly the idea. Your Christian giving is supposed to go to something that we call a church today, which doesn't resemble what the Bible called a church, you know, is a very strange teaching, but it's common throughout almost all the churches in America because it's.

I don't know. I guess it's maybe it's convenient, but also it's traditional. People have a hard time breaking free from tradition. If you're interested, more on the tithe. I have an article I wrote on it which is posted at our Web site. The Narrow Path dot com. And if you go to the narrow path dot com and go to the tab that says topical articles, you'll find there's what on is tithing for Christians. And I I covered it's not a very long article, but it's covered more thoroughly than I can cover it here.

Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate that. That's, you know. Thank you again.

All right. I appreciate your calling. Hope you do it again. God bless you. Thank you.

Bye now.

Okay. Martin from National City, California. Welcome to the Narrow Path.

Thanks for calling, Mr. Steve. My question is, since Jesus said he come to a fulfilled fulfill the law in the province and not to destroy. Yeah. And I love the first question is, I don't know.

The Jewish people ever obtained the promised land as far as square miles.

And somewhere I remember hearing in modern measurement that the new Jerusalem coming down from God, lot of heaven might be like half the size of the United States length. And we're searching hundred miles. Exactly. You could you tell me and I'll hang up. Could you tell me if you think those dimensions might be. And it's also high also up there, anywhere near the dimensions that the promised land for the Jews. The Jews?

No. Well well, that's a good question. I don't think. I don't think the total size of the Promised Land was that large. Because then it'd be reaching, you know, maybe reaching way up into Europe and things like that. No, the reach of the promised land, I think, is smaller than the state of Maine, I believe. Now, as far as whether the Jews ever received all the land, I would first of all, there's nothing in the Bible that says they did not. People commonly say they did not. But there's no statement of scripture that says they did not. On the other hand, there are statements of scriptures as they did. And one of those is Joshua, 21 versus 43 through 45. Joshua, 21 43 through it's just so the Lord gave to Israel all the land which he had sworn to give their fathers. They took possession of it and dwelt in it. The Lord gave them a rest. All around, according to all that he had sworn to their fathers and not a man of all their enemies stood against them. Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the House of Israel. All came to pass. So that's a pretty, pretty strong statement that God gave them all the land he promised them. And if there's any that he didn't. Joshua apparently didn't know it. And I think Joshua was there when they conquered the. I think he knew what the boundaries were. They conquered. So I you know, I'm not sure why people want to say that this didn't happen. Now, I think one reason they say it is because, of course, the descriptions of the promised land sometimes often give as a boundary of the land. The review frames and the review of Freddie's, you know, runs kind of diagonally to the north and the east of Israel. And it's not altogether clear whether it means that's the northern border or the eastern border. But, you know, nonetheless, we do know that we are told that Solomon did control land over to the Euphrates River and he was king of Israel. OK, so first Kings chapter for. Verse 24. This is the dominion of Solomon, the king of Israel. First kings for 24. For he had dominion over all the region on this side of the river, Euphrates from TIFF's saw even to Gaiser, namely over all the kings on this side of the river. And he had peace on every side all around him. So his his kingdom apparently extended to the river Euphrates. At least all the kings this side of it were under his dominion. So I'm I don't know that I would be one of those who would feel comfortable saying that despite the statements of scripture. God didn't give them the promised land. When the Bible actually says he did, as far as the size of the new Jerusalem, it is a fifteen hundred mile cube, as it's described. But it's not really a literal description, in my opinion.

And it is much larger. Fifteen hundred miles square would be its footprint. And, you know, there's no possibility that that all the land at the most generous estimations that God gave you promised Israel would have been that large. All right. Hey, I appreciate your call. Let's talk next to talk to Michael from Watsonville. Hi, Michael. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hi, Steve. Good to hear you. I'm good, dear. From you. Yeah, I've moved around quite a bit.

We're going to have to have you speak up right into your phone because you know why I'm back and what have I.

Yes. Do around quite a bit over the past few years. Okay.

Anyway, along the lines of our last dialog is the biblical view that God could not if God had so chosen, he could have he could have just remained as himself. The only being in the universe.

But he chose to manifest a career out of his own being all the multiple four of the angels and demons and human beings, animals, the whole creation as it is described in Genesis. And even though there was there would be a lot of rough and tumble, a lot of dissension, a lot of pain, anguish and so forth, that he knew that, as he said initially in the early phases of creation and God saw that it was good after he created Earth.

And so that ultimately this with the creation of a God, even though the evil and suffering happened, that the good would outweigh the bad. Is that how it should be understood?

Yes. And that's that's basically the assessment that most people make when they decide to have children. They know that their children grow, skin their knees. They might even get cancer. They might they might turn out badly, but they might not they might turn out wonderfully. And most people are willing to take that risk because it's very valuable to have children. Children are wonderful things and very fulfilling. Now, of course, they're coming into a world with trouble. But on balance, when people have children, they trust that, you know, when when you balance out the evil with the good, it's going to be something they'll be glad they did. And I'm pretty sure that's what God was thinking, too. Now, God, of course, only wanted people to live in a perfect world without all this trouble. Now, of course, he knew what would happen. But he also knew what he was going to do about what would happen. So he knew there'd be a lot of suffering and a lot of pain and evil that would take place in the course of history. But he also knew that he's going to fix everything.

He's going to restore everything. At the end of history. And that's gonna be forever. So even if, let's say, the worst kind of history took place for about six thousand years, which is all we can really document, and that's what the Bible suggests. So let's say there's six thousand years of really, really, really, really bad things going on. Let's just say even only bad things, although that's not the case. There's a lot of good things going on, too. It's hard. It'd be very hard to say when you total up all the good that pleases God. And the bad that doesn't. Which ways which which there are more of. But let's just say even it was six thousand years ago. And it's all bad. Well, if God didn't fix it and this could be all good. Forever and ever. And ever. And ever. And ever. And ever.

Then six thousand years of bad is said is not that terrible to have to endure.

So that. Yeah, I believe that that's how God reasons about things. And so he's you know, he's going to he's gonna fix everything. And that's what the Bible teaches. I appreciate your question. I need to take a break. You're listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are listener supported now. We don't have any expenses except that we pay for radio time. And that's pretty expensive, and we don't sell anything, we have no advertisers, no sponsors, we don't want any. We won't take any.

We just let the listeners know so God can provide if he wants us to. If people appreciate the program, you can write to us at the narrow path. P.O. Box 17 30, Temecula, California. Nine to five nine three. You can also donate from the Web site. The narrow path dot com, though everything there is free at the narrow path dot com. I'll be right back. We have another half hour to go.

The book of Hebrews tells us, do not forget to do good and to share with others. So let's all do good and share the narrow path with Steve. Greg with family and friends. When the show is over today, tell one in all to go to the narrow path dot com where they can study, learn and enjoy with free topical audio teachings, log articles, verse by verse teachings and archives of all the narrow path radio shows. And be sure to tell them to tune into the show right here on the radio. Sure, listeners supported the narrow path with Steve. Greg share and do good.

Welcome back to the Narrow Path. My name is Steve Greg, and we are live for another half hour, taking your calls. So if you want to join us, actually our lines are full at the moment.

But you can take this number down. If you call it a few minutes. There may be probably will be a line open.

The number to call is eight four four four. Eight.

Four fifty seven. Thirty seven.

That's eight for four. Four, eight, four.

Fifty seven. Thirty seven. Our next caller is Joe from Sacramento, California. Joe, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hey, thanks so much for your ministry. Sure. Thank you.

Hey, I have a questions for you.

First of 20, if you have anything online or on your website about Allsopp ultimate poverty that were filled and fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And then the other question, I'm actually doing a study on the topic of guilt.

I was only just to share a few thoughts on the origin of guilt, where it comes from and how the Bible tells us that as Christians we are to deal with. I'd love to hear up here.

Okay. Yeah. Thanks for your call. Yep. All right.

Well, let's see here. Do we have any resources that are fulfillment of Old Testament, Scripture and Christ? Yes, sort of. I mean, I don't have anything like a list of here's a prophecy about Jesus and over here is the fulfillment of it. There are lots of those online.

I mean, you just need to do a Google search to find, you know, just look up Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Christ and you'll get probably pages and pages of people who have posted such things at their sites. I've seen them many times. We don't have anything like that. What we do have is, you know, things that I've made when I'm teaching for notes and things like that. What we do have is a chart that I made, which specifically gives the Old Testament prophecies that anticipate the kingdom age of the Messiah, because that was the main theme of the prophets, that the Messiah would come and establish the kingdom age. And there are some Christians, many who believe that the kingdom age will be fulfilled at Jesus second coming in the millennium. And others like myself believe that the kingdom age prophecies were fulfilled in the present age, beginning with Jesus first coming.

So all Christians believe that these all these prophecies, the Old Testament, which there are bunches of them, that they are fulfilled in Christ one way or another. But the pre millennialist believes they'll be fulfilled at his second coming. The historic Christian doctrine is they were fulfilled at his first coming. And I have a chart that shows many of these prophecies and and many of the features of these prophecies. And it shows in the chart where the New Testament says that Jesus fulfilled either those specific prophecies or the features in them that are that are listed in the chart. It's actually a very helpful chart. I'm very glad to have made it because it's helped a lot of people working to find it. You can go to Matthew 713 dot com.

That's Matthew 713 dot com. And scroll down to where it says, I think it says notes, teaching notes or software. Or it might be undercharge charts and stuff, but it belongs to the series called When Should These Things Be? It might be listed as the eschatology series on the site. If you can't find it there. And I haven't looked, therefore, I haven't lost my stuff there. If you can't find it there. Email me, Steve. At the narrow path dot com. And I'll I'll email it to you, Steve. At the narrow path dot com. And just say that chart you mentioned, I can't find it. So could you send it to me? OK. Now you said about guilt. What does what we say about guilt? What guilt is the sense of having been having done something wrong? Well, that sense of guilt, there is actual guilt that you may not have a sense if you do something wrong. You are, by definition, culpable or guilty of doing it. You may not know it. You might be a little child who doesn't know right from law wrong and does something wrong. Okay. You might be somebody who's not very well instructed in the things of God and you think something is the right thing doing. You do it. But it is the wrong thing to do. This would be fairly excusable guilt. But you're still guilty if you do something wrong. Somebody is guilty of that wrongdoing. And it was you. Now, the awareness of guilt is another thing. People can harden their consciences. Or, as Paul put it, have their conscience sered or cauterized with a hot iron, which suggests becoming a, you know, insensitive cauterize skin cauterize wound is when it heals up. You don't feel that there's, you know, the nerves or damaged, so you can't feel it. So the idea is your conscience, which is your register of right and wrong, is built into you can be cauterized. It can be so damaged by misbehavior that was never redressed by you that you'd simply have lost sight. And sense of guilt for things you do and a person who is totally lost, their sense of guilt, of course, would be a sociopath. Paul seems to refer to such people in Romans one when he speaks of them being given over to a reprobate mind. Now these people are doing things they're guilty of all the time, but they don't sense any guilt. On the other hand, there are people who do things that are not wrong and they feel guilty because of some bad condition they've had. I mean, for example, there are people who have gone to a church that tells them that for, you know, a woman to wear pants, that that is a sin or for, you know, a man to have long hair. That's a sin. And so forth. Now, they have reasons for saying that because there's some cultural practices like that mentioned in the Bible. But if a church has told you that these things are sin, then even if they're not, you'll feel sinful if you do them. Some people say that smoking is a sin. It might be, but it's no Morrison, as near as I can tell them, eating any kind of junk food, it's an unhealthy practice. Usually sin is not determined by whether it's healthy or not. But on the other hand, obviously, if you're destroying your body, you're not doing it any good. That's not good behavior in any case. People do things that aren't technically sin and they feel guilty about them, just like some people do things that are technically sin and don't feel guilty. That's the function of the conscience. And so the conscience, how you deal with guilt is to adjust your conscience to what the Bible says. If I'm feeling guilty all the time, but I don't know what about I don't remember anything I did, but I just feel guilty. I just wake up feeling guilty, feel like God's angry at me. I feel like the devil owns me or something because I just feel like I've blown it so badly. Well, there's a couple of ways you can deal with that. First is ask, have I done anything that I'm particularly feeling guilty about? Is there something that the that I can pinpoint that I feel like I've done wrong? If the answer is yes, then is it something the Bible actually defines as Senator, that I should have every reason to believe as sin from the Bible?

If the answer is yes. The next question is, have I repented of it? If the answer is yes, then you can leave it alone and say, then I'm not guilty anymore in God's sight. If the answer is no, I have not repented, then of course, the next thing I do is to repent. And then thank God for your cleansing and your forgiveness. And go, go and sin no more. Now, if, on the other hand, when you ask yourself the question, can I think of anything particular I'm guilty of? I did. If the answer is no, I can't think of anything at all. I've been trying to behave very well. I don't remember any infractions. I don't know of anything that would make me feel guilty. Well, then that's. In that case, the Holy Spirit is not convicting you and you're not guilty. The devil is trying to make you feel guilty. That's called condemnation. He's the accuser of the brother and he's trying to accuse you of being guilty when you haven't really done anything. And you. And you don't even thinking, you know, can't even pinpoint anything that you would feel guilty about when the devil is convicting you. And making it feel guilty. It's because he he doesn't want you to repent. He doesn't want to go God. He wants you to feel alienated from God because you feel defeated all the time. You won't feel comfortable praying. You won't feel like God is gonna listen to your prayer or want to answer your prayer because he's angry at you. That's that's why the devil wants you to feel. Guilty. Even if you're not guilty. And even after you repent of something you did to the devil, sometimes I want you to still feel guilty because he gets a lot of mileage out of Christians feeling guilty. So that's the devil's condemnation is recognizable when, a, you're feeling guilty, but not about anything in particular. Well, if the Holy Spirit was convicting you, he'd let you know exactly what you've done wrong because he wants you to repent and get right. The devil doesn't, but the Holy Spirit does. So the Holy Spirit not can make you just feel vaguely guilty about nothing in particular that you can repent of. The Holy Spirit, if you've done something, he'll convict you of it and want you to repent of it and be done with it and be happy again. So the Holy Spirit is going to be specific. If he conviction of something you've done and he's going to forgive you and not convict you anymore after you've repented of it. The devil, on the other hand, will not specifically let you feel guilty about anything because then you might repent. He just wants you to have this vague sense that you're just a guilty person, just dirty. And if you do think of something to repent of and you do repent of some real sin, he's going to watch and still feel guilty about it and act like God didn't forgive you. Part of being a Christian is trusting God. And one thing God said is that if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship on him with another and the blood of Jesus Christ God's son cleanses us from all sin. That's first, John. One seven. And to versus later. And first, John, one nine. He says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So we don't have to carry any guilt. We do need to confess or repent of sins that we have committed. But once we've done so, we're told that God cleanse is a small sin. He forgives us our sins and then any further guilt that we feel is simply a lie from the enemy. And we should pay no heed to it. In fact, we should read. We reject it very actively. All right. Let's talk to Jeff from Seattle, Washington.

Hi, Jeff. Welcome to the program. Hello. Hi. You there? I am. Go ahead. OK.

I have a wife and I are looking for a movie a few days ago and got tired looking and saw this one that was in front of us called the Coming Convergence. We watched. I wondering if you'd heard of that. No, sir. It's a film about the day and times. And I was I was hoping you had heard of it, but I could run through some other ideas and maybe a quick overview.

And then you would give me your quick quickly give me two or three things that they say that you're wondering about.

Two or three. Well, one is that the key assigned to the end times is Israel got its land back. And there is going to be some somebody who were people who were alive when they got their land back are going to be alive when Jesus comes again. Not everybody, but within a generation.

Was this made?

Was this made many years ago, made in twenty, seventeen.

It's interesting. They're still saying the same thing. How he said claims of people involved, no.

No need. I know who they are. I mean, I don't know their names. I know who they are. They're dispensation that's going. Anything else?

There are. Oh, okay. The.

The idea is that the convergence of many things that come together at the same time rap and they wrap up happening rather rather rapidly, one of them is that conflicts are increasing around the world.

Major one is Syria. Iran and Russia go together to attack Israel.

The other one is you have Syria and Iran have Syria, Iran and Russia done that.

No, this is this is right.

So it hasn't happened yet, so it hasn't stopped. So it might not have ever happened.

For all we know, yeah, this is somewhere in Easy Hill. 38, 39. Yes.

OK. And then so people are hungry and have trouble getting food. So this global financial collapse, which we can see how shaky things are now going in.

OK, well, let me just jump in then, because. Oh, yeah. A long list of such things can be given. I've heard enough to know exactly what's going on. Oh, they could have just kind of dusted off how Lindsays 1970 book The Late Great Planet Earth. And there was already a movie made from it back in the 70s. Now they're making more. But the difference is that although he said all those same things were supposed to happen because he interpreted the scripture the same way they do. He thought that the things happening in 1970 were the fulfillment of that. He thought it was all converging then. So did my pastor at the time who believed that Jesus had to come back really soon because it was all coming together is all coming together. That's what used to heroes. I was all converging. Well, that's 50 years later. Now, most an awful lot of people who are teenagers with me back then are now dead. Not all of them. But the point is, the expectation they were given based on the very same kind of things that these guys were using, proved to be irrelevant.

Now, I can certainly see that bad things are happening all over the place.

I do not agree that the coming together of Israel in the land is a fulfillment of any particular prophecy in the Bible, nor that Russia, Iran and Syria are going to come against Israel. They might. I mean, it's not hard to predict they might, but the Bible doesn't say they will. That is the way that certain passages in the Old Testament are interpreted, which I believe are not rightly interpreted. But that's the dispensation away now idea of there being starvation and, you know, monetary crisis. You know, earthquakes and famines and so forth. There's know these things are around. They were around 50 years ago and how how Lindsay wrote a book and they were around actually back in biblical times, too. And they've been around a lot. The fact they've always been around. Now, the interesting thing is that sometimes people say what's got to be the last thing is because, look, there's been more earthquakes. Let's just say more earthquakes in the last hundred years than in all of history combined before.

And I think. Well, Buck could be true. I don't know if it's true cause I don't know how they measured earthquakes back, you know, a thousand years ago, maybe they didn't have keep tabs on them. I don't know. But let's just say you're right, maybe there are more than there ever been. Does the Bible anywhere say that there will be more earthquakes in the in times than there were before that? It does not.

Earthquakes are mentioned, but doesn't mention that they're more frequent G-suit. There'll be earthquakes in diverse places. Well, that's always been true. Well, maybe there's more now. Well, he didn't say the be more or less or the same number. He just said there were earthquakes there.

But when Jesus talked about it being like birth pangs for a woman's in labor, the pains start. Correct.

Right. And the same chapter, Jesus said this is an increase. Right. And I say they didn't.

They didn't use a lot of scripture.

So I'll leave a message. Yeah. Yeah. They have strict script.

Yeah. They have certain scriptures in mind, but they're not interpreting the. I think they should, though. A lot of that that you mentioned is from Matthew 24, which several versus later Jesus said. This generation will not pass before all these things are fulfilled. So Jesus said that all the things he was predicting would happen in that generation.

And they did. By the way, all those things did happen in that generation. So he was right. But anyone who says that they haven't happened yet must be saying he wasn't right, which makes them wrong.

I can't go into this anymore because there are too many calls waiting. And this is a very, very, very typical thing for people to appoint these very things out.

You can find it probably on very many movies on YouTube. I don't know. No, I'm not from that particular movie. As you asked. But I do know that there's plenty out there that make the same claims.

OK. We need to move along to help some of these people get a chance. We're going to talk next to Scott from Phenix, Arizona. Scott, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

I see I'm not going to comment about yesterday's show that you maybe want to respond to and a question, if possible. Get them out the demons and were there. If they're able to pull that house and stuff like that, we want to there. I can Daniel doesn't talk about princes and principally N principal. Last principle, the south. Different areas. And then Paul talks about science all and powers in high places. Is that out?

Well, Daniel, Daniel and Daniel, Chapter 11, Daniel talks about the king of the north and king of the south. But he's talking about the in that case, he titled The Assyrian. I mean, give me the Syrian king and the Egyptian king, respectively.

But you're thinking perhaps of Daniel 10, where he talks about the prince or in the Greek text would be the principality of Persia. And then there's also mention the same type of principality of Greece and. These are seemingly demonic powers that have some connection with those empires. So, yeah, the Bible does talk about that, which does seem to kind of geographically locate at least some of the demons. I appreciate you bringing this up for us. God bless you.

We're going to talk next to Luke from Scottsdale, Arizona. Luke, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Mm hmm.

Question for you today. As questions, how do we balance being poor in spirit while also having that spirit? Which one of them, Joy?

Well, it looks like in practice.

Sure. Well, I don't. I don't see poor in spirit and joy as opposites. I might, instead of thinking of that be attitude, be thinking of. Blessed are those who mourn. And how do you actually harmonize that with joy. But it does. The word blessed means happy or blissful. And so it would all the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed those who mourn. Blessed are the pure in heart. So forth. Bless even those who blessed are those who are persecuted, who were blessed means happy or it's or blissful. It's that it's the Greek great Makarios. And so it's very much in keeping with being joyful now. Being joyful is something it's always nice when joy shows on your face, when you're smiling and happy and it's all good. But that's not necessarily what is meant by joyfulness, because Jesus said to his disciples that his joy, you know, he gives to them and any and. And Peter says it's a joy unspeakable and full of glory. And so, you know, it's unspeakable, is inexpressible is another way. He said it's deep. It's something deep inside. It's a deep down contentment is the deep down, you know, gratitude. It's a deep down peace and tranquility. It's it's a it's a happy state is the fruit of the spirit. And and Jesus has talked about what that happy state looks like. It doesn't look like somebody partying. In fact, it's interesting because in the Beatitudes that Jesus gives a look sexy, says blessed to you, who mourn for you should be comforted. But blood, woe unto you, who laugh for you shall mourn and weep. So people who are having a good time and partying now, he said, well, that's not a happy place to be. A happy place to be is to be one who's mourning over your sins and mourning. Oh, you know, under the hardship of the persecution of being a Christian and so forth. But but there's a joy inside. There's a bliss fullness inside. And frankly, there's many a Christian can testify to that. What we think of his happiness is, if I'm not mistaken, I think happiness is a word that comes from the word happenstance. And it has to do with, you know, having external happenings that are consistent with our. You know, desires. And and yet real happiness is not necessarily having circumstances that are that make us happy. We know that the disciples, for example, it says in the Book of Acts, they left after they got beaten for Christ. They left the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ. Most people don't rejoice about getting a beating. Paul and Silas got a beating in Phillip High and they were in stocks and they were singing and praising God, apparently very happily. The joy of the Lord is not the kind of thing that is contingent on circumstances that make us happy. And sometimes we have all the same emotions of unhappiness that others have. Paul's. Paul, when he wrote Philippians said he was even as he wrote, he is weeping over certain people who were enemies of the Cross of Christ. Paul is burdened under something he called a thorn in the flesh that he had begged Jesus to remove from done. So he is very happy about it. But but he nonetheless was rejoicing in the Lord. In fact, in Philippians, where I said he was weeping when he wrote, he said Rejoice in the Lord always again I say rejoice. Take joy. Rejoice me to take joy. Make you know, be joyful. But that doesn't necessarily come out in glib expressions of glee when you're going through deep waters, when you're in a lot of pain, emotional pain or otherwise, you're not going to be feeling gleeful necessarily. But if you're trusting Christ, if you are in communion with him, you'll find that he is near to the brokenhearted. And having him near is a very frankly enjoyable thing to those who value that kind of thing. I know that when I've been through trials, Christ has been closer. I mean, sensed closer than at other times. And I'm you know, frankly, I didn't enjoy the trials, but I certainly enjoyed the nearness of Christ. So our joy is is at a deeper level than than to be based on anything circumstantial. Hey, I need to try and take another call before out of time. We're almost out of time. I see. Art from Manhattan, New York. Welcome to the narrow path. Art, hi.

Thank you for taking my call. I'm a free hustler and I'm having a challenging time with my wife who abuses me. I'm trying to avoid a divorce. However, recently she's encouraging my sons to verbally abused me and cursing me when I asked them to do household chores.

What I like to ask you is, do you have anywhere in your archives where you discuss the story of Noah Ham and the Curse of Kanan?

And if you could just spend a minute or two, please, to review that story so my sons can listen to your point of view today to learn the ramifications of their reprehensible behavior, as I believe it's my responsibility to continue to remind them of the series consequences of their behavior.

Are your sons listening? They're not now, but when I do record this or go online, yes, or they will listen. OK, after. OK.

Well, first of all, when the Bible tells children to honor their parents, it says so it may be well with you and your and your days may be long on the land that the Lord has given you. And Paul actually repeats that promise. He tells children, obey your parents and honor your parents. Now, you know, a child who does not honor his parents is welcoming the opposite circumstance. And that is that it will not go well with them. And I honestly don't know any children who grew up despising and mistreating their parents for whom I'd say they're in circumstances that I envy. I think I think things go badly when you break your family up like that. And the main ground of a family solidarity is respect for the parents and the wife's respect for her husband and his for her.

So, I mean, there's some dysfunction going on there. But the the way that your sons and your children can avoid the disaster is by that. Now, the curse of Kanan came on.

Well, I'm so sorry the music started playing because I thought we had a little more time than we do. This is actually earlier than I thought it would play. Boy, could you call Monday.

I'm so sorry to. Have you been. We know right through the weekend, but I'm just gonna be cut off here in about a half a minute. I'll come back. All right. I thought I had a couple more minutes. I'm sorry. I just wanted you to call back our place.

God bless you. All right. You been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are listener supported.

If you'd like to help us stay on the air, you can write to the narrow path. P.O. Box 17 30, Temecula, California. Nine to five nine three. Or go to our Web site. Then narrow path dot com. That's done. Narrow path dot com. Thanks for joining us. Let's talk again Monday.