The Narrow Path 10/14

Music playing... Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast.

My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon on the radio and over the internet stream. Some may be listening on our mobile app. If you don't have the mobile app, you may want to get it.

That way you don't have to depend on being near a radio. You can listen to the show. On your phone and past shows as well and many lectures from our website.

The website and the app are TheNarrowPath.com. It's a live Q&A format we do every day. We've been doing it for 23 years on weekdays. We open the phone lines for you to call if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith and would like to bring them up for conversation. You may also call if you have a different viewpoint from the host and would like to disagree.

Feel free to do that. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Tonight I am speaking in Evansville, Indiana. If you happen to be anywhere near there, you may be interested. I'm speaking on the four views of Revelation in a single lecture. The West refers to the fact that it's the West Campus of this church. One Life Church West in Evansville, Indiana. The address and time is posted on our website.

Again, that's 6.30 tonight. Tomorrow night, I'll be speaking in Indianapolis. If you're anywhere near there, we'd love to have you join us. You can get information about the location and time of that gathering simply by going to our website, TheNarrowPath.com and looking at announcements and look at tomorrow night. On Sunday, I'll be speaking in Lafayette, Indiana. I've got three speaking engagements in Indiana tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.

All of those can be found at our website. Next week, I'll be teaching in Albany, Oregon. I think it's Tuesday night. You may want to check our website if you're in the Oregon audience. Join us. I think that'll just be a Q&A time, but I'd love to have you join us there. It's actually in Shedd, in a little church in Shedd, right near Albany. Anyway, that's next week, Tuesday night.

If you're interested in any of those gatherings, just go to TheNarrowPath.com and look under Announcements and you'll find all the pertinent information. All right, our lines are now full, so we'll talk first of all today to Paul from Del Ray Oaks. I'm assuming that's California.

Sounds like a California town. Is that correct, Paul? Yes, it is, Steve.

Good afternoon, my friend. Do you think when we get to heaven we'll have any consciousness of people we've known in our lives who's not there or will be so overcome with ecstasy that we'll be oblivious? That's a very good question. We're not really told in Scripture whether we'll be mindful of our friends and relatives who aren't there. However, it would seem to me that if we were mindful of them, that would somehow inhibit our joy. I mean, after all, if one believes that our lost relatives and friends are in torment in flames down below us and we're partying up in heaven with God, that would kind of dampen it, I think, just knowing that people that we loved are suffering. Now, there are some ways that people have explained this. Some have said that when we are with God in heaven, we will not really be aware of them.

I think that's part of your question. Will we be aware of them? In other words, will we forget them? Will we totally forget people we knew and that were important to us in the past? I don't necessarily think so, and the reason I don't think so is because that would suggest that God has to erase from our memory certain parts of reality that we would not be okay with if we knew.

It would be almost like God has a secret He's keeping from us because He knows that if we figured it out or knew or remembered, we'd really be upset with Him or with the situation. I don't think we're going to know less. I think we're going to know more when we're with Christ.

So, I don't think that we'll just forget about them. Some people give an alternative answer. They say, well, we'll be so in tune with God's thinking at that time that we'll recognize that what has happened to them is really just and really right, and we'll not grieve over it. People will realize that although they were special to us subjectively in this present lifetime, yet objectively seen, they were really criminals against God, and they're getting what they deserve, and therefore, some have argued that we will be sympathetic with the fact that God has put them in hell. Of course, the question of what hell involves is another question that is brought up in this connection. There are people who believe that the traditional view of hell, a place of eternal conscious torment, is not really taught in the Bible, although it has traditionally been taught as if it is, but there is an argument to be made that the idea of eternal torment consciously is not really the biblical teaching, and some feel that instead, people who are not saved will ultimately be just taken out of existence so that they wouldn't be suffering anymore. That would certainly make it easier for those in heaven who knew and loved them to endure, to know that their relatives are not suffering eternally, although they haven't made it to heaven.

Another view of hell out there, and this was held by many Christians in the early church, was that hell is a place where God will allow some to come to their senses and to repent and to be saved. If that's true, of course, that would also mitigate against the sorrow we have that they're not there. So there's a lot of unexplained things. There's actually quite a bit of balls in the air, as it were, that have not landed definitively for our knowledge. Now, God knows. I mean, it's not like there isn't something definitely that is the answer to your question. It's just that since the Bible doesn't address it directly, there are different issues that people have appealed to, biblical interpretations and so forth, that they think might answer your question.

I can't answer it, but I will say this, that if it's necessary to your happiness that you will not remember people who aren't saved once you're there, then it will not be something that will be in your consciousness, I would assume. All right. I appreciate your call, Paul. I don't know that that's the right answer, but it's the only one I can give because we have so little information given to us. Dennis from Detroit, Michigan.

Dennis, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Thank you very much for taking the call. I want to know if America is being spoken of in Jeremiah 50-51, or both chapters 50 and 51. And if you would say no, would you please explain Jeremiah 50-12, because it appears to be talking about America, unless you use some other version besides the King James Version. Well, I don't have any objection to using some version other than the King James Version, but it says in chapter 50 and verse 12 of Jeremiah, your mother will be deeply ashamed.

She who bore you shall be ashamed. Behold, the least of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land and desert. You were talking about Jeremiah 50-12, right? Yeah, 50 verse 12, because if you use the King James, it talks about the hinders most of the nations, which appears to be the last great nation that comes on the scene. And that's a big difference from the least of the nations, it appears to me. Yeah, the hinders most of the nations would be the King James Word, the least of the nations, modern translators understand that to mean.

I think they're probably correct, the modern translators are probably more correct in saying that he's referring to the least prestigious or the least powerful of the nations, that he's referring to there rather than the last one to come up, because being the last nation to come along is not particularly significant. I mean, the point is that the nation of Babylon will be despised by even the least nations, the ones that were the most inferior to it, not necessarily ones that came up later. I don't see America in the prophecies against Babylon. Jeremiah 50 and 51 are a prophecy about the fall of Babylon, and of course there was a historic fall of Babylon, and there's every reason to believe that Jeremiah's predictions were about that. Now when you come to Revelation, you've got a Babylon there too. There's Babylon the great, the mother of harlots. The identity of that Babylon is very much disputed. It's almost certainly not the same Babylon that was in Jeremiah because that Babylon fell after Jeremiah's time, but long ago from our perspective. But in Revelation, there's many theories about what Babylon is, and there are certainly many who have suggested that Babylon in Revelation is America.

That's not my personal view, but there are a lot who have thought that. My own way of understanding Revelation is that it's primarily about the fall of Jerusalem. In AD 70, I think that Jerusalem is being called Babylon there, just as Jerusalem is called Edom and Sodom. I'm sorry, Egypt and Sodom in Revelation 11.8. In other words, the names of pagan nations are assigned as nicknames for Jerusalem because Jerusalem has become pagan.

And so the names of nations that Jerusalem despised and looked down on as pagan are now, well, you're it. It's sort of like in Isaiah chapter 1, where he said to Israel, you know, unless God had left us a remnant, we would have become like Sodom and like Gomorrah. And they start speaking to Judah and calls it Sodom, O Sodom, O Gomorrah.

It's a way of, you know, basically insulting them, saying you are just as bad. So in Revelation 11.8, we find that there's that, it says there's that city that is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified. Obviously a reference to Jerusalem, and it's Sodom and Egypt. I think Revelation, which refers to Jerusalem as Sodom and Egypt, also refers to it as Babylon. So in Revelation, I'm not one of those who think that Babylon is the United States. I have a different view. In Jeremiah, I don't know of very many real Bible scholars who would think it is the United States since it's addressed to Babylon, and there's not a clue in the passage that it means anything other than Babylon, and predicts the fall of Babylon, which actually occurred after it was uttered.

So taking it in its natural sense as being about the kingdom of Babylon would be the way I think is the most responsible way to go. Okay, let's talk to Jacob from Fife, Washington. Jacob, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Thanks for calling. I see you, Shalom. I need to help reconciling five things from the Bible. Let me know if you believe any of these are not found in the Bible.

Five things? Yes. Okay, so you're going to tell me about five things that you think are in the Bible, and you wonder if I think they're in the Bible?

Is that what you're saying? No, I just want to reconcile them together, since they're all in the Bible. Okay, quickly. Okay, one, the dead in Christ will rise first, and those alive will rise to complete the verse. Two, absent from the body, present was the Lord. Three, in my Father's house are many rooms or mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.

If I go, I will come and receive you to myself. Four, it is the plan for man once to die and after this the judgment. And five, the sheep will be separated from the goats. Take a listen to your answer on the phone.

Okay, thank you for your call, Jacob. Well, there's not really a problem with reconciling them. They all kind of, well, four of the five actually supplement each other.

One of the five is not relevant to the same subject at all. But to say that when Jesus comes back, he's going to raise the dead and rapture the church is the consistent teaching of the New Testament. And so you mentioned 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. That is the resurrection of the rapture which occurs as the passage itself says, when the Lord himself descends from heaven with a shout. Now, when Paul said he's willing to be absent from the body and present with the Lord in 2 Corinthians 5.

Or in Philippians 1 where he says, I'm eager to depart and be with the Lord which is much better. He's referring to dying and leaving his body. That's why he calls it being absent from the body. If he didn't leave his body, he would not be absent from it. But the idea is that he and all of us are not really our bodies. We are a soul that lives in a body. The body is our house. The body is our vehicle that we operate through in this world. And when we die, we leave the body.

We're absent from it, Paul said. And so as I understand it, Paul believed and I also believe that when I die, my spirit or my soul will depart from my body and be with the Lord. But the body will remain behind and that's why I'm absent from it. Now the resurrection that we spoke of in 1 Thessalonians is when the body itself is raised at the second coming of Christ. And obviously when my body is raised, I will live in it again.

It'll be glorified and it'll be a supernatural body, but it'll still be my body. So of the passages mentioned so far, Paul believed that when he dies, his spirit goes be with the Lord. But when Jesus comes back, then when Jesus comes, he brings with him. And this is an actual phrase that Paul uses in 1 Thessalonians 4. I think it's verse 14 or 15 in 1 Thessalonians 4. So he brings our spirits back with us, raises our bodies and we live in them.

So that's how those are harmonized. The idea that we'll all be judged like the sheep and the goats is also part of the whole picture. When he raises the dead, he raises not only the Christian dead but the non-Christian dead and he brings them to the judgment, which is what Jesus describes there in Matthew 25, beginning at verse 31 that Jesus calls all the nations before him and he judges them, separates between them like sheep and goats. The sheep go to eternal life, the goats to everlasting judgment and punishment. So all these verses really are part of one consistent picture.

They're not really in conflict with each other. The one you mentioned that I think is not relevant to the others is in John 14 where Jesus said, In my Father's house are many rooms and I go to prepare a place for you. In that passage, Jesus is referring not to heaven and not to the end of the world. He's actually talking about his going to heaven at that point to prepare a place for us in his Father's house. Now his Father's house is the body of Christ here on earth. God dwells within us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Paul refers to us as the temple of God and there's several references to that. Hebrews refers to us as God's house and Jesus himself indicates that the many rooms in his Father's house are individual people who are part of God's house. We are God's house. Peter says in 1 Peter 2.5 that we are living stones being built up into a spiritual house, meaning a temple. God's house is the temple. Earlier in John's Gospel, Jesus referred to the Jewish temple as his Father's house.

He said, Do not make my Father's house a house of merchandise. My Father's house there is the temple. It does not refer to heaven.

Some people unfortunately feel that it does, but it simply doesn't. There's no place in the Bible that heaven is called God's house. In the Old Testament, you do read of God's house, but it's referring to the tabernacle or the temple of Solomon. That's God's house. In the New Testament, in the early stages before the New Covenant comes, Jesus refers to Herod's temple as God's house. And then later, of course, when he says to the Jews, Your house is left to you desolate, he is no longer thinking of the temple as God's house, but their house. And he tells his disciples up in the upper room, My Father still has a house and has got many rooms.

But he actually says in verse 21 of the same chapter, He it is that has my commandments and does them. He it is that loves me and my Father will love him and we will come and make our home or with him. That is our dwelling place with him.

Our rooms will be with that person. In other words, the person will be a habitation of God and the collective of all the people who are the habitation of God make up the house, the church, the body of Christ. Jesus had to go to heaven to prepare a place for us in his body because he didn't have a body on earth before he ascended. He himself was the body of Christ entirely. When he ascended, he became the head and poured out his spirit, which had been in his body, upon all his followers and they were incorporated now into his body. It was because of the coming of the spirit that we now have a place in the body of Christ.

And this would not have happened if he hadn't gone away. So he said, I have to go away to prepare a place for you. He also said a few verses later, if I don't go with the spirit, it won't come. Same thing, the Holy Spirit comes and places us in the body of Christ. And so the body of Christ is the Father's house.

This is stated numerous times. Paul says it in 1 Timothy 3.15. The writer of Hebrews says it in Hebrews 3.6 and I think 3.13 if I'm not mistaken.

Paul says it in the final verses of Ephesians 2. Paul calls the temple of God in 1 Corinthians 3 and also in 2 Corinthians 6. These are all different places where the New Testament identifies the church, the body of Christ, the people of God collectively as God's house, the temple. The Jewish temple is no longer his house and heaven never was referred to God's house. Neither in the Old Testament nor the New do you ever find heaven referred to as God's house.

Now people get concerned about that. They say, but the Bible says God lives in heaven. Well, He lives everywhere. It's true He has a throne in heaven. The Bible says that. But He lives everywhere and there's nothing ever referred to as His house except the place where He lives among people on earth. His house is here on earth among our houses and He lives among His people in His house. That's what the tabernacle was. That's what the temple was and that's what the body of Christ is now. So that's not really related to the other passages you mentioned about the second coming of Christ.

This is referring to what He was going to accomplish upon rising from the dead and going to heaven and sending His Spirit to us. All right, let's talk to David from Portland, Oregon. David, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Oh, hi. Well, you've got a bad connection. Barely. You're really garbled.

Really garbled. Are you in a bad spot for your cell phone? Yeah, I'm actually looking for it right now. I'm on the YouTube. Can you hear me okay now? Yeah, you sound better than you did at first. Go ahead. What's your question?

Okay, here it is. Anyway, in Chronicles we read a lot about some of these men of renown that were kind of like superheroes. They could wipe out, kill. They were invincible.

They could kill everybody. Yeah, and so my question is, were these people, these superheroes, related to the Nephilim, the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of Adam? No, actually, some of the mighty men of David actually killed off the giants. David, of course, killed one of them, one of the Nephilim, as it were.

I mean, he probably was not one of the original Nephilim. He was one of the giants of David's generation. And Goliath had a father and four brothers who were all giants also. And as you read about the exploits of these mighty men, it's clear that some of them actually killed off Goliath's four brothers. So rather than being the giants, they are the men who killed the giants.

Now, when you say these men sound like superheroes, it's true. What is recorded of them sounds like, you know, amazing, almost superhuman exploits. Actually, they were simply just superior warriors, and one man could often defend one spot and kill off a whole lot of attackers one by one as they came.

The reason this is mentioned is because it was extraordinary. In other words, these guys got their names on the list of David's mighty men by doing the kinds of things that ordinary men don't usually do. But they were, in a sense, ordinary men. They were just mortals. They were not super men like from Krypton or anything like that. They were mortal men who were just valiant and very skilled warriors. And it's amazing that there were so many, but we know that God was on David's side in this situation, and God no doubt gave assistance to these men just like he gave assistance to David to kill Goliath. So David was certainly not a superhero in the sense that we think of it with, you know, supernatural superhuman powers, but he was a great warrior, and so were his mighty men.

And that's what we're supposed to understand about, I think, his mighty men is, namely that they were, in fact, you know, just strong men. There's so many bad noises in your phone there. I had to hang up on you, but I'm sorry.

I should have done it earlier. Actually, I could have just answered your question without that noise screeching. Okay, let's talk to John from Elk Grove, California. John, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve.

How are you doing? Good, thanks. I had a question in Isaiah chapter 49 at the end of verse 6 where it says, I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the end of the earth. That's the NIV version. Who is that referring to? This is one of the passages in Isaiah that's called a servant of Yahweh poem or song. There are several in this section of Isaiah, and the servant of Yahweh is spoken to in this way in each of these passages. In some cases, the servant of Yahweh is identified as Israel, but it's obvious that in some other cases it's referring to Jesus. For example, Isaiah 53 is one of those passages.

It's the last of them in Isaiah, and it's a very clear reference to Jesus. The way I think we're supposed to understand it is that God chose Israel to be His servant in the earth, to bring the light to the Gentiles as mentioned here. However, there's a passage in which God says, but My servant Israel is blind. They failed.

They didn't bring forth any fruit. And so we find that Jesus, the Messiah, is called to step in as the role of servant where Israel failed. So there's a sense in which the commission to the servant is to Israel, but they don't fulfill it. It is fulfilled by Jesus, who is the epitome of an Israelite. I personally believe that the Bible treats Israel as a type and a shadow of Christ, which would mean a historic reality that looks forward to Christ, and Christ is the fulfillment of it. So He's the true Israel. He said He's the true vine. In the Old Testament, Israel was the vine.

He's the true son of God. In the Old Testament, Israel was God's firstborn, and so forth. A lot of the titles that belong to Israel, including Servant of Yahweh in these passages, is applied in the New Testament to Jesus. So it's like Israel had a role.

They didn't fulfill it. So God raised up one from their midst, one of the seed of Abraham, who is the Messiah, and He fulfilled it. So I think it's Jesus who is spoken of as fulfilling this promise. Although Paul quotes it, he and Barnabas say that they have this commission. But see, they're part of the body of Christ. Christ fulfills this, being a light to the Gentiles, through members of His body, like the preachers of the Gospel.

Paul quotes it in Acts 13, I believe. Anyway, I'm going to have to run. I hope that answers your question adequately.

Certainly my lectures on Isaiah would clarify that more in detail. Thank you for joining us. We're not done. We have another half hour coming, but we do take a break to let you know The Narrow Path is listener supported. You can write to us at this address. The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com.

I'll be right back. Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. Welcome to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg.

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My name is Steve Gregg. We are live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or you see things differently than the host does and want a balanced comment, feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737.

That's 844-484-5737. And for those of you who weren't listening during the first half hour, I just want to announce that tonight, tomorrow and Sunday, I'll be speaking in different venues in Indiana. Now, right now, I don't think we're on a radio station in Indiana.

We used to be in Indianapolis, so we probably have people who are now listening by way of our app or online. So, if you're interested in these meetings, go to our website thenarrowpath.com. Look under the tab that says Announcements and you'll find where I'm speaking tonight, tomorrow night and on Sunday night. Now, next week I'll be speaking in Oregon, one time at least for the general public. I'll be there speaking for youth with a mission for several days, but one evening we've booked for a public meeting in the Albany area. And so, if you'd like to join us in Oregon, you would also want to go to thenarrowpath.com. Look at the Announcements tab and then find out where we're going to be and join us.

Be glad to see you there. We've got a lot of calls waiting right now. Their lines are full, so let's talk to Joe from Seattle, Washington. Joe, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hello, Steve. Thanks for taking the call.

Sure. Yeah, so I've got a question based on Acts 28 toward the end, starting at verse 23. Paul had recently arrived in Rome. He had summoned the Jewish leaders to his home and he had begun to share the Gospel with them.

Some of them accepted, some rejected. He got exasperated and that's when he said in verse 28, Therefore, let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles and they will hear it. My question is, why did he speak so generally about the fact that the Gentiles would hear it? He makes it sound as if it's all-encompassing that more of them would receive it than the Jews had. Clearly we do.

Yeah, go ahead. That is, I believe, what he was saying and partly because it's true. There are certainly more Gentiles who have received the Gospel than there are Jews who have done so. That's partly due to the fact that there's a lot more Gentiles in the world than there are Jews. It may be, I don't know if anyone knows this figure, but it may be that a larger percentage of Jews have become Christians than the percentage of Gentiles. I don't know that's true. It might not be true. But we do know that when you take the total number of believers in Christ, the overwhelming majority are Gentiles and only a relatively small percentage are Jews.

So he was quite correct. He's not saying that every Gentile would receive it any more than he's saying that every Jew would reject it. But as a whole, the Jews did not show up in the numbers you'd expect to receive the Messiah that had been prophesied to them for so many years. You would have expected all or most of them to receive it, but the minority of the Jews who did receive Christ is shockingly small. And yet the Gentiles, who had never shown any real interest in Yahweh, the God of the Jews, through Christ being preached, they have been brought in by the millions and tens of millions. So I think he's simply saying that the Gentiles are going to be more responsive than you guys are. He says it by way of irony because obviously he's preaching about the Messiah and the Messiah was promised to Israel, the Jews.

They're the ones you would think would be receiving it. He says, well, you're rejecting it, but surprise, surprise, the Gentiles will receive it. And Jesus said that too.

Yeah, I noticed there's an exclamation point. I'm looking at the New King James at verse 28 when he makes that declaration. So it's almost as if he's really, I don't want to say being hyperbolic.

Well, he's not being hyperbolic. He's simply exclaiming something that's an irony. Jesus said the same thing when the Roman centurion came seeking help and he exhibited great faith. And Jesus said, I've not found this kind of faith in all Israel.

In other words, here's a Gentile man in the occupying army of Rome that's occupying Israel. And this man has more faith in Israel's God and in Christ than Jesus had found among the Israelites themselves. And he then goes on to say, and many will come from the east and the west, meaning other countries outside Israel, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. And he says, yet the sons of the kingdom, which is a reference to the Jews themselves, will be cast out into outer darkness.

So this is meant to be something that's shocking. It's not so shocking to you and me if we are Gentiles who become Christians. Probably the vast majority of Christians we know are Gentiles, so there's no shock to us. But at this point, Jesus had not been preached to the Gentiles yet. And the Jews assumed that they were the chosen people. They were the ones the Messiah would save. And maybe some of the Gentiles would get saved too, maybe in a trickle, but not certainly more than the Jews. And Jesus said, yeah, it's going to happen that way. Many will come from the east and west and sit down in the kingdom of God, while many of the children of the kingdom, that is the former heirs of the kingdom, the Jews, would be cast out. So that is, yeah, that's the teaching of Jesus. That's the teaching of the Old Testament too.

And it's, you know, what Paul says is, strictly speaking, true. Okay, let's talk to Malachi from British Columbia. Malachi, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey Steve, how you doing? I'm well, thanks.

Good, good. I was traveling home yesterday, I was listening to your show, and I thought I heard you say something about Revelation 20. What I thought I heard you say about it was that you don't believe that there's a thousand year reign right at the return of Christ.

That's correct. And you kind of just pooh-poohed Revelation 20 away, because there's some things that Peter said or somewhere else in the Bible. So I'm just curious as to, because it's an extremely descriptive chapter, and it seems, Revelation seems pretty sequential to me from chapter 17 on. I'm wondering where the thousand year reigns, where you put that then.

I don't understand. Yeah, I mean, I think you just said that I pooh-poohed Revelation 20. I do know, by no means do I do that. I don't disregard it.

My habit is to exegete a passage. And so I probably exegete the passage in Revelation 20 more thoroughly, if you listen to my lectures in Revelation, probably more thoroughly than any other teacher you've heard, since you've never heard the views I hold. But you said Revelation 17 to the end are pretty much sequential. Well, maybe they are, and maybe they're not.

We don't know that to be the case. The visions of Revelation do not necessarily follow each other entirely in chronological order. For example, chapter 11, when the seventh trumpet sounds, it's pretty much the end of the world and the judgment of the world.

And the nations of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and he'll reign forever. But then the next chapter goes back to the birth of Jesus in chapter 12. So you see that Revelation sometimes is looking at things, the future, sometimes they're looking at the past.

In my opinion, the events of chapter 20... It says from 17 on. Well, yeah, that's your understanding. That's not my understanding. I believe that Revelation 20 does not necessarily have to follow in fulfillment Revelation 19. Now, even the interpretation of Revelation 19 may be less determined than you think. For example, when you see Jesus riding on a white horse, striking the nations with a sword out of his mouth, I'm pretty sure you probably figured that's the second coming of Christ. And it could be.

I'm certainly open to that possibility. It's what I used to teach and what I was always taught. But many commentators have believed that that's not a reference to the second coming of Christ, but to Christ riding forth through the world, conquering the world through the gospel, which has been going on for the last 2,000 years. And so, I mean, there are different ways to interpret that. But assuming that you interpret chapter 19 as the second coming of Christ, which many people do, and then you read about the binding of Satan for 1,000 years, you're seeing that as sequential.

I'm not. I believe the binding of Satan is described elsewhere in Scripture in passages that aren't giving apocalyptic visions. For example, Jesus in Matthew 12 said that he had bound the strong man and was spoiling his house.

Well, the strong man is Satan, certainly. And therefore, Jesus indicated that he had bound Satan, and that's why he was able to cast demons out and spoil Satan's house that way. In Colossians 2, 15, it says that through the cross, Jesus disarmed the principalities and powers and made a show of them openly and triumphed over them in it. His defeat of Satan and the principalities and powers are said to take place at the cross. In Hebrews 2, verse 14, it says that Jesus, through death, destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Now, we know that he's not thoroughly destroyed.

He exists, but he's been definitely the loser. Jesus conquered him. Now, many people throughout church history, in fact, most, most through church history have believed that the binding of Satan at the beginning of Revelation 20 is symbolic for what Christ accomplished against Satan at the cross. And in verse 9, when fire from heaven comes down and consumes the devil and the enemies of the church, that that is the second coming of Christ. Because Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 1, 8 that Jesus will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don't know God and who don't obey the gospel. The majority view throughout history of the church has been that the beginning of the 2,000 years is marked from the first coming of Christ, and that the second coming of Christ is found after that period of time and is found in verse 9. After verse 9, we have the general resurrection and the judgment, and Jesus said that would happen on the last day.

So the last day would be when the resurrection and the judgment take place, and that is after the fire comes down from heaven, which was identified as the second coming of Christ. So the thousand years that lie between the binding of Satan and the burning up of Satan were taken to be a symbolic number, referring to the whole age of the church between the first and second coming of Christ. This view is called Amillennialism, and virtually almost all Christians from about 400 A.D. to 1800 A.D., for about almost 1,500 years, almost all Christians held this view. Now, before that time, some people held the view that you hold that there's a future millennium, but not everyone did. That was the view of some, and since the early 1800s, that view has become popular again. That's called Premillennialism. So the view you hold is called Premillennialism. The view I hold is called Amillennialism.

It doesn't really matter which view is more popular. It's just surprising. It was surprising to me to learn because I was trained to be a Premillennialist. I didn't know because my teachers simply neglected to say, or maybe they didn't know, that Premillennialism is the minority view throughout church history and Amillennialism is the majority view. Now, the majority could be wrong, but I was just shocked to learn that almost all Christians throughout history held such a different view than what I was taught.

So that's why I don't make the same mistake of not letting you know. Here's the thing, if you see in chapter 19, verse 20, it talks about the false prophet and the beast being thrown into the lake of fire. You go over to chapter 20, and you go to verse 10, and it says, And the devil, the deceived, and was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are. So clearly they've already been there for a period of time, and that period of time is described to us as a thousand years. And then you have witnesses, you have the saints. How could the saints be there if they didn't come back already?

Come where? Where do you think the saints are? In verse 9, it says, Well, the reason the saints are on earth is because they've never left the earth yet. That happens within this present age, before Jesus comes back. It's the fire from heaven in verse 9 that is the second coming of Christ by this view. So the camp of the saints mentioned in the previous verse is truly on earth.

It's us. And then Jesus comes back after Satan has made a siege on the beloved city, which is of course the church. Yeah, I think rather than take all the points right now and try to argue them, I would prefer to suggest that you listen to my lecture on Revelation 20. It's free.

Everything's free at the website. Well, I haven't heard it. I've heard Doug Hamp's view on the same thing. I listen to him. I quite like him. I don't know if you know who he is. Doug Hamp and I debated once. Doug Hamp and I have debated each other because I'm not a Hebrew Roots person, and he is.

But I don't know what he thinks about the millennium. But the point is, I do go over every single verse and actually compare the rest of Scripture with it in my lectures, which is something I can't really take the time to do now with a full switchboard. Though I do appreciate you bringing it up. No problem. Appreciate the call. Thank you. All right. God bless you, brother. Bye now. You too. Okay.

Alan from Lebanon, Connecticut. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. May it be received. May peace and blessing be on your house, my friend. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much. Now, I'm going to have a short prologue. Let me just have a short reading from 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 27 from Christian State in the Bible. You mentioned it in passing in explanations early in the show. Now, you are the body of Christ, individual members of it.

In my better times, I dialogue with two groups from India, one from Punjab, one their founder's city is underwater at the time. They say that our souls are part and parcel of God. Now, when we dialogue with monistic pantheists, my understanding is when it's written you are the body of Christ, it means possessive. Am I right on that? And how do we juxtaposition our body of Christ, our being part of the body of Christ, with their saying that we're part and parcel of God? Is that clear? Well, first of all, I don't know the groups that you're dialoguing with who say… Well, I can tell you what they are if you want to. You don't need to.

I don't need to know who they are. But the idea that our souls are part and parcel of God is certainly a statement the Bible doesn't make, and therefore we would not have any obligation to credit it with being true. If it is true, it's not clear exactly in what sense that's true. So I wouldn't have my starting point for harmonization be, well, our souls are part and parcel of God, so how do we work with these other details? Again, if there's a sense in which our souls are part and parcel of God, the Bible leaves that unstated, and it's not explained how that would be so, in which case it can't really be a Christian doctrine, or at least a biblical doctrine. Some things may be true without being taught in the Bible.

For example, I was born in 1953. The Bible doesn't mention that, but it's true anyway. The Bible can mention things. There can be true things that the Bible doesn't say anything about. But if it doesn't say anything about it, then it's not part of biblical theology. So this idea that our souls are part and parcel of God is somebody's wording of an opinion that they have.

I don't feel any obligation to agree with that opinion necessarily. But when it comes to the idea of the body of Christ, when Paul says you are the body of Christ, he doesn't mean that my physical body, my hands, my feet, and my organs and stuff, that that is the body of Christ. You is plural in the Greek.

It's you. Christians collectively are the body of Christ, and each of you is a member of the body of Christ. So he's not speaking about my body is Christ's body. Of course, I belong to Christ, but that's not the point he's making. He's saying we are the body in which Christ is embodied.

Just like Jesus born in a manger in Bethlehem, that baby was Christ's body. Now he's the head, and we are the eyes and the nose and the hands and the feet and the members of his body. That's what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 12. So what he sees is that the spirit of Christ, which animated and empowered Christ, has now been given to his followers. And the possession of the Holy Spirit of Christ makes us the embodiment of Christ. And each of us have the same spirit, and therefore we're all part of one body, but we don't have all the same gifts. Paul says that each one has a distinctive gift that the Holy Spirit has given according to his will. But the gifts that he's given us function to identify the part of the body we really are. I mean, just like your hands do one thing and your feet do another thing. So you would have one gift, I'd have another gift, and that would identify us as different parts of the body, but of the same body. We're not different. There's not a thousand bodies of Christ.

There's only one, and we all belong to that. All right, let's talk to Dale from Sacramento, California. Dale, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hi, Stu. Thanks for all of your information. I've learned a lot. Thank you. Now, my question is on Revelation 13, 16 to 18. Okay. And I don't know if you have it there or not, but it has to do with the mark. The mark of the beast, sure. Yeah. I'm kind of getting tired. I've been a Christian for many years, but I'm getting tired of a lot of believers who keep saying that we're going to get a chip in our bodies, a chip in our head and a chip in our hands.

Well, that's not a mark, is it? I get so tired of hearing these armchair theologians with this, and I would like you to please explain that so that I can be educated once more. You helped me with dispensationalism.

Now I need some help with that. Okay. Well, I have to say that many of the people who say that are not strictly armchair theologians. Some of them are very prestigious theologians of the dispensational camp. I disagree with their camp. I disagree with their theology, but they're not slouches. It's not like because I disagree with them I'm a good theologian and they're not.

It's rather they're experts in their field, but I think their camp is mistaken. And they do say that, now they say often, that the mark of the beast is in fact a computer chip that will be placed in us. And since there's a lot of talk about that in the news that gets them all excited to say, oh, this is it. This is the mark of the beast. You know, Bill Gates is going to force us to get a COVID shot and it's going to contain a little chip.

And then we're doomed. We've got the mark of the beast. Well, a chip under the skin is not a mark. A mark is something visible. In fact, that's the point of a mark. You mark something so it's identifiable.

And so I don't think that a chip in the hand is a mark. But when I was younger, the same people, the very same teachers, were saying that the mark of the beast would be a laser tattoo on the hand of the forehead. Now, that was the, you know, the cutting edge sexy technology of the time, this invisible laser tattoo that could only be seen under a black light or something. That's old technology now.

That's so, you know, that's so 70s. So basically, the same teachers have given up on the laser tattoo. Now they're saying a chip because that's what's sexy and that's what's in the news. Now, if the chip goes the way of the laser tattoo and some other thing comes along, they'll be saying that's the mark of the beast. Now, the mark of the beast is not anything technological, as near as I can tell.

I mean, if it is, the Bible certainly doesn't suggest it. The mark of the beast on the forehead, for example, is probably in principle very similar to the mark or the name of God on the forehead of the saints in the very next verse. In Revelation 14.1, John saw the 144,000. They had their father's name on their forehead. Well, the servants of the beast have the beast's name or mark or number on their forehead or on their hand.

The idea is a fairly well-known one in the Roman world at the time, and so the readers of Revelation would not have been mistaken about this. They would have recognized that having a mark on your hand or your forehead indicates you're somebody's slave. Because in the Roman world, runaway slaves, once they were caught, were often branded by their master on their hand or their forehead. The hand or the forehead are very difficult to cover with clothing, more or less.

I mean, if you've got any part of you showing, usually your hand or your forehead would be one. So you couldn't very easily conceal whose slave you were if you had the mark of your master on your forehead or on your hand. Now, God's servants have his name on their forehead, according to Revelation 14.1. The others have the devil's or the beast's name or mark on their forehead and hand. Now, as Christians do not literally have a stamp on their forehead with God's name, neither, in my opinion, do the devil's worshippers and followers have his name stamped on them or implanted on them or anything like that.

This is a spiritual condition. A person is a servant of God if they love and serve God. And a person is a servant of Satan and his system if they love and serve that system. And so, being a servant is symbolized by having your master's name on your forehead or on your hand. And this is a symbolic way, I believe, of saying that throughout the world, people are either the servants of Satan or the servants of God. They either have God's name as their master on their forehead or the devil's. Now, the hand and the forehead in the Bible sometimes represent your works. Your hands represent your works.

And the forehead, or the place between your eyes, is your thoughts. In Deuteronomy 6, God told Israel to bind his law to their hands and between their eyes, that is, their foreheads. And the Jews, who wanted to take that very literally, would wear phylacteries. They'd have boxes that they'd wear on their foreheads or on their hands that had scriptures in them. But, of course, God didn't mean wear printed scriptures in a box on your hand or forehead. He meant he wanted their thoughts and their actions to be governed by, to be bound by God's will, which was revealed in his law. They're to bind his words, his laws, on their hands and forehead, a symbol of governing their thoughts and their actions or their works by God's Word. And, no doubt, the hand and the forehead in Revelation also suggest that the person who's got the devil's or the beast's name and number on their forehead or hand, they are recognizable by the way they think and the way they act, just as Christians are recognizable by the way they think and the way they act. And so, it's saying that just as a slave in the Roman marketplace, one could easily look at them and see whose master, whose slave they were, who was their master, by the mark on their hand or forehead. So, when you meet a person and you see how they think and how they act, it identifies them either as a follower of the devil's way or of God. And I think that that's what's being said in that passage.

I don't think it has anything to do with chips or laser tattoos or anything like that. Thank you so much. All right, Dale. Thank you for your call. Good to hear from you. Tom from San Francisco, I only have like a minute.

Do you want to take it or is that too little? I don't know, Steve, but thank you for taking it. I just wanted your views on Catholicism and Christian Science.

Okay. Well, Christian Science is not Christianity because it does not recognize Christ for who the Bible says He is. It actually thinks He's a scientist. It's actually the first Church of Christ scientist. They think that Jesus did His miracles by exploiting natural laws or spiritual laws like a scientist does. But He said He did it because He was bringing the Kingdom of God and God was working through Him.

That's a very different thing. So, they're not a Christian organization. The Roman Catholics, many of them are true Christians. And I believe many Roman Catholics are following Jesus and will be in heaven. But I think the organization has been very much corrupted. And I don't recommend Roman Catholicism as a religion or as an institutional religion.

But I don't condemn all people who are Roman Catholics, just like I don't condemn everyone who's a Baptist or a Presbyterian or someone else, even though some people in their leadership might be wrong. I'm sorry I'm out of time. I'm off the air in like 10 seconds. If you've been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast, our website is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. Everything's free. And let's talk again tomorrow. God bless you.