Music Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each week of the afternoon taking your phone calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith that you'd like to bring up for conversation, we will converse about them. And if you have a difference of opinion from the host that you'd like to converse about, we can converse about that also.
We're in good shape if you'd like to talk about anything related to the Bible or Christian concerns. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. And our first caller today is Richard, caller from Worcester, Massachusetts. Richard, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Hi Steve, how are you? Good, thanks. Good. Hey, I think we have a difference in opinion on a few things, but one thing that we hold the same opinion on, I believe, is unlimited atonement. And so I have a question concerning that. I don't have trouble defending it biblically, but when it comes to defending it logically, I never know what to answer because people usually say, well, if God already dealt out the justice, how can he deal out a second dose of the justice? Wouldn't that be unjust for God to do? And so I'm guessing I'm wondering how you would answer that and then I'll take my answer off the air if that's okay.
Okay, thank you for your call. Well, there's a couple ways to look at this. One is that God has dealt out justice to Christ. And so those who are in Christ have already, justice has been served because our identity is in him, we are in his body. So he has experienced the punishment and anyone who is in him also does. And that can be anybody because, you know, his pardon is a general pardon. But if people do not accept the pardon, then they have not had justice served on their part because the justice only applies to Christ and those who are in him. Now the Calvinists, of course, who believe in limited atonement would say that this, you know, it only applies to those who are in Christ and they are a predetermined number that God ordained before the foundation of the world and this number cannot be added to or subtracted from. And therefore he only died for this limited number of people. But while it is true that there are a limited number of people perhaps who immediately benefit from his atonement, anyone could because the pardon is general.
The Bible says whosoever will may come, whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. It's as if the president were to issue a general pardon to everybody on death row in the United States and just say, okay, anyone who's on death row, I'm signing a pardon for them. Well, some of those people might take him up on it but there might be just so many people in prison who hate the president that they say, I'm not going to, I don't want any favors from him.
I don't want, you know, I don't want anything from him and I don't like him. And therefore they might just stay put in their cells and they might reject the pardon. Now I don't know if that can really be done or if anyone really would do that in real life but if you can imagine the scenario that a general pardon has been given out but the persons on death row will remain on death row and die if they don't accept the terms of the pardon. And likewise with the atonement of Christ, he died for all the sins of the world but the condition for benefiting from that death is that you must come to be in him. And in him you experience that forgiveness because that judgment was placed upon him and therefore if you are in him then it has been placed upon you but it's of course already been served when he died. So your judgment has transferred to him but if you refuse to come into Christ then it doesn't benefit you.
It's not as if it's not there to benefit you but it doesn't. There's still a choice that we have to make. And so this is how I differ from a Calvinist on this. Now Calvinists believe that whoever Jesus died for, they are saved and therefore since not all people are saved then Jesus didn't die for all people. But that's to say that that is the case that all people he died for are automatically saved is to read into some passages of scripture implications that are not there.
And since the Bible does suggest that not everyone is going to be saved, at least not in this life, and it does say that he died for all, then we have to assume that there are some for whom Christ died who will not be saved. In fact Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 referred to, well he made this interesting statement. He says in 1 Corinthians 8, 10, and 11, for if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat of those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died?
Now he's saying you might by eating in an idol's temple lead a weaker brother back into idolatry and he'll perish, which is the term for not being saved. But he says he'll perish although he's one for whom Christ died. So Paul acknowledges that there are people for whom Christ died who will nonetheless perish. So you can't really biblically say that all people for whom Christ died will be saved. In fact in 2 Peter chapter 2 and begin at verse 1, 2 Peter 2, he says, But there were false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. Now the Lord who bought them suggests that Jesus paid for them. His atonement was for them. But they deny him and they bring destruction upon themselves. So neither Peter nor Paul believe that everybody for whom Christ died is going to be saved. And so I believe in universal atonement, that is that Jesus died for everybody, but not necessarily universal salvation.
So people can reject what Jesus did, it would seem. At least that is how I would understand those two concepts that seem to be in tension. Okay, Tim from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Good afternoon, Steve. To honor your time, I wrote down my question.
Thank you. So, here's my question. I'm struggling with the way some Christians seem so sure of their salvation.
It's almost as if they have arrogant assurance. For me, like I said, I struggle with this, and I seem to be stuck on four verses. Matthew, for the gate is narrow, and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. In Luke, and he said to them, strive to enter through the narrow gate or door, for many I tell you will seek to enter and will not be able to. In Peter, if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? And finally, this is the one that's speaking to me the most, that's overwhelming, that this feeling is going to happen to me. In Matthew, it says, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me. So those are weighing on me, and I just, when I come across some people who think, you know, they're just so, like they're good to go. They know for a fact they're going to be saved. I just feel like for me it's not the case, and those passages speak to me. So I'd love to hear your two sounds on that.
Okay. Well, I certainly think there are people who have assurance of salvation who it's a false assurance, and they've got no basis for it. And that last passage especially brings that out, where Jesus said, I never knew you, even though they said, Lord, Lord, we did all these things in your name. Of course, he does not say that simply because these people had a false assurance that there's no grounds for a true assurance. Because just before those verses, he says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Then he talks about the many who think they're saved and are not. But he did say who will be saved. So the question is, am I one of those who's doing the will of the Father in heaven?
And I can know that, whether it's true or not. I can know whether I'm seeking my will and doing my will or whether I'm seeking and doing God's will. That's the whole point of being a disciple. Jesus said, if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Well, when you deny yourself, you're giving up your own agendas, your own dreams, your own will as the guide of your life. And you're taking up a cross, which means you're embracing God's will, even though it means dying to your own plans. So you can know you're saved. But unfortunately, many people have not been taught by their pastors or by whoever evangelized them.
They've not been taught what it is to really be a Christian. And therefore, they have an assurance of salvation that is not real. There is a narrow gate and a narrow road as two of those passages that you brought up mention.
But one can know whether they're on it or not. Jesus said, strive to enter into the narrow gate. So he didn't indicate it's the easiest thing in the world, but he didn't say it's something that you could be that you'd be uncertain about. I mean, how can you strive to end up in a certain destination if you don't know where that destination is or what the road is that gets there? Obviously, we are supposed to know that that those who are in Christ are saved and we're supposed to know exactly how it is that we come to be in Christ and remain in Christ. This is taught in the Bible. Of course, it has to do with recognizing him as our Lord and our king and being subject to him.
That's what that's what coming into the kingdom means. So there are a lot of people who have what appears to be assurance of salvation, as you say, and maybe even an arrogance about it. Maybe so much so that they even think they can sin. I've known people who think, well, you know, I can do what I'm doing here, even though it's sinful because I'm saved by grace, which is a bit of an arrogant and foolish thing to say, because they are suggesting that they could be saved without doing the will of the father. And the verse you read last said, you know, not not everyone who says, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of God, but those who do the will of my father. So the real question is not, you know, is it impossible to know you're saved? Rather, it is possible to be mistaken about your salvation.
You can if you think you're saved on a certain basis and it's not the biblical basis, you can, in fact, find yourself to be unsaved at the day of judgment when you thought you were saved. Now, if this sounds hard, it can be for some people. I mean, if somebody has come to Christ on his terms from the beginning and they've laid down their will, they say it's no longer I, but Christ, not my will, but his be done. That's my whole orientation. I've turned around and I'm no longer even interested in following my own agendas.
His agenda is the whole definition of my being. Now, people do do that. Many people do that.
I've done that. But it's true that a lot of people have never considered doing that. Their pastors have never indicated to them that it requires that they just told to say a simple prayer. And then once they've said a simple prayer, they're given assurance that they're going to heaven.
And there's nothing in the Bible that would encourage that approach. It's a great way to build a big church because, you know, you don't have to wait for people to be genuinely converted. You can just tell them they're converted. And by dangling a carrot on a stick before them, say we can go to heaven when you die and just say this little these words. And so we get a whole bunch of people to do that. But a lot of those people are going to be the ones that Jesus said many will say, Lord, Lord, but they didn't do the will of the Father. They never occurred to them to do it because they weren't told to. So the pastors, I think in these cases, will often be held responsible by God, not that the people themselves won't be.
But really, remember, teachers have the stricter judgment, James said. And I think pastors that give people the impression that you just have to make a real painless transition by saying a prayer and then you're in for good. They're not preaching anything the Bible says. And and they seem to be preaching the kind of message that's, in fact, going to get people to have a rude awakening on the day of judgment.
And I wouldn't want to be those preachers because they have a stricter judgment than the average person because they are misleading people. And lots of people are going to be lost because of that kind of preaching. So but we don't have to preach that way. We don't have to believe that way. We can we can actually believe what Jesus said and what the Bible teaches. And then we can know if we have salvation. I personally have assurance of my salvation, but there's not any kind of arrogance in it because I don't save myself. I'm a I'm a helpless beggar with a handout receiving a gift.
You know, there's no pride in that. But I know when I've gotten the gift and I know who it is that gave it to me. And so I can know that I'm not you know, I know I'm not going to die. That's great.
If you could just really quick, if you wouldn't mind. And Matthew, what was the fault with those those guys who knew him and were walking with him and were doing works in his name? So they basically had some insight and they still did not know him, according to Jesus.
So that if those guys, I'm not even near that level in my mind. So if they're getting cast away, what was their fault there? Well, I think what Jesus is getting across there is that these figures say, Lord, we did mighty works in your name. We prophesied in your name. We cast out demons in your name.
He says, well, that's not what I'm looking for. I think the point is here you can do many religious and spiritual and maybe even seemingly supernatural things and not be the least surrendered to God. It's not those who do such things. It's those who do the will of the Father. Now, doing the will of the Father doesn't mean that it's never the will of the Father to do those things. Casting out demons, prophesying, working mighty works, that might very well be the will of the Father for some. But doing the will of the Father is a habit of life. It's a whole orientation.
It's a whole it. It's just it's just the way you think. I need to do the will of the Father. I mean, if he wants me to cast out demon, I'll do it. But I'm not going to go out and figure that by casting out demons, I'm going to get get into heaven or something like that.
Because lack of sorry. Basically, the way I'm looking at its lack of relationship then is more based on that was lacking then than works, obviously. Right. Well, prophecies and miracles can all be faked. Remember, it says in Second Thessalonians two that even the man of sin comes and does many signs and lying wonders in the power of Satan. The false prophet in Revelation 13 does signs and wonders in the power of Satan. And so there are false miracles and counterfeit things like that.
But but but that's we're not going to be judged by those things, fortunately. Now, if we're walking with Jesus, if we have the gifts for it, we might, in fact, prophesy or or work miracles. I don't I don't have those gifts, but some people do, according to Paul. However, even somebody who does those kinds of sensational things may do so without really having surrendered to Christ. I mean, let's face it, they could be just the kind of people you find in some kinds of Pentecostal churches who are speaking in tongues and prophesying. But they're they're no more converted than than a person who's not converted in any other kind of church. Most churches don't do these kinds of things, miracles and such, but Pentecostals do.
But the point is, even if every church had people doing those things, we know that in the churches, people often learn how to just do the things that are expected in that church, how to how to do the things that are respected and and that give them status. And so people can fake prophecies, they can fake even miracles, but there could even be true miracles done in anything other than the power of God. Now, Jesus isn't saying that there's you know, that that happens a lot of the time. Paul said in First Corinthians 13, If I could speak in the tongues of men and angels, if I could work miracles and had enough faith to move mountains, but I don't have love, I'm nothing.
So it's sort of the same teaching. You know, you could be prophesying, you could be speaking in tongues, you could be working miracles. But if you don't have the fruit of the Spirit, if you're not living in love and agape love toward everyone around you and toward God, well, then you don't have anything that resembles Christianity in you is what Jesus is saying. Remember, Jesus said by this, all men will know that you're my disciples if you have loved one for another. So that's how we that's how we know if we're saved or not. It's as if we love the brethren. It says that in First John says, By this we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. I think that's in First John three.
I don't remember the first number. But yeah, we know that we've passed from death and life because we love the brethren. So love is the is the issue. Not not just once in a while, but consistent love. Not just pretending that we love because that's what Christians are supposed to do, but really loving that in your heart when you're all alone.
No one but God sees your heart. Your heart is broken for the suffering of people. You are eager to make sacrifices and and lay your life down for other people.
That's a way of life. That's a whole commitment of your whole being. If that's true, then you are filled with the Holy Spirit. And that is the measure of being of doing the will of the Father.
So, again, lots of people may have a false assurance, but that doesn't mean we can't have a true assurance. Got it. Great response. And I really appreciate your time. Thank you. Sure, Tim.
Thank you for your call. And by the way, there is a lecture series at my Web site, the narrow path dot com. And for those who don't know, these are audio lectures that are everything's free. You can't you don't pay for them. You just listen or download them.
And that's up to you. You can get them on your phone on the on our narrow path app. But the Web site is the narrow path dot com. And there's a series there. There's thousands, actually over a thousand lectures. But there's one series called How Can I Know That I'm Really Saved? And it goes through the book of First John, applying the tests of genuine salvation that he gives there. And you may want to have you want to check that out.
How can I know that I'm really saved? It's a series of topical lectures at my Web site, the narrow path dot com. Another Dallas area caller, Michael from Dallas.
Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve.
Good to talk to you again. Yeah, I have a couple of questions about two books that have been recommended by Christian Brothers. One is by a French author called Jean Guillaume. And there's a couple of different titles that it's been marketed under, but the latest one is Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ. Yeah, Madame Guillaume.
Yes. And then the second one is the classic Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis. Well, Madame Guillaume was a what we call a quietist. Fenelon and she were friends and they were very spiritual people, spiritual giants, I would say. I don't know that quietism is the norm for the Christian life, but these two particularly were very godly people and she her book Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ talks about the inner, you know, Christian experience with Christ. I would say when you read somebody like that, that you realize that their calling might be different than yours.
These might be people who are in full time prayer, full time religious life. Fenelon and Madame Guillaume both were spiritual counselors to people. And in her case, she was unmarried. Well, I think she was now. Come to think of it, she might have got married. She she had a I think she did get married and had an unhappy marriage, if I recall. It's been a while since I remember her biography. But she must have been married because she went by Madame instead of Mademoiselle.
Yeah. And she she had been scarred up, I think by some kind of disease. I forget which disease she had when she was young. She'd been a very beautiful woman and very proud and arrogant. And then she, you know, smallpox or something like that scarred her face up so much that it very made her humble and had her seek God. And she found a very deep relationship with God. Yeah, I believe she was married, but I think it was an unhappy, unhappy marriage.
I don't think she had much of a relationship with her husband to come to think of it. But, yeah, she's got a lot of good things to say. I wouldn't just say everyone needs to be like her. But I like to read people's inner experiences. Some of them I think God works differently with different people.
And it may be that some will resonate with it. The other one of the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a campus. That's a book I really love. Of course, he is back in the 1300s and he was a monk and a Roman Catholic. So he had Roman Catholic outlook about things. But most of the book is not Roman Catholic. And particularly, it's just a book about walking with Jesus, which is something that I think more Roman Catholics ought to read and more more Protestants to frankly. It's a tremendous book. I've read it over 10 times through since I was young. And it's it's just excellent. You can get it on audiobook or read it.
Now, I will say this. The Imitation of Christ is broken up into sections. I forget if there's five or six sections, several sections of the book. The last section in the book is all about the Eucharist and it's strictly Roman Catholic doctrine. And I mean, it's coming directly from the Roman Catholic idea of transubstantiation and so forth, which means that that section of the book I don't recommend. There's other books like that that I think are very excellent books right up to a certain point.
And then I say, well, that chapter is no good. But but Thomas a campus is a wonderful spiritual guide. And so, yeah, I highly recommend that book.
But I would say once you get to the part at the end where you start with the Eucharist, I don't put my endorsement on that. Another book of the same kind is called The Practice of the Presence of God by a brother named Brother Lawrence, also a monk. And that's a very powerful book, too, for those in, you know, just wanting to have a closer interior walk with Christ.
All those books, I think, are very good. There was one premise that Madame Guillaume operates off of from the verse that says the kingdom of God is within you. Yeah, I know that there's an alternate reading. Yeah, I would disagree with her.
I disagree with her interpretation of that. There's the verse is Luke 17, 21, where in the King in the King James version, which she did not read because she was French, but apparently the old French version also rendered it. The kingdom of God is within you. And a lot of mystical writers, a lot of devotional writers have taken that statement to try to apply that to the inner life. But in fact, almost all Greek scholars now and all new translations recognize that the word within didn't mean inside a person, but in the midst of a group of people, it's among it's the kingdom of God is among you or in your midst. So the kingdom of God is not inside of a person. The kingdom of God is a phenomenon, a community, a society of followers of Christ, which you can be in. But it's not something that's in you, though it does have interior ramifications. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. But the kingdom, as the Bible talks about it primarily, is the society of Jesus followers. Anyway, yes, I have some differences with all those authors on one thing or another.
But you just got to use discernment when you read those kinds of books. And they're mostly good, mostly good stuff. OK, thank you for your thank you, Michael. Yeah, we're not done here. The music's playing, but we have another half hour coming.
So don't go away. We're taking more calls in the next half hour. The Narrow Path is a listener supported ministry. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O.
Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds, so stay tuned. 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 in to the narrow path on this radio station or go to the narrow path dot 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're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, you can call me here, but we do have our lines full right now. If you have the number, though, you can call in a few minutes once a line or two clears up and you can get in line if you'd like. The number is 844-484-5737.
That's 844-484-5737. I've been saying that I have a trip coming up. I'm going to be doing kind of a partially cross country trip back as far east as Indianapolis, at least. And I'm speaking in a number of places along the southern route between California and there. So I'll be speaking in Arizona and Texas and Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois and Indiana. I think those are the states I'm speaking in various locations in Texas. For example, I'll be speaking in the San Antonio area as well as the Houston area and the Dallas, Texas area. So if you want to know where I'm speaking in Arizona, I'm going to be speaking in Phoenix and also in Tucson. But you can go to the Web site, the narrow path dot com.
That's the narrow path dot com and go to the tab that says announcements and the entire itinerary as it has developed so far is there. So you can see if you live in any of those areas, whether I'll be when and where I'll be. And maybe you can join us there. Everything, of course, is free.
We don't charge anything for admission or anything. So feel free to just show up if you find the address there. All right. Let's talk to anonymous calling from Luth.
I'm sorry. Oh, it says anonymous. Actually, Luther, his numbers and Luther in Los Angeles, California. Luther, welcome to the narrow path. Hi.
Thank you. I was watching the movie The Ten Commandments the other day. And so for me, the mill gave an introduction before the movie started. And he said the movie was based on ancient historians like Josephus and Philo and he named three others. And he said, plus the Holy Bible. My question is, how authentic is Josephus and Philo and these other ancient historians?
Why was it? Why weren't their writings in the Bible? Well, they were not inspired writers. Philo and Josephus both lived long after the Old Testament was completed.
They lived. They were contemporaries with the apostle Paul, which who lived 400 years after the closing of the Old Testament. So they wouldn't be included in the Old Testament, partly because they were not inspired writers. They're just Philo is sort of a philosophical religious writer. And Josephus was a historian.
Both of them were Jewish. But there's a lot of Jewish writers whose works don't belong in the Bible because they're not prophets. The Old Testament was written by prophets who are inspired by God and other writings of the Jews that are not written by prophets. Many of them still exist from ancient times, but they aren't Bible books. Then I want to ask you, are movies like The Robe, Quo Vadis and Ben Hur, are those authentic movies or is that just fiction? Those are fiction. Those are fictionalized stories. Obviously, Jesus is a feature of all of them, and they are based roughly on the facts of Jesus' crucifixion and his life.
But the characters in them, well, especially Ben Hur, Ben Hur is a fictional character. And the whole story of Ben Hur is fictional, though he kind of crosses paths with Jesus in it. Quo Vadis is based, I think, on Peter's alleged traditional martyrdom. Quo Vadis means, where are you going, in Latin. And there's a tradition that Peter was fleeing from persecution in Rome when Nero was persecuted Christians there. And he actually met Jesus on the road going toward Rome as he was fleeing from Rome. And Jesus said, Quo Vadis.
No, I'm sorry. Peter said, Quo Vadis, where are you going? And Jesus said, I'm going back to Rome to be crucified again. And so Peter, according to the tradition, went back to Rome and was crucified also upside down. This tradition is not found in the Bible, and therefore we can't really say it's historically true. And the robe, yeah, the characters in the robe are not, I mean, of course, Jesus dies in the early part of it. But the main characters in those stories, they're not in the Bible.
They're not true. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you for your call, Luther. Bye now. All right. Morty in Spokane, Washington.
Welcome to The Narrow Path. How you doing, Morty? Hi. Good, Steve.
Thanks. Okay. On the subject of church discipline, when I bring up, you know, the allowance of open fornication in congregations, whether heterosexual, homosexual, whatever, getting this response from individuals within the ministry, well, we can look at the congregation as a sanctuary for the saved or a hospital for sinners. Comment? Yeah, you've got to make your choice.
You've got to make a decision about that. In the Bible, it's a congregation of the saved. The apostles never considered the church to be an evangelistic outreach. The church was a fellowship of the body of Christ.
Evangelistic outreach took place outside the church in places like synagogues and out in the streets and, you know, marketplace and hillsides and so forth. So, I mean, many churches today do regard themselves as evangelistic outreach centers, in which case they cannot very easily discipline misbehavior in their churches as the Bible commands us to do. Because, of course, they're hoping to reach these sinners, so they want sinners in the church so that they can preach the gospel to them. Now, the apostles never wanted sinners in the church. Paul indicated that if there was a man in the church, for example, in Corinth, who was living in fornication, that they had to kick him out. In fact, there's quite a few places in the New Testament that talk about exercising church discipline. So it's obvious that the church was not supposed to be a gathering of unbelievers or a hospital for the spiritually sick.
That's what it has become. And I think it became that largely because after the conversion of Constantine, almost everyone in the Roman Empire became part of the church, whether they were converted or not. In fact, Romans and, you know, people under the Catholic church tended to be baptized as babies. So everybody was a baptized Christian. So, you know, you'd have all kinds of unconverted people in the churches. So the church got used to the idea of not being a congregation of saints, but just the collection of everybody in town who happened to be a baptized person at birth, usually. And that was pretty much everybody, except for maybe the Jews or the Muslims who were around them.
So Muslims weren't there yet, but they later were. The idea is that the church deviated very far from what the church is supposed to be, and the modern churches have to decide which would they like to follow. The medieval plan of, you know, everybody's invited in the church and recognized as a member as long as they've been baptized and hasn't committed a mortal sin in the past week or whatever. Or should it be what Jesus set up?
I'd opt for the second. I think churches should be what Jesus set up, which is a gathering of his disciples to be instructed in the way of walking with him, to exercise their gifts, to edify one another, you know, to worship jointly. And, of course, only real believers are welcome to worship God correctly because they have to worship in the Spirit, and only the believers have the Spirit of God. At least this is what the New Testament says. A lot of churches don't believe these things anymore, obviously, but that's what the Bible says, and I'm still a believer in the Bible. So I think that church discipline, because the Bible commands it, Jesus commanded it in Matthew 18, verses 15 through 17. Paul commanded it a number of places. You know, I think church discipline needs to be conducted so that the church remains a congregation of saints.
But you're right. Some pastors say, no, this is a hospital for the sick. Well, then it's not the church, of course. You can call it a church if you want to, but it's not a church. It's a hospital, you know, have a hospital.
If we say, well, it's spiritual sickness. OK, so it's a spiritual hospital. It's not the church. The church is for people who are walking with Jesus, people who are disciples of Jesus, people who are learning how to be, how to observe everything Jesus commanded.
That's what the church is supposed to be teaching them. So I'm not sympathetic with that pastor's idea that you can have either one, but of course you can. But if you have anything other than a gathering of the saints, you don't have a church.
You have something else. You can call it a church. And you can get a whole bunch of people to come, but you're going to have babysitting a bunch of carnal people who don't have any real conversion experience alongside some who do. That's not the church.
That's just what the church was allowed to become in the centuries after the church became corrupted. I agree. Thank you so much for a clear response. I'm guessing you have people waiting. So my lines are full. Yes.
Yep. I'd better let you go then. You take care. Thank you for that. Thank you, Morty. God bless. We have a call from Barcelona, Spain, which is I think the first time we ever have Huck in Barcelona.
Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. So I have for the past maybe nine years, I've been working with YWAM and two years ago I got married and then seven months ago I had a child. Congratulations.
Thank you. That's great. But I've just been starting to feel a pull out of YWAM and towards, I guess, the simple life of working a job and coming home to see my family.
I just feel like I've been more psyched or I haven't been psyched on seeing a revival out on the streets anymore as I am within my family. Well, that's a great choice. I just wanted to know, like, what's that?
That's a great choice. I mean, not everybody's called to be a missionary, notwithstanding what some preachers say. I mean, when some people say everybody's a missionary, what they mean is no matter what you're doing, where you have contact with unbelievers, you're a witness to them. Of course, you'll be that if you're at home with your family, working in a regular job, or whether you're out on the streets handing out literature or preaching in Barcelona, Spain. YWAM, of course, is a ministry that leans very strongly toward getting everybody possible onto the mission field.
But God doesn't necessarily do that. I mean, some of the great missionaries I've known in history are in YWAM. And of course, some great missionaries are not in YWAM. But YWAM, of course, was started with a dream that Lauren Cunningham had of waves, like ocean waves made up of young people crashing on the shores of every nation in the world and evangelizing it.
So this flooding of the world with Christian young missionaries was the vision that Lauren Cunningham had when he started the organization. And YWAM has attracted into it almost any young people who have a real strong spiritual desire to follow God, because there's the DTS and SBS, there's missionary training, there's discipleship training, there's biblical training, and it's cheap and you don't have to go through a college course to get a diploma. So I mean, YWAM is a very easy way for people who are called to be missionaries to get out on the mission field without having to go through a lot of rigmarole that some organizations require. On the other hand, once you're in YWAM, there's a very strong pull to regard yourself as called to the mission field, whether you are or not. I think a lot of people who go to YWAM DTSs, they just want to get close to God, perhaps. And sometimes they do.
I think they mostly do. But then they go home and that's what they want to do. And YWAM doesn't discourage that, by the way.
YWAM doesn't discourage people from going home and being a witness at home, but at least they don't officially. But you do get the strong impression that one of the best things you can do is go out on the foreign field, as you are doing right now. But you're a father now, or you're going to be a father, you're married.
I'm a father, yes. This is a transition in your life that God has brought about, which doesn't mean you have to leave the mission field. I know some YWAMers and other missionaries who are on the field with several children.
But you know what, there's, and I'm not going to say anything bad about that, it's great. Some great missionaries I know have raised their children on the mission field. But we don't have any examples of that in the Bible. We don't have any examples of the apostles or missionaries ever having families. We do read that, you know, about 20 or more years after Pentecost, Peter and the other apostles traveled with their wives.
But their children, apparently, they probably waited for their children to grow up because it was about 20 years into their ministries they did. But to travel with children, it's not everybody's calling. To travel with a wife is not everyone's calling. To travel is not everyone's calling. God needs people everywhere.
I was a friend with Keith Green, and, you know, we were friends, but I thought he was a little bit extreme on some things, though I love the man, and I love his music. But near his death, he was telling people that you need to go on the mission field unless you have a specific call from God to stay home. And that's just not true. I mean, Keith was kind of an extremist.
He usually balanced out, but he died too young to balance out on this one. And it's not true that everyone's called on the mission field. Every place is a mission field. If everyone was really called to go on the mission field, then when you go out to Africa or Spain or somewhere else and make converts, you just send them out on the mission field to other countries.
You'd never have a church anywhere. You know, if all the Christians are, like, individual traveling around the world, you'd never have a community of Christians building up in any one place. Most people are not called to the mission field, and most people are called to work at regular jobs and to represent Christ there, to raise their families if they have them, for Christ. And so, I mean, if you're feeling tugged to come back to the States with your family, then that could very well be God's pull, and it's certainly not a step backward from missionary work. Yeah, that's good advice, because I know that when I talk to the people, they're like, well, there's all these alternatives that you can do to continue with the missions, and they're right, but I can't, really what I feel the strongest is like, I just kind of want to take a break from missions right now and just live a simple life with my family, and I kind of feel like maybe that's not enough of a reason, or like maybe that's not God. No, I think it's enough. I think it's enough of a reason. I think it's enough of a reason, unless there's some kind of motive in you that's questionable, like you're greedy to make money, or you're afraid of the dangers of the mission field.
I mean, if there's something like that, that might call into question the correctness of your leading, but if you're following the Lord, and you just want to do His will, and you're feeling this tug back home, then I'd say there's no reason not to think of that as God's calling. Cool. Well, that's very helpful. Thanks, Steve. All right. Well, good to hear from you.
Yeah. Thanks for joining us. God bless you.
Eddie in Connecticut, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Steve, how are you today?
Good, thanks. Steve, my question is the story of Noah, and I guess it says before the flood, the pre-flood, God was repented that He made man, the earth was filled with sin and wickedness, so He destroyed everybody, but Noah's family. Well, my question is, Noah still had the sin nature in his children, so after Noah, the world was the same or maybe worse shape, so I'm trying to think what was accomplished by flooding all the inhabitants of the world, and after Noah, you got the same thing.
The other side, you got the same insanity, the same wars, the same Hitlers, the same... It's like, wait a minute, what happened here? It wasn't like Noah was an Adam, you know, where he passed on.
It was like the... I'm trying to figure this out. We're doing a study on it, and we're saying, wait a minute. Well, the same question could be asked about Jesus. Jesus came, and that didn't solve all the problems. I mean, there's been Adolf Hitler since then. There's been Nero since then. There's been horrible crimes.
There's been Charles Manson since then. Right, so I'm just trying to think, God destroyed the earth, the people, all the inhabitants of the earth, and then, I mean, I'm just trying to say, not that they get a raw deal, but they keep saying, what happened to the other side? Yeah, well, you know, God has a very long history of the world in mind. It's already been 6,000 years or more, and it may be some thousands more that we don't know about.
We have no idea how long it'll be. But, you know, once in a while, he has to press a reset. In the case of Noah's day, we're told that the whole earth was filled with violence, and the thoughts and intentions of every man's heart was only evil continually. I mean, it's like universally corrupted. That hasn't been the case necessarily since the time of Noah. Sure, there's corrupt people.
Every bit as corrupt as the people before the flood, but it's not so universal. I don't know that there's ever been a time after the flood that the earth is just full of violence, like there's nothing else there, and that every thought of everyone's hearts was only evil continually. I don't know of any time since then that that would be true.
So it must have been intolerable. It must have been so terrible that God just thought, okay, reset with a better starter, a better group at the beginning. He was under no illusions that Noah was a perfect man or that his sons were perfect men. It's just that he needed to save the world from the violence that dominated it, and so he pushed the reset button, so let's start that over again. Likewise, when Jesus came, Jesus came and brought about a new creation, the Bible says, but it hasn't involved everybody. Some people have never participated in it.
They can, but they don't. But still, because there is now a society of followers of Jesus in the world, and it's not diminishing, it's growing, there will never be a time when the earth is quite so bad apparently as it was before the flood because God had to wipe everything out then. All right, Steve, thank you for your answer. That was a good answer because it was puzzling in the study trying to figure out, wait a minute, we're trying to say he had evil on one hand and after, no, he had the same evil running around. But maybe like you're saying, not in the... Not so universally.
Yeah, not quite so universally, right. All right, thank you, Steve. Okay, Eddie, thanks for your call. Bye now.
Okay, Steven in Portland, Oregon. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Speaking of violence.
How you doing, brother? Thanks for taking my call. Yeah. I got kind of a three-tiered question. I listen to a lot of preachers on the radio and watch them on TV, and they seem to be all over the place about a rapture, whether it's pre-trib, post-trib, or mid-trib. Second part of my question is, do you think God is judging the United States with the fires and the floods, giving us a little heads-up warning? And final question, sir, is when people don't make it to Heaven and they get thrown into an everlasting fire, do their souls burn up and get extinguished or are they there forever and ever? All right, that's three questions.
What was your first one? Oh, yeah, a rapture. Okay, so you want to know something about the rapture? Yeah.
Is it pre-trib? Yeah. Okay. Okay, yeah, I'll address those questions. I think I have time. I have a few minutes left. Okay, I'm going to hang up Muslim tea on the radio and thank you. Yeah, pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib.
Is God giving the United States a warning for all its sins and people that get cast into the fire? All right, I'm going to have to start answering or else I'll run out of time before I answer you. So I've got the questions. I'll go ahead and answer them. Okay, God bless you, Stephen.
Thanks for your call. The rapture occurs, Jesus said, on the last day. The last day, he said in John chapter 6 and verse 39, this is the will of the Father who sent me that of all that he has given me, he means all the people that he's given him, I should lose none but should raise him up at the last day. And then the next verse, and this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day. So twice there he says he's going to raise his people on the last day. And just in case we didn't get it, he says it a third time in verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
And that's not the last time he says it. He says it again in verse 54 where he says, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. So it's like there's no question in Jesus' mind as when he's going to raise us up. Now raise us up would refer to the resurrection and the rapture because it says in 1 Thessalonians 4 that the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together to meet them with the Lord in the air. Now so we're going to be resurrected and raptured on, as Jesus put it, the last day he's going to raise up his people. Now this is, some people might think, well does this mean the last day of the time before the tribulation or the last day of the middle half of the tribulation or what? Well Jesus has something else to say about the last day. In John chapter 12, in John chapter 12 in verse 48, he says, he who rejects me and does not receive my words, now these are not the Christians, these are the ones who reject Christ, that person has one who judges him, the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. So the judgment of the lost, of the wicked, will be in the last day and so will the raising up of the Christians, the followers of Jesus.
So the rapture obviously happens on the last day. Now is America under judgment? I don't know, it kind of feels like it, but I don't have any prophetic word about that. It might not be, but it seems like it, that's all I can say.
And the reason you ask, and many people ask, is because it seems so much like it. We don't have any biblical statements that would tell us that, you know, America is under judgment. So it would be either the work of a prophet who heard a word from the Lord about it, or else something we'd find in the Bible, but I don't have either of those available.
So we just kind of use our instincts and those are not very reliable. But I'll just tell you my own thought is it kind of seems like we're under judgment, but we could repent. There could be a revival and that could change things. Now as far as what happens to people when they go to hell, there's three different views about that. Some people believe that they are tormented consciously forever, and that is of course what we call the traditional view. The Bible also has some information in it that leads some people to believe that the torment is not forever. The torment is only temporary and then at the end of having suffered, people are annihilated or they cease to exist. There's quite a few verses of scripture that sound like they may imply something like that. There's even a third view, which was held by many in the early church in the first four or five centuries, that hell is a place where God uses it to bring sinners to repentance because He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance so that even if people die unrepentant, that He continues to work on them even in hell. Now that view is not very widely held throughout church history, but it was held very much in the early church, very widely, especially in the third and fourth centuries, and it's a growing view now. If you're interested in examining those three views in very great detail, I wrote a book about the three views of hell.
If you go to, say, amazon.com and look up my name, Steve Gregg, you'll find my book on hell there, and it does compare the three views, not sideways, but very thoroughly and very fairly, objectively. I'm sorry I'm out of time. I can't go any further into this right now, though of course I could if we had more time. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are listener-supported. If you want to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Let's talk again tomorrow. God bless you.
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