The Narrow Path 11/3

Music Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon with an open phone line for you to call in if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or the Christian life or any other concern that Christians have or if you have a different view from the host feel free to give me a call. And the number to call is 844-484-5737.

That's 844-484-5737. A couple of announcements. Tonight, a church in Oregon has a Zoom meeting which I'll be participating in answering questions.

I think questions about apologetics, I believe. And that's tonight at seven. It's a Zoom meeting and you can join it if you want to, I think. If you go to our website, thenarrowpath.com under announcements. And tonight's date, you'll find, I think, everything you need to know to hook up to that. Also, for those of you who live in Southern California, this Saturday night in Temecula at 6.30, we have our regular or occasional Q&A time meeting at the Love of Christ Fellowship in Temecula.

And so that's also at the website. If you're interested in joining us, check it out, thenarrowpath.com under announcements. And now let's go to the phones and talk to Andy in Arizona. Hi, Andy. Good to hear from you. What's up? Hi, Steve. Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Hope you and Dana are doing well. Sure. And we are. And I go ahead. No, I said we are. Okay, great.

Yeah, I know you had quite the road trip there. Also, just ordered just got your your book Empire of the Sun on Amazon. And looks like reviews are starting to come in.

So looking forward to that read. But today, I wrote my question down. I'll listen to your reply while I'm off the air.

But here it is. To what degree does your enthusiasm about the kingdom of God, and your knowledge that it'll never be defeated, that it'll last forever, give you some solace about the seeming death of our nation, and the steady erosion of our liberties as we've known it? Do you sympathize with Christians who are losing sleep about rising tyranny?

And what would you say to the most distraught people, Christians right now? Well, yeah, the kingdom of God is indestructible. But it does go through times of persecution. Now, you know, if our hope is for the success of the kingdom of God, we're on the we're on the winning side, and that's going to happen. If we're hoping that it'll happen in our lifetime before things get really bad for us.

We have no assurance of that. Now, I think it's I think it's reasonable for Christians to be concerned about the rise of totalitarianism. I mean, even if it's only concerned for their children and their grandchildren, and their well being. But of course, our greater concern has got to be with the fortunes of the kingdom of God. And to tell you the truth, our country, for many years, maybe a few generations, has has really drifted from God. And, and frankly, we can't really be surprised if God says, Well, you know, you've been thumbing your nose at me for now, you know, 60 years. And, you know, I think it's time for you to, to pay the piper. That is, you've had all these freedoms have had all this prosperity, you've had all this comfort and security for all the, frankly, all the years since World War Two.

And, and, and what have you done with it, you know, you've just simply become carnal, you become worldly, you're concerned about your own wealth and your own things. And so I'm going to take those things from you. I know that's I'm not speaking as a prophet. I'm saying that if that is God's attitude, I wouldn't be surprised.

I wouldn't think it was anything that we should moan about. But we because we certainly deserve it. Now, maybe maybe you and I don't maybe we've been serving God faithfully, but we're part of a nation that has turned from God and when when godly people are in a nation under, under judgment, then that means, well, they they suffer too, in it.

So anyway, you know, I'm, I'm concerned, but I'm mainly concerned, you know, about the next generation or so. I'm also well, frankly, I'm concerned about, you know, persecution of Christians, because I'm a wimp. And I don't, I don't like the idea of being persecuted. But I can't see any reason why I should be exempt from it. When much better Christians than myself have died as martyrs. I mean, if I had to die as a martyr, I guess, you know, no one could complain that that's unfair.

I mean, no one could complain that I deserve not to. So, I mean, we just have to be we have to buck up and be courageous and trust God and, and know that very bad times could be ahead. In fact, probably they are but and that might be true no matter who wins this election, because even if there's a stay of execution for four years, by a certain out term of this, of this particular election, that's still four years.

I mean, what's going to come after that? I mean, unless, unless the nation turns back to God, it's, it's only going to be a four year reprieve from some of the worst things that could come down suddenly otherwise. So, of course, I've always believed that I would live to see persecution in this country.

Not in the sense of being a pessimist, but just realist. When I was 17, and I was reading about Fox's book of martyrs, I was reading about Richard Wurmbrandt, or I was reading about Corriton boom. I mean, these were people. Some of these were only in our parents generation. And they went through horrendous things as Christians just because they were Christians.

But after World War II, most of that fell away. And we have just, we've never had taken seriously the idea that we might be persecuted badly, but we might. But we should be praying. We should be seeking God's face and humbling ourselves and so forth. And maybe God will have mercy. I'm certainly praying for that. And, you know, but if not, I mean, our attitude has got to be, even if I die, or if I'm put in prison, or if I'm silenced or whatever, well, the kingdom of God is still going to crush all this. The kingdom of God is going to crush all opposition.

And those who stand in opposition should be very terrified. They're not because they're so callous against the things of God. Many of them don't even believe in God, but they'll be surprised and it'll be horrible for them.

I mean, you really need to pity the people who are bringing upon the world this disaster. And there are many of them. And some of them are even calling us those Christians and voting for such a thing.

So it's an amazing thing to me. But, I mean, blindness, the Bible says those who don't receive the love of the truth, God will send them strong delusion that they'll believe a lie. And there certainly are people, including those in the Christian camp, who have not really received the love of the truth. They love their doctrine, or they love their denomination, or they love their position or whatever. But if you don't love the truth more than anything, then you're subject to being deluded by none less than God himself, who sends strong delusion as a judgment.

And our country has had more light than probably any other country in modern history. And yet we have hated the light and we have not loved the truth. And therefore a strong delusion has come over us. What we can do about it remains to be seen.

I mean, we need to be faithful and speak the word and be faithful unto death. And maybe we'll have an impact or maybe we won't. Maybe this isn't the generation that will. Maybe it'll be a later one. Anyway, don't mean to be gloomy, but I don't want to be, you know, unrealistic either. And I know that you're being realistic as well.

I appreciate your call, Andy. And, you know, in times of persecution, some people do survive and, you know, we'll just see how the church fares after some of that. You know, in the Soviet Union, the church suffered under communism for 70 years.

That's at least what, two or three generations. And, and yet the church survived. There was underground church. They didn't have quite the same surveillance technology back then to hunt everyone down. But if we're not so addicted to our cell phones and our other things that are convenient to us, it's a little harder, I think, to keep track of us if we have to go underground.

And, you know, that might sound melodramatic, but if it does, it only sounds it to people who've never been in touch with reality about this kind of thing. All right. God bless you. Thanks to you for calling. John from Columbia, South Carolina.

Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey Steve, how you doing, brother? Good. Thank you. Good, good. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. Good deal. Is this my friend John?

Yes, it is. What are you doing in South Carolina? I usually hear from you from Portland. Well, yeah, Oregon is awfully blue.

I didn't think I'd be able to win a Senate seat there, so I figured I'd establish residency in South Carolina and then make a run for it. Oh, good. No, I'm just kidding.

That probably won't happen. Are you living there now? That's a whole nother story, but yeah, I live here in Columbia now. Oh, wow. Okay, great. Well, it's good to hear from you again, John. You know, I think I've got a good question for you.

I'd be curious. I wonder if you've ever been asked this one before. So someone posted on Facebook an objection to the idea of America First, and their objection was a strange one to me. They said that America First was a heresy because nowhere in the Bible would it ever indicate that the gospel should go to America First. And I weighed in and I said, well, you know, I've never heard of anybody saying America First in a theological context. I said it's not a gospel context.

It's a national policy context. It's not a theological statement. I've never heard of it as a theological statement.

But then this question came to my mind. Now, do you think, can you think of, in your mind, Ken, do you think a non-theological statement can be a theological heresy? Well, no, I don't think it would be referred to as a heresy. I think they'd be in a different category. It would just be wrong. It would just be a lie if it was not a religious doctrine. And, yeah, I mean, if somebody said that they thought the term America First means we need to evangelize America First, I don't know anyone who's ever taken that meaning from it.

So that's a very strange thing for them to say. I think that, you know, people who say America First in some cases might be a bit idolatrous of America, but I don't think always. I think that a lot of people realize that if America becomes weak, it's light to the world, which it has been. I mean, the church in America has been setting up missionaries for centuries. We impact the whole world in many ways, culturally and so forth, that our impact on the world will be diminished and our ability to help the world.

I mean, whenever there's a country in crisis, who sends aid, if not us? I mean, if we are weak, then we will not be of any use to the world or to the kingdom at large. That doesn't mean that God can't raise up somebody else. I mean, if America goes down and the church in China prevails, you know, which is one of the fastest growing churches in the world, or a church in some other country rises up and some other country is used by God in the way that America has been used in the past, well, then that's that.

That's fine. I mean, if the kingdom of God continues to prevail, it's fine. Obviously it's less convenient for us. But let's face it, we've had a lot more conveniences than most people in the world have had. So maybe we've had our share of conveniences. Now it's time for us to find out what the rest of the world has been living like in many cases.

And I don't say that. I mean, I hope America remains strong because I think that America has remained a strong influence for justice and for freedom and things like that through its history. On the other hand, I mean, if the country is going to go fully into darkness, then its influence may be dark influence and maybe it's better that it doesn't continue to have that kind of preeminence in the world. But I would say that in American history in recent, in the last century or so, America has saved the world from, you know, horrible totalitarian powers in a couple of world wars and has done a lot of good for a lot of people.

You know, the American way of life and the American philosophy has, in fact, pulled more people out of poverty than any other system has. I mean, I think it's good for the world and it's good for God's kingdom for America to do well, as long as it isn't an influence for evil. And that's, I guess, what is sort of in the balances right now.

Which way will it go? But yeah, I mean, if your question is, can a thing be a heresy without being a theological doctrine, I don't think it would really classify as heresy in the classical or historical sense of that word. Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing. I was kind of curious to hear your thoughts. I appreciate your thoughts on that, Steve. Okay, John. Good hearing from you. God bless you.

God bless you. Bye. Well, congratulations for getting out of Oregon. Yeah, I have a lot of friends still in Oregon, and I used to live in Oregon, of course, and I'm glad not to be there. But I jumped out of the frying pan into the fire when I moved to California, and I wouldn't mind being out of here someday either.

We'll just see how God takes care of things. Let's talk to Tyrone from Oak Harbor, Washington. Tyrone, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Yes, sir. Good afternoon.

I'm glad to hear your day is going well. So my question has to deal with—I've been posed this challenge of wondering if Jesus could have sinned if he chose to. I think it might be a two-part question, but you might answer it in that first part, so anyway. Right. Well, that is one of the controversies that has been discussed in theology. There is a doctrine that is considered by most to be the orthodox teaching, which is called the impeccability of Christ. The doctrine of the impeccability of Christ teaches that because of Christ's divine nature, it was impossible for him to sin because it's impossible for God to sin. Now, I don't see any support for that doctrine in the Bible.

I mean, it is true. The Bible does say that Christ was God in the flesh, but the part that says in the flesh is very significant. I think some people forget that Jesus was God in the flesh and just think he was God, and that would not be agreeable with what the Bible teaches. Now, as a person in the flesh, although God had not been in the flesh before Jesus was born, by coming into the flesh, I believe he became vulnerable to the temptations and to the weaknesses of flesh. That's why, although God can't become tired, Jesus became weary. God cannot be ignorant of anything, but Jesus was ignorant of certain things, as he himself said he was.

God cannot die, but Jesus died. So, I mean, to say that God cannot sin and that means that Jesus couldn't sin is a non sequitur, and yet that's the only way I've ever heard it argued. When people say Jesus couldn't sin, well, then that would be suggesting that there was nothing of a real humanity. He was really taking no risks by becoming a man in the end, and I think that the Bible indicates that there was something very significant about the fact that Jesus managed to resist temptation, and that would be not surprising if he was only God and was incapable of sinning like God is incapable of it, but he was a man and there's many things God cannot, God is not vulnerable to that Jesus was. And so I'm thinking that Jesus had as much free will as you and I do.

But on the other hand, let me just say this. I don't know that Jesus, I don't know that his fleshly desires were as strong as ours in terms of temptation. Well, the Bible says he was tempted and always like we are. So it may have been as strong, but he did have, of course, the divine nature to to fight them off, which we also do now, too, since we've become partakers of the divine nature, the Bible says. But we can still sin.

And I think he could. He could, but he didn't when the Bible says he was tempted in all points like we are yet without sin. I think it's saying that's an amazing thing, you know, that he faced the same temptations we do and managed not to sin. So he's hardly worth mentioning if sinning was not even in his wheelhouse and not something he could even do. So I think it's more amazing that Jesus didn't sin because I think if he had chosen to, he could have.

But his inclination may have been so much against it that the temptations didn't hit him as hard as they do us, because we were maybe not as committed to God as he was. And it's like it's like, could I you know, could I kill my children? Well, it's physically possible. And some people have done it. And I'm not necessarily more superhuman than those who have done that. But I don't have it'd be totally contrary to my nature to do it.

I have absolutely no temptation ever to kill my children. So, so I could say, Well, I guess I couldn't do that. I don't think I could commit that sin. Not because I'm sinless, but because it's so contrary to me, not because I can't make bad decisions, but because it's so contrary to my nature. So it's probable that one could argue the question both ways.

One is that if Jesus, you know, even if he had the power to sin, it may be that he was so disinclined toward it, that it was no way going to happen. Okay, I like that. Some of that. So you said it was orthodoxy that that comes out of that packability comes out.

Yeah. So I was thinking, I was thinking along lines that one this doctrine as well, because they said, Well, because Jesus is God, and God could not be tempted with seeing and I thought maybe that is likewise that you came from the one this doctrine. Well, I, you know, I don't think it came from the one this doctrine, but I think it was because I don't think the one this doctrine has been prevalent in Christian theology through most of history. There have been some who have held it, but I think even Trinitarians would normally say that they believe in the impeccability of Christ that he could not sin. But that's not a position I would take because the Bible doesn't say it.

And it doesn't it even it even sounds counterintuitive. You know that if he was a man, you know, they say, Well, God can't can't be tempted with sin. But the Bible specifically says that Jesus was tempted with all all the kinds of sins we are. So right there, we have, you know, evidence that Jesus was could succumb or at least he could confront challenges that God the Father has never confronted, you know, without being in the flesh. And wasn't it also another place that in your opinion, if you said I could call the Legion of Angels that kind of gives an allusion to the fact that he had a will to choose either or.

But that's a very good point. That's a very good point, because if he had called for 12 legions of angels, that would have been wrong. Yeah, he would have been delivered that would have been wrong, because he's it would not be his father's will. You know, remember, he said delivery from take this cup from me, if it is your will, but not my will, yours, so he surrendered his mind, but you're if he had called on 12 legions of angels, he would take in the matter into his own hands and doing his own will instead of get the Father's will, which is technically a sin. And he said he could do it, but he just didn't so I guess. So Jesus, I guess himself said that he could sin. Yes, sir.

Well, amen, that that kind of feels for me, I'd like to say it gives more credibility to the fact that he resisted in his human nature, which kind of empowers me to think, well, if he did it and we know that his his temptation was much greater than ours, as the scripture declares that, that we are able, likewise to resist work. All right, so I really appreciate that. Thank you, sir.

All right, Tyrone. Great to hear from you. Thanks for calling, brother. God bless you. Okay. John from Jackson, Wyoming.

Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. Hey, Steve.

Hi. Hey, would you agree with the this statement? If your saving faith is in Jesus plus anything else, then that's not biblical faith.

What do you say? I agree with that. I agree with that. It'd be awfully hard to know how much of our faith we put in anything else. I mean, we we can certainly say I trust in Christ alone.

And it may be, you know, that is the right thing to say. That is the biblical thing to say. But I don't know to what degree even true Christians, unbeknownst themselves, depend on their own performance somewhat, which they shouldn't. But a lot of times we sometimes have doubts about our salvation if we if we succumb to temptation. And that's not an evidence that we're not saved unless we're doing it all the time and not repenting.

That would be an evidence we're not saved. But yeah, I mean, I'm very comfortable with that that statement. All right, thanks. Okay, that's it, eh? All right. Thank you for calling. God bless you. Okay, let's see here.

Marilyn in Lebanon, Oregon. Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. I have a comment. Okay.

If we feel so strongly about saving unborn babies that we wrote for a person like Donald Trump, then we should be also writing, phoning, and texting our lawmakers to pass the Life Begins at Conception Act. That's a great suggestion. I think that that's very sensible.

I, you know, I don't know. Is there is there an act like that sort of on the table that they're considering? There should be.

I don't know if there is. I think it is. Good. Well, I think Christians should definitely write to their senators about it. Now, of course, if if if Christians will vote against pro-life, a pro-life president and vote for a pro-choice president, then I don't think we'll get much activism from them in terms of trying to pass such an act.

But I think that's certainly would be the only righteous way a nation could view the situation. Life begins at conception because that's when growth begins. Things that aren't alive don't grow. So, you know, the baby, as soon as there's a zygote, it's growing and it's got human DNA. So it's a growing human. And so to kill it is killing a growing human. There's I mean, a living human. So it's, you know, to think otherwise is nonsense. And it's amazing how many Christians try to justify their hatred for Trump to the point where they say, well, I can I can endure babies being aborted, but I just can't endure having Trump as president. Well, listen, Paul endured the Roman emperor who put him to death.

I mean, he labored under we can endure some things, but we have to we have to actually protest certain things or else we're not very good Christians. I appreciate your suggestion. We're going to take a break here just for a few seconds. And we have another half hour coming up. So don't go away. You're listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported.

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Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or a different viewpoint from the host, you can call in.

I need to correct it myself. I did say at the beginning of the last half hour that we have a Zoom meeting available tonight. And I was forgetting this is Tuesday.

I was thinking it was Wednesday, Wednesday, tomorrow night. We have a Zoom meeting that you can read about and join, if you like, at our website, The Narrow Path dot com under announcements. Let's talk to Stanley from Honolulu, Hawaii. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Stanley. Thanks for calling.

Thank you, Steve. I was wondering, what are your feelings on adding anything to the word like in the Lord's Prayer? Anything after our daily bread?

In particular, I like to know about the trespasses because it helps me. That's what helps me when I say my prayers, like the log in my eye. But it comes a burden to me when I say to judge me by this.

So I like to hear what you have to say about it. Well, when the Bible says don't add to God's word and don't and don't subtract from God's word, it's not entirely clear what that means. A lot of Christians, I think, wrongly think it's talking about don't add new books to the Bible. But of course, Deuteronomy, which was one of the early books of the Bible, said don't add to God's word. And yet many books of the Bible were written after that. So it's not talking about how many books to add or not to add, but it certainly means not to alter it, not to pervert it in any way by putting your own human ideas in there or by subtracting any of God's ideas, but to basically be faithful to it as it is, as it is given. Now, you mentioned the Lord's Prayer, that there is in some manuscripts, in fact, the ones followed by the King James Version, the statement for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. That last line is not found in the older Greek manuscripts. However, the reference to forgive us our trespasses or our debts is actually in all the manuscripts.

So you don't need to worry about that, that particular line being, you know, invalid. But frankly, even if Jesus didn't tell us to pray that, we could certainly pray it. You know, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us.

That is, Jesus teaches in many places that unless we forgive others, we can't expect God to forgive us. So for us to pray that he'd forgive us as we forgive others would be quite biblical, even if it wasn't originally part of the prayer. But that is that is a part of the prayer that is in all the manuscripts.

So there's not really anything that that's not an added thing. The Lord's Prayer, as we know it, is the same pretty much in all the manuscripts, with the exception that the older manuscripts leave out that last. Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. So and that and those words are actually taken from First Chronicles, from a prayer that David prayed.

So. So in other words, it's it's not really a it's it's a biblical idea whether Jesus had that tagged on to the end of the prayer or not. We don't know because the manuscripts are not all the same about that. But but even if Jesus didn't tag it on, it's part of a biblical prayer from the Old Testament.

It wouldn't be you know, you don't have to worry that you're saying something, adding to the word of God in some way that's going to be corrupting it. All right. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate that. Thank you, Stanley. God bless you, too.

Peter from Portland, Oregon. Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling.

Thank you, Steve. You just alluded just a few minutes ago about not called trying to compare Trump's lying with murdering babies. You would when emotions are involved, as my my understanding of come to inclusion, where emotions are involved, the intellect is at a disadvantage so that we have like they hate it. They hate it, Nixon. But there's no comparison to the hatred of Trump.

That's true. Someone coined a word unhinged, unhinged from any kind of reason. So when this person was talking about saying that Trump lying, which is not a crime, unless you're under oath, that his line was worse than killing babies and trying to argue that is totally off the scale. And his brain must be flooded with this poison of his hatred.

I think the the the better argument was that, well, if lying is not a crime, how can you justify it? And I think he was so consumed with this hatred that he went overboard, claiming that it was murder and he could defend it against Trump's lying. If any of his pro-abortion friends heard him, they have schooled him. A pro-abort never say they are for abortion. They are pro-choice.

They never say they're for abortion. And I think that would have been a way better way. You're very brilliant and very erudite. And I know criticism, but I think just saying that all politics, all politicians lies is true. But to compare lying with killing of babies, just totally indefensible. I agree. But he could only come to that conclusion because he was so filled with his hatred of Trump.

Yeah, that's obvious. And hatred is not a Christian virtue either. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So an abortionist who's a murderer does not have eternal life abiding in him.

Certainly a person who empowers an abortionist by giving him legal rights to do what is illegal, I mean murder is illegal, that person would have to doubt that they have eternal life abiding in them. And if someone hates another person, especially another person who claims to be a Christian, then that person is a murderer and has no eternal life. That's just what the Bible says.

I'm not making this stuff up. That's just plain, plain speaking from the Bible. So, I mean, a person can disagree with any candidate. I strongly disagree with Mr. Biden because he lies more than Trump does, far more. And he lies about things that matter. I mean, Trump, you know, when I ask people, what did Trump lie about? And they say, well, he exaggerated the size of the crowd at his rally. Okay, well, a person shouldn't exaggerate perhaps, but the point is, I don't know that Trump has ever lied about anything that has been, anything that really matters in the sense of affecting anybody. But his opponent certainly lies all the time and changes his story back and forth, partly because he doesn't have enough memory left, I guess, to know what he said before. But the truth is, he has no attachment to the truth at all. And as I said, I think Mr. Trump at least has this in his favor.

He kept his promises, which no politician who's ever run for office previously of high office has done. So anyway, I mean, you're right. I mean, killing babies is the one thing, well, killing innocent people is the one thing that will destroy a land, the Bible says. It defiles the land. And it says, it actually says in the Old Testament concerning Israel that if Israel would shed innocent blood, that nothing could atone for the land except the death of the murderer. Now, in the New Testament, we don't call for the death of abortion doctors and so forth. And when Christians go for making that happen, I think they're sinning. But in Israel, that's what God said.

A murderer would have to be put to death. And, you know, I don't think God has changed his mind about how bad that is. You know, God doesn't change. He may not require us to carry out the Old Testament sanctions on sins and crimes, but he doesn't feel any better about it than he did when he said that. So, I mean, anyone who thinks that abortion is not the major issue in this country, it is the major sin of this country. There's lots of sins in this country, but the biggest one is killing millions and millions of innocent babies who are made in the image of God. And therefore, it's poking your finger in God's eye because he values them. And you're saying, I don't, and I don't even care if they get cut to pieces in the womb and tortured in the womb. If they die horrendous deaths that I would never, you know, I couldn't stand to die the same way. I mean, I'd go crazy if I was to be cut to pieces, you know, one piece at a time. You know, I mean, they're just not thinking.

You're right. They're not thinking. Somebody, of course, many people use the term Trump derangement syndrome. And even if I were not, you know, interested in Trump's policies, I would not want to be involved with any derangement syndrome about anybody. I wouldn't want to be part of the Biden derangement syndrome, which makes me incapable of making rational judgments.

But I don't know. That must be the strong delusion that's been set on the country because these Christians even, they support a man who in all ways is ungodly and a liar and disgusting and embarrassing. One of the things that was brought up is that, you know, Trump was an embarrassment to this country. I don't think we're going to have any possibility of being embarrassed by a president any more than we could be if Biden became president, who can't even talk straight or think straight and remember where he is or who his wife is. You know, I mean, it's just to my mind, having a person who doesn't think at all is going to be very embarrassing, too.

But I'm not I'm not voting for, you know, the the candidate that will make me less embarrassed in front of the world. Let the world think what they want. I care what God thinks. And as a Christian or even as a God fearing person, if they're not a Christian, anyone who doesn't care what God thinks is asking for whatever disaster and judgment comes on this nation. And we know we're teetering on the on the brink of it, but we don't know how which way it's going to go. But I appreciate your thoughts. I agree with your thoughts. And thank you for joining us, Peter.

Sharon from Mesa, Arizona. Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. Hello.

Thank you for taking my call. My question is about modalism. And I've heard pastors teach this and I read it in their book and it's even in their music. But they believe that Jesus. I mean, the son of God was just the flesh of God. And I was surprised when I heard that's what they believed. Because I'm wondering if it denies the scripture and first John 22. Who is the liar that he would deny that Jesus is the Christ? He is the antichrist that deny the father and the son. Now, the church you went to, is it a United Pentecostal Church?

Yes. Yeah, well, they are modalists and I believe modalism is mistaken. I don't think they're denying Christ. I think they're I think they're wrestling with a difficult issue.

And I don't think they're getting the right answer from it. The difficulty is that Jesus is called God in the Bible. And so is the Holy Spirit called God.

And so is the father. And yet each of them are spoken of as separate from each other. And yet there's only one God.

So how can this be? Well, that's it's a mysterious thing. And the doctrine of the Trinity has been formulated to try to put all the data together. And I believe the doctrine of Trinity is true.

But I can certainly understand how some people seeking to understand the truth would have a hard time knowing how to put that data together and might might reach a different view. And, you know, the United Pentecostals, I think, are mistaken in their modalism. But I don't think they're denying Christ, per se. They're not denying that he is the Christ.

That's what First John tells us. Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ, the same as Antichrist. Well, they believe Jesus is the Christ. They just believe differently than I do about, you know, where God the father was when Jesus was on Earth. Because they believe that the father became the son and the son became the Holy Spirit.

There's not three. There's only one God who's manifest in different modes at different times. That's what's called modalism. But it is a it's a doctrine that is considered to be a heresy historically. I don't think it's the kind of doctrine that a person would go to hell for because it does not necessarily fail to honor Christ.

In fact, it does honor him. It just, I think, misunderstands him. OK, they do believe that since the son was the flesh of God, that only, I guess you could say that only the flesh of God died on the cross?

Well, yeah. Well, I mean, I don't use the term that the son was the flesh of God, and I'm not even sure what that means in the mind of a person who uses it. I would say that the son was God in the flesh, which is saying a little different. It means that God managed to take on human flesh, human nature, and lived as a unique man, the only one who's ever existed, who was God in a human form. But now if we say then that sounds the same thing as saying he's the flesh of God. I don't know. I don't think he's the flesh of God.

I'm not sure what that term means. I believe he's God in the flesh, which means there's, you know, he has the divine nature and the human nature. I'm not sure if the, you know, some people might say he's the flesh of God, meaning that God put on a costume of a human body. He wasn't really a human being.

He's just wearing, he's in disguise as a human being. I don't think that's how the Bible would represent it. I don't think that he was only, that he only looked like a human being. He actually took human nature. He became part of the human family.

He became the second Adam. But some of these things, our mystery is too deep for me to understand. And I don't really feel like I need to understand them. Certainly Jesus never explained it. So it must not have been something he thought the disciples had to know. And if they didn't have to know it, I guess I don't have to know it. But I, you know, I would like to understand it better.

I think there are some things beyond our grasp and I'm willing to let that be the case. I appreciate your call. I'm Ray from Santa Ana, California.

Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hello.

Hello. Thank you for your wisdom. This call is about the election in several places in Matthew 7, 16 and 20, 12, 33, and Luke 3, 9, 6, 44. A tree is known by its fruit and every tree is known by its fruit. And Galatians 5, 22, root of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. So, in terms of the people who are running for election, can we judge by their fruit, love, joy, peace, et cetera, gentleness? Well, if what we're judging is whether they're good Christians or not, we certainly could. I mean, that would be the very way that we would determine that. Are they good Christians?

Well, if so, it'll be shown in the fruit, love, joy, peace, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness, and so forth. Yeah, that's absolutely the way we judge and evaluate a person's spiritual state, and we should. But I don't think we're voting on who's a good Christian. I think we're voting on who's going to do well in leading this country. We don't really have any mature spiritual Christians running, as far as I know.

So, we could either just stay home and not vote at all, or we can say, which of these people is going to do the job that we're hiring them for? You see, electing a man is simply hiring a man for a job. And so, the question should not be how good a Christian is. Unless it's a Christian job, you know, I suppose.

But it should be who is competent, who is motivated, who is going to do this job in a way that will not destroy the company, you know? And so, I don't look at either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump and evaluate their Christianity, because they're not running as Christians. I mean, they probably both would say they're Christians, but so does everybody who runs for office, they say they're Christian. We know that most people who run for office are probably not Christians, but they're not running as Christians. They're running for president, and that's a very different thing. A president's not a spiritual role.

It's an administrative role. And they wouldn't be able to follow God better the closer they are to God, and the closer they are that they're following Jesus and being gentle and kind and long-suffering, et cetera? Well, they'd be able to follow the Lord better.

Certainly, they'd be able to follow the Lord better. That doesn't mean they'd be able to lead a country well. I mean, if you're going to hire someone to lead a corporation, you don't just want to hire someone just because he's a nice guy. You want to hire him because he's not going to destroy the company, because he has the skills and he has the drive and he has the know-how to do it. Again, we're not hiring a pastor of a church here.

We're hiring a CEO of the country is what we're doing. So we have a choice between somebody who actually is a true leader. He may be hard to take in his personality, but he does know how to lead. On the other hand, we have a man who doesn't even know what he believes in. He might be a nice guy, although I don't think he is.

I mean, he's got this nice guy persona, but the people close to him say not so much. So, I mean, he knows how to play the role. He's been doing it for 47 years. Listen, if somebody has been nothing in his whole life except a politician and he's done it for 50 years, you know what politicians do? They play roles. They manipulate voters.

That's how they stay in power. Now, Mr. Biden has learned that well, and he's stayed in power for 47 years. So we know that he knows how to play a role because that's what successful politicians do. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is not even a politician. He was never in politics before he became president. He was an actor.

What's that? He was an actor in reality TV. Well, yeah, he was a TV guy, but he was not a politician. No, he wasn't an actor. He was himself in TV.

He played himself, and I don't think he was acting at all. I think maybe he might have dramatized a little bit, but he lays his cards on the table. He says what he believes, and then he pursues what he believes. I have not seen Mr. Trump say that he will do something or that he believes something without him making some moves in that direction.

Some of them very strong, and some of them, of course, are not within his power to do unilaterally. But I'm not here to promote a candidate. I'm just saying that when it comes to judging a candidate, if we're going to use the fruit of the Spirit, well, then I guess we'd be looking for someone who's going to be running a religious organization, a Christian organization. But if we're going to be looking for someone who's going to either, if the option is to drive this country to bankruptcy and to ruin or not, then being a good Christian isn't really what's the most important thing for that job. It's the most important thing for any person's human destiny.

But when you're hiring someone for a position, you hire someone who can do the job. Well, Luke 3.9 says, if you bring us forth not good fruit, he's hewn down. I mean, I think the fruit of the Spirit is extremely important. Well, that particular scripture was John the Baptist telling the Jews that if they're not going to bring forth the fruit of justice, which God has been requiring of them, they're going to be destroyed in 70 AD. That's what John the Baptist is predicting there. And it's true.

Everyone who doesn't bear good fruit is going to be judged. There's no question about it. But that's not a prediction about who's going to win or lose an election. Okay. Well, thank you.

Yes, that's quite a bit of insight. Thank you so much. Thank you for your call. Good talking to you. Michael from Watsonville, California. How are you doing? Hi, Steve. Good to hear you.

I got in under the wire. Yes. So continuing to watch the debates between atheists and religious apologists.

Yeah. It seems to me that the core issue is systemological, how we know things. So some of the challenges put forth by atheists are that if I believe something, the issue of belief, if I believe that there is a deity or if I believe that I'm going, whatever the theology is or philosophy, that's not my direct experience. It's something that I've been told, that I've read. So, I mean, if a person, you would acknowledge, if a person simply gives lip service to the biblical teachings, that would not change the person.

But the way of knowing the truth of Jesus would have to occur on a deeper level. Would you say that's true? Yes. Yes, absolutely. So I think most of the atheists, they say, okay, you can't know something simply intellectually and it would make any difference, but they don't seem to be, at least most of them, don't seem to be offering any alternative.

So it doesn't really go anywhere. Yeah. Well, okay, so what would your question be, Mike? Well, I guess today we're basically in agreement that what I would call the knowing of the heart, that's the primary instrument or means of spiritual understanding.

Yes. Well, the mind is important, too. After all, we are the only creatures, as far as we know, that have minds like our own and they are quite amazing things. I think that God is interested in our mind as well as our heart. The thing is that a person will not seek God if they are convinced in their mind that he doesn't exist. If they are convinced in their mind that he either does exist or may very well exist, then they may be inclined to seek him with their heart. You know, God said, you will seek for me and you'll find me when you seek for me with all your heart. But no one's going to seek for God in their heart if their intellect tells them there's no one out there. There's nothing to seek.

Why waste your time? So I think the mental persuasion that there is a God, or at least that there's a very, very good chance that there's a God, is the approach that most, I think, Christian apologists take. They're trying to work on the first entryway into the soul, which is the intellect. And then, of course, if somebody is persuaded that their atheism was without warrant, then they may be open-minded, especially as God works in their heart or as things happen in their lives where they realize their need for God, that they may pursue him, whom they now know could, in fact, be there.

And if they're desperate enough, they may give him a try and find him. So I think the arguments that appeal to the head have a place. But the head itself is not enough to make you a Christian. You can certainly intellectually agree with the Christian truths without surrendering to them, without loving them, without embracing them in your heart.

And if that's the case, then I think that's what we have to say, sub-Christian experience. Hey, brother, I need to go. The music is supposed to be playing right now. I'm not hearing it, but there it is.

And I've got only a minute left. So thanks for calling. I'm glad to hear from you again. You've been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we do this Monday through Friday. We are listener supported, which means that the money that comes in is not from advertisers, because we don't advertise anything.

We don't sell anything. We just let you know. If you want to hear us on the radio, we pay for the time on the radio, and the money has to come from somewhere. So if it comes from somewhere, we stay on. You could be the somewhere. You can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and see how to support us if you'd like to. Otherwise, just take what's there for free. That covers a lot. Let's talk again tomorrow. God bless.