The Narrow Path 9/3

Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast.

My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for an hour each weekday afternoon. We take your calls. If you want to call in with questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, we'll talk to you about those things.

If you have a different viewpoint from the host and want to balance comment, feel free. We'll talk to you about that as well. The number to call is 844-484-5737.

Again, that's 844-484-5737 if you'd like to get through. A couple of announcements. One is that this Saturday night we have a gathering in Temecula, Q&A time. If you're interested in joining us for that, it's where it always is.

We only hold it about once a month or even less often than that. If you're interested, that's this Saturday night in Temecula. Go to our website thenarrowpath.com.

Look at the tag that says announcements on it and scroll on down to the date of this Saturday and you'll find all the information you need to join us there. I also want to mention again that I will be making a road trip across the country teaching in various places. We have quite a few places lined up between here and Indiana, between California and Indiana. Now, we don't really have time on this trip to go further east than that, so my apologies to listeners further east, but if you'd like us to consider you in future ministry trips like this, feel free to write to me, steveatthenarrowpath.com. Just say, you know, next time you're coming up this far, we'd love to host a meeting or set up a meeting or something like that. We'll keep you on the list and next time we'll contact you. If you are, I think we have most of our nights booked now on this trip. It's a month long trip, but we will be posting online the various locations where this is going to be happening. So watch our announcements page at thenarrowpath.com.

We'll say more about these meetings as they get closer. All right, I don't think I have to announce anything else at this point, except that there has been, if you're wondering, there's been an interruption in the uploads for the podcast. This is a technical problem that the radio station has had and I hope, hopefully they're going to get it fixed soon, but it's been several of the last broadcasts have not yet been uploaded for the podcast. So I apologize for that. There's nothing we can really do about that. I'm afraid.

I know a lot of people depend on the podcast because they work during the day while the program's on. Well, that's, I don't know what to say, except we're sorry. Hopefully this will be worked out soon. Our first caller today is Sandy from San Jose, California. Sandy, long time no hear.

How are you doing? Good, Steve. Thanks so much for taking the call. I really appreciate it. It's been a long time. One thing on your podcast is that via Spotify, all your, all your yesterday's broadcast is on Spotify right now.

Number one. Yeah, it's there. I'm looking at it right now. And then there's a, yeah, there's another place that seems to host it also, which is called one place.com. That's where they're pulling that information from. So you may have your technical people look into that. I can appreciate, you know, I got an email, I got an email from somebody in new Orleans who said they're accustomed to listening on one place.com and that it hasn't been there the last few days. So I didn't realize that cause I don't, I don't use those websites. But anyway, yeah, it's good to know that maybe our, I don't know, I don't know how they're getting, getting it. They may be, there may be drawn it from the satellite live and then recording it themselves as opposed to, you know, it's not on, it's not on iTunes.

That's where it's not showing. The last one was on the 27th. So anyway, FYI to you, by the way, I've been calling your show, it's 12 years. I know that cause I looked up the last time, the first time I gave you an offering and that was 12 years ago.

So anyway, appreciate all your wisdom, which is what brings me here today. So Romans 13 is, you know, submitting to government authorities and clearly that was written when we had the bad Nero's in, right? And Paul was speaking.

Yeah. So, so my question then, well, it's twofold, but the first one is in verse five, it says, therefore one must be in subjection. I assume subjection to the rulers, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.

I, I mean, the conscious can go a different direction. So, and maybe specifically, Steve, it's about in California, you know, not allowing churches to open. You've got MacArthur and other churches sort of fighting that. And I'm trying to figure out number one, what does this verse mean? Number two, are they violating scripture if they're in fact opening from your viewpoint at least?

Well, in my opinion, they're not. And I'll tell you why. When Paul said, okay, you must be subject that is to the authorities, not only because of wrath, he means not only because of the, the authority's wrath, he, he talks about how the authorities exercise wrath on evil doers, right? And so forth. So you want to obey the authorities that not only because they'll punish you if you don't, but also for conscience, he means toward God, because God wants you to honor the authority. So it's when he says not only for wrath, but for conscience sake, he means not because only that you could go to jail or suffer consequences, but also because it's the right thing to do.

But what is the right thing to do? Well, the right thing to do is to submit to lawful authority, the authority that God has ordained. And Paul tells us, Paul tells us in that passage in the verses before it, that there is no authority except that which God has ordained. He says, there is no authority, but of God. So, so the government doesn't have any authority except what God has given it.

And the question then is how much authority has God given it? It's like, I don't have any more authority than God gives me. And therefore when I was raising my children, God gave me authority over my children. You command children, obey your parents, but he didn't give me authority over my neighbor's children.

And, uh, he didn't give me authority to do anything I want with my children, for example, to murder them, to sell them into prostitution or, or anything like that. You know, there's, there's limitations when God gives authority, he delimits the authority and no one has any authority except that, that which God has given. So if God has delimited the authority, a person has no more authority than what God has placed limits on. If you hear noise on my line, there's a, um, I got gardeners coming through, so it's okay to mute me if you need to.

Okay, thanks. So, um, so the government has as much authority as God has given it. Remember Jesus said to Pilate, you would have no authority at all unless it was given to you from above. In other words, uh, just because the Romans gave Pilate authority as a governor, that doesn't mean that he had any authority beyond what God had given him. Only God's authority given to him matters. Likewise, the leaders of our country don't have any authority beyond that which God has given them.

Now, what, what has God given them? Well, Paul tells us God has, uh, the, the government are the servants of God who are ordained to punish evildoers and to, you know, praise those who do well and so forth. That is to, he's an execution of wrath on those who do evil. Now, going to church is not evil. Uh, lots of things are not evil that the government would like to restrict. Uh, for example, it's not evil to go outside without a mask. It's not evil to, uh, there's a lot of things that the government might tell you not to do, but they're not evil.

They're not evil things. Now, some always say, well, it's evil to go out if you're going to spread the disease. Well, that's a big if, uh, I suppose during flu season, it'd be equally evil to go out, but no one's ever commanded it to be done. Uh, frankly, uh, if you drive a car, there's a good chance you might kill somebody or get killed.

I mean, not a good chance. There is a chance probably as good a chances that you die of COVID. But so in other words, going out without a mask is not obviously evil any more than driving a car, uh, or going out during flu season or things like that. I mean, lots of many, many children die of the flu every year, but in California, one child, uh, elementary school age has died of COVID and that's in this whole year. So you can tell that there's a lot of things more dangerous than COVID and that the, you know, locking people down, restricting their freedoms.

This is actually not even, uh, legal. Uh, even if God was not in the picture, even if God had not defined the limits of government officials, the constitution does, we still live in a country where the constitution is the supreme law of the land and any leader who goes against the constitution is not only going against his oath because every leader swears to uphold the constitution and he's not only perjuring himself or herself, but they're also making rules that aren't legally binding because they're not constitutional. The constitution decides whether I can go to church or not and it tells me I can. Now there may be times when I would choose not to if there was in fact the bubonic plague going through the country and, and you know, having any contact with other people would be, would be endangering them. I might choose not to go to church, but it's not the government's place to tell me whether to take that chance because if everyone knows there's disease out there, then every adult that goes out is doing so on their own responsibility. It, again, it's the same with the flu. If the flu is going around, I know that some people will get it and some will be very sick from it, maybe me included, and some people will even die from it.

Okay. But I still, as an adult, I'm given the opportunity to go out and do my work and do other things too. There's nothing about the flu being out there that takes away my free right as an American citizen of movement and to work and make a living or to go to church. And if there are people who are afraid of getting it, they can stay home so that if they go out, they're taking the chance too. In other words, people can stay home as much as they want to. They can cover themselves as much as they want to.

They can isolate themselves as much as they want to. But an adult has the right to decide to take risks. And everyone who goes out knowing what the risks are is going out willing to take that risk and possibly to be infected. I'm willing to be infected.

I'm not afraid of COVID. So, you know, I think the government has simply scared people so much into submitting that people don't realize the government has no authority to make these kinds of rules. Now, I've had people write to me and correct me, oh, no, the government has the authority. No, they don't have constitutional authority. It's true that the Constitution of California might allow Gavin Newsom to make some kind of a ruling that people have to stay in. But that's against the United States Constitution.

That's not something that he can do. So I personally don't believe that my conscience requires me to stay in or anything like that. Now, there is a command of God about meeting together. Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. And whether you meet in a home church, as we do, or whether you meet in a big church like MacArthur's, that's still a human right and a command from God.

So this is really good. And I just want to have a minor rebuttal or just maybe more of a minor question. So obviously we have laws. So one of the laws is driving, right? You must maintain whatever, 60 miles an hour. And the government's put that in to make sure that people don't speed and kill each other, right?

So it would be hard for me to justify going 80, if you will, just for the fun of it. And I get everything you're saying about COVID. So I get that. I guess, again, I know there's a lot of issues on COVID. So let's assume for the time being, though, assume that there really is a pandemic that's really real, a bubonic plague, if you will. And the government says, we want to help the people by saying, stay inside so we don't overwhelm our beds. Now, COVID may not be that and possibly isn't. But when does the government have the authority to step in and say, look, for the betterment of our society, I need everybody to stay inside because the bubonic plague can kill a lot of people.

So just give me your thoughts on that, Steve, as a sort of rebuttal or question. Well, I still feel the same way. You see, first of all, there was no rush on hospital beds.

That was a big jump. So you can tell the government was lying on almost every subject related to this so-called crisis. And life goes on. The vast majority of people who ignore the directives are not getting sick. And the ones who do get sick mostly are not dying. So the government should have just left it alone.

But they had a political reason for doing it. And that's right. That's what's going on. Now, as far as the bubonic plague, if someone if let's say we have a real pandemic, and let's say if you go out in public, you have a 50% chance that you'll get infected or infect somebody else. Well, once that information is out there, every adult that goes out is willing to take that chance. In other words, I'm willing to take the chance it may be or maybe I won't, maybe I don't want to take a 50-50 chance. Maybe I'll just stay in. That's my option. But if I go outside, I take a 50% chance risk of getting the disease, maybe dying.

That's my choice to make. That's not the government's choice to make of what things I do that seem dangerous to me. Now, if someone says, oh, but you might infect others. No, I won't infect anybody else except others who are willing to take that chance too. And everyone who's out is willing to take that chance.

And everyone who's an American has a right constitutionally to be out if they want to be out. It's not our nanny. We don't need a nanny yet. No, I get it.

We're grown up. Maybe just one of the points then on the beginning of Romans where you say that obviously God's laws come first, right? And I've always told my kids, if I tell you to do something that goes against the law of God, please don't do it. If I tell you to go throw a rock at the neighbor, what have you. But if I tell you with something to do within God's law, you must do it, right?

And where do you bifurcate that? I mean, where do you say, I mean, how do you know everything? Like do not forsake the assembly of saints.

I get that. But what about Christians know better than anybody else what's right and wrong because we have the Bible to tell us what's right and wrong. And the government is there to enforce what's right and to forbid and punish what's wrong. That's what they're for. That's what God ordained them for. And God, as long as they're doing that, they are in authority because they are doing what God authorized them to do. But just again, like I said, if I have five kids and they're all on my own, my kids are all grown now, of course I'm not here, but when they're little, if I have five kids and I kill one of them, well, that doesn't give the other four the right to totally disregard my authority.

But you know, if the one that's, let's just say one that's been in danger of being killed, if they flee and they don't obey me, I think they're within their rights because I'm, I'm trying to act upon them in a way that I have no authority from God to act. And so, you know, we don't, we don't just throw the government officials out because they do something that's unconstitutional, although they should be prosecuted for it or recalled or recalled and prosecuted. But the point is we recognize their legitimate authority while we're rejecting their, their fake authority because we don't live in, we don't live in a tyranny. We don't live in a authoritarian society and the, and the constitution is still over, still defines what governors and what mayors and legislators can do. So, so Nancy Pelosi was within her rights to go out and get her hair cut.

She's not, she's not within her rights to tell other people that they can't because the government has no authority. Okay. Hey, God bless. Great talk to you. Take care.

Stay healthy. Okay. Good to hear from you again, Sandy. God bless you. Bye bye. Okay. All right. Okay. We're gonna talk next to Donald in Detroit, Michigan. Donald, welcome to the narrow path. Yes, sir.

God bless. I called in yesterday and I asked an opinion and everything and I totally respected and everything. I asked the question when it comes to salvation and the principalities in which we have in our lives. Our principalities are the things that save us. We are, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Stop, stop, stop. We are, our principalities are what? They are what save us through his grace and mercy. We have to do the things that's required of us. We don't follow the instructions of Jesus.

We can never be a Christian, right? I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to understand what you're saying. The principalities, how did you define them? Our, our, the principalities to me and my definition of principalities is a principle on how we live according to how we live. The word principality doesn't mean a principle.

In the Greek New Testament, the words that are translated principalities and powers refer to government officials, whether it's talking about political officials or in some cases talking about angelic or demonic powers. But, uh, it's not, you know, there's, that's a different word than principles. And when you asked what, what's the relationship of salvation to principalities and powers, I wasn't even sure why you're asking that question, but I realize now you don't know what principalities means. You, you, you mean what's the relationship of Chris being saved to principles are principles. Well, you know, our principles are our convictions and our convictions are our faith. I mean, that's what faith is. Faith is your convictions. And that's another word for your principles. It's not another word for principalities and powers, but it's a, nonetheless, if you're asking about principles, then yes, our salvation is based upon our principles, which must be based upon the teaching of Christ. And I think that's what, and that's the principle. If I believe something different, if I believe something different, I can't believe in the principles of my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

If I'm going to live in the world, you say be in the world and not of it. I can't. Right. Right.

I got you. Okay. Uh, I, you're not calling to disagree and you're not calling to ask a question.

You're calling to preach. So I'm, uh, I appreciate now that you clarified what you called about yesterday. I was taking you at your word. I didn't realize you didn't know the meaning of the words. Okay. Let's talk to Brian from Detroit, Michigan.

Also two in a row from Detroit. Hi Brian. Hello Steve. So I was wondering about proverbs or about proverbs. I've been reading it and I've been wondering, what's your take about wisdom and how it refers to it as a girl. Cause like I've heard people say that wisdom is like a little girl, like the spirit, but I just always felt like wisdom is an attribute. So how could it be a girl?

Right. It's not a girl. I mean, a tornado is not a girl or I mean a hurricane is not a girl or a boy. They give them names and a ship is not a girl, but they call ships her and so forth. A nation is not a girl, but the motherland or it's not a boy either.

It's in the fatherland. You know, we, uh, in the, just the way that people speak when we personify something that isn't really a person, that's called anthropomorphizing. We something that's not an anthropos, not a human.

And we talk about it in a personified way or a persona, you know, like an anthropomorphic way. We either do so, either call it by feminine or masculine pronouns. And in the case of wisdom, Solomon chose to use feminine pronouns and I think the reason he did, and we'll have to ask him when we see him if we do. But I believe the reason he used the feminine pronoun here is because in the early chapters of Proverbs, which he's writing to his son, apparently a young adult son, he's warning him about the wrong kind of woman. And the wrong kind of woman is personified as a foolishness or foolishness is personified as the wrong kind of woman, the foolish woman. And, um, so he's appealing to his son as a young man who might be, you know, looking for a woman and, uh, basically saying the woman you want to avoid is foolishness and the woman you want to court is wisdom. Of course, he's speaking figuratively, but he's, you know, he's writing poetry. So this is, I think, why he chose a feminine rather than a masculine because he's writing to his boy about the choice of principles of life, either to live foolishly or wisely, being like the choice of a woman, a good or a bad woman. So in my opinion, that is why he used the feminine pronouns.

All right. And then how would you like respond to people who are like, Oh no, I've heard wisdom speak to me and stuff. Well, I'd have to ask what they mean by that.

I hope we all have wisdom speak to us. It would seem like they've heard like little girls speak to them. Like a little girl's voice. Yeah. Well, I have no idea what's going on there.

When people hear voices, they usually have something wrong in their head unless there's someone there speaking to them. Wisdom is certainly not described as a little girl, but as a beautiful woman and the kind of woman that a person should want to pursue. Not a little girl. I mean, that'd be kind of a perverted thing for a guy to pursue a little girl.

So I think that these people simply don't reflect very much knowledge of the Bible. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you for your call.

Kevin in La Canada, California. Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. Good afternoon. My presence brother, I appreciate your time. I wanted to ask you a question regarding, um, something related to Matthew chapter seven verse two, John four 24 and Samuel 15, first Samuel 15, 23. And this is the question, um, insubordination of King Jesus resulting in an unnecessary stricter judgment at the judgment seat of Christ.

And what I mean is, in other words, if I say that you have to worship on a certain day, or if I say you have to only have, you know, one city, one church per city, the ground of locality. In other words, if I add something to how you're supposed to worship and say, if you don't do it this way, you're dividing the body of Christ. Will that result in a stricter judgment for me at the judgment seat of Christ? Because I've overruled what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman. Well, the verses you alluded to, I got two of the three. The first one you mentioned was seven, uh, Matthew seven, two correctly. Uh, from what, what judgment you judge, you'll be judged.

And with the same measure you use, it'll be measured back to you. And then the other verse was John four 24, God's spirit. Those who worship in must worship in spirit and truth.

What was the one in Samuel? Okay. Uh, in subordination.

Okay. That, uh, to obey is better than sacrifice. I assume is the verse you're talking about, right?

Right. Because Jesus is asking the Samaritan woman, you know, basic, I mean, the Samaritan woman's asking Jesus, you know, how should we worship or what is the appropriate way to worship? Well, she's asking the appropriate place to worship. She said, she said, my people have worshiped in this mountain, Mount Gerizim, your people worship in Jerusalem, which is the correct place to worship. And he's saying, it's not a place at all. God's looking for people who worship in spirit and in truth, which can be done anywhere.

It's not, not geographically confined. Now your, your question, I'm not sure how that question really was part of those verses, but I would say that sounds like you're saying if somebody makes rules about how you must worship that go beyond what Jesus made rules about how you must worship, then I would say they're in the wrong. That's legalism and you don't make, I mean, you can follow rules that you don't impose on others. For example, you can say, I'm always going to go to church on Sunday.

Well, that's fine. The Bible doesn't say you have to always go to church on Sunday, but you can make a rule for yourself. You just can't judge others by that rule. So yeah, that would be, well, they receive a stricter judgment. Well, James said that the teachers would receive a stricter judgment.

So if it's a teacher doing so, then I would say, yes, that they would receive a stricter judgment for adding to the word of God. Hey, I'm out of time for this call, but I appreciate you joining us. We're going to be back in about 45 seconds for another half hour.

Don't go away. You're listening to the narrow path. Our website is the narrow path.com and we are listener supported.

I'll be back in 30 seconds. Please stay tuned. Welcome back to the narrow path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour. Taking your calls.

If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or if you have a different view from the host and want to discuss that on the air, feel free to join us. There are a few lines open right now. The number is 844-484-5737.

That's 844-484-5737. And remember this weekend we have a meeting in Temecula on Saturday if you're interested in joining us. That's where we're, Temecula, Southern California. If you want to join us, you can go to our website, the narrow path.com.

Look under announcements and see where and when. And join us if you're so inclined and nearby. Okay, let's talk to Martin from National City, California. Martin, welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling.

Hello, Mr. Steve. Thank you so very much. And please bear with me.

I have a somewhat of a hyper type of personality in the way I express myself. I'd like to comment on the concerns about the overreach of the government into the affairs of the church concerning this pandemic. A couple more scriptures I'd like to toss your way. Like for example, I heard through the news there's a church here in California where I think it is the, I'm not positive, but I think the city owns their parking lot. So there was some litigation concerning that where the city was going to block them from going there by taking control of the parking lot. So my point on that one is, is when it refers to, you know, brother, Jesus said, if any man would sue thee at law to take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak as well.

And we know a cloak is also referred to as a covering fruit. Jesus said you have no covering for your sin if I had not come. So where are you going with that? Where are you going with that? No, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. Don't go further. Excuse me. Don't go further.

I'm going to put you on hold if you don't stop. I need to know what point you were making just now before you go on to a second point. What was that point? You need to know what, sir, again? I need to know what point you were making. You said that Jesus said if a man sues you for your coat, give him your cloak also.

What does that have to do with the parking lot? I'm looking to another scripture, and that would be the Romans 13 talks about the officials that bear not the sword and dame, so that's talking about big government. But what about the scripture that says, submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake.

Now that talks about local government. Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. So I realize they can do the overreach, but it seems like we're offending the Lord.

What would you say? Well, I would say read that passage further in 1 Peter chapter 2. He says, submit yourself to every authority of every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme. So he's not talking about local government. He talks about the king as supreme or to governors who are sent by him for the punishment of those who do evil and the praise of those who do good.

So it's not talking about local. Peter is simply saying the same thing Paul said in Romans 13. In fact, I personally think that Peter was influenced by Romans 13 when he wrote that. But the point is that both Paul and Peter were talking about government officials, legitimate government officials all the way up to the king and all the way down to policemen. But both places say that they are sent to punish evildoers and to praise those who do well.

So I guess if a person doesn't know whether it's evil to go to church or not, they need to spend more time meditating on scripture because the Bible certainly does not indicate it's evil to go to church. Okay, I guess we lost him. I guess he hung up. All right. We'll talk next to Glenda from Junction City.

Glenda, welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. Can you hear me okay? Yes.

Oh, good. Because I'm doing this on my phone. So I've also got your radio program on. Okay, well, you need to have the radio turned way down so that you won't be confused.

Because you're hearing the radio delayed. Well, I've done that and then I can barely hear you. Oh, okay. Well, I'm here.

I can hear you. Go ahead. Okay.

So the question that I have is, I believe this is the day before yesterday. And I believe you were having a discussion or an explanation to a caller that about the Trinity, I think it was. I really wasn't paying very close attention because it had kind of deteriorated into, I don't know what, but anyway, I wasn't paying. But you said something towards the end that really caught my attention. And if I've got this right, and I want to write it down, that seeing God as the sun, seeing Jesus as the light and the Holy Spirit as the heat or power from the sun. Yeah. But did I have that right? Yes.

And that's not something I came up with. That's kind of a classic explanation of the Trinity that the Eastern Church has used in the past. Yeah, I thought that's what you said.

I thought you said it was like Eastern orthodoxy. Yeah. Yeah.

And that just, I don't know, because I've been, I've always been floundering over this whole matter of, you know, who's on first kind of a thing. And that just made it so clear for me. And just, you know, it just really resonated with me. I just, yeah, I think it's a good illustration and cleaning.

Yeah. Yeah, I believe that's a good illustration. I mean, I don't I don't know. I don't know if it's the most accurate illustration that could be made. But, you know, people throughout my lifetime I've encountered from people, ways they've tried to illustrate the Trinity, like an egg with a shell and the white and the yolk, or like, or like, you know, water that can be solid, liquid or gaseous or whatever. And I haven't really seen, I haven't really seen those as the best natural illustrations, if indeed any natural illustration would be adequate.

I don't know that there is one. But the sun, at least it sounds a little bit scriptural, since the sun, I think in the sky is the source of life and light and so forth. And God made it, I believe, perhaps to illustrate himself or Christ.

But himself would work well, especially before the incarnation of Christ. Because, as you say, Jesus is the light of the sun. We see God, we see the sun because we see its light. We don't really see the sun. We see its light.

And we think we think we see the sun. But what we're seeing is the light coming from the sun. So seeing Jesus is seeing God.

But for Jesus to say, but the Father is greater than I would be equally true. You know, if he's like the light from the sun, well, the sun is greater than just the light. But you see the light of the sun, and thereby you see the sun. And as far as the Spirit being the power of God, or like the solar power, the heat and so forth from the sun, that could be an illustration of the Holy Spirit, too. And yet the sun and its light and its heat are all one. There's not really any distinguishing them. And yet the light and the heat emanate from the sun.

And historic Christianity has always said that the Father is of course God, and the sun and the Spirit proceed from the Father is the term they use, and our God also. So I mean, yeah, that illustration is helpful, I think, to some. Yeah. All right. I just think that was beautiful. And so I wanted to record it accurately in my journal. And I also want to take this opportunity to thank you so much. I've learned a great deal from you.

And I'm sure I'll learn a great deal more as time goes on. So thank you so much, Steve. Well, thank you for calling.

God bless you. Bye bye. Bye now. Okay, we're going to talk next to Mark from Vancouver, B.C. Hi, Mark.

How are you doing? Yeah. Steve, we really need you to critique Jonathan Cahn's recent books, The Oracle and also The Harbinger. Have you had any inclination to do that? I read The Harbinger. I haven't read The Oracle. I don't know that I'm going to read any more of his books. His books, frankly, were impressive in a sense. I mean, he he's a good writer.

He's good at putting pieces together. I just didn't see it as necessarily legitimate to use a verse in Isaiah that's not about America and sort of make it about America. There were a lot of parallels he found. But I just that's not the way I use scripture.

So it's you know, I don't I didn't see it as a good book of biblical exegesis, but he had some interesting ideas. Steve, are you talking about Harbinger 2 or the original Harbinger? The original? Harbinger 2? I don't know about Harbinger 2.

Yeah, that's my point, because like the Harbinger 1 is just really nothing compared to the Harbinger 2. And he brings out some really interesting points. And like, I obviously feel like I'm non-dispensational as you are.

And obviously, he's completely dispensational. But obviously, aside from that, he does bring out some some good points. Well, he brought up some good points in his first book, too.

It's just that I found no way of knowing whether they're valid. But tell me, what would there be in those books that would be helpful for me to know? Well, I'll tell you, Steve, it would take me too long to get into that. I'm just going to finish with a very quick question. What is your opinion most of mainstream Christianity says that a Trump government or rather a Biden-Harris government would be just horrendous compared to a Trump-Pence government? What's your feeling on that just quickly? Well, I'm not really here to endorse candidates, but my impression is that Mr. Biden is not going to govern, even if he's elected.

I believe he's incapacitated. I think he demonstrates that every time he gives a speech without a prompter. Even if he's elected, in my opinion, he's kind of a placeholder for the Democratic Party to get in there. And then Kamala Harris, I don't know if she's going to govern or if somebody more powerful in the background will govern. But if the Democrats get the presidency and the vice presidency, it would appear that the Democratic Party is far more radically left than they've ever been before, far more than, say, Obama was. And Obama was the most leftist senator before he was elected president. He's the only person who voted four times in the Senate to support partial birth abortion, for example.

I mean, Obama was very leftist as a senator, but I believe that Kamala Harris is further left than he is. And of course, I believe that Bernie's got a lot of influence on Joe right now, too. So I don't think that Joe matters. I think that if people vote for Joe, they'll get Democratic leadership in the White House, and that Democratic leadership will not be Joe Biden. I think they're trying to prop him up until the election to make him seem like he's not suffering from dementia. But once he's elected, they'll have no interest in propping him up.

They'll probably want to retire him so that Kamala Harris could be the president and they can just do what they want because they can easily make the case that Joe Biden has dementia. Thank you, Steve. God bless. All right. All right. Let's talk to Tim from New Haven, Connecticut.

Tim, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for talking. Hello. Hi. How are you doing, Steve? Good.

Go ahead. I just have a quick question that I wanted to ask. I'm sort of like a new Christian and I've been having a little bit of a problem with controlling my temper. I was wondering if you might be able to give me some advice on how to handle that.

Maybe you can give me some advice on how to deal with that. Well, of course, handling your temper is simply a function of the main thing that Christians have to do, and that's love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you consider your neighbor as important as yourself, and that of course your neighbor is as important as yourself, so it's only delusional to imagine that he's not. Therefore, to recognize that your neighbor is as important as you are and your neighbor's concerns and needs are as great as your concerns and needs, then you'll realize that your neighbor is going to need to be forgiven, just like you need to be forgiven. When your neighbor does some things that irritate you, well, that's not really much different than you doing things that irritate other people, and that when you do things that irritate other people, you know that you'd like them to give you a pass or at least not get angry at you. You'd like them to maybe address it calmly or overlook it or something.

When you love your neighbor as you love yourself, then you realize that, you know, I don't have any more reason to get mad at this person than people have to get mad at me sometimes. By the way, getting mad at that person, it's a funny thing about getting mad about people because it doesn't hurt them. It doesn't hurt them.

It hurts you. When you get angry at somebody, you feel like you're punishing them by being angry, but they're not being punished. They might not even know you're angry.

If they do, they might not even care, but you care. It sours you. It makes you bitter. This is something you need to remember, that getting angry doesn't help anything. When I say getting angry doesn't help anything, there are times when getting angry helps something.

There are times when, for example, you might hear of human trafficking going on in your state, and it gets you angry enough to want to rise up and be an activist to do something, to help law enforcement or do something to stop it. In the Bible, there is righteous anger. Anger is a motivator. If it motivates you to do the right thing because you're angry at evil, and it moves you to act against evil, well, then that's fine.

Usually, our anger is not really against evil, per se. It's against someone who made us upset. They cut us off in traffic. They didn't pay us on time when they owed us money.

They didn't show up when they said they'd show up, and you inconvenience yourself. Somebody has done something that has injured you or offended you. That's most anger, at least people with anger problems. Most people with anger problems get angry about those kinds of things, which are very selfish things. Whereas a righteous anger would be one where maybe no one has done anything to you at all, like when Jesus cleansed the temple and drove out the money changers.

They hadn't done anything to him. He was upset because of what they were doing to God's reputation and to the people who wanted to come and worship. It was a righteous kind of an anger that was not self-oriented at all.

Most people with an anger problem get angry because people do things that make them angry because it hurts them or injures them or offends them or inconveniences them. That's where you need to remember that as a Christian, the first step of becoming a Christian is deny yourself. That's what Jesus said.

If anyone comes after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. If you deny yourself, if you do that effectively, you're not going to be so upset when people do wrong to you. When you're a Christian, you acknowledge you're a sinner. If you're a sinner, you don't deserve any special grace. God gives you special grace, but you don't deserve it. If you don't deserve it, then how can you be angry at somebody else who doesn't extend it to you? We have done unjust things to other people, and we need to remember that the person who does something unjust to us, he may be doing something against God, and he is. He may be doing something against you, but you realize that that doesn't make him worse than you because you might have done as many unjust things to others, so maybe he's about like you. Even if he's a little worse than you, you still don't get all punished for everything you do. So, you know, I think you need to give people a pass on most things.

Let me ask you a quick question. So if I were to get angry and I used it in a positive way, it's not really considered sinful, or am I wrong with that? No, it depends on what you're getting angry about. If you're getting angry about something that's truly evil, and I don't mean something that you count to be evil because it hurts you. I mean something that is, in the abstract, truly an evil thing. Evil thing going on.

Crimes against humanity, that kind of stuff, you know. I mean, to be angry at that is to be like Jesus because Jesus was angry at that kind of stuff. But when people were crucifying Jesus, he didn't get angry at him. He said, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing. So here, you know, he can blow his top when people are abusing other people or abusing the temple of his father. But when they're killing him and beating him, like a lamb before it sheers is done, so he opened not his mouth.

He didn't threaten. He didn't get angry because he loved people. And the only person suffering at that time was him. See, if you're a godly, loving person, then if you're the only one suffering, then you can take that. If it's other people suffering and not necessarily you, then your anger is more likely to be of a just sort. Now Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, be angry but do not sin. And then he says, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, which means don't stay angry. Don't stay angry all day and into the evening and all night. You need to, there's time to get angry about things, but not to sin by it.

Now how's that? Well, you get angry at what is evil and you let that anger motivate you to do something to right the wrong. Okay, to do something to alleviate evil rather than just stewing.

If you stew on it, you're likely to give place to the devil, Paul said. Absolutely. Yeah, I see the difference. Yeah. Okay. Steve, thanks a lot.

I appreciate your input on that. Sure, Tim. Have a good day and God bless you. God bless you too. Oh, I'm sorry.

When you say God bless you, I hit the button. I'm sorry I missed what you're going to say. I always feel horrible when I hang up on someone. I don't like to hang up on people. My apologies. Todd from Georgetown. Welcome to the narrow path.

I guess California. Welcome to narrow path. Hello. Hi.

Hi. Yeah, I just wanted to add a little bit to this that one lady was so encouraged about what you talked about with the Trinity in light of the sun, the light and the heat. I've used that analogy many times with non Trinitarians like Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons. And I like to use that because one, it gets them off their narrative and because they deny the Trinity. And the other is, I like to leave them with the thought. Now everywhere you go for the rest of your life, the type and creation that God created of, of his nature is right there every day. It's going to come up and set every day. So you're going to be constantly reminded of this and just leave them with something, whether they read the Bible or not, you know, the creation I see in so many ways it speaks to people.

Yeah, I think it's good. I just don't think God does anything by accident. Everything is for his glory and is, and to express himself so that we might know him. Right. Yep. And so the glory of God.

Exactly. And, and another, another one is where you know, a thought is, is, is hidden until it is expressed with a word and Jesus is called the word and he came to show us the father and the understanding is the Holy Spirit who gives us understanding. He's the one who was given to us that we might understand God, know God. So I see that again in, in thought and word and understanding. And I just see a Trinity in so many other places. I've been studying creation myself. I was involved in, in, uh, wildlife research many years ago, but, um, I just, you know, I got saved when I first went to Alaska, you know, over 30 years ago, uh, because it was so beautiful.

I went from being an atheist to knowing there was a creator in three months. Hey, you know what? My lines are full and I only have about four minutes left. So, uh, and you're not asking any questions, so I'm going to let you go.

I appreciate your insights. Thank you for joining us. We got a lot of people waiting and we don't need a long, long talks with no question attached. Okay. Let's talk to Joyce from Corvallis, Oregon.

Joyce, welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. Hi Steve. Um, thanks for taking my phone call. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. Okay.

Thank you. Um, I have a question, um, and this is regarding, um, lately I've been hearing, um, a lot of inaccessory prayer. People are praying for our country.

They're praying for things that are happening in Portland and so on. And I just have a question because I've always felt that when I pray, I will pray good things and, and that I feel that Lord, this would be your will in Jesus name. But, um, lately, what is your opinion on people who say, we declare that this will happen and they make declarations and they, or they say that I, we cut off some evil that's happening in Portland or we declare this will have this to end. And they pray in declarations and I'm, I'm just like, I'm always drawn back to, they say you have power to do that according to Luke 10. But I guess I go back to like Zechariah three and Jude one where it's talking about, you know, it's okay to say the Lord rebuke you, but what is your opinion on when people say, I declare this? My opinion is that they are going beyond scripture. The Bible never tells us to declare such things.

Um, although in a sense, the first petition of the Lord's prayer, your kingdom come sounds more like a declaration than like a petition. Uh, but as far as declaring that we cut off the power, you know, the evil powers and the heavenlies over Portland, Oregon or whatever, uh, I think people end up looking silly because there's no evidence in the Bible that we, that we are to do that. Um, Luke 10 doesn't say anything about that. In Luke 10, Jesus said, I give you authority over serpents and scorpions and over the power, all the power of the enemy and nothing shall anyway hurt you. Uh, but he's not talking about declaring things.

There's no Reverend, no reference to declaring anything there. So, um, I, I just think, I think some people have gotten it in their head that they are super powerful in God, in Christ, and they like to act that way. And I don't think there's anything wrong in saying, God, if it's your will, you know, end the violence in such and such a place. Um, I mean, certainly that is part of your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But sometimes we don't know God's will on earth. And sometimes if we declare things that aren't, uh, we would have been better off asking rather than saying, because a lot of times we're, I think people just let their own minds and their own, I don't know, sometimes even their egos a little bit, perhaps, uh, take charge.

Uh, Travis from San Diego. Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. Yeah. Uh, kind of disagree with your, some things today. Okay. You guys go fast.

Cause we only have a couple, a minute or so go ahead. Frankly Graham, Billy Graham, brother, he's a son. That's Billy Graham's son. He's a Republican, right?

I guess so. And most of the space I'm listening to people call in a Republican. I feel like it's a hate against the Democrats, the black lives movement.

I just believe there's a hate about it. Well, I don't think there's anyone among Christians who hates Democrats or hates black lives matter. I think they're Christians disagree with the, um, with the policies of the democratic party in many cases, because they're becoming more and more contrary to Christianity and Christians are for Christianity, generally speaking, I hope. And therefore they would be against things that are against it. So that's why, uh, that's why we speak against some of the democratic things, but that doesn't mean we're Republican. I'm not a Republican. I'm not a registered Republican, but I certainly am against the democratic parties platform, but I don't hate them. I think, I think they hate us. I think the evidence is that way. The people who are burning buildings and killing people are not Republicans.

They're followers of Bernie Sanders. I'm out of time. Thanks for joining us. Our website is the narrow path.com. Let's talk again tomorrow. God bless you.