The Narrow Path 10/7

Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Program.

I'm Steve Gregg. And I wanted to get your take, if you could provide a little more teaching here, and specifically looking at verses 11 and 12. It says, And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died.

But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. So if you could perhaps give a little expoundment, some understanding for us. I'll just listen on the air. Thank you. Okay.

Thanks, Andy. Well, the underlying concern in 1 Corinthians 11, excuse me, chapter 8, 9, and 10, is that there were in Corinth idols, idol temples. I mean, certainly throughout the pagan world, there are idolatrous temples worshiping various false gods. And one of the main features of the worship of false gods had to do with eating sacred meals, even very much as Christianity worshiped Christ in focusing on the Lord's Supper. So the pagan temples also conducted these community meals in honor of their deities. Now, what happened was that they would slaughter a bunch of cows and pigs and sheep and things like that, and serve them up in a community meal at the idol temple. And it was considered to be part of the worship of those idols. Now, whatever was not eaten there would be sold as meat to be sold commercially in the marketplace. And that meant that as you were going through the marketplace buying meat for your home, the meat that's available might very well be, and often was, the remnant of an animal that had been sacrificed to an idol. Now, for those who had a more superstitious kind of approach to Christianity, they might have thought, well, an animal that was sacrificed to an idol is sacrificed to the devil. I don't want to bring food that's sacrificed to idols into my house. Eating meat sacrificed to idols at these feasts is a worship of demons.

I don't want to bring that kind of stuff into my home. Now, therefore, there were differences of opinion among the Christians in Corinth about this. Many understood that as long as you're not really worshiping the idol, it doesn't matter much about what meat you eat, even if the meat was once part of an animal that was sacrificed to an idol. Others felt more sensitive about that, and they felt like anything that had been associated with idolatry, they wanted nothing to do with.

Now, Paul actually favored those who took the more libertine view. He actually said, it doesn't really matter what you eat. Meat sacrificed to an idol isn't really any different than meat that wasn't sacrificed to an idol. And he says, whatever you, you know, find for sale in the marketplace, as far as meat goes, go ahead and buy it. Don't worry about whether it came from an idol feast or whether it was, you know, privately slaughtered or whatever. Just eat it.

Don't worry about it. But he did say, if somebody tells you that this is meat sacrificed to an idol, that means they think it's important. And if it's important to them, then there's this other consideration. And Paul is concerned about this throughout the entire three chapters of 1 Corinthians 8, 9, and 10. And that is that although there are some things that are lawful for Christians to do, not all lawful things are good ideas to do. Paul said, all things are lawful to me, but not all things are edifying.

He said, all things are lawful to me, but not, I won't be brought under the power of any. And so Paul is arguing that there are some things that are actually lawful, that if you do them, it's not going to necessarily hurt you spiritually. But there's times when you really ought not to do them. And another underlying principle that Paul brings out is that even if something is lawful in general, if you think it's not, then it's not for you.

And what's going on in that subtext is that your heart is what matters most in this matter. If you think it's wrong to eat a piece of meat that was part of an animal that was sacrificed to an idol, even if it's not wrong in the sight of God, it's wrong in your sight. And if you go ahead and do it, then by doing it, you're going against your own conscience.

You're actually, in a sense, showing that you are willing to do something that you actually think is wrong. Now, even if the thing isn't wrong, the fact that you'll do something that you think is wrong is a sin. And so Paul's saying, if you don't have a clear conscience about this kind of thing, then you shouldn't do it. Now, Paul was writing to the Corinthians in a context where there were both kinds of convictions among the Christians. Some recognized that they had liberty to eat meat, sacrifice idols, others felt they did not. And Paul's saying, well, those who don't think they should, shouldn't, because they'd be going against their conscience, you cause them to sin against their conscience. Now, those of you who do have that liberty, it's a possibility that you, by doing this in front of them, may tempt them to do that which they really think they're not supposed to do.

They may do it to fit in. I mean, we could think of this, for example, in the case of, in our society, maybe drinking of alcohol, there's some people who believe it's wrong to drink alcohol. The Bible doesn't say it's wrong to drink alcohol, but there's a lot of Christians who think it is. Other Christians believe it's okay for a Christian to drink alcohol in moderation. But in a situation where, let's say somebody who doesn't believe in drinking alcohol is going to a place where everyone's drinking socially, he may feel under pressure to drink socially with everybody else, and it may tempt him to go ahead and drink alcohol, but in his own heart, he believes it's a sin.

He believes it's wrong. And although it's not necessarily a sin for a person to drink alcohol, it's a sin for him to do so, because he believes it is. And so Paul's saying, if you, by your example of eating meat sacrificed idols, embolden the conscience of somebody who really doesn't think it's okay, and they go ahead and eat it, they're doing what they think is wrong, and therefore they're doing something that is in fact wrong for them to do.

And you're damaging their conscience, you're damaging their spirit, you're leading them to do something which they understand to be disobedient to God, and therefore you bring condemnation upon their conscience, and this can certainly do harm to them. In fact, it may lead them—another thing Paul's talking about is that some people, when they eat meat sacrificed to idols, it takes them back. You know, there's some people I know who were, like myself, teenagers in the seventies, who when they hear the rock music from the seventies, it takes them back to days when they were doing immoral things, when they were using drugs, when they were living rebellious lives against God.

Now, I wasn't doing that in my teens, and that music doesn't take me back to that at all. As a matter of fact, I was preaching and teaching in a revival during those years, but I was also hearing that music, and when I hear that music now, it takes me back to a time of great spiritual rejoicing and excitement in Jesus, just because the music connects with the time. But when people were living in sin at that time, and they hear that music and it takes them back, sometimes it does them spiritual harm.

I'm not saying it always will, but it can. And likewise, when people became Christians in Corinth, if they ate meat that they knew as sacrificed idols, in some cases, that would take them back in their minds to their old, idolatrous ways. And some of them were actually going so far as to go back into the feasts in the idol temple, saying, hey, well, it's okay to eat meat sacrificed idols, Paul says, so we're going to go eat in the temple. And they were actually being drawn back in to idolatry, just as some people are drawn back into drugs and alcohol and fornication by, what should I say, things that remind them and draw them back to their old life. So Paul was saying, listen, there are people who are weaker.

He calls them weaker. They can't eat meat sacrificed idols without damaging their conscience or maybe even damaging their Christian resolve. And therefore, you cause them spiritual harm. If you, by your liberty in eating it, encourage them to eat it when they really think it's not right. So you could be doing them harm that it's not doing to you when you eat the meat. That's what's going on in this whole discussion.

It might sound really elaborate. It might seem really complex, but there's just a number of spiritual principles that Paul is concerned about here. Not the least is that if people do something that their conscience tells them is wrong, they're damaging themselves spiritually. And if you do things that would lead another person back into sin but doesn't lead you into sin, you may be sinning, as it were, against them.

So the verses you asked about in 1 Corinthians 8, 11 and 12, he says, Because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died. What he means is you know something they don't. Your knowledge is that an idol is nothing at all.

It doesn't matter at all. If you eat meat sacrificed to idols, God doesn't care where the meat came from. You know that. But your brother doesn't. He's weaker about that. And so your knowledge, and you're living according to that knowledge, and you're expressing the liberty in your conduct that that knowledge would inform, that could lead somebody else into something that they don't have the liberty to do, and you could lead them into sinning. And you may, as he says, your weak brother will perish if he can't handle it and if he goes back into a life of sin. But when you thus sin against your brethren and wound their conscience, you sin against Christ.

Now this is just a generic statement. Whenever you sin against a Christian, you're sinning against Jesus. Remember Matthew 25 when Jesus said, Inasmuch as you do it to the least of these my brethren, you do it to me. Well, anytime you sin against a person who is a part of the body of Christ, you're sinning against the head of that body as well.

Whatever someone does against you is done against you. And the Christians are identified as the body of Christ. So you harm the body of Christ, you harm Christ. And so that's what Paul is saying in those verses. There's a number of presuppositions behind these two verses, but those presuppositions are largely spelled out in the whole discussion of 1 Corinthians 8, 9, and 10.

It's not too hard when you kind of follow Paul's train of thought through those three chapters to know the kinds of things that are in his statements in these two verses. Again, he's concerned about people stumbling back into sin because they get encouraged by somebody with more liberty than they have in their conscience to do things that they really think they shouldn't do. And then, of course, their conscience is damaged and it can't even lead them back, if they're weak, back into idolatry, which is then they perish, although Christ died for them. By the way, that particular verse raises serious questions about Calvinism because Calvinism says if Christ died for someone, they can't perish. Specifically, Jesus didn't die for anyone except the elect, according to Calvinism, and those who are elect can't perish. But Paul speaks about the possibility of those who are elect, or rather, for whom Christ died, they might perish if they go back to idolatry.

So, Paul apparently was not familiar with the Calvinist ideas. Kimberly from Arizona is next. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Kimberly.

Thank you for taking my call. I have a question, a book of Malachi chapter 4. I just want to know the past or the present or the future, this particular book of Malachi chapter 4. Are you asking whether it has a future fulfillment or if it's a past fulfillment? Yes, yes. I want to know if the past or the present or the future is going to come.

Okay. Well, probably most people that you'll hear teach on Malachi are going to be futurists and they're going to say that Malachi chapter 4 is in the future. I don't think so.

I think that it's not. First of all, beginning at chapter 3, Malachi starts introducing John the Baptist and Jesus coming and so forth. And then he begins to censure his readers for not paying their tithes and things like that. Then he gets back to the fact that there's going to be a judgment coming that's going to be a destruction of the temple.

That happened in 70 AD. Now, that's what I believe he refers to when he says that the Lord will suddenly come to his temple. This is a reference, I think, to coming in judgment upon it because it says for who can endure the day of his coming, who can stand when he appears.

He's like a refiner's fire in a fuller's soap and so forth. And this is, I think, a reference to judgment coming on the temple. I believe also that chapter 4, verse 1, also talks about a day that's burning like an oven and all the proud will be burned up.

I think that's also talking about AD 70 when the temple is burned up. But that to those who fear God's name, the son of righteousness will arise with healing in his wings. That was Jesus coming. Jesus came to the faithful remnant of Israel before the destruction of the old system was realized. And so Jesus arose with healing in his wings. He had a healing ministry like the sun rising. And when John the Baptist was born, his father prophesied that this was the beginning of a sunrise, the dawning of a new day. And so the son of righteousness was rising in Christ. Now, in chapter 3, verses 16 and following, it talks about how God's going to rescue his remnant as he did. Of course, before he destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, he allowed the Christians to escape, and they did. And he talks about gathering them like jewels.

A man gathers his jewels before he abandons the house to the flames. And that's what God does. He gathered his people out. Now, there's a reference at the end of chapter 4 to Elijah coming. Now, Jesus said to his disciples, if you can receive it, John the Baptist is Elijah who is to come. So Jesus is referring to this very prophecy, which is Elijah who is to come. Well, there's no other reference to Elijah coming except here in the Old Testament. So he's clearly referring to Malachi 4, where he said, Elijah who is to come. He said, if you can receive it, John is Elijah who is to come. In other words, he's saying, if you can receive it, this prophecy in Malachi 4 has been fulfilled when John the Baptist came. So, you know, going by what Jesus said and a number of other factors in the book of Malachi and the New Testament too, I believe that this is fulfilled in the first century. I don't believe this is talking about the end times. Oh, okay. Okay. I just want to, I've been reading it.

I just like, I studied with some, my sister and I just wonder what this is. Well, yeah. Well, let me just say this.

Let me just say this. You're going to find a hard time selling this idea to a lot of people because first of all, there's not, there's a very large percentage of Christians who've never been told for some reason how significant it was when God destroyed the old temple system and replaced it with the new covenant. That's like one of the major themes of the preaching of Jesus and of John the Baptist and of the apostles. And yet many Christians have never even been told that that was an important thing. So whenever they see something about judgment and weird stuff like this, they say, oh, that must be the tribulation. That must be future.

That must be the end of the world. And that's because they don't know much about what happened at that time. And they often are not really using the New Testament to interpret. They're basically coming up with their own idea of what it means and ignoring what Jesus said it means. And even when you point out what Jesus said it means, they'll look for ways to make it not be what he said.

I know this because I've been pointing this out to people for many years. And although they have no scripture to support what they're saying, they just will not accept in many cases what Jesus said about it. And so that's because some people have just died in the wool end times aficionados who want everything to be about the end times. You know, Jesus in Luke chapter 21, Jesus predicted that the temple would be destroyed, which it was in 70 AD. And he said, not one stone will be left standing on another. And when the disciples said, how will we know this is about to happen? He said in verse 20, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its destruction is near. And then two verses later he said, these are the days of vengeance that all things that are written may be fulfilled. So Jesus said that the destruction of Jerusalem, which his disciples would live to see, some of them would, that would happen so that all things that are written would be fulfilled. Presumably he means all things written in the prophets in the Old Testament.

And that would include Malachi. And so I personally believe that most Christians have not taken Jesus very seriously about prophecy. They take, you know, the TV evangelists seriously about it. They take Hal Lindsey seriously about it. They take, you know, their pastor seriously.

But taking Jesus seriously about it is something most Christians have never considered doing because he didn't agree with the popular end times teachers today. All right, Kimberly, I've got to take some more calls before I run out of time, but I appreciate you joining us today. All right, we're going to talk next to Mary from Rancho Cucamonga. Mary, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Yes, I'm here. I have a question to ask you. I know you talk a lot about Calvinism and I totally agree with just about everything you say. But I wonder if you would comment on this New Apostolic, I think it's N-A-R, New Apostolic Reformation.

Yeah, it is really strong and it's pushing. Of course, it's pretty well attended by Bethel, which is really a messed up church. I don't mind. I would tell the pastor that. So, can you comment on it?

Well, yes. Bethel Church in Redding, California is sort of a hub of influence for something called the N-A-R, or the New Apostolic Reformation. They see themselves as heading up, obviously, an end times restoration of New Testament Christianity, which is largely focused on recognizing apostles, which their leaders claim to be, and prophets and so forth, and a very strong emphasis on working supernatural works.

Bethel Church is, no doubt, in the category. The second category I mentioned, those who tend to become enamored with supernatural things and not very discerning of what's from God and what's not from God. And the N-A-R, I'm sure many of the people in it are godly people, but it's a movement that places an emphasis on the supernatural, which I believe is far beyond any emphasis the Bible places upon it. I believe the supernatural is something that the Bible takes for granted as true. There is God and there are demons and God works miracles sometimes, not all the time, and miracles can be wrought through Christians on occasions when God wishes to do so. But once people begin to acknowledge what I just said, some people of a certain temperate become addicted to the supernatural.

Balance is one of the hardest traits to find in human beings. They either want to denounce all supernatural or they just want to become enamored with all supernatural. I myself remember when I was first baptized in the Holy Spirit back in 1970, and I became aware of the gifts of the Spirit, the biblical gifts of the Spirit. I was actually at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, which many people would think of as a non-charismatic church, but it's charismatic. Chuck Smith believed in the gifts of the Spirit, and I came to understand and believe in them there too, but Chuck was very much interested in a biblical approach to the gifts of the Spirit, which I think that helped me when I was young and ever since. But I remember being somewhat initially fascinated with the supernatural. I had come out of a Baptist background where I hadn't heard of a thing about the supernatural in the church, and then I came to a mildly charismatic church, which was at Calvary Chapel, and when I became aware that the gifts of the Spirit were real and that I'd read the book of Acts and realized that things going on there sometimes happen now too, I was very fascinated.

It was a new thing. It's like a child with a new toy, and I remember reading a lot of books by people who were in that movement, especially of the Word of Faith type, and initially I was taken in by the Word of Faith for maybe six months to a year. I was reading Kenneth Hagin a lot, because I was 16 years old, and I had never heard of these things before, and there were all kinds of testimonies, and they were using Scripture. I was not quite mature enough to recognize how they were abusing Scripture, but I later found that out through my studies, but I understand when people suddenly realize, wow, there is such a thing as supernatural healing, there is such a thing as supernatural gifts of the Spirit, sometimes people go overboard with it and become undiscerning and just want to embrace anything that's in that category. I have to say that when I was 16, I did so too.

I was a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things, I hope, and now I want to have just a biblical view of things, not one that goes to one extreme or another. And I think Bethel and the NAR movement are those who do go to one extreme, I think not in a healthy sense. They actually are open to all kinds of supernatural things that I think strike me as occultic, one of which is what they call grave soaking, where they actually go to the grave of some great man or woman of God of the past and lay down on a grave and soak up the Spirit out of the grave. That sounds more occultic than anything else. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with the Bible or Christian spirituality, but it's one of the things they do, and they do other really strange things there.

So if you wanted me to comment on it, that is my comment. I think that the NAR movement is a pretty good example of people who've gone too far in their fascination with the supernatural and do not put it in its proper place and do not apparently use the Bible to discipline their thinking about it. And that is, to my mind, a dangerous thing, because if you're not testing the spirits, then false spirits can masquerade as the true spirit. Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light, Paul said, in 2 Corinthians. And John said we have to test the spirits because there are many false prophets, and then he says that they are speaking from the spirit of Antichrist. So if you're not testing the spirits, you may think you're seeing something that's being done by the Holy Spirit, and John says, no, that's the spirit of Antichrist there.

That's a demonic spirit. So this is something that, you know, there's responsibility on the Christian. And many people don't take that responsibility. They just say, I want to find a teacher who seems to know what he's talking about. I'll just do what he does, say what he says, and so forth. And I hope to God that people don't do that with this radio program. But there are people who do that with their teachers. This program is here to teach you to think for yourself in a godly way, in a biblical way. And if you do that, I think you'll be protected more or less, certainly to a much larger degree than others, against the deceptions that are out there.

And there's all kinds of deceptions in the modern church. I only have about a minute before we're going to have to take a break at the bottom of the hour. We have some of our stations leave the network at the half hour point. The program goes on for an hour, that is, another half hour. And if you are listening to a station that actually leaves the network at this point, you can hear the second half of the program by going to our website, thenarrowpath.com, where we stream the program live, and we archive it for later. There's also a podcast, and there's also our internet, our telephone apps, which you can listen to the program all the way through on those apps.

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Study, learn, and enjoy. We thank you for supporting the listener-supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. This is our second half hour of the program. Those of you who listen to stations that pick up the program at this point and don't carry the first half hour, we'd just like you to know that the entire program, which is an hour every day, this is the second half, you can hear it from our website thenarrowpath.com. Every day the program is streamed from the website so you can hear it live, and also every day the program is archived at the website so you can hear it later if you can't listen live. And these archives go back many years, so you can listen to our programs going back a long time if you visit thenarrowpath.com. Our next caller is Carol from Lincoln, California. Carol, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve.

Thank you. My girls asked me in our Bible study this week if Matthias was considered an apostle, and so that opens up the whole thing to if he was considered an apostle, then is there 13 apostles if you include Paul? Can you explain that? There are actually quite a few apostles. There's at least 17 people in the New Testament who are called apostles.

Paul certainly is an apostle, and Matthias was also called an apostle. There were the 12, obviously, which were the first apostles, and Judas hanged himself. And in Acts 1, at Peter's suggestion, the church appointed another person to replace Judas to fill in the gap of the 12, and that man was Matthias. And as we read the story about that, Luke tells us that from that time on, Matthias was numbered with the 11 apostles, which means he was the 12th.

He was numbered with the other 11. So the 12 apostles, the original apostles, were the original 11 minus Judas, and then Matthias was added. When God added other apostles later on, Saul was converted and became the apostle Paul. Barnabas was also an apostle. Paul's companions, Silas and Timothy, are called apostles in 1 Thessalonians. And there are some other people who might be called apostles, depending on how you interpret the certain verses.

I think what we're to understand is that the 12 had a special function, and that function, as we read in Galatians chapter 2, was to reach out to the circumcision first, that is, to the Jews. And Paul and his companions were selected to go out to the Gentiles. This is an agreement that was made or recognized in Galatians 2 when Paul met with Peter, James, and John. And this was after Paul had been ministering for some time.

Paul and Barnabas met with Peter, James, and John, and this agreement was made that Peter, James, and John and their group would go to the circumcision, and Paul and his group would go to the uncircumcision, or the Gentiles. So Paul certainly was an apostle as much as Peter was, but to a different mission field. And so Matthias was with the 11, working the church in Jerusalem, and eventually going out to other places. The church in Jerusalem, of course, eventually scattered because of the destruction of Jerusalem. And even before they scattered, some of the apostles there branched out.

Thomas went to India, for example. And there's different traditions about where these apostles went when they finally left Jerusalem. But initially, those 12 were appointed to establish the church, which was originally in Jerusalem, and to get it on its feet.

And then, eventually, they went to all the world, too. But Paul was the first apostle that was just selected specifically to go to the Gentile world. And he had companions Silas and Barnabas and Timothy and so forth, who also were called apostles. So some people say, well, you know, they shouldn't have chosen Matthias because God intended Paul to be in that position. And, you know, they say the choice of Matthias took place before Pentecost, and therefore it wasn't led by the Holy Spirit.

And it was a mistake. But Luke doesn't mention it being a mistake. Luke simply mentions Matthias became part of the 12 apostles. And then ever after that, in the next several chapters, it mentions the apostles gave witness, the apostles worked signs and wonders. The apostles did that. That includes Matthias. I mean, he's one of the apostles. So some people have mistakenly said, well, we know that God didn't choose Matthias because he had Paul in mind. And we can see it by the fact that Matthias is never mentioned again after his election as an apostle in chapter one of Acts.

Well, that's not true. The apostles are mentioned many times after that. Most of them are not mentioned by name. In fact, nine of the 12 apostles are not mentioned by name after Acts chapter one. But they are mentioned as a group, and Matthias was part of that group. Okay, that's a very clear explanation.

I appreciate it. Now, I know the Bible doesn't tell us specifically, but can we get from that who will be on the 12 thrones? I mean, originally Judas was in the group when Jesus gave that. Right, in Matthew 19, Jesus said, you 12 who have been with me from the beginning will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. He said this will happen in the regeneration.

It's interesting. He didn't say in the resurrection. We might expect him to say in the resurrection because that's a term Jesus used sometimes.

But he said in the regeneration, you 12 will sit on 12 thrones. Now, the word regeneration is used in Titus to speak of what we have. Since Pentecost, we've been regenerated.

We've been born again. And Jesus might be talking about in the age of the Spirit when we are regenerated, when Christians are regenerated, the apostles, those 12, would have a specific ministry of authority in the Jewish mission. That is to say you'll judge the 12 tribes of Israel. You know, we could see them literally sitting on thrones if we wanted to, but I'm not sure if he means it that way.

Maybe he does. I could see it as being more or less figurative that they are given authority as apostles over the church in Jerusalem, over the 12 tribes of Israel, to the Jewish church. Whereas, as we said, Paul was not. Paul had authority in the Gentile churches. But if we are going to suggest that the apostles or that 12 apostles are going to sit someday on 12 literal thrones and judge the 12 tribes of Israel, then it is a good question. You know, who will be the 12?

And I think we'd have to say if that's literally going to happen, it'll have to be Matthias. Because Judas is not going to be there. But it's not necessarily going to be taken literally. Well, that depends on your instincts about that. Some people have a real hard time taking anything non-literally. Other people find it a little easier.

I think that Jesus did speak non-literally on many occasions, and so I'm able to see it that way. Okay. Very good. All right.

If that helps a lot, I'll be able to tell him next week. Thank you. Okay, Carol.

God bless you. Thanks for your call. Our next caller is Jeffrey from San Francisco. Hi, Jeffrey. Good to hear from you again. I can ask you three questions.

I'll make it really quick if possible. Would you agree with me when I say to you that the greatest revival in church history is yet to take place? Well, I would like to think so. I don't know of anything that would make it possible for me to predict that, but I think it could be.

I hope for it, and I pray for it. Yeah. Your second question. Well, I would say that it is, simply because when I talked to you before, White Christ, what's he waiting for to return, I'd say that there has to be one last great revival across the world before Christ returns, the Great Commission must be complete. Have you heard of that 1040 window?

It has to be closed. Yeah. And you think about it. It's been 2,000 years.

So why hasn't the gospel been spread everywhere? I mean, and now with the technology that we have. Right. Now we need your other two questions because my lines are full and I only have a half hour.

So you have two other questions? Well, quickly, numerology. I know you don't believe in numerology, but I would say to you numerology is part of the word of God. For example, you know, we can't live without numbers. Numbers are not manmade.

They were given to us by God to live in space and time. So you think about it. When you check your bank balance, there's numbers. How old you are involves numbers.

You weigh yourself numbers. Okay, but that's not, but that doesn't really support any kind of numerology. That just, we know there are numbers.

Yes, there are. There have always been numbers. No, anything that has to do with numbers is a part of numerology.

That's what I'm trying to say. Well, then nobody denies numerology, but you're talking about some kind of a mystical meaning of numbers, are you not? Well, that also includes that, but it's really not mystical.

It's mystical to most of the world, but it's not mystical. Okay, so what is your question? What is your question about that? Had the majority of the Jewish people accepted Christ as the promised Messiah and his first coming, that would undoubtedly change the course of biblical history.

What is involved in that? Life is a number. Life is a numbers game. So numbers are true. The Trinity has a number, 777. Okay, but no, no, I'm asking what your question is.

I'm not asking for a sermon, only a question. Well, my question has to do, doesn't that give you any indication that numerology is biblical? No, no, nothing you just said tells me anything about numerology. You said if all the Jews had accepted Jesus, history would have changed. You mean the full number of Jews and that makes numerology important?

No, no, no. The majority of the Jewish people at the time, the vast majority had the accepted Christ because there was always Jews that did accept Christ. Of course, the Twelve Apostles and there was a small number, but it would have changed the course of history had the majority of the Jewish people accepted Christ as the Messiah. Right, but that doesn't have anything to do with numerology. That has to do with majorities. Well, that's part of numerology.

It's numbered. Okay, well then what you're calling numerology is merely mathematics. Everybody believes in mathematics, so I thought you were talking about something that is usually called numerology, which is where the Jews and other people have placed some kind of spiritual or mystical significance on certain numbers, but that's not the same thing as mathematics. You're talking about mathematics. It encompasses all of that, mathematics and the mystical thing. Okay, so I didn't hear a question yet unless you're just asking me to confirm what you're saying.

Well, I mean, you know, when Christ returned, you know, his first ministry, you know, his ministry lasted about three and a half years. I mean, everything is numbered in the Bible if you think about it. Okay, okay, okay, fine, but okay, so there's a lot of numbers. Okay, okay, what's your third question?

We know there's a lot of numbers. Okay, my third question, Steve, is, just the last time I'll say something about this, Christ and his humanity concerning marriage. I would know marriage, you know, last time I talked to you, you said that most people think it's a little something dirty about sex, and no, it really isn't. It certainly wasn't intended to be that way, but I would hope you would agree when people have sex, even within a God-ordained marriage, they lose a part of their innocence, okay, and it is of the utmost importance that Christ preserves his innocence. Would you not agree? Well, it depends on what we're calling innocence. The word innocence can mean naivete, and I think that's how you're using it, but if you're using it to, see, innocence can also mean not guilty of anything. If that's the way you mean it, I don't think that Christ, if he had gotten married and had had a sexual relationship with a wife, I don't think he would have lost his, I don't think he would have been guilty of anything, so he'd still be innocent in the moral sense of the word, but you seem to be talking about a certain naivete which people have when they remain virginal, and I agree. I believe that sex, the experience of sex, does cause a person to cross a threshold, an experience that other people haven't had.

It's not a necessary threshold to cross necessarily, but it is there, but I don't know that crossing that threshold makes anyone more corrupt than they were before, and that's, I think, what would make it something, if it was inappropriate for Christ, it would be because it would be corrupt. Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts. We've got lots of people waiting, so I'm going to have to move along here. Let's talk to Timothy from Ontario, California. Timothy, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hey, Steve, thanks for taking my call. Hey, my question is, in the Old Testament, God apparently wanted to have a theocracy between himself and the nation Israel, and had that have happened, well, it did happen, but then they rejected him as their king, what was the idea of them being a nation? Were they to draw other people unto God?

I guess I'm trying to understand that whole concept. Well, the purpose of Israel was to be a holy, that means a set-apart nation, that would live in a way that God wants people to live. God did not really expect the pagan nations to all live the way he wanted to, he would have loved it if they did, but obviously people have free choice, and God knew that most nations were not interested in worshiping him, and most human beings are not interested in worshiping him, but God wanted to have a people, a nation, separate from the other nations where his ways could be practiced, could be revealed, and through whom he could bring the Messiah into the world, who would reach out to all the nations. Now, Israel, in some respects, was supposed to be a light to the nations, we don't really read God giving instructions to the Jews to go out to the nations and disciple them into the Jewish faith, ever, but we know that Abraham's seed, the promise was made that through Abraham's seed all the nations would be blessed. It's hard to know exactly how the Jews understood that, we understand it according to the New Testament, to be a reference to Christ as Abraham's seed, through whom all the nations would be blessed, but he came to this earth through a nation that God had established. I suppose the reason for making them a nation, instead of just a race of scattered people, was that they would have therefore some kind of a society where they could enforce the culture and the values and the laws that God gave them, whereas if they were just strangers and pilgrims throughout all the world, as individuals they could try to live by God's law, but there wouldn't be any way to have a society that followed those ways, not until such a time as Christ came to give his spirit to people who were converted. Now, the church doesn't have a political nation, the church is a spiritual entity because it's spiritual, the Jewish people were not spiritual, they were carnal, and like any other carnal people, the way to keep them in line would be to have laws and have peer pressure and social norms and things like that, and having a national entity to enforce those norms with law is pretty much, I guess, the best way to make that happen. It wasn't the ultimate because God doesn't ultimately want his people to be a political nation. It's a spiritual nation that we now are converted into, and it's international and interracial. But what was going on in the Old Testament, of course, was something that God was doing as a type and a shadow of spiritual things. Israel was a carnal, material community, and they are a type and a shadow, I believe, of Christ and of his kingdom and of his people, which is us. But we aren't politically defined, we are spiritually defined by being born of the Spirit and being a spiritual community. They didn't have that going on, so I guess political was the best way to bind them together, and that's why he made a political nation out of them and gave them instructions to live differently than the pagan nations in a way that he would reveal to them that pleases him.

I get it, I understand. That was a great answer, Steve, I really appreciate that. It seems as though there is, for instance, a physical circumcision and a spiritual circumcision. There's a physical nation, Israel, and there's a spiritual nation, Israel. There's many other things in Scripture that are like that. There seems to be a physical aspect and then this spiritual aspect. And one last thing, I so appreciate your lectures and teachings. I have your app on my phone, so I listen to you every day for hours a day, and I've listened to your lectures on the kingdom of God probably three times, and they're just so good, Steve. I thank you so much for those teachings.

Next month, my wife and I, it'll be 30 years that we have been Christians, and the stuff that I'm learning from you is so new and different from everything that I've been taught and learned. And yet it's all there. It's all right there in the same Bible you've been reading all those years.

And you know what? But when you see it through other people's eyes that are teaching you, as opposed to someone who's teaching what it's actually saying, it's absolutely dumbfounding. That's one of the problems with denominations, I guess, is that they have their own viewpoint and they promote only their own viewpoint. And so people who were converted and raised in those denominations are typically not going to hear much of another viewpoint.

And I guess that's fine if the first thing they hear is perfectly correct, but who can claim that any denomination's views are all perfectly correct? I think it's a lifelong learning experience, but sometimes you have to get out from under the wing of your denomination and hear what other Christians have thought throughout history, or what they're saying now, and weigh them, compare them, test all things. And you know, the sad thing is, Steve, is that for years I listened to this stuff, but in my head it just never made sense. And then when I started listening to you on KBRT at work a few years back, I was just like, okay, what?

This is different from everything I've been taught. So I just appreciate your teachings and your lectures. The stuff on the Kingdom of God is just excellent stuff, and I really appreciate it. I appreciate that.

Thank you very much for saying so. Thanks, Steve. I'll let you get on. I'll talk to you later. Okay, Timothy, thanks for your call. Bye now.

Robert from Austin, Texas, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey, thanks for taking my call. I just have a quick question. I just wanted to know, how do you know when your conversion is true? Because it seems like I just have this lingering sin all the time, and I just want to do everything I can do to serve Jesus Christ, and I just struggle so much, and I've read the books, and I try to fill my brain with a lot of things.

Well, I think there's a reasonably simple answer. How do you know your conversion is true? Well, you told me. You told me how you can know, because you want to serve the Lord. Of course, you sin. Unfortunately, every Christian sins that we wish we couldn't, but that's why we're Christians, because we wish we couldn't. There are people who have no heart for God, and they sin, and they don't wish they didn't. They're glad they do.

It's what they want to do with their life. The fact that you wish you could stop sinning means that you've made a turn. You've repented. You've turned around, and now you want to serve God, but you still have struggles.

There's weakness. There's flesh against spirit at war and so forth, and everyone stumbles sometimes, James said. John said, you know, I write these things to you so that you don't sin, but if anyone does sin, he said in 1 John 2, 1 and 2, if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He's the propitiation for our sins, and not for us only, but for the sins of the world. So he writes, he says, you shouldn't sin. I'm writing to encourage you not to sin. I'm sure you don't want to sin, but if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father. So Christianity calls us away from a life of sin, but it is not necessarily characterized by a sinlessness, at least not early on. You may grow to the point where the sins that you struggle with now simply aren't in your life anymore. There were sins in my life when I was younger that aren't there anymore, but, I mean, that doesn't mean I have no sin.

I probably have other sins, you know, but the point is, Christians unfortunately sin, but one thing they have in common, they don't all sin the same sins, but they all have the same grief over sin and desire not to sin and the determination to repent when they sin so that they can get up and walk in the direction of Christ again. God knows your heart, and God knows the trajectory of your life. If the trajectory of your life is to live in sin without remorse, then you're not a believer. If the trajectory of your life is to live a godly life, but you have failures from time to time, which you regret and of which you repent, and you put them behind you and keep living obediently, that's the evidence that you have a heart that God has put in there, a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone. Your heart is right with God. The reason you repent is because God has written His laws in your heart, and you violate the law so you're upset because your heart, you know, speaks against you, because God's law is there.

But God's law is there because you are a Christian, because He has written His law on your heart. Thank you very much. That's a big encouragement. All right, brother. I'll keep on thank you.

Thank you very much. Bless you. Bye-bye. God bless you, Robert. Good talking to you. All right, let's talk to David from Auburn, Washington. David, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi there, Steve. Just want to thank you for your ministry. God bless you, brother.

And a few quick questions. At the beginning of the show, you had made an announcement that you were going to cover Matthew 7. I just wanted to know if that was going to be recorded or maybe placed on your Facebook for anybody who can't make that meeting to be able to view that. Well, I'm not going to record it tomorrow because it's in a restaurant. There's background noise.

Sometimes there's music playing over speakers. But I certainly have recorded it before. If you go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and you look under the verse-by-verse teachings, I've taught verse-by-verse through Matthew. You can find it there. All right, awesome.

My second question, really quick. Calvinism. When the doctrine was introduced in 400 A.D., I just want to know, is this doctrine harmful in any way, and does it contradict God's character in him being in love? I don't know if this doctrine even shows God's character to be in love, but I'll take my answer offline.

Okay, I appreciate your call. Is there any danger in the Calvinist doctrine? Well, there could be, but I don't think it always materializes. I think there are Calvinists who live as godly a life as anyone who's not a Calvinist. I mean, some of the great Puritan – oh, the Puritan writers were all Calvinists for the most part. And, you know, there's been lots of great Calvinist people. Their Calvinism apparently didn't endanger their souls because it didn't prevent them from living for God. But people react differently to their doctrines, and some people adopt Calvinist doctrines and don't live for God. And then, if they're not living for God for any of the following reasons. A. I'm elect, and therefore I can't lose my salvation. Or B. I am not elect, and so why bother trying to live for God because a person who's not elect can't get saved anyway?

I might as well just eat, drink, and be merry. Calvinism has led to both of those abuses at times. It doesn't have to, but it has.

I have known people who've argued exactly that way. In that case, their Calvinism has been very dangerous. It has hurt them, in fact. Now, is Calvinism – does it misrepresent the character of God?

I think it does. It basically says that God doesn't love everybody that He's created. He has elected to save some, although He could save all if He wished.

He doesn't wish to. He wants some to be saved, and He wants some to be damned. And this is clearly what Calvin taught. It's what every consistent Calvinist teaches. Sometimes people who call themselves Calvinists don't even know what Calvinism teaches. And so they say, Oh, I don't believe that. You've mischaracterized it.

No, I didn't. I might have mischaracterized what you believe, but you're not a Calvinist if you don't believe this. I'm talking about Calvinism. I'm talking about what Calvin taught.

What Calvinists teach, what Presbyterianism teaches, what Reformed teaching teaches. If you don't believe that, you're not a Calvinist, because that is what Calvinism does teach, that God sovereignly saved everyone that He wanted to save and did not save the rest because He didn't want to, because if He wanted to, He would have done it, because there's nothing that hinders Him from saving. Man's free will is not a factor in Calvinism. God's will is sovereign, and He overrides all free choice of man. If He has chosen you to be saved, you'll be saved. If He has not chosen you to be saved, you can't be saved. That's Calvinism. And anyone who's a Calvinist or says they're a Calvinist and says, I don't believe that, well, then you better study Calvinism a little more before you call yourself a Calvinist, because you're not a Calvinist if you don't believe that. So that would be, does that misrepresent the character of God? I think it does. I think God wants everyone to be saved.

And I think the only reason some people aren't, it's that people don't want to be saved in some cases, not on God's terms. You've been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We're on Monday through Friday at this same time with an open phone line for you to call with your questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or to talk about areas of disagreement. We are a listener-supported ministry. That means we pay the bills, which is really paid for airtime, only on the basis of income that comes voluntarily from listeners. If you'd like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. You can also donate from the website where everything is free at thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let's talk again tomorrow.