The Narrow Path 10/20

Music Good afternoon and welcome to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each week the afternoon where we have an open phone line for you to call if you want to call and discuss questions that you have on your mind about the Bible or the Christian faith or anything really that is of concern to a Christian or to a non-Christian about Christianity. If you're not a Christian and want to clarify some things, maybe you are just curious. Maybe you're hostile toward the Christian faith.

Maybe you think the Bible is a lot of bunk and you wonder why any modern person would ever believe in it. You're welcome to call here. You can call if you have a question or if you have a disagreement.

I'd be glad to hear from you. At the moment, however, our lines are full, so I'm just going to let you know what the number is. And if you call in a few minutes, you will find lines do open up in the course of the hour. The number to call is 844-484-5737.

That's 844-484-5737. And just one announcement and that is that tonight I am in the Albany, Oregon area in a little church. The address is in Shedd. It's outside Albany. And I'm going to be just having a question and answer time, I believe, tonight there. And if you want to know about that, if you want to join us there and you're in the area, feel free to go to our website, thenarrowpaths.com, and you will get the address and the time of the meeting and all of that. So that's tonight in the Albany area. And it's the last time I'm speaking in a public meeting here in Oregon for a while. I've been just a few days here in Oregon.

I'm going back to Indiana and going to drive home with my family and back home to California, where I'm speaking a couple of times on the way home, too, as we've been on this road trip for all month. Anyway, that's tonight. If you happen to be in the Albany area, feel free to join us. The number to call, if you'd like to, is 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Ralph calling from Connecticut. Ralph, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Yes, how are you? I have a couple questions. In Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 3, 16, if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer a loss, but he himself shall be saved. However, here's what I'm talking about. I'm a little confused with yet so as by fire. Some people can consider that purgatory.

How do you feel about that? And also, I've been listening to you, and I guess at times you talk about hell, and I don't quite understand the certain categories of hell. I don't see that anywhere in Scripture. Maybe you can tell me where that is? Well, I actually wrote a book about that, where I bring out hundreds of passages that are about the different views of hell.

Which things are you wondering about? Different levels of hell. Okay, different levels of hell.

Well, as far as different levels of hell are concerned, we don't know very much about that, but we know that God is just, and we know that He would never punish two people equally if their culpability and sin was not equal. Jesus did say, for example, when He was rebuking Capernaum in some of the cities of Israel that He had spoken in, but they had rejected Him, He said that the judgment day will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for them. Now, we have to assume Sodom and Gomorrah are not referred to as a group of saved cities, so the judgment upon them is severe, but it'll be worse for Capernaum. And so the guilt is greater of Capernaum because they had more light and they rejected it, and therefore He says, you know, Sodom's judgment will be less, or it'll be more tolerable than theirs. In Luke, Jesus said that a servant who did not know his master's will and therefore failed to do it will be beaten with few stripes, but a servant who knew his master's will and did not do it will be beaten with many stripes. Now, this is a figure of speech talking about a servant who didn't do his master's will and his master came and punished him, but this is no doubt talking about God's judgment upon people as well, that if they don't know as much, they don't have as much responsibility, therefore their judgment will be less than somebody who knew more and didn't respond to the light they had.

So, I mean, these statements generally give the impression that not all people who are lost have the same judgment, that there will be degrees of judgment related to the degree of culpability. There's not much, not much in the Bible about it, but there's those things and those do definitely give that impression. Now, when it comes to Paul saying that a man's works will be burned up yet, he'll be saved yet as by fire, we have to understand that the context of this, he's not just talking about ordinary men, he's talking about leaders and builders of the church. He has been comparing himself with Apollos in this chapter up to this point and he said that he and Apollos, far from being competitors as the Corinthians were viewing them, they were co-workers on the same project. They were workers in God's field and on God's building. Now, he's referring to the Corinthian church as God's field and God's building and seeing the church as God's field, he said, I planted the seeds, Apollos watered the seeds and God gave the increase. So, he's basically saying, Apollos and I worked together on the same project, I did the initial part, planting the seeds and then he kind of increased it by watering the seeds. They said, seeing the church as God's building, he says, I laid the foundation, which is comparable to planting the seeds in the field.

He laid the foundation of the building and he says, another comes and builds on it. Now, he means Apollos and others who would come and build on the foundation of the church with their teaching and their ministries, he said, but they should be careful how they build on it because if they build with gold, silver and precious stones, their work will endure testing as by fire and if they build with wood, hay and stubble, their work will not. Now, their work is the church, they're building the church and the question is, what are these ministers building with?

Are they using the right materials or are they using the wrong materials? Are they being faithful to build the church as they should or are they not? He says, if they're not, they may indeed be saved, but when their work is tested by fire, it won't stand up. So, they may be saved, but they'll just do so as it were, like someone who got out of a burning house, they got saved through the fire, but they left everything behind and I think that's what he means as by fire.

He's not necessarily, he's not necessarily talking about, you know, the afterlife or he could, I mean, there could be a relevance here to the afterlife. Is the word fire at the end of that paragraph, you know, the one I'm questioning, is that the same word in the Greek? Yeah, it's the ordinary word for fire, right. Fire is virtually always the same word, but it's not always used in the same way, you know. It's not always used in the same way just like, the same context as what? See, the way I look at it, I think one can look at that in various ways.

Sure, but Paul only means it one way, yeah. Okay, and getting back to the hell. Hello, hello, are you there?

Apparently not. Must have gotten disconnected. Anyway, I think we covered your question, but I don't know what happened to your call.

I didn't hang up on you, but you just kind of, your voice disappeared. Anyway, I thank you for calling. Let's talk to Tim from Fort Worth, Texas. Tim, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hey, Mr. Gregg, thank you for taking my call this afternoon. Two questions. One, I was curious to see if you have ever seen the movie The Passion of the Christ, and if you have, what are your thoughts on that, and is it an accurate depiction of what the events in the Bible say has happened? And second question is, what advice would you give a young Christian, maybe an adolescent, on ways to, I guess, get better in their faith, to grow in their faith, is probably the best way to say that. Okay, as far as the movie The Passion of the Christ is concerned, it is fairly historically accurate. I mean, there are some things that Mel Gibson added that are not in the Bible, but they actually, from what I'm told, they come from the visions of some Catholic mystic who sort of saw in a vision or something, some portrayals of the crucifixion. And she added a few things like when, I guess, the thief that was mocking Christ, I believe in the movie, a raven or something landed on the cross and plucked his eyes out. That didn't happen in the Bible.

That was something that came from a different tradition. There were a few other things like that that Mel Gibson got, not from the Bible, but from some Catholic tradition. But, of course, the majority of the movie was simply following the story in the Bible. And as far as being accurate to Scripture, it's pretty accurate to Scripture. I mean, I've never seen a biblical movie yet that could be said to be 100% accurate to Scripture, even if they only use the Scripture. Still, the way things are portrayed, we don't know how Jesus, when He laughed and when He smiled and things like that, the actors always have to interpret their character, and therefore it may not be exactly the way it was. But the, I guess, where the Passion of the Christ, I think, differed from other Jesus movies in the accuracy of its depiction of how much Jesus suffered, especially in the beatings, which were really brought out very graphically. And so, yeah, I mean, in general, the movie is accurate, but I wouldn't trust any movie necessarily to portray Jesus exactly as He is. At least Jim Caviezel is a believer, and therefore his portrayal of Jesus is that of a believer in Jesus and who probably knows Jesus, so that makes it a little more trustworthy, his portrayal, rather than maybe someone who doesn't.

But, yeah, I can't really say much about it. I've never really seen a biblical movie that was, in my mind, perfect, but some of them are quite adequate and follow the Bible pretty closely. As far as my recommendation to, you know, a young Christian how they might grow, I believe that the secret to growth is to be totally about Jesus, to be all-in, to not care what anyone says about what you think except what God says about it, and to follow the Scriptures. That would mean you'd read the Scriptures, of course, do your best to understand them. You'd be thinking about them all the time. You know, the Bible says that in Psalm 1 that the righteous man who's blessed and he's like a fruitful tree growing and producing fruit and his leaves not withering, that's the man who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates day and night in it, which means that he loves God's Word because he loves God. And it's sort of like if you were in love with somebody who was separated necessarily from you because they were overseas or something like that, your love for them would make you cherish everything they wrote to you.

You'd want to reread and reread and try to get all the nuances and say, I wonder what she was thinking when she said this, and I'd want to figure it out. Because you love the person, you want to know them. And it's that way with God. If you love God, and if you know His Word is given to you in the Scriptures, then there will be a passion to know God better, to know what He said and what He meant and what He wanted me to know and learn from His words. So this delight in the Word of God causes a person to meditate on it day and night. That has been of great value to me in my Christian life because I mean, for the past 50 years, frankly, I've just been meditating on the Word of God day and night. And meditating doesn't mean you memorize it, though you might. You have to obviously remember some of it if you're going to meditate on it, but it means that you're processing it. You're taking what God said and saying, okay, what does this mean? What does He mean? What do I learn about God?

What is His will that I can discern from this? How can I conform to this truth? I mean, those kind of thoughts are meditating on the Scripture, and doing that all the time is of great importance.

Now, of course, there is, you know, other things. Having a prayer life, living obediently to the Word of God, these are important aspects of it. I think that what I'd recommend to you, because it's a large subject, I'd recommend that you listen to a lecture series of mine online.

And, of course, all the lectures are free there. There's a series called Cultivating Christian Character. And it's a, I forget how many lectures, six or eight lectures, something like that. And I covered in that the things that would answer to my mind much of what you're asking. How can a Christian grow?

How can a person become more like Christ? It's about that. So, if you go to thenarrowpath.com and click the tab that says Topical Lectures, it'll take you to a long list of topical lectures. And one series is called Cultivating Christian Character. It's a few lectures.

I don't know how many it is, but I'd recommend that you go there for a more full discussion of that, and for more counsel on that matter. All right, Steve, I appreciate your answers. Thank you very much. Okay, Tim, God bless you. It's a pleasure talking to you. Jim from Monterey, California.

Welcome to The Narrow Path. How you doing? Good to talk to you, Steve. Yeah. I'll try to get to my question quickly here. Good. Go ahead. I know, of course, you have your book, Revelation Four Views.

Yeah. In your judgment, given the amillennial position, where exactly—here we are in 2020—where exactly in Scripture do we put today's events? Okay, well, of course, the question implies that the Bible does provide for us a description of today's events, and I'm not sure that it does.

It might, but I'm not sure that it does. The Bible really doesn't talk about the, you know, the 21st century, you know, in a way that we'd be sure that it's talking about the 21st century. And it doesn't, you know, what I would say, you said, given the amillennial view. My understanding of the amillennial view is that the binding of Satan at the beginning of the millennium is identified with Jesus' victory over Satan at the cross. The thousand years then that follows is the whole church age, symbolically referred to as a thousand years. And then at the end of it, we're told in verse 6 or 7 that the devil is loosed from his prison, and he goes out to deceive the nations, and he gathers them like the sand of the seashore against the beloved city, which is the church. And it sounds like the church is in a lot of trouble at that point, because all the nations of the world have been gathered and deceived by Satan against Christianity. And at the end of that little while, and we don't know how bad it gets, but it's depicted as a dangerous situation, at the end of that time, fire from heaven comes down in verse 9 of chapter 20 of Revelation and consumes the devil and those who are with him, and they're destroyed. I take that to be the second coming of Christ. So we could say this, that the majority of the age of the church, which has now been about 2,000 years, is represented by the thousand years. And the little while at the end of that is represented by some period of time of considerably shorter length, during which Satan really cranks up the persecution.

He really deceives the world so that the church is hated and is, you know, besieged by all nations. And then Jesus comes back to end that siege. And then, of course, there's the new heavens, the new earth. Now, where are we?

I don't know. We're either in the thousand years or we're in the little season. Most of my life, I've been willing to say that we're in the thousand years, not in the little season of Satan being released. As we sit here today, we might, you know, I could say we could be in that season. It may be that Satan has been released.

I don't know. You know, things could go on for a lot longer. There could be a turning point. At this point, most of the parts of the world that have historically been, you know, agreeable with Christianity, or at least tolerant of Christianity, are turning very much hostile toward it. And that could be a result of Satan being released. I'm not saying that it is, because there have been other times of persecution throughout history as well, and they weren't the end of the world.

I don't know that we're at the end of the world. I will say this, though, that whereas this time differs from other times of persecution, other times when the church was persecuted, it was not worldwide, and there's always some place that if people wanted to inconvenience themselves, they could go to another country where there was no persecution. That happened a lot throughout history. Christians have removed themselves from lands of persecution and gone to places where they weren't persecuted. But, you know, of course today, if we said, well, where would we go now, it's hard to think of any place because it's kind of a one world now, in a way. I mean, certainly, communication-wise and so forth, it's a one world, and there's moving much more toward a one world community so that, you know, if a significant part of the world is persecuting the Christians, probably the rest of the world will be, too. So it's different now in that respect.

And, of course, today there is technology that makes it possible for anyone to be hunted down, probably rather easily, and that wasn't always the case. So, I mean, the threat to the church in our time is perhaps greater globally than it has been at other times. But that doesn't mean we're living in that final time. We might be. I mean, I wouldn't know if we were or we're not because things can get very bad for a season and then they can get very good again. You never know if this is a trough to be followed by, you know, a recovery or if this is just a downward slide that's going all the way down and then Jesus is going to come back. I would like to think, frankly, that it is evidence that Jesus is coming soon.

But I've learned my lesson not to make predictions about that from seeing how many people have done so and looked idiotic because it wasn't true. So, you know, that's, I guess, I've never in the last four decades or so, I've never felt that I could calculate how near we are to the end or whether there's a time in Scripture that's, you know, focusing on our present situation. Okay, let's talk to David from Salinas, California. David, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey, brother, I just wanted to share, I just got your new book in the mail and read the, what is it, the preface and I was so blessed by it. But I did want to ask if you could just share about your recent traveling experiences. If anything, you know, cool you could share and I'll listen off the air. Thank you, man.

All right, David, thanks for your call. Well, not much to report about my travel experience. It just so happens that my new book has been released in the last week or so. And for the last couple weeks, I've been on the road. And I don't know if it's coincidental or if it's planned, but it happens that most of the places I've been going, I've been requested to speak on the subject of the Kingdom of God.

So I've spoken on that in the places I've been speaking across the country more than on any other subject in the places I've been speaking. And that is also the subject matter of my book. So some people have said, is this a book tour?

Well, it's not. When I started on the tour, my book wasn't even available. And I don't sell my books.

You have to go somewhere else to get them, not from me. So it's not really a book tour, but it happens that my book is about the Kingdom of God and that the places I've been going to have been asking me to speak on that. So there is some coinciding there of subject matter with the book. But as far as things to report about traveling, not a whole lot to report. I mean, we've had meetings in lots of different places in Arizona and Texas and Missouri and Arkansas and Indiana and so forth. And now I'm having some in Oregon.

And there's more to come in some in Illinois next week. But what can I say? Not much to report.

I'm still away from home. I will say, though, that since you mentioned my book, I guess it's a good time for me to give a shameless plug. As I said, I don't sell my book.

I'm not going to have you write to me for a copy of my book because I don't have any for sale. But if you want a copy of my book, I believe it's a good book. I haven't really, it's too early to know whether others think so, although some people said it's a good book. But there's no Amazon reviews yet because it's only been out for a week.

And I would say, those of you who have gotten the book, I'd really appreciate it if you go to Amazon and say what you think of it, because it'll give other people who are investigating, you know, getting a copy, some idea of whether it's a good or not so good a purchase. The book, by the way, is called Empire of the Risen Sun, a treatise on the kingdom of God, what it is and why it matters. And as our regular listeners know, it's only the first book of two. I've written both of them, but only that one has come out yet. The other one's coming out in a while. But it's a two-part project, two books. Book one is out.

It's about the kingdom of God. The second book is coming out soon, and it's about discipleship, and they are their partner volumes. Actually, I intended for it to be one book, and then it got too long, so I made it into two.

But both of them will have the name Empire of the Risen Sun as their overarching title. And then the two individual books have separate names, smaller print on the front. But the only one available is book one now.

If you go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, just do a search for my name, Steve Gregg, and it'll show up there. And you can, if you have read it, or when you do read it, I'd appreciate if you write a review. And by the way, if you find any typos, let me know because I reread and reread that thing so many times before it was published, and every time I found more typos. But we finally had to submit one that I hoped didn't have many.

And if you find some, let me know because I'll get them out of any future editions. All right, thanks for your call. Let's talk to Martin from National City, California. Martin, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for coming.

Hi, good friend Steve. Thank you for all your ministry, sir. My question has to do with, like, in the Old Testament, it talks about, like, you shall surely rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Yeah. And if I could quickly read out of Isaiah 26, if I could.

Okay. Isaiah 26, 9, the last half of verse 9, it says, it says, For when thy judgments in the earth, the inhabitants of the world, will learn righteousness. And verse 10 says, Let favor be show to the wicked. Will he not learn righteousness?

In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. And I know, like, in this tolerant society we're in, we're not supposed to, like, you know, we're supposed to, you know, like, we're not, we're not easily provoked, not puffed up, thinks no evil, bears all things, breathes all things, holds all things, endures all things. So how do we be, like, firm if somebody's doing absolutely wrong and they can't see it? Well, we should love them enough to, to correct them.

I mean, you brought up the scriptures that talk about it, and there are many others. When people are going the wrong way, they're going the wrong way to their own hurt. And if they don't see that, then anyone who loves them will correct them. Now, the correction might not be appreciated by them. But, you know, discipline is not appreciated by a child either, but it's good for them. So we have to speak the truth in love.

And hopefully people will listen. I need to take a break. I have another half hour coming up. Don't go away.

I'll be back in 30 seconds. Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. We're proud to welcome you to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today, but everything to give you. When today's radio show is over, we invite you to visit thenarrowpath.com, where you'll find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse by verse teachings, and the archives of all the radio shows.

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. My name is Steve Gregg and we have another half hour ahead taking your phone calls. If you'd like to be on the program, I'll give you a phone number right now. Unlike the beginning of our first half hour, we actually have several lines open and so you could call and get through. If you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith and you want to call in and talk about them or you disagree with the host, I want to talk about that. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. And again, I'm speaking in the Albany, Oregon area tonight. If you are in the area and want to join us there, you can go to our website thenarrowpath.com and there look at announcements and you'll find the time and place of the gathering. Tom in San Francisco, California.

Welcome to The Narrow Path. I'm actually trying to activate his call studio. I'm having problems with my assistant producer. Maybe he's speaking. Oh, there we go. Hi. Hi, Tom.

Start over again, please. Oh, okay. I'm Tom from San Francisco and I'd really like to get your opinion on this. This has really kind of been a bothersome topic for me for quite some time. Two thousand years ago, Jesus and his apostles were able to heal the sick and walk on water, raise the dead. They were able to do all these things. And Jesus was quoted in the New Testament as even saying that if you believe in me and follow my teachings or whatever, you too will be able to do these things and even greater things. And I'm still wondering after two thousand years, I don't see too many people even doing those things, if that makes any sense. Or what are we missing? Are we missing something that we can't do these, some of these things?

No. Well, I think somebody is missing something that is true. But the truth is that Jesus didn't necessarily say, Oh, hello. The authority Christ has given us truly.

Yeah. You know, about forty five years ago, I got quite enamored with the word of faith teaching. It didn't last long with me because I read my Bible too much. But I was young.

I was 16. And someone gave me a bunch of these little books by Kenneth Hagen that you can read. It's like 30 pages each. And I read through one every morning for devotions.

And it was all new to me. I was raised a Baptist like Kenneth Hagen himself was. Of course, Kenneth Hagen, people don't know, is the father of the word of faith movement in in the evangelical world. The grandfather of the movement was E.W. Kenyon, who was not really an evangelical per se. He's more you know, he had more views that were like mind science cults. But Kenneth Hagen was strongly influenced by E.W.

Kenyon. And then all the word of faith teachers in America today were influenced by Kenneth Hagen and or at least by those who were influenced by him because people like Kenneth Copeland and so forth were his disciples. So Kenneth Hagen was the big guy in this country back in the, I suppose, the 50s and 60s promoting the word of faith teaching.

And it was in about 1970. I stumbled onto him as a teenager. And I was new in the whole realm of the spiritual, you know, gifts and things. I didn't know much about it because I was raised a Baptist. And I had just come into the Jesus movement where some people were talking about gifts of the Spirit and the baptism of the Spirit, which I had. It was all new to me. I was not a new Christian. I'd been a Christian since childhood and had read my Bible since then.

But there were an awful lot of things I didn't understand. So when I read Kenneth Hagen, I got some of these same ideas that your church is preaching. And one of one of Kenneth Hagen's classic books is called The Authority of the Believer. And, you know, his his view is that we can command things to be. We can confess things to be.

We can have what we say. That's why sometimes people call the doctrine, the name it and claim it doctrine or similar things, titles, less respectful. But the emphasis on the authority of the believer seemed to me a refreshing and new thing that the Bible seemed to teach because it does say in Ephesians 1 that Christ is seated above all authority and power and principality and so forth. At the end of Ephesians 1 and then in Ephesians 2, it says that we are seated in Christ in the heavenly places. And putting those two verses in juxtaposition made it sound like we are above all the principalities and powers in a sense that Jesus is also.

And we have been given his name and with his name, his authority to speak on his behalf. Now, you are seated in the heavenlies of Christ or some verse like that too, right? Right. Ephesians 2, 6, I just mentioned. Yeah, right.

That's the one. And so that we're seated in Christ in heavenly places so that we're above every principality and power and authority and so forth. Now, the understanding was that as the body of Christ, we have his authority and his name to do his things.

And that is true in so far as it goes. However, I think it's misapplied because they make us not only have the authority to do the works of Christ that he would do in his name, but also to do so almost on our own volition. You see, we are the body of Christ and we are here to do the works of Christ in his name, but we aren't the head. He's the head.

And he's the head who has all authority. I think the church desperately needs to know more about the authority of Christ, which means his kingship, his rulership, his right to make all the decisions in our lives, as well as in the world because he's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. Now, we share in his authority only as we're submitted to him, as the members of your physical body carry out the will of your head, but only as they are submitted to the head, only as the head is giving orders, then your body acts on behalf of your head and with the authority of the head. In other words, if I'm authorized to do a certain thing that not everybody is authorized to do, my head can tell my hands to do that thing because my hands now are authorized to do it because they're part of me and I'm authorized. Christ is authorized, and if he gives instructions to his hands or his feet or his eyes or his nose, which is us, then we can do them in his name. The problem with the word of faith teaching is it almost takes the headship of Christ out of the picture.

You can have what you want. Kenneth Hagin wrote another book called You Can Write Your Own Ticket with God. It makes it sound like you make the decision of what you want to do, you put your faith in it, and God will jump to your service.

He's like the bell boy. And as long as I'm speaking with faith and have no doubt in my heart, then God's almost duty-bound to do the miracles I'm calling for. Now, I will say this, that the emphasis on the authority of the believer is very useful when it comes to interaction with demonic powers, especially casting out demons.

Anyone who confronts demon-possessed people had better know something about their authority in Christ, or they better leave it alone because we can't cast out demons in our own authority. We have the authority of Christ. But the authority of Christ only means that when Christ is giving us instructions, when Christ has given us an assignment, then we carry it out, and it is him carrying it out through us. We are authorized, and therefore in his authority we carry out the assignment. But it doesn't mean that we get to write our own assignment.

We don't write our own job description. It means that we must walk in the Spirit, we must submit to God. If God tells me to pray for, you know, a leper or to command a leper to be clean, well, if Christ tells me to do it, I'll do it.

He hasn't, by the way, ever done that, but I mean, I'm not saying he wouldn't to somebody. But if he's not giving that command, then I can't give it. I'm not the one in authority. Christ is the one in authority. This is a derived authority, which is only mine as I am submitted to he who is above me, the head.

It's very similar to the authority that the centurion spoke about. When Jesus was approached by the centurion and said, My servant is sick, would you come heal him? Jesus said, I'll go heal him.

The man said, Listen, please don't come to my house. I'm not worthy to have you under my roof, but you just give the command and I know he'll be healed because I too am a military officer. I'm under authority and I have people under me. And he says, I give commands to my servants and they do it because I'm a man under authority myself. Now, what he's saying is I am an authoritative person in the lives of people who are under me, who are subordinate to me in the chain of command, but only because I am under authority myself. You know, a centurion was in charge of 100 Roman soldiers, but he couldn't command them to go and do something that wasn't within the realm of his authorization. He had to be authorized by higher-ups, by Caesar.

And, you know, we have authority, as a centurion has, to speak things that God tells us to speak, to do things that are within our assignment that God gives us and to do it in Christ's name. Okay. I am back. I am back and I don't know what happened. Somehow my equipment just turned itself off, which is not a good thing to happen in the middle of broadcast. And those callers that I wasn't able to hear, I'm now assuming our listeners could hear them.

It just wasn't coming through my equipment. My apologies. Let's see if we got Michael now. Michael, are you there?

Well, I'm connected. Okay. I don't know what's going on here.

Going once, going twice. My apologies to Michael. Okay. We have something that's going wrong. Indeed, my equipment did just kind of disconnect itself a minute ago.

And I'm assuming that our listeners are hearing more than I'm listening, because the fact that it's not feeding to me doesn't mean it's not going out over the air. So, my apologies. I'm going to try Betty in Vancouver, B.C. again. I really hope it works.

Hi, Betty. It's working now. I hear you now.

Something was wrong. Thanks for calling back. I think I happened to listen to your program yesterday, and then somehow, I guess the time was up, and you stopped at somewhere, at the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 11, about it was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, and some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers. I have a question regarding people who quote this as to say that they don't have any of this gift from the Holy Spirit, especially being an evangelist. And so, saying that because it's a special gift from the Holy Spirit, that means that everyone will have the gift to evangelize.

And therefore, evangelism or sharing the gospel, it's not for every Christian. So, what would you say to these people? And also about the commission, you know, when Jesus commissioned his disciples in Matthew, chapter 28, is he commissioning this to those disciples, you know, the encircles rather than to every Christian? So, what would you say to them?

Right. Well, when Jesus gave the Great Commission, he was talking to the church, that is, the disciples that he had. That was the germ church. There was only a few people at that point, and most of them were the apostles. There are apparently a few others there too, but it was to the apostles and to the infant congregation of those that were following him. He gave them the commission to make disciples of all the nations. That would include baptizing them, and it would include teaching them to observe all things that he commanded.

But he didn't indicate that the process of disciplining the nations would not be multifaceted. I mean, some would be preachers, some would be teachers, some would be prophets, some would be apostles, some would be miracle workers, some would be givers. I mean, there are different gifts of the Spirit. What Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 and also in Romans 12 is that each person in the body of Christ has a gift, and it's different than other people's gifts.

But all the gifts are needed in order for the body to function because he said the gifts are what define us as members of the body of Christ and what members we are. So, he talked about the need in a body for eyes and ears and hands and feet and so forth. The hand and the foot don't do the same things.

They do very different things. The ear and the eye do different things, but a properly functioning body needs all the parts of the body. I mean, a body can function.

If you lose an arm or if you lose an eye or both eyes, you can still function as an individual, but you're disabled somewhat. You can't do everything that you would be able to do if you had all the parts of your body functioning properly, and that's what he's saying about the body of Christ. The body of Christ exists to spread the kingdom of God by the preaching of the kingdom, by the making of disciples for the kingdom, and this is done with lots of different parts of the body doing different things. And so, in Romans 12, Paul talks about those who have the gift of serving and those who have the gift of giving, those who have the gift of leading, those who have the gift of exhorting or encouraging.

And in 1 Corinthians 12, he talks about things like speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues and prophesying and judging prophecies and working miracles and prophesying, again, as mentioned in both lists, the word of wisdom, word of knowledge. These are all different gifts that the body has, and not everyone has all the gifts. In fact, almost nobody has all the gifts. I don't know if anyone but Jesus had all the gifts, but we each have some gifts. And Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 says, if your gift is prophesying, then concentrate on prophesying. If it's teaching, concentrate on teaching. If it's giving, on giving.

If it's helps, on helps. So, he's saying God has decided what your function is going to be in the body by the gifts that He's given you. Focus on those gifts.

That is, focus on doing those gifts. You don't have to practice what someone else is given to do if that's not your gift. Now, in Ephesians 4-11, he says that Christ gave gifts to men, and He gave some to be apostles and some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. Now, all of those are like public ministry type people. They are leaders of the church. They are the ones who are bringing in the new disciples who need to be discipled.

They are the ones who are discipling the pastors and teachers. And yet, he certainly is not describing there in those five ministries all the gifts. He's only, you know, talking about some people who are, have these gifts. Other people have other gifts. Now, he does not say that everybody has the gift of evangelism. And let's face it, some people definitely do. Some people really have a gift for reaching people, for making an impact on people when they preach the gospel.

Other people, you know, they try, but not much happens. And we'd have to say, well, probably they don't have the gift. Now, the fact that you don't have the gift of evangelism doesn't mean you never speak up for Christ.

It just means that that's not your principal gift. Every Christian will speak up for Christ because Jesus said, whoever denies before men, I'll deny him before my Father in heaven. Whoever confesses me before men, I'll confess. But confessing Christ isn't the same thing as preaching the gospel, necessarily. For me to say, I'm a follower of Jesus.

I'm not ashamed of it. You know, I do the things I do because I'm a Christian. And Peter said that. He said everyone should be ready to give an answer to those who inquire of the reason for the hope that they have. Every Christian should be able to speak and articulate why they are a Christian, why they do the things they do, how it is that following Jesus is the whole explanation of their lifestyle, things like that. That's not quite the same thing as preaching the gospel, but it's also very valuable because preaching is not the only way the world is impacted. It certainly is an important way, but the church is impacting the world by its visible witness, too. Jesus said, by this all men will know you're my disciples, by your love for one another, which isn't the same thing as by what you say, though you may speak the truth in love, but it's your love for one another that makes an impact. It's the unity of the brethren that Jesus said would convince the world.

So there's a number of things. There's a visible witness of the Christian community and the changed lives of the disciples, and there's the spoken witness of the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers. Not everyone's a public speaker, and yet if you're concerned that I'm saying that not every Christian has to verbally own Christ publicly, I think we do. I think that our lives of fallen Christ should be so jarring to the world that they'd ask us, why do you do that?

Why are you living that way? And we'd say, oh, well, that's because we follow another king. We're following Jesus, and this is how He commands us to live. That might open up into an opportunity to evangelize them more fully, or it might not, but the commission to make disciples of all nations and to preach the gospel is to the church at large, corporately, and some of the people in it have the gift of doing the talking. Others have a gift of doing serving. Peter said that, for example, when he talked about the gifts in 1 Peter 4, 10, and 11, he said, as everyone has received a gift, serve one another with it as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. He said, if anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone serves, let him do it as with the ability which God gives. So he's saying, some people have speaking gifts.

Some people have serving gifts. I've known people who were kind of Protestants who were upset with Mother Teresa because she didn't preach the gospel in more of an evangelistic way when she was helping the poor. In my opinion, she probably didn't have the gift of evangelism, but she did a great deal to testify for Christ through her actions and even through her words. Everyone knew she was doing it because she loved Jesus. She was a great witness, but she wasn't an evangelist. She had a ministry of helps, a ministry of showing mercy.

These are actually gifts that Paul mentions in addition to the gift of evangelism, and I think she had a different gift than Billy Graham had. And so I would say, if someone has a gift of evangelism, they're probably going to be doing it because if God gives you a gift, that's what you're going to do naturally. And if someone says, wow, someone told me I should be preaching to all my neighbors, but every time I try, they, you know, it just doesn't work out. They don't want to talk about it or, you know, they shut me down or whatever. Therefore, I'm not very effective.

Well, they don't feel guilty about that. If they're living for Christ, then as far as evangelism goes, if God wants them to do some, He'll open up the doors if they're willing. But not everyone is going to be serving the kingdom in the same way because of the different gifts we have.

So that'd be my expansion on what I said the other day that you're referring to. Okay, Donnie from Michigan, and I'm glad the same caller called back who I didn't hear before. Donnie, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Thank you, Steve.

God bless. The question that I have is a dual question, but death, I never die because I go to sleep. Death is the thing that comes between the life on earth and to getting into the kingdom of heaven. Death, the second death, is death and going to a pit.

Now, they're the same thing. I want you to explain that to me because He that believeth in the Lord shall never die. You go into sweet rest and He will resurrect you just like Jesus was and that is the prophecy. But the key thing to me in life is to keep His commandments. That is a thing that is required of us to get into the kingdom. If you love me, you keep my commandments and we kill ourselves daily.

We kill ourselves every day. Let me stop you just for a minute because it doesn't sound like you have a question, right? You don't have a question? Okay, then are you calling to disagree with me on something? No, I'm calling to just talk about it, but what I'm saying is I heard a person earlier today is there a heaven or a hell and those things, but the study of His word, the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord and His prophecy. Okay, well you're saying a lot of things, you know, you're saying a lot of things that are true in the Bible that I agree with and which I say often, so I'm really running out of time and there's another call to take, but I appreciate your sharing your thoughts. Let's talk to Mike from Whidbey Island, Washington. Mike, we got to get you in here. Welcome.

Hey, thanks Steve for getting me in. I wanted to let you guys know that I recently read something by Oliver Melnick from Chosen People Ministries. He's a Jewish believer in Jesus and he's come out and said recently the Danish Bible Society published a new Bible known as the Bible 2020 and they've removed Israel from the entire Bible. That's amazing.

Yeah, someone posted an article on that on our Facebook page and I just can't imagine how or why they did that. I mean, obviously it's not a Bible translation. It's if you don't have Israel in the Bible, then you're not translating the Bible because the word Israel is in there about 2,000 times. So, yeah, I haven't seen that Bible. I'm not sure what they do instead of talking about Israel since the whole Bible is about Israel.

You know, how are you going to have a Bible translation that leaves out the word that is the focal point of the whole story? I don't know. Have you seen, have you, do you know any details about that? I don't.

I do. Now, if you want to read the article, it's go to biblesocietyinisrael.com. Biblesocietyinisrael.com. You can read their statement. They even analyze the Bible in various scripture passages and it's their statement on the contemporary Danish Bible in the Danish language only.

So, Mister, you know, Melnick from Chosen People couldn't even read it, but he's written it. He's saying this is terrible because it's very anti-Semitic to do something like that. Yeah.

Well, I'm not sure. In my mind, it's an apostasy of the church, the Reformed church that thinks that the church has replaced Israel. Well, that's not the same thing. That's not the same issue. I mean, removing the word Israel from the Bible is not the same thing as saying that the church is Israel.

Unless, unless they've replaced the word Israel with the word church, that'd be a strange thing because the word Israel. You better read it. You better check it out. Well, wait, wait, wait. I can't read Danish. I can't read Danish. And I don't know if you can.

And even the man. Oliver, Oliver, Oliver says he called it the replacement theology version. That's what he's calling it. That's what you can. Okay.

Well, I don't understand that because I thought you said he couldn't read Danish and it's only in the Danish Bible. He can't, but people have commented on it. Okay. So, so he's written an article. It's sad. Very sad. Okay. Yeah.

Well, it's just sad from any perspective. If somebody makes a translation of the Bible and removes the word Israel, then of course they're not translating the Bible because like I said, the word Israel is about 2000 times in the Bible. What word are they going to use instead?

So, I mean, but that has nothing to do with replacement theology. I don't know what they're replacing the word Israel with. You said they're replacing it with the word church, but I mean, I don't know that they're doing that because I can't read it and I don't think you can either. If they're replacing the word Israel with church, you know, that's still not replacement theology because the word church, ekklesia in the Greek, is actually used in the Old Testament to speak of the congregation of Israel. But it is not the same as the word Israel.

If someone's going to translate the word Israel, they should translate it as Israel. If they're going to translate ekklesia, they can translate that as church. But yeah, this has, I mean, I'm not sure that this has anything to do at all with what you're calling replacement theology. It's just a matter of corrupt biblical translation. You don't need to corrupt the Bible translation to teach replacement theology.

You can use any translation to teach that. All right, well, I thank you for your call. You've been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live Monday through Friday at this time. We are listener supported. We pay for time on all the radio stations we use, and we are supported by listeners. If you'd like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, P.L. Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. Thanks for joining us.