The Narrow Path 10/30

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 week of the afternoon taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith, feel free to give me a call.

We'll talk about those together here in this hour. 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Ronald calling from Detroit, Michigan.

Ronald, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. I enjoy your broadcast.

I have two questions. I'm a type of person that when I hear something, I make sure I heard it right by asking the person did they say it or didn't they say it. So I'm not accusing you of nothing.

But one question, one thing I thought I heard you say, you don't celebrate holidays. Can you explain that? Another thing I thought, I don't know if this was the caller or you wanted to, they were saying all Democrats believe in abortions.

Now that kind of thing. Well, I'll tell you this. Anyone who votes for Democrats must believe in abortions because that's on the Democratic platform. They believe in abortions right up until the moment of birth. So if a person says they don't believe in that, but they vote for Democrats, then we have to ask, well, do we believe what you say or what you do?

I believe in a person what they do because a person can say anything. So if someone votes for a Democrat, they're voting for the stated goals of Democrats. You see the Democrats have told us what they're going to do if they gain power. And among other things, they're going to make more abortions available right up until the point of birth. And some, some of the leading Democrats in New York City, for example, have celebrated the fact that they've passed a law that will allow an aborted baby that survives accidentally to be put to death if the mother and the doctor together decide they want to. Excuse me, let me interrupt you for a minute because you have time to vote here. Now, some of the Republicans don't agree everything what Trump says, but they still Republicans.

Well, they won't vote for Trump if they think he's going to... Trump, they don't agree everything what he says, but they still vote for Republicans. What are the good things that you would vote Democratic for? I don't believe nobody should be killing any baby. I think everybody's supposed to have the right to live just like anybody else. Okay, let me ask you this.

This is what I'm asking you. If you say, well, you know, I'm a Democrat, and I don't believe in abortion, and I know the Democratic Party is, is very much abortion is their whole thing. That's, that's the only reason they have opposed this recent Supreme Court nominee is because they are afraid she'll end abortion. Their whole emotion in this whole thing was over the abortion issue. They want abortion. Now, you might say, well, I don't believe in abortion, but I'm a Democrat anyway.

Well, then, I would say this. If Donald Trump believed in or did something that was, let's say, abhorrent to Christians, but they said we're going to vote for him anyway because the other candidates are going to do things more abhorrent, and we don't want that to happen. I could, I could maybe see them arguing that way, but, but what is it about the Democratic Party, let's say, take abortion issue off the table. What is it about the Democratic Party that makes them someone you'd want to vote for?

What do they stand for? Well, let's talk about a former president who was just left. He did a number of things I can't think of right offhand. But he's not running. We've got a whole new batch of Democrats who have turned far left in the past four years. They support Black Lives Matter, which is against the traditional family. If you read the Black Lives Matter website, they want to dismantle the traditional family, the biblical family and others, and they are for the transgender community more. They, they, they want to defund the police, which will be the worst things that could happen to black families in the inner city. That's not, I don't think that's true.

You don't think that's true? That would be the stupidest thing they could do if that was the case. It is the stupidest thing they could do, but that's what they want to do. But all the crimes in the neighborhood, in the poor neighborhood, why would they want to disband the police? That's a very good question.

And yeah, that's a very good question. And so I suggest that you look at the Black Lives Matter website and see that they state what their objectives are. They want to dismantle the police or defund them, which is the same thing. They want to destroy the traditional family and, and they are Marxists, that is, they're communists. Now, that's what they say. That's what they say about themselves. When people tell you things like that about themselves, you should believe what they say because they, they're not saying things that will endear them to most Americans. So they're saying things that are damaging to their own reputation, but they don't, they only say them because that's what they really want to stand for. Now, the Democratic Party officially supports Black Lives Matter.

And so, you know, I just don't know if there's anything in the Democratic Party that they specifically stand for that a Christian would approve of. So anyway, okay, we talked about that. What was the other, there was another thing you thought I said that you were wondering about. What was the first thing you mentioned?

You were saying something about, you disagree, something you said you disagree, you know. Oh, about holidays. About holidays.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, I just said I'm not the kind of person who cares about holidays. I don't see any particular value. I mean, for some people, there may be value in them. I don't condemn holidays.

I just am not the kind of person who sees any use for them there. To me, every day is alike. Every day is a day that's totally devoted to God. And you can't increase total devotion on some days over, you know, the total devotion of all other days. It's just, if you want to celebrate holidays, I'm not against it.

I just made the passing remark that I'm not interested. What do you think about Thanksgiving, then? Thanksgiving, well, they celebrate other heroes from the dead. That's actually what Easter celebrates. Yeah, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is to give thanks to God for, you know, His mercies, to the pilgrims and so forth who were here.

And frankly, I believe in Thanksgiving. I just believe that we should give thanks to God every single day. So, I mean, it's fine with me if some people want to take a special day to do so. I'm not against it, and that's fine. But what I'm saying is that if there's anything godly to celebrate on a given day, it seems to me that that could be celebrated every day and should be. And if it isn't, then somebody is just compartmentalizing their Christian life and saying, okay, on certain days I'll do what Christians ought to always do because those are set apart to do those things. The rest of the days, I guess I won't do it, or at least not as much.

Anyway, I hope that clarifies my position. I need to take some more calls, but I'm glad you called, brother, and thanks for joining us. Eddie from Petaluma, California, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hello, Steve. I just wanted to say, first of all, your program has really invited me, and just listening to you has helped my Christian walk. And I just wanted to make a comment and say that I love Jesus with all my heart, and I will serve it until the day I die. But it's breaking my heart, you know, to see Christians as supposedly men of God and just in the church that seem to be more vile to each other and other people than I see secular people acting.

And it's just breaking my heart because I don't know how to deal with it because I try to tell them to love one another. And I preach the message of love to people and the message of Jesus to people. And what I hear from them is, you know, don't take verses out of the Bible, but twist it to accommodate their behaviors. Yeah, well, let me ask you this. Yeah, I understand that, and I've seen that too. I just wonder, can you give me an example of the kind of thing you're actually discussing? I mean, when it comes to people acting more, Christians acting more vile? I'll see Christians attacking one another for maybe belief systems or doctrinal differences that they don't agree with. And almost just take what a person believes and just completely demonize that person because of a belief system that they believe. And what I'm trying to realize is that we are all, every single one of us are hypocrites.

I'm one of them too. And because I know that, my will won't even allow me to judge another brother in a way, because I know I'll fall guilty of that probably next week or tomorrow or the following week. I'll end up doing the same thing that I'm accusing somebody else of doing. And I don't see how people cannot examine their lives in any other way that is Christ-like, you know? And they use the Bible… All right, well, let me jump in because… Yeah, I know.

Well, it's kind of a broad problem you're raising. I was hoping for something a little more specific, but I guess what you're saying is that people sometimes demonize, Christian people sometimes demonize other Christian people who have different doctrines than they have and so forth. And that certainly has been known to be the case throughout Protestant history or even Catholic history too.

And that is a bad thing. So I guess what I should just say is that I believe the problem is that there are many people in churches who are not converted, but they believe they are. They fully believe that they are converted, but their lives do not show it. And, you know, converted means changed. Lots of people say, well, I believe all the things that Christianity teaches, so you can't say I'm not converted.

Well, I don't know. I mean, lots of people believe things that Christianity teaches, but they are nonetheless not showing any evidence of being born again and having the Spirit of Christ in them. So by biblical standards, they're not converted. And so I think one of the problems is the churches in many cases, and I don't like to, you know, load on the churches all the time, but this is just an observation that many have made and it's true. Many of the churches are not preaching a gospel of personal, you know, conversion and transformation.

They're preaching a, you know, self-help kind of a message. And that's preventing many people from coming to Christ on His terms. Most people in churches probably feel that they have come to Christ, and they may have come to Christ even on the terms the preacher recommends, but the preacher may not have ever really represented what coming to Christ on His terms mean. I mean, for example, how many pastors tell their congregations that Jesus said, if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Now, those are radical things to do, which I don't think most people who go to church have really done.

They don't give evidence of having done it, and if they, I'm not even sure if they've heard that they're supposed to. Or when Jesus said, you know, whoever comes after me and does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, and his own life also cannot be my disciple, or whoever does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. These are the words of Jesus, and certainly the early Christians took them entirely seriously. I think modern Christians sometimes fail to do so, and therefore they fail to really get converted because they don't hear the gospel as it's preached in the Bible. They don't hear what conversion requires. It's a greasy, grace kind of a message that many have received, and some haven't even heard anything about grace. Grace is important, but I mean, they just hear about, I don't know what they hear about, but they hear about whatever the preacher's hobby horse is. And I think this results in a lot of people thinking they're Christians, and they actually belong to the church. The church accepts them as belonging to it, but they haven't really come to Christ on the biblical terms. But they might never discover that until they stand before Christ on the judgment day because the church may never confront them about that. I frankly think that some of the pastors have not come to Christ yet on those terms. And, you know, Jesus said, many will say to me that day, Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name, and we cast out demons in your name, and we did mighty works in your name, and he'll say, I never knew you. So it's obvious that there are plenty of people, even in public ministry, even with impressive public ministry, whom Jesus does not know, and they're not saved, but they certainly think they are. So it would do well for pastors, and frankly for those who've sat under pastors, to see what Jesus said. Frankly, I think people ought to read what Jesus said, since he's the one that Christianity is about. He's the one who defines what it means to be one of his. And if people don't pay attention to that, then they've got no one to blame them themselves if they don't measure up when they stand before Christ on the day of judgment.

And I think what you're saying simply illustrates that that's true of a great number of people. I appreciate your call, brother. Thanks for joining us. Rod from Riverside, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

Thanks for calling. Hello, Steve. I was wondering if you would happen to have any information pertaining to the sons of Abraham and Keturah, what peoples or nations they became. Well, the best known of them was the Midianites. And you remember Moses' wife, Keturah, was a Midianite.

Her father was a priest of Midian. The Midianites figure more prominently than any of these others. There were six sons born to Abraham by Keturah, and each of them probably gave rise to some at least tribe, if not nation. We know that one of the sons was Shuah, and one of Job's friends was a Shuahite, which probably means descended from Shuah.

But we don't know anything about the Shuahites, really, except that Job had a friend who was of that tribe. I think the Midianites would be the only ones the Bible really says very much about after the mention of the birth of Midian. And of course the Midianites were enemies of Israel. It was the Midianites that Gideon drove out of Israel. They had been invading and oppressing Israel. God raised up Gideon to drive them out. So the Midianites are one of those tribes or nations. The other five are not very well known to us. Would you happen to know why the commonly repeated phrase is pertaining to the book of Job being the oldest book in the Bible, how that came about?

Right. Well, we don't know when it was written, but the story of Job is quite old. It may have been written by Job. If so, then it is the earliest written book in the Bible, because all the other early books, Genesis through Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, were written by Moses, who lived later than Job, even though the story of Genesis goes back to the creation. It's not written at the time of the creation.

It's written by Moses. And so Job lived before Moses, and if he wrote the book of Job, we don't really know because the book is anonymously written, then it's older than the books that Moses wrote. On the other hand, there are many who feel that even if the story of Job is older than the time of Moses, that doesn't mean the book in its present form was written at that time. Some feel it was written much later. Some think it was written even by Solomon.

That's one of the theories out there among scholars. But we don't really know who the author of Job was, but the story of Job definitely predates the time of Moses. And since the other earliest books of the Bible were written by Moses, the story of Job took place before the time that Moses wrote any books, or before the time Moses was even born. So that's why it's sometimes said to be the oldest book.

If Job wrote it, and we don't know if that's the case, then it was certainly written before any of the books of Moses. That's very interesting, Steve. I know there's a listing for a Job as being a descendant of Issachar. Was that one in the same Job, possibly?

No, that would not be the same one. Job lived during the time, in all likelihood, that Israel was in Egypt in bondage. The reason I say that is because, like I said, one of his friends was a Shuahite. Another was a descendant of Esau and Eliphaz the Temanite. Eliphaz the Temanite, in the book of Job, was a Temanite. Now, Teman was a son of Esau. Now, Esau was contemporary with Jacob, and in Jacob's lifetime, Israel went down into Egypt, and then they became slaves there. So, Esau was contemporary with Jacob, Teman would be contemporary with Jacob's twelve sons, and Temanites would be, of course, after Teman sometime, a generation or two or three. So, it would be during the time that Israel was in Egypt as slaves that the book of Job took place. Now, if Job was part of the tribe of Issachar, he would have necessarily been in Egypt, but instead he's described as the mightiest man of the east. The east would be east of Israel, and probably in Edom.

I think the best guess is that Job was an Edomite. Okay, thank you very much, Steve. You have a good day.

Okay, Rod. God bless you. Thanks for your call.

Mark from Clifton Park, New York. Mark, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

You're welcome. I want to get your take on the burning bush. Why do you think God chose to reveal himself in the burning bush to Moses, and do we see any sort of imagery such as the burning bush in the Bible?

It just seems like a very, like a one-time, very specific time that God chose to reveal himself. Well, I mean, God revealed himself in other ways, too, at later times through the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire and so forth, and also in human form when he wrestled with Jacob and so forth. But I think the burning bush may have a symbolic value. Remember the bush was on fire, which would normally, of course, burn a bush up and destroy it, but it didn't burn up. It was surviving and not even being consumed in the midst of the fire. This, I'm thinking, probably was symbolic of the nation of Israel itself, which was in Egypt and was yet not destroyed. You know, later on in Deuteronomy, the captivity in Egypt was described as God having had Israel in the iron furnace. Even Jeremiah also refers to the Egyptian captivity as being in the iron furnace. So like the idea of being where they would normally burn up, you throw wood into a furnace, it usually burns up. And here's a bush that would normally burn up, and it's a flame, but it's not being consumed, which could simply mean that God was preserving Israel through the fiery furnace of the afflictions they were going through in Egypt.

Normally, a nation might be thought to be extinguished or destroyed through such oppression and abuse, but they survived it through the hand of God. And it may be that the burning bush not being consumed had that relevance. No, that makes sense. Okay, that's exactly what I was looking for.

It has some sort of truth and meaning behind just the act itself. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right, I thank you for your call. God bless you.

John from Garden Grove, California, welcome to the Narrow Path. Hello, hello, how are you? I'm doing good.

Good to hear from you. Remember, Steve, I pray for you, and I pray that you will come to the knowledge of the truth. Because many times, Steve, I pray for you and your family, I do. Remember… But you want me to keep the seventh day Sabbath. Wait, wait, wait, Steve, please don't hang me up and please don't upset at me. See, I call because I care for you. I mean, first of all, God cares for you and I care for you.

So what did you call that? Okay, Steve, remember, salvation. Remember, God said this. We have two books in the Bible. I don't call the Testament, Brother Steve, I call it the New, Old Covenant and New Covenant. Covenant. What does covenant mean? That means God made a covenant with His people.

Who? The children of Israel and the triumph of Judah. Okay, so all of us, like I called, I mentioned, and I pray that God will open up your heart, your mind, and your eyes so you can see this. We all have to be grafted into that covenant. Doesn't matter if we are Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, or Hebrew, or whatever, or even Judaism, okay? Now, John, you mentioned there are two covenants. Which covenant do we have to be grafted into?

Both. No, no, no, no, no, you cannot have two at one time. That's like having two wives at one time. You can't have two different covenants. Yeah, Brother Steve, let me finish. The Old Covenant is concealed who Christ is, and the New Covenant reveals who He is. At an appointment time, the right time, Christ came to earth, to Mary, to the line of David. Okay, I'm going to have to, we're going to run out of time here, and you're going to give me the whole story of the Bible.

Let me tell you this. There are two covenants. You said so. There's an Old Covenant and a New Covenant, alright? Now, in Hebrews 8, 13, it says where there's a New Covenant, the Old Covenant is obsolete, alright?

That's what it says. Hebrews 8, 13 says where there's a New Covenant, the Old Covenant is obsolete. So there are not two covenants.

There's only one. And the one that we have now is the new one, not the old one. Now, the old one was struck at Mount Sinai when God gave the Ten Commandments. And that, you know, and He gave 613 laws altogether in that covenant. That was a covenant He made with the children of Israel, and the promise was that He'd make them a great nation, that they'd be greater than all the nations, and that they'd be a holy nation. And, of course, they broke that covenant. And because they broke it, Jeremiah was told by God that God would make a New Covenant with the House of Israel because they broke the first one. Now, Jesus came and He made the New Covenant up in the upper room. At the Last Supper, He said, this covenant is of the New Covenant in My blood. Now we have a New Covenant, and the writer of Hebrews tells us that makes the old one obsolete.

Now, what was the old one? The old one was the one that was made in Mount Sinai. And so the Sinaitic law is no longer binding. It is, in fact, obsolete, the Bible says. That means we don't have to offer animal sacrifices. That was a major part of that law. It means we don't have to keep the Holy Days.

We don't have to keep the dietary laws. Those are major parts of that covenant, but they're not part of the New Covenant. The New Covenant doesn't have any of that, and we know that because Jesus, who's the maker of the New Covenant, never mentioned the need for us to do any of those things.

What He did say, He says He made a new commandment, and that new commandment is that we love one another. So that's a different one than the old covenant. You want me to embrace the old covenant so that I'll keep the Sabbath day. I'm not going to embrace the old covenant.

It's obsolete. I'm going to follow Jesus, and He made the New Covenant. So, I mean, you call a lot, and you try to talk me into the same thing, and I don't know why, you know, maybe I'll just have to pray that you come to the knowledge of the truth. I appreciate your call, though, and we've got to take a break at this point, but we have another half hour coming up.

We're not done. More calls will be taken in the next half hour, and we continue the broadcast. At this point, I just want to let you know that the Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. We pay for the time on the radio. If you'd like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O.

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See you at thenarrowpath.com. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and 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, like our last caller, John, in Garden Grove, California, did, and does, because he's called frequently with the same concerns, you're always welcome to call. I will say this, though. I'll just be honest with you, and I think my listeners, many of them share the same concern. I get enough calls from Seventh-day Adventists trying to tell me that I should be keeping the Sabbath. I've answered every argument they've made. If you'd like to know more about why I don't follow the Seventh-day Adventist religion, or why I don't believe we keep the Sabbath, you can go to my website and look up the lectures I have on that subject. The only reason I give that, I don't mind answering them.

I just don't like answering them several times a week, or several times a month. You know, there are other subjects that people want to call about. But feel free to call if you disagree with me on something. The number is 844-484-5737. And by the way, we have quite a few of our lines open right now.

That's not usually the case, so this is a good time to call. 844-484-5737. Chris from Concord, New Hampshire is our next caller. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Chris. Thanks for calling. Hey, Steve, how you doing? Good, thanks.

Thanks for having me on. I actually was calling because you were getting me thinking when you were saying people have to listen to Jesus, and what Jesus says to show signs of being a saved Christian. And one of the things that's really glaring to me is that I notice that a lot of people don't love their enemies. I notice a lot of people don't. And I'm not trying to judge anybody, but I'm just saying that it takes me a lot to love my enemies, but I do it. You know, I do pray for them.

And I was wondering what your thoughts are on that. Like, are there any circumstances you think that it's okay for someone to hate their enemies? No, I don't believe we should hate our enemies. It depends on what we mean by hate and what we mean by love. Love in the Bible, of course, is not strictly speaking an emotion, not even primarily an emotion. There may be emotion involved in it, but there doesn't have to be. Love is something you do.

Yes, I agree. That's why Jesus paraphrased the great commandment, which He said is to love your neighbors, you love yourself. He paraphrased it as what you want others to do to you, do that to them. It's what you do toward somebody, not how you feel toward them that makes love. But He also said to whoever hates his brother is a murderer.

Yeah. Well, that's actually in 1 John, right? But the truth is, hatred is also a word that we have to understand correctly. Hatred that is forbidden is when we fail to love. That is, when we don't want to do something good for somebody. When we don't want to bless those who curse us and we want to curse them back.

Love is really wanting the best for the other person, whether they're an enemy or not. Now, frankly, if a person is in my neighborhood breaking into houses and raping women and stealing things and so forth, perhaps the best thing I could wish for them is to be put in jail. Now, they might say, well, I don't want to go to jail so you don't love me. Well, I think discipline is necessary. I think whoever raised that person should have disciplined them so they wouldn't be doing that. Remember, whoever withholds discipline from their child hates their child, the Bible says. It's a loving thing to discipline someone who's a menace to others because, after all, the others are people you're supposed to love too. And so there are times when we have to approve. We may not hate the person, we may wish the best for them, but we have to approve of people suffering punishment for crimes they've done because the crimes have victimized other people. And if no punishment comes to them, they'll continue to victimize them. And likewise, we should also pray for those who have been falsely accused, like the people that are in prison that never murdered anybody but they got blamed for it anyway.

Well, of course, we need to pray for justice is what we need to pray for, that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for answering my question. Have a nice day and be blessed. Okay. Thank you, Chris. Good to talk to you.

Thanks for your call. You know, I want to mention this because I don't mention it every day, but I recently wrote a couple of books, book one and book two, on one subject, and that is on the Kingdom of God. The title of both books is Empire of the Risen Sun, S-O-N, and you can find it at Amazon, the first book. I just received information yesterday that the second book is going to the press now, and that doesn't mean it'll be shipped if you order on Amazon or something like that right away, but I think it'll be out – I had the impression it'll be out in 45 days, which is still before Christmas. So, hopefully, both books in this series will be able to be in your hands or in the hands of people you may want to give them to before Christmas time. Now, I mentioned I don't celebrate holidays that much or don't care that much about them, but that doesn't mean you can't if you want to.

And so if you're a person who gives gifts on Christmas, maybe that'd be a good gift to give people. You just go to Amazon and look up my name, really. Look up my name, Steve Gregg at Amazon, and my various books will turn up, including the newest one that is out. And pretty soon, very shortly, I think, you'll be able to pre-order the second book if you're interested in.

Those are books one and two of a single series on the Kingdom of God, the most important subject in the Bible, if we would judge by what Jesus placed first. Okay, let's talk to Angela from Springfield. Now, that could be Springfield, Oregon. I'm not sure.

There's other Springfields. Hi, Angela. Welcome. Yes, thank you.

Welcome. I have a question regarding the Roe versus Wade. Now, I know somebody close to me is against abortion, but says that a woman should have the right to choose. And in other words, there shouldn't be a government law against it. And I've said to this person, well, we have, you know, I can't kill my neighbor. There's a law against it. Exactly, exactly.

That's what I was going to say. And it doesn't seem like this person, I don't, I'm very concerned, someone close to me. And I wondered if there's anything else I could say, because this person is actually going to, this is the reasoning, is going to vote for the, can I say the person's name?

You can say whatever you want. Sure, as long as it's not a customer. Joe Biden. Only, and the reason is, first of all, this person was, you know, considering not voting at all, upset with the Democratic Party, can see a lot of liberalism there, a lot of craziness there. And says to me, well, President Trump lied to us when he, he said that not to worry about the virus, you know, in the beginning when, when, when he said, Okay, well, let me, let me jump in here.

Let me jump in here, because this could go along. President Trump told, told the people what he had been told, okay? Mr. Trump is not a doctor. He's not a medical expert. He is a president, and as such, he has to get his information from experts. Dr. Fauci was one of the main experts he listened to. And certainly Dr. Fauci said there was nothing to worry about, too, in the early stages. Trump said the same thing Fauci said. Now, I think, May I interrupt just because of the time that you have?

I'm not trying to be rude. The part where he said, well, I only did that was later, it was later on. And he said, well, I was just trying to prevent a panic. Yeah, and that's what presidents ought to do.

That's what presidents ought to do. There's no need for a panic. I want to know what to say to this person.

I mean, anything else I can say, or just pray. I don't know. Well, I mean, don't, don't you think we should not panic? I mean, I think, I think the media, I think the media wants us to panic. I don't agree with this person.

Well, I want to say this, so I'm going to put you on hold a minute so I can speak up here. I personally think there are people who do want us to panic. And I don't think the COVID virus is an occasion for panicking. Some people get it, a few of them will die. If you're under 50 years old, you've got, you know, what is it, one chance in 10,000 of dying from it. If you're, if you're like over 70, maybe there's a 5% chance of dying, which means, you know, 95% of people who get it will still live.

So, I mean, it's not really, it's not something that most of us should be panicked about. Now, people who are at risk should be careful, just like flu, or just like any other disease. Any disease that's out there, people take the risk of getting it by, you know, by just living. And if you don't get the disease, you take the risk of getting killed on the freeway just by going on the freeway. Everyone, by getting out of bed every day, you take the risk of being killed.

You could slip on the bathroom floor, crack your head on the tile, and die. I mean, there are risks in life. The risks of COVID might be a little higher for, well, they are a little higher for some age groups. Most of us are not in those age groups, but they are a little higher for some age groups than, say, flu. But for children, flu is much more deadly than COVID is. Hardly any children die of COVID, but lots of them die of the flu. So, are we supposed to panic every flu season because there's a chance that some people are going to die? Oh, there's a chance you're going to die every day of the week.

You could die of heart failure. To me, that people want us to panic means that they have something to gain from our being irrational. And there are people who have something to gain from our being irrational. I think a good leader would normally stand up and say, hey, don't panic.

You know, we can handle this. And as a matter of fact, we are. If someone says, yeah, but 200,000 people have died. Yeah, well, a million babies have died in that same period of time to abortion. That's something we should panic about, that innocent babies are being killed. Whereas, frankly, old people, and I'm an old person, I'm in the at-risk group, but old people are dying of COVID in, you know, not very high numbers, but some. And most of them are people who had, you know, they had prior conditions that made them susceptible, like diabetes or something else. People are going to die, and some of them are going to die a lot younger than those people who have died of COVID in large numbers. So, you know, just put things in perspective.

There's not a reason in the world for us to be panicked about this. And I've just made a trip across country. I'm back in California, and I just arrived back home today. But I've been there the whole month going back east, and, you know, some of these states are just crazy about masks and things like that. Others are not, you know, they're more laid back. The ones that are laid back are not in any much greater danger, like the countries in Europe, where they're having this huge spike in France and Germany again.

They were wearing masks. I mean, we just have to get used to the fact that living in this world is dangerous. If you're not ready to die, that's your fault, because you can get ready to die. You can get right with God. Anyone who's right with God has not a reason in the world to be afraid to die. In fact, Paul said to die is gain.

So we should look forward to the time that God calls us home. And if it's COVID or something else that takes us, who cares? I don't. I've never been afraid of COVID since it came out, and I don't, you know, I expose myself to people all the time in terms of touch and breathing on people and things like that in social life. And, you know, I'm not I might get it. I'm not afraid if I get it. I'm not afraid if I get the flu. I'm not afraid. I'm not even afraid to get cancer.

Something's going to get you. And so just live your life unafraid to die. And if you can't do that, then you know you need to get right with God.

Then you can. So, I mean, that's what you're I think a president who says, hey, you've got nothing to fear but fear itself. In the old days, that that was a heroic statement and often quoted as a great statement of a president. Now, when a president says don't panic, you know, somehow he's held guilty of saying that only by people who want you to panic. And the people want you to panic are the people who want you to be irrational and do something irrational like vote for them.

So that's that's my thought about that. Now, as far as the abortion thing, I think you made the right observation. Your friend or relative or whatever says she doesn't believe in abortion, but she doesn't think it should be outlawed. That's like saying, I don't believe people should be allowed to murder my neighbor, but I don't want to I mean, I don't believe in people murdering my neighbor, but I don't think any law should be to forbid them. And how is that any different? Killing an innocent baby or killing my innocent neighbor? It's the same sin, same crime.

Why should the law forbid one and not the other? Frankly, I think the situation you've described simply illustrates what anyone who's been paying attention and who has a brain functioning in their head has noticed already. And that is most people are totally irrational, unfortunately, including most Christians. Most Christians have sacrificed their responsibility to to use their brains and to be clear thinkers and to stand up for what's obviously true.

And if they don't do it, then the world will be a worse place because of it. I appreciate your call. OK, let's talk to Robert from Fort Worth, Texas.

Robert, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve. I just want to say a couple of things before I ask a question. I think you are the most contextual teacher on the radio, and I just felt so blessed and excited when I first started hearing you here in the Dallas, Fort Worth area a couple of years ago. I sent you an email I read on your on your site about your background. I thought, my goodness, he's almost a twin to me.

I'm going to be 68 and we get a similar background. So we're not identical, but similar. And I just really appreciate your teachings. And you mentioned rationality and your rationality, too. And in a comment based on the last caller, it's interesting as we know that there are the pro lifers and then the pro choice people. And I've thought about putting on the back of my vehicle pro choice is really pro death because that's their choice, unfortunately, at times.

And they just like to make it sound better. Well, yeah, they're not really pro choice if choice means making an informed decision. For example, pro choice people do not want pregnant girls who are considering an abortion to get an ultrasound because then they could make an informed decision and probably won't get an abortion because when they see the ultrasound, they'll see that that's not a tissue blob in there. That's a baby.

And it responds to stimuli and so forth. I mean, it's that if you want people to be pro choice, you should want them to have all the information that will help them make an informed choice. But pro choice people, I can't speak for all pro choice people, but the abortion lobby, which is obviously pro choice, they do not want people to know that that is a baby. They don't want people to see what it is.

They don't want people to see it regularly. Did you ever see that movie? What was it? Was it Unplanned? I think it was. Was that the name of that movie? I didn't see it, but I do have a question.

Let me just say this. The movie Unplanned was about a true story about a woman who actually ran an abortion clinic for years. And then she just happened to be in the room where an abortion was taking place and she was watching the abortion on the ultrasound and she saw when the sharp tools were inserted into the woman's womb, she saw the baby recoil and try to get away from it. And before that, she had always thought the baby was just, you know, a mindless blob blob.

Yeah, exactly. And here she sees an actual baby recognizing a sharp instrument and trying to get trying to move around in the womb to get away from it. And that just ruined her whole career as an abortionist. And then she, of course, can't be came for life.

It's a very good movie. It's called Unplanned. Anyway, what was your question? Some time ago, you were someone you're answering a question. I think about the I don't know if it was the age of the earth or or evolution might have been more like evolution. And I didn't quite catch or understand because I think you mentioned about Neanderthal men and such.

And Adam and Eve to me were not, you know, these ignorant cave people. And so just tell me, I mean, do you believe that there's a young earth and in just tell me what your what your understanding is again. And I'm going to hang up and listen to you. OK.

Thanks for your call, Robert. My view is that it doesn't matter at all what the age of the earth is. That's that's my view. And I don't really care if the earth is old or young. The I've seen evidence of a secular sort that would support a young earth. And I've seen some that would support an old earth. Certainly the majority of scientists today believe in an old earth. But that's partly because the majority of them believe in evolution and the majority of people who believe in evolution do not believe in God.

And so I don't I'm not hung up like they are. I can be open minded. You see, if a person doesn't believe in God, they have to believe in evolution.

There's no other choice. And if they believe in evolution, they have to believe in billions of years to make evolution work. Now, I can believe those things as a Christian. I can believe there's a God and that he used evolution if I want to. I can even believe he used evolution over a period of billions of years if I want to, because that's within my theistic worldview possible. But the atheist doesn't have a choice. The atheist can't be open minded.

They have to say, no, it has to be billions of years, even if there's good evidence for a younger earth than that. There has to be evolution because that's the creation narrative of atheism. Atheism is a religion.

It's a belief system. And every religion has its own creation narrative. And Darwinism is the creation narrative of the atheist religion. And so they don't they can't be open minded. If they could, they would see that there's very good reasons to question evolution. There's good reason to believe that intelligent design is the more rational view for the origin of species.

But they can't be open minded. They're not allowed to because they give up their faith. I won't give up my faith if I accept either instant creation, young earth creation, or if I accept old earth evolution. I could say, well, God used it.

Now, I don't believe God used it. I incline toward the young earth, but it's not a hill to die on for me. If there was absolute proof of an old earth, that's fine with me.

I'm not worried about it. But I have seen evidence on both sides and I'm talking about, you know, secular type of evidence. And the evidence, the evidence is the same no matter what side you're on. It's just how you interpret the evidence and you interpret the evidence very largely due to your own world view. If your world view is that there's no God, then all the evidence will be crammed into an argument for an old earth because that's the only thing an atheist can believe in. There's no way they can believe in a young earth.

Now, like I said, I'm at liberty. I can believe in young earth or old earth and still believe in God. So I don't have a problem with that. I do incline toward a young earth and I don't think there's evidence that God used evolution. I think that there'd be a lot more transitional forms if the species we have today had in fact evolved very gradually from other species.

There'd be a lot of transitional forms that simply don't exist in the fossil record and they don't exist in the living world either. So I think the evidence is very much against evolution. And all the evidence that's supposedly for it is evidence that can be interpreted without that paradigm. You can in fact use a different paradigm to understand that evidence quite rationally. But again, for me, I'm not really too concerned about whether God used evolution or didn't.

The main thing is that God is the creator, that God is the one who made everything and He made it for a purpose. You see, the intelligent design movement is not a movement that necessarily supports biblical seven-day, six-day young earth creation. Most people in the intelligent design movement don't seem to believe in young earth and not necessarily in six-day creation. But they do believe that there is evidence in nature of intelligent design. And if there is intelligent design, there must be an intelligence that designed. And if an intelligence designed, then that intelligence had a reason for designing.

So there's a purpose too. As far as Neanderthal goes, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon Man are skeletal remains of humans really, somewhat different than many modern humans. Although if you go around the world and look at some of the tribes in various continents, you'll find pygmies and you'll find watusis and you'll find very different kinds of body shapes and sizes of human beings. We don't call them Neanderthals. The reason Neanderthal Man is called Neanderthal Man is because the remains were found in Neanderthal, Germany.

It's a location. And at first, when these were first discovered back in the 1800s, it was assumed that, or early 1900s, I forget which it was, they thought this was maybe a transition between humans and non-human ancestors. But modern discovery, science, has pretty much relegated Neanderthals to the realm of homos, that is people, humans, who had some characteristics different than most modern humans have.

But you can find that among living groups of humans too, differences. The main thing is that Cro-Magnon Man interbred with Neanderthal Man, and that means they were the same species. A man cannot interbreed with an ape, thank God.

And you have to be of the same species to interbreed. And there's evidence in caves that Neanderthal Man and Cro-Magnon Man had children together, that they were of the same species. That means they were human beings, because Cro-Magnon walked bolt upright, had a brain capacity, a cranial capacity, larger than modern man by a few centimeters, or whatever it is, cubic centimeters, and, you know, was a human being. Frankly, many evolutionists have said, well, we've changed our mind about Neanderthal Man.

If you'd give him a shave and a bath and put him in a suit and tie and walk him down the street in New York, no one would notice. He's just a human being. But sure, there have been people, you know, isolated groups of human beings that have had characteristics different than others. But the fact that they interbred with Cro-Magnon and Cro-Magnon was human means that they too were human. So I don't believe that, you know, that Neanderthal Man was some knuckle-dragging, you know, half-human, animal-brained creature.

That was what was once believed when they first found it, but that doesn't represent the current belief of, as far as I can tell, any of the modern scientists. Okay, Tim from New Haven, Connecticut. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Steve, how are you doing?

Good, thanks. So what I wanted to ask you is, I read the Bible daily and I pray daily, but I'm not in touch with any other Christians because I really don't know any because I just recently got into the faith. So what I want to know is, because I'm not socializing with any other Christians right now, would the Lord allow me time to get connected or eventually?

Because I feel like eventually He does. Yeah, you do need to try to. How far is New Haven from New London, Connecticut? Very far? Well, it's about a 20-minute ride or so. Okay, the reason I ask is I know of a church in New London, Calvary Chapel. The pastor there is a man I led to the Lord when he was a hippie back in 1975, and I think he's a great pastor. It's the Calvary Chapel in New London, Connecticut. If you could drive 20 minutes to church, I'd recommend it and tell him I sent you. I'm out of time for today's program.

Yeah, his name is Joe Paskowitz, the pastor is. You're listening to The Narrow Path. We're done for today. You can write to us if you'd like to help us stay on the air. You can go to our website also, thenarrowpath.com.

You can donate from there or you can get our mailing address from there. I'm out of time for today. Have a good weekend. Let's talk about more of this stuff on Monday. God bless.