Music 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. Take in your calls if you have questions about the Bible that you would like to ask on the air or about the Christian faith or you have a different viewpoint from the host you'd like to talk about. Feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Darrell calling from Sacramento. Darrell, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Thanks, Steve. I've been looking at the book of Matthew in chapters 5 and 6 and then in chapter 28 it says something totally opposite when it talks about cutting off hands and blocking out eyeballs and so forth.
And then it says, you know, my yoke is eased and my burden is light. Can you help me with that? Sure.
Yeah. I mean, first of all, Jesus doesn't really want anyone to poke out their eyes or cut off their hands. I mean, I think anyone who takes him literally in those statements would be a danger to themselves, I would think.
And I have known people who have taken it literally. What Jesus is saying when he says that if your hand causes you to sin or your eye causes you to sin, it's better to be rid of that than to enter into Gehenna. Retaining Gehenna is usually translated to hell. So he's saying it's better to be saved and have only one eye or one hand because you eliminated that which was hindering you from being saved than to keep it all and end up thrown into the fires of Gehenna. So that's simply a statement that you need to prioritize. If you're going to be a disciple of his, you're going to have to be rid of whatever in your life is preventing you from being a disciple of his.
That's what he's saying. If you've got some relationship or some possessions or some position or, you know, anything that maybe you know you'd be unpopular to be a follower of Christ, if any of that stuff would keep you from following Christ, you'd be better off getting rid of it. And he uses the eye and the hand as examples, not because your eye or your hand would ever really prevent you from becoming a follower of Christ or even cause you to sin. Your hands do commit sins and so do your eyes, but it's your heart and your inner person that causes you to sin. So getting rid of a hand or a heart or an eye, excuse me, would not be helpful. If you're trying to stop sinning, getting rid of a hand or an eye wouldn't help.
So he's obviously using a hyperbole. He's saying that even if what you would have to give up is as valuable to you as an eye or a hand, even if it's something you would be so loathed to part with as an eye or a hand, you should still do it and you'll still consider yourself advantaged. When Jesus later in chapter 11 said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light, what he means is he's unlike the Pharisees. He said, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden. Over in Matthew 23, Jesus blamed the Pharisees for loading heavy burdens on people, but not being willing to lift them off with even so much of one of their fingers. The idea is that the Pharisees had loaded heavy legalistic burdens on people.
The Jews, they were laboring under an idea that God is easily displeased, that you have to keep all these rules or God's going to be angry at you. It's a heavy burden to lift. And Jesus said, no, you come to me and I'll give you rest. My burden is easy.
It's not like theirs. Now, what is his burden? His burden is that you're supposed to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbors yourself.
That really is an easy thing if you've determined to do so and if you've received his spirit, which enables you to do so. You see, some people don't want to love God or they don't want to love their neighbor. They want to hold a grudge. They want to be angry.
They don't want to forgive. And if that's the case, then, of course, they would find it an intolerably heavy burden to follow Christ because he requires them to do those things. However, those who have come to Christ are not those who are trying to avoid loving God or avoid loving people. They are people who want to love God. They want to love people.
And because it's in your heart to do so and you become a follower of Christ, he gives you his spirit and loving people is what comes naturally. So it's a light burden in a way. So that's what I believe you're saying.
I don't think there's any contradiction there. Thank you. All right. Thank you for your call.
Daniel from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve. I have a question, which I went to seminary 50 years ago. A long testimony.
I'm not going to get into that to take up time. My dad died when I was a year old from the steel mill. Mesothelioma. They only pronounce it correctly. And I went to seminary in the Orthodox Church in Yugoslavia, where he was from. And you probably know from your precise studying and stuff. And you quote the church fathers, which the Orthodox Church are big in, but they never teach them. And I heard it today. A guy on the radio, a preacher. And of course, he didn't get into it. But talking about in Noah, the whole story. And where it says the Lord regretted making the people.
And you're on board with this probably. And people I know have come to me, it probably comes to you. Well, if God knows the end from the beginning, how could he regret if he didn't know that people were going to be like that?
So evil and stuff. And I didn't, you know, in the Orthodox Church, I didn't have the thought to even think of it then. That's not how I was born again.
I was watching Rex Humbard years ago on TV. And the only way I knew to serve God was to go to seminary and stuff. So what is your answer to that? Because I know several years ago, a bunch of well-known people, preachers, and I think even Tony Campolo got into that thing. Well, God does not know the end from the beginning.
So if you can elaborate on that, I'd greatly appreciate it. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. My mic was down for some reason.
I think I cleared my throat. I forgot to put it up. My mistake. Yeah, there is a theological camp called Openness Theology, and they do teach that God does not necessarily know the choices that people will make in the future. They don't think He's ignorant of all the future. They believe that He has plans and He knows what He's planned to do. And some of those plans cannot be thwarted because they don't involve human free will. And therefore, God has complete control over those situations and knows what He's going to do.
So whatever things in the future lie in those categories, He knows. But what He does not know, they would say, is what people are going to choose before they choose it. Now, I don't agree with this view, but it's a view that is becoming much more respectable in evangelical circles. Some people may think, well, how could that be a respectable view? It compromises God's omniscience. Well, they would say they don't compromise God's omniscience.
They believe God knows everything. But that the future isn't a thing. The future doesn't exist. There's nothing there to know. The future hasn't happened yet, and therefore there's no information content of it until it happens.
That's their position. Now, what Christians have usually said is that God lives outside of time and that the past, present, and future are all visible to Him to be viewed. And therefore, He knows the future things by viewing them just like He can view the present or the past. This statement about God living outside of time is not found in Scripture. It's not a Scriptural teaching.
It's a philosophical teaching. It could be true, but the Bible doesn't affirm it or deny it. And so before we go arguing that God knows the past, present, and future, we might go looking for some Scripture to tell us that before we affirm it. And there is no Scripture that affirms that. But the Bible does say that God knows all things. Now, the question is, are future things things? Is that something that can be known?
There's nothing there yet until it happens, it is argued. And when things happen, God knows about them. And He knows all of them. He knows all about them.
He knows everything. But He does not yet know, except for the things He plans to do, what people will plan to do before they do. And they say that if God knew what I was going to plan to do tomorrow, then I don't have free will to do anything other than what He knows I'm going to do. Because if He knows I'm going to do it, then I'm definitely going to do it.
And not if He just thinks I'm going to. So this is a view that's basically what it is. It's not a different view of omniscience so much as it's a different view of time. All Christians believe that God knows everything.
The question is, is the future in a category of things that exist to be known or not? We would all say that God doesn't know any babies that weigh a thousand pounds, and the reason He doesn't is because they don't exist. If something doesn't exist, God's not knowing it would not make Him less omniscient because there's nothing there to know. So they would say God doesn't know what man's going to do, and therefore they'd take a passage like the one you're using and say, well, God didn't know the world would turn out this bad, and therefore He regretted that He made man.
Well, I take it a little differently than that. I think God does know the future. I don't know how He knows it, but I believe there's evidence that He knows the future and many of the prophecies He gives in the Bible that involve human choices and so forth are going to happen.
So I'm not here to debate the openness theology view, but I'll just tell you my assumption is very orthodox that God does know all the future before it happens, though I don't profess to know how. So why does it talk this way? Why does it talk as if He didn't know? Now, there are a number of places like this in the Bible.
In Genesis, there's quite a few, and they're not only passages that suggest that God acts like He doesn't know the future, but sometimes He acts like He doesn't know the present. For example, when Adam and Eve sinned and God came walking to the garden, He said, Adam, where are you? And Adam said, well, I'm in the bushes.
I was naked and I was ashamed, so I hid here. And God said, well, how did you know you were naked? You didn't eat of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, did you? And, you know, God acts like He doesn't know, but God certainly knows. In the following chapter in Genesis 4, He says to Abel, I mean to Cain after Cain has killed Abel, where's Abel, your brother? And Cain says, how should I know?
I'm not my brother's keeper, am I? And God says, well, I'll tell you where he is. His blood cried out to me from the ground, which received it from you, from your hand. In other words, God, before He asked the question, certainly knew the answer. But He sometimes acts in order to interact with us and perhaps to relate to us, because He is so infinitely above us that we couldn't really relate with Him unless He lowered Himself a little bit, to reveal Himself anthropologically, anthropology, or anthropomorphically, I think I should say. Anthropomorphisms are times when God or something else that's not a man is compared with a man. When the Bible talks about the trees shall clap their hands, well, the trees don't have hands. That's an anthropomorphic image.
The trees are spoken of as if they are human, but they're not. God is sometimes spoken of as if He's human, but He's not also. And so when He's talking to Abraham in Genesis 18, He's on His way down to Sodom and Gomorrah, and He tells Abraham, I've heard things are very bad in Sodom and Gomorrah.
I'm going down there to see if it's true, and if it is true, I'll know. Now, God specifically acts like He doesn't know something that He's going to know in a little while, and yet He knew what was going on down the road. He knew what was going on around the world and across the universe. How could He not know what's going on in Sodom? So He's talking to Abraham in the way that he sometimes does communicate with us, as if he's a man like ourselves.
He's not trying to make a statement about his omniscience, either to deny it or to affirm it. When Abraham raised the knife to sacrifice Isaac on the altar, and God stopped him, God said, Now I know that you fear Me. Okay, so some people use it and say, Well, God didn't know if Abraham was going to do this or not. But God didn't say, Now I know that you're going to do this. He said, Now I know that you fear Me. But didn't God know if Abraham feared Him before that time?
It's like God talks, in many cases, in anthropomorphic ways. So it says that God regretted that He'd made man. He was very sorry. It says it grieved Him at His heart. Well, I believe God really does feel grief, but I don't think it's telling us that God didn't know it would turn out this way.
I think what He's saying, He's sorry it did turn out this way. And it makes Him, you know, the fact that He has created man is now a matter of grief to Him. But it tells it in more of an anthropomorphic way, where God is compared with a human, as is often the case in these stories. But the Bible elsewhere tells us, of course, that God is not a man, and that He doesn't have these limitations. So I don't feel that we have to take these narrations and derive from them existential ideas about what God can and cannot do. I think we have to recognize that the Bible is written as an attempt for God to relate with human beings. And He often relates with them as if He's one of them, and speaks with those kinds of limitations.
And if I could just add a quick question. Doesn't that throw a big monkey wrench into the whole works of creating man, like you said, with Calvinism and the elect and all that? Well, I mean, it definitely, it doesn't have to, you know, but I know what you mean. That if God regretted that He made man, how could He have elected all things that happened? How could He have predestinated everything? And I agree that God did not predestinate everything, and I think your position is that too.
Eastern Orthodox don't believe in Augustinianism. And so, I mean, you and I agree that God doesn't predestinate everything that happens. And we could take a thing like this and say, look, God was sorry this turned out this way. Well, if He determined it to come out this way, if He predestined it to come out this way, how could He be sorry about it?
I mean, that's, I think, the point you're making. And yet the same argument can be made against Calvinism. Every time God complains about anything, and He complains a lot, He complains in the prophets a lot about the things Israel's doing and Judah's doing. And if the Calvinists were true, that God actually preordained for those things to happen, then His disappointment with them doesn't make a lot of sense. That is why I have said, and Calvinists sometimes are upset with me for saying this, but I've said you can't really read the Bible and be a Calvinist unless someone is teaching you from a Calvinist point of view, because reading the Bible, you never get the idea that God made everything happen, because He complains about so many things that do happen.
And that's a primary theme throughout the Bible. Yes. Do you have anything, I don't, my cousin stole my computer moving back.
Do you have anything on your website, I'd have to go to the library, about that? About what, Calvinism? What we're talking about, yeah. About Genesis 6?
Which thing? No, about just the whole, you know, anthropomorphic stuff of God not knowing, supposedly, beforehand. Right. I talk about this, yeah, I talk about all these things in my lectures on Genesis. So, I mean, if you listen to my lecture on Genesis 6, in all likelihood, in all likelihood, I make these points. Okay.
Genesis 6. Okay. Okay.
Is your, because I'm not driving, because my eyes, do you have a phone number to call to donate through the phone? At this point, we don't. At this point, we do not. Oh, you don't? Oh. No.
Okay. We don't have any office staff. We don't have an office. We don't have an organization. Oh, oh.
No, we don't have any organization at all. Oh, man. Yeah. You travel late. We do. Yeah. I can take this whole show in my backpack when I travel.
I do it on the, I've done it from a car. All right. All right.
So, I mean, if you want to donate, of course, we appreciate that, but probably just getting a check in the mail would do as well as anything. How do you spell, I mean, I've been to California several times from PA, but how do you spell the name of that town you're in? Temecula. It's T-E-M-U. Oh, T-E-M-U. All right. No.
T-E-M-E-C-U-L-A. I'm not looking at it. I'm just mixed up.
Is that Native American? Okay. I need to, hey, I can't keep, I think it's supposed to be.
I've got a lot of calls when I can't keep it. I know. I'm sorry. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right. All right. God bless you. Have a blessed night. Thank you. Bye. Thanks for joining us. Yeah.
Okay. Let's talk to Donny from Michigan. Donny, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Donny, are you there?
I hear some noise, but it doesn't, it's not a voice online. Okay, Donny, I'm going to have to hang up, and if you want to call back, feel free to call back. You know the number is 844-484-5737.
Michael from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Hi, Steve. I've got a quick question about a verse in Luke 3, that's verse 11, when John the Baptist is replying to the crowds that came out to him, and I'm wondering if the ethic that he is proposing in this verse is valid for Christians today, and in your opinion, and also, if so, it seems like he's calling us to something much more radical than Christians are exhibiting, and he says, whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and I've looked at this word tunics, and it means an everyday garment, and if that's true, I mean, I certainly have more than two everyday garments, and so he would be calling me to share any surplus that I had, and I'm kind of wondering also if maybe he's talking figuratively as well as literally and hyperbolically. If you have two of something, and you give one of them to somebody who doesn't have one, that is loving your neighbor as you love yourself, right?
It's putting your neighbor's needs on the same level as your own, which is, of course, the law from Leviticus, which Jesus also reaffirmed as being one of the two great commandments, so John is simply trying to put that law into practical terms. Do you love your neighbor as you love yourself? Well, do you know somebody who doesn't have a garment?
Give them one of yours if you've got more than one. Now, I would say that probably most of us don't know anyone who doesn't have a garment to cover them. Even homeless people appear to have clothing, and they might even have more than one pair, one set.
I don't know. In biblical times, the typical peasant only had one set of clothes. They didn't even have a change of clothes. They had to bathe in their clothes because clothing was expensive, and a person who had multiple garments, sometimes wealth was measured in garments. Sometimes payments on large purchases were made in numbers of garments and so forth that were passed because garments were expensive, and to us, the people we think of as poor in America, even homeless people, have more things than the average person in Israel had in those days or in any part of the world.
There was no middle class at all. There was the dirt poor, and then there were the wealthy, and there really weren't people who were kind of poor and kind of wealthy. That was just most of us are, and I would say that even the poor people among us are kind of wealthy. A lot of them have cell phones.
Most of my life, I couldn't afford a cell phone, though I wasn't homeless. They have things, and therefore, I think what John is saying is you know people who are so poor that they're wearing, if anything, just a tattered garment that's about to go. They need a garment, and you've got more than one.
Help them. Now the principle certainly is if there are people who have need and you've got surplus, definitely you should count it as something God expects of you to help them. Now do we have to bring our standard of living all the way down to third world levels so that we can obey this command literally in helping third world people? Because we're not going to find very many people in America who don't have a garment or don't even have more than one garment, so I mean we'd have to look overseas mostly to find somebody who's that poor, and there are plenty of them, and we should be helping them, but I don't know that... I mean basically, he's basically arguing that people in the third world where they were, the whole world was the third world then, and who are poor, they should live much more evenly, more equally. Now it's kind of impossible to even make a living in America if you only own one set of clothes because you'd never be able to wash them.
You just wouldn't be able to hold a job. There are standards in just the lowest of the standard of living in America is much higher than it is in many parts of the world, and so I think we should be helping with food and garments and such things, people in third world countries, and there's plenty of organizations that do that, and I think we should give generously to them. I think... Well, a few years ago I got to the point where I could give 50% of my income to the poor, and I felt good because I was thinking of this very command of John the Baptist. John the Baptist said, if you have two, give one to someone who doesn't. I thought, well, okay, I'll give half of what I have to the poor, and by the grace of God, I've been able to manage that. I have to keep my own lifestyle pretty low, but it's not as low as people's lifestyle was in biblical times.
You just can't really take that as an absolute literal thing that you just across the board practice here in America the same way, but I do think that almost all Christians should be challenged by that and should say, well, listen, I get a lot... I have a lot more things than I need or will ever need, and I make a lot more money than I need to live on. I mean, yeah, I don't...
I mean, if I want to live at the standard of living my neighbors have, I got to spend most of what I have to do that on myself, but I don't have to live at the standard of living they do. I don't need to drive a new car. I don't need to have all my kids have smartphones. I don't need to have a TV in every room or something. I don't need all that stuff.
Everyone else has it. What about saving and investing? Well that's a stewardship question. My recent book has a whole chapter on that addressing those very points. My book is not out yet, but it will be before the end of the year, Lord willing, and I also have lectures on stewardship, which would deal with that very thing.
If you go to my website, thenarrowpath.com, and look under topical lectures, find the series called Toward a Radically Christian Counter Culture, and then listen to the lectures there about money, because I do talk about stewardship. I answer these very questions that you're asking. Right now I need to take a break, I'm sorry to say. I do appreciate your call.
God bless you. All right, you're listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. We have another half hour coming up. We take a break at this point to let you know that the ministry here is listener supported. I mentioned we have no offices, we've got no overhead, but we do pay for radio time. If you'd like to help us keep doing that, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593, or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com.
I'll be right back. As you know, The Narrow Path radio show is Bible radio that has nothing to sell you, but everything to give you. So do the right thing and share what you know with your family and friends. Tell them to tune into The Narrow Path on this radio station or go to thenarrowpath.com where they will find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse by verse teachings, and archives of all the radio shows. You know listener supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg.
Share what you know. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for another half hour taking your calls if you have questions you'd like to call in and ask about the Bible or the Christian faith, feel free to call me.
The number is 844-484-5737. If you're a listener in Southern California, you may be interested to know that this Saturday, day after tomorrow, I'll be speaking on the book of Daniel in Orange County in Buena Park. In Buena Park, that's a little church in Buena Park that we speak at from time to time and it's in our website announcements you can find it, but I'm going to be talking about the book of Daniel. I'll be giving an introduction and an overview of the book and that's this Saturday night at six. So if you're interested, of course that's free to join us there. Go to our website thenarrowpath.com. Click under announcements, scroll down to Saturday's date and you'll find all the information you need to join us if you'd like to do so and we'd love to see you. Okay, Alan from Arlington, Washington.
Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey, good afternoon, Mr. Gregg.
Hi. I'm reading the book of Isaiah and that's the tail end, chapter 66. It comes to the point on verse 23, it mentions how all mankind will bow before God and then after that it talks about how those who bow will go and see the, it's in verse 24 it speaks of where the bodies are piled up, where the worm will not die and the fire is not quenched and I've heard people express how that was talking about the Valley of Hinnom and Isaiah's day and yet it seems as if with the verbiage in the verse prior to that where it talks about in that day all men will bow before God, I don't see how it would be modern day, like Isaiah's modern time so if you could maybe clarify your thoughts on that, it would be great.
Okay. Well, first of all, it doesn't say all men will bow before God, though it does have a similar phrase. It says at the end of verse 23, all flesh shall come and worship before me, says the Lord. All flesh, of course it sounds like it means all men, but I'd like to remind you of some other verses that talk about all flesh, like Joel chapter 2, I think it's verse 28 or there about where God says, in the last days I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy and so forth and Peter said, well this is fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Now in Isaiah chapter 9, it says that all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord or the glory of the Lord and this is quoted in Matthew chapter 4, I believe it is, and it says, it quotes that verse as being fulfilled when Jesus was doing his mystery in Galilee that it says all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Now Jesus wasn't seen by all people around the world and when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost, it wasn't on the whole world, it was on all the people who were there and you know, it could involve more because Peter said the promises to you and your children as many as the Lord shall call, but the point is, passages that say that something will happen to all flesh, we have at least some of them that the New Testament identifies as having been fulfilled in the first coming of Jesus and I think this is one of them. I think what he's saying is that unlike the time of Isaiah where only Israel worshiped God, that the worship of God will become an international matter.
It'll be something where people from all nations will come and worship God and they do. That's what happened, especially when Paul began to preach to the Gentiles, but ever since too. So I think he's talking about the new covenant era, that God's new covenant doesn't only include the nation of Israel, but it includes all flesh, all nations, all the Gentiles as well. Now as far as the worm that does not die and the fire that's not quenched, Jesus obviously quoted this in Mark chapter 9 and he said this was a reference to Gehenna and Gehenna in the Greek means the Valley of Hinnom. So he's describing apparently the Valley of Hinnom where the corpses, it says corpses, it doesn't say there'll be living people walking around in Gehenna, it says their corpses will be there, and I believe that the passage is describing the coming of the new covenant which reaches out to all flesh, all nations, and brings them in to become part of the worshiping community in Christ on the one hand and the destruction of the old order which happened in AD 70 when the judgment came upon Israel for their rejection of Christ and the result was they were slaughtered by the Romans in huge numbers and their bodies were heaped up in the valleys outside Jerusalem like Gehenna.
So I think that that's what it's talking about. Now I'll give you another reason for my thinking so and that is that chapters 60 through 66 which is of course the last seven chapters of Isaiah are quoted many times in the New Testament, either six or eight times the New Testament writers quote from this section of Isaiah and each time they do so in order to point out that this has been fulfilled at the time that they are writing. So in the first generation of Christians they identified these chapters as having been fulfilled in their time and I believe there's, I think there's eight, there might be only six but there's several, quite a few quotations from this block of Isaiah and they always apply it to their own time. So I believe that would also support the idea that this is talking about the coming of the new covenant and its outreach to the Gentiles coupled with the destruction of the old order which occurred visibly in AD 70. Okay just a quick follow-up regarding that prophecy that was fulfilled the day of Pentecost and Joel you wouldn't happen to like see an option for like a like a partial fulfillment and it seems like the verbiage just seems a bit a bit stronger than what actually took place if you get what I'm saying. Well I mean it's it's a partial fulfillment in the sense that it began something that's been going on for 2,000 years since and so and so is and so is the Isaiah 66 verse 23 all flesh coming to worship before God this the bringing in of the Gentiles as worshippers of God in Christ is something that began in the first century but the new covenant continues right to the end of the world so and likewise the outpouring of the Holy Spirit God poured out his spirit at the beginning of this era but he's continuing to part of spirit on those who become his disciples so that's you know I do if you mean that is going to happen twice that it happened once in Peter's day and it's going to happen again let's say 2,000 years after Peter's day and not in between then I wouldn't see it that way I would say the prophecies speak of something that's inaugurated with the new covenant when Jesus came rose again and you know and is seated at the right hand of God reigning and poured out his spirit that was the inauguration of the fulfillment of all these prophecies and they are they continue to be fulfilled I mean because it inaugurated an ongoing reality which is the new covenant okay I really appreciate appreciate your answers and yeah I will be happy to call again okay Alan hey thanks for your call good talking to you okay Donny from Michigan we tried to get Donny on earlier and didn't get a good connection let's try it again Donny welcome to the narrow path thanks for calling back thank you very much see god bless and my opinion is this is my question I want to understand the essence of the word love and I know I have two lives I have a spiritual life and a fleshly life but the true love I can go to Webster there gives me eight different definitions that satisfy the world and I am not satisfied but I'm saying am I right or wrong because it's only one love that comes from the spirit and that is the keeping of his commandments am I right or wrong well Jesus did say if you love me keep my commandments or that could be taken not as an imperative but as an indicative if you love me you will keep my commandments they can be taken that way too so that keeping Christ's commandments is definitely one evidence perhaps a major evidence of loving him love is itself simply putting another person above yourself their interests their happiness their well-being above yourself and Jesus put it this way he said greater love has no man than this but that he lay down his life for his friends so love is a sacrificial decision out of honoring and respecting the rights and the needs of others that you surrender your needs and your rights for them that's what love looks like and of course keeping Christ's commandments is not really different than that because what Christ taught us to do is those is that very thing is to live that way to put others ahead of ourselves so that would be my understanding of what love is now you're right the dictionary has a lot of different definitions of love and in the English language we use we use it in a lot of different contexts like I love chocolate ice cream or you know I love my kids or I love my wife or I love my parents or I love my enemies all of these are very different phenomena I mean that's all love although some of it's merely having it has to do with having my it's my taste you know I love ice cream okay so that's that's that's taste it's not really sacrificial there's lots of different types and degrees of love but the love that the Bible says we're to have is called agape love and it is a sacrificial love that places the interests and needs of others above one's own and that's what Jesus did and that's what he said this is my commandment that you love one another that is agape one another even as I loved you can I ask you one question sir all of that falls under the love and servitude of Jesus we are commanded to even show his love because they are his commandments and that's precisely what I said all right so I appreciate appreciate your call and I hope I may have helped maybe I haven't let's talk to Barbara from Roseville Michigan Barbara welcome to the narrow path thanks for calling oh hi Steve I just want to comment on that question about greed that God was grieved and that he repented man because on the caller felt that God didn't know it everything because of that statement but one thing for certain is that God does know everything when God made us he made us imperfect and he knew that some would reject him and some would accept him and he knew this would grieve him and most people who have children their children have grieved them this is nothing new I could tell all the young single women when you have children they're going to grieve you and that's not going to stop them from having children so I I just wanted to add that but God is acquainted with all our ways grief and everything so he knows I agree and I sometimes give this illustration there are movies that I have seen that I will watch again now if I watch it soon enough after the first time I will actually remember how it's going to end it might be a very poignant movie it might be a movie that brings me to tears it might be a movie whose end greatly disappoints me but it's for whatever reason worth watching and after I've seen it once I know how it's going to end but if I watch it again I'm going to feel all those same emotions as I see it play it out in front of me you know I mean whatever it is that is so poignant whatever it is it's so sad it's going to be sad every time I watch the movie it doesn't mean that because I'm sad I didn't know this was going to happen I saw the movie before I knew it was going to happen but it still affects me when it's happening before my eyes and so that would be you know perhaps another illustration I appreciate your call I think what you said I think what you said about mothers having children is a good one too yeah because God didn't make us as angels he made us imperfect and he was expecting for us to make mistakes and it hurts when people let you down well I believe I believe that he yeah I don't believe he made us imperfect so that we'd make mistakes he made us innocent with the capability of being obedient or disobedient and you're not we don't have his perfection that's right we're not omnipresent and omniscient and omnipotent we don't have the perfections of God but he didn't make us in my opinion he didn't make us flawed he made us more complete than he made the animals and that the animals don't make any decisions they don't have volition they act on instinct but he made us like he made the animals but he gave us more we're much more perfect than the animals but not as perfect as he is certainly because you know what we possess that the animals do not God possesses in greater amounts but I don't think that our sinning and you may not be saying this but I mean I don't think that God made us programmed to sin or flawed in that sense I think probably what you're saying is he knew we were flawed that is he knew we're finite he knew we're weak and that we could sin and therefore although he didn't really want us to it didn't shock him when it happened it disappointed him okay I need to take another call because I'm really running out of time but I think we've agreed oh okay great okay thank you bye all right god bless you okay let's talk to luther from los angeles california luther welcome to the narrow path yes sir I wanted to get your opinion on something I happen to love animals really a whole lot and recently I stopped giving money to the church and I'm giving the money to organizations that rescue abandoned uh abandoned animals and find homes for them I was accused of sinning because I stopped giving money to the church instead am I doing wrong well uh your priorities may not be what I would recommend but I don't think it's wrong to give to groups that help animals the bible says that the righteous man is compassionate toward his pets or toward his livestock uh so to to have a tender heart toward animals I think is to is to have the type of emotions that we should have but when we have a limited amount that we can give to any cause and we're going to give to one cause or another and not to both then I think we need to consider what's the most important cause to god because as much as I think that god loves animals and I do too by the way I don't believe that god values animals as much as he values people for example he had nothing against people eating animals but he has something against people killing people any of them in fact he even allowed animals to be sacrificed but he would not allow humans to be sacrificed there's I mean there's a distinction and jesus said you know that the birds are important to god uh not a single bird falls to the ground without god's knowledge and without god's concern but he said but you're worth more than many birds so god values the animals but he values people much more we're worth more than many animals and that's because he made us in his image now when you give your money uh you're giving money to support some particular value that you have and to help animals I don't think there's anything wrong with helping animals but I do believe that we have to understand if I'm going to either give to a cause that will that will bring christ to people or a cause that's going to bring animals out of shelters into homes I can see how in some cases we might have more sympathy for the animals but that's not god's value system god wants people he's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance the truth is I don't say this with any hardness of heart at all toward animals because I'm a great animal lover but animals are going to die and when they do it won't make an awful lot of difference because nothing happens to them after they die everyone dies people die too but it makes a difference because something happens to us after we die so while I would not have it in my heart to kill an animal with my own hands or anything like that or to be cruel to an animal I have to be realistic I had a friend who who hunted I don't hunt I've never hunted I'm not against it I just don't have a stomach for it okay I'm too tender-hearted toward animals but I was asking him I said you know how can you bring yourself to shoot a deer I'm not I'm not saying it's wrong I just couldn't bring myself to do it unless maybe I was starving even then I'd be incredibly hard and he said well I just see it as harvesting and you know I thought about that thought I guess that makes sense because the animal that I would have killed if I don't kill it it's going to be killed by some other predator that's what animals are for animals they are born to be part of a food chain now I know people who who humanize animals more than the bible does or more than I do would maybe see that as a as a demeaning of animals it's just the facts there's reasons why God made animals out of meat because they feed other animals if he made them out of stone then we'd have to assume that God didn't want them to be eaten by their animals but he made them out of meat the same stuff that predators are made out of and so I think you know we have to realize that the if it's going to be me eating venison or a wolf pack or a cougar eating venison I think I think God values people more than he values animals as much as he loves animals they are temporal they're not eternal and so the animal that you save it might you probably will feel good about having done so and I think I think there's every reason to feel good about having done so but that animal is within a few years anyway going to die and nothing will have changed because it lived but when people die everything has changed because they have lived they either are you know going to face the horrors of judgment or they are going to live forever with God bringing glory to him and so like I personally think if I've got a little bit of money to give and I can't support more than one cause I'm going to definitely pick a cause that's going to have something to do with promoting God's desire for people to know him and even to feed them when they're hungry because that's God's desire for them too but if I have extra after I've done that I don't mind helping animals too it's just not it's not my idea of a specifically Christian value it's more of a it's more of a natural sympathy that we often have I appreciate your call Kevin from La Canada California welcome to the Narrow Path thanks for calling how you doing brother Steve I appreciate your time sure listen the father draws us right and then after the father yeah after the father draws us then it says that the son leads us right from glory to glory so the son is then leading us to the father but then the word says that if we keep his commandments it says that the the father and the son will come and make their abode with us right so the question I have is this how does a how does a person go from son of God the progression from son of God to branch broken off from the vine tree well that makes sense that's a different question that I thought you were setting up okay um how does a person how does a person who is born again and is a child of God so far so good okay yeah how do they how do they come to be what Jesus describes as a branch that did not abide in him yeah or or as Paul spoke of it a branch broken off of the olive tree so you can be Jesus said you can be become disattached from the vine and you'll wither and die uh or Paul said you can be broken off of the olive tree if you don't continue in God's goodness so how does it go from there it's well the first of all being of a branch on a vine or an olive tree is obviously a metaphor not so much the idea of being a child of God being a child of God is rather literal because we've been born of God and adopted as children and so forth so that's more that's more literal to to compare our life in Christ with that of a branch in a plant like a vine or an olive tree uh is metaphorical but the idea is that the branch is drawing upon the life in the organism in the vine or in the tree and if it becomes disattached it becomes disattached now if it loses its life then it is rather like a child who has died or committed suicide let us say I heard somebody ask years ago in fact I think I asked this because I I was raised believing in once saved always saved I was a Baptist and I remember challenging someone on this and saying well how can a person have been born again become unborn and the person without blinking and I said they can commit suicide and that's true they haven't become unborn but they have ceased to be a living child a person can take their own life and that's precisely what Jesus is saying a branch does a person who's a branch in him if they don't remain in him they've cut them off from life it's sort of like if you lock yourself in a box where there's no food or air or water to sustain your life well you can't live without that connection to those things you have to have access to them if you put yourself in a plastic bag and seal it up you're going to die because you're no longer taking in the sources that sustain your life air water drink likewise for a person if a branch isn't attached to the vine it's not taking in the life that it was taken in before it's going to wither up and die it's going to choke out so but hold on one quick uh-huh one quick point it says those that are being led by the spirit these are the sons of God now if there's is someone that's on that olive tree that isn't being led by the spirit then they're not a son of God well he said as many as they're about to be broken off you see what I'm saying well here's uh it's not that it's not that somebody breaks them off they break themselves off they don't abide in him they don't remain in him the if I'm being led by the spirit today it doesn't mean I'll be led by the spirit tomorrow that's up to me you know I can be led by my flesh the fact that I'm a child of God and led by the spirit because I have that privilege as a child of God doesn't mean that I always live up to my privileges I have I have the privilege of because I have a Bible of reading the Bible all day long too and meditating day and night I have that privilege but it doesn't mean I'm going to do it privileges can be neglected and we have a privilege of being in Christ and being filled with the spirit and being led by his spirit we have those privileges but those are privileges that some people definitely neglect I mean I would say everyone listening to me right now who is a Christian uh falls into that category of somebody who is has known being led by the spirit because that's what he says as many as are led by the spirit of the children of God but everyone who has ever been led by the spirit I think knows the phenomenon of sometimes not being led by the spirit sometimes going after something in the flesh momentarily and so if a person you know ceases to walk in the spirit well they're they're it's they're not going to be continuing to walk in Christ I believe and therefore they'll be they'll be disconnected they disconnect themselves by walking away so a brother that falls let's say a well-known brother we're not even going to talk about who it is he falls away doesn't necessarily mean he's broken off or doesn't mean he's broken off well I can't I can't tell you what his heart is but I'll tell you that uh it is possible to be broken off by falling away depends on what you're calling falling away if falling away means that he tripped and fell and he he committed a sin but shortly thereafter he repented of it and began walking with Jesus again I don't call that falling away I call it falling but not falling but not falling away on the other hand if somebody says yeah I was a Christian for a while I'm done with that you know been there done that I'm not going to follow Jesus anymore and they go another way that is falling away and yeah they are a branch that's broken off to be sure you've been listening to The Narrow Path my name is Steve Gregg and we are live Monday through Friday at the same time and you can listen daily if you want to you can also catch the show later in the day uh or in the evening anytime you want to at our website thenarrowpath.com we are listener supported you can find out how to support us by going to the website thenarrowpath.com and check in under the donations link thanks for joining us let's talk again tomorrow god bless
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