The Narrow Path 11/13

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, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith, well, this is one place where you can call and we'll discuss it, quite frankly.

And if we don't have the answer, we'll not pretend that we do. If you have a different viewpoint from the host, you can call and talk about that as well. Right now, our lines appear to be full, but you can take this number down and call in a few minutes and lines will be opening up. The number is 844-484-5737. Just keep that number handy, 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is, let's see who's been waiting long.

It looks like it's going to be Amy from Texas. Amy, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve. Yes, I really appreciate your program, first off. And I just called with a comment. A day before yesterday, I was listening to your broadcast and a man called in that's been suffering from chronic headaches. Yes. And then the next caller that was, that followed him was a man who has struggled with homosexuality and has called in various times to your program. Yeah. And he was overcome with compassion and moved to tears.

Right. And because of the other brother who has chronic headaches. And I just wanted that the one brother that called, that had compassion, I just wanted to let him know if he's listening, that it was such a blessing to hear his amount of compassion that I was convicted because I had compassion, but not that level of compassion for the brother who had the chronic headache. And it, I guess what I wanted to say is that I had heard a testimony from a Christian man who had left the homosexual lifestyle. And he explained that what he had come to believe is that he called himself emotionally gifted. And he said throughout his childhood, he always felt emotions very deeply and strongly for others and would cry. And just the culture threw at him that he was a homosexual.

But he realized that really, he was just, he called himself emotionally gifted. And yeah, anyway, I just wanted to throw that out as a comment and a thank you to the brother who, who had so much compassion for the other man who's suffering from chronic headaches. Yes. Okay. Well, that's good.

That's a, that's a good word and I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. God bless you. Thanks for joining us. Okay. We're going to talk next to Ali or Ali from Novato, California.

Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey Steve, you have a lot of endurance to take these calls every day. Oh, it's only an hour. Only an hour a day. I feel like slapping somebody about to answer them for more than five minutes.

So you're doing a lot better than I am. Some people want to slap me for going more than five minutes and answering. No, no. I like your long drawn out answers. They're very thorough and you're a very intelligent man.

And you, you've helped me. So that I'm thankful for. My question is regarding what you thought of so-called deliverance ministries, the focus on that, you know, you have a demon of a pride or blindness or, you know, a demon of, I don't know. I mean, don't, don't name off a demon for everything and tell you that you have nothing but those things inside of you, even as a believer.

And I almost feel like they psychologically make people worse. And I remember hearing about a founder of the admin district who actually thought, and some people have thought that these ministries actually drive people, I mean, almost the insanity of the suicide because they feel like they're just filled with nothing but demons and you can't ever fully get rid of them because whatever problem they have come up is another demon. So well, so you want to know what I think about these kinds of deliverance ministries and I, you know, I've been familiar with them for about 50 years now and I have to say that some of them are pretty wild. And I don't know, frankly, that there is a ministry in the New Testament that corresponds to what they call deliverance ministries.

There are certainly exorcisms. The apostles, for example, were known to cast out demons. Apparently Philip did so also, and he was not an apostle. So there, you know, Jesus indicated that Christians can do that. But as far as somebody who makes that their specialty, we don't have any example of that in the Bible and it probably, we need to be cautious about, you know, recognizing people as having such a legitimate ministry. I say be cautious because I also want to be cautious not to, well, I don't want to debunk somebody who God may have, you know, given special expertise in that area. But I do know that many so-called deliverance ministries, they do go pretty wild.

I mean, they go pretty far out. They seem to see every problem in a person's life as being caused by a demon and needing exorcism. And there's certainly nothing in the Bible that would indicate that Christians are just full of demons. But there's a lot of things in the Bible that talk about Christians and sin and overcoming sin and things like that. Certainly, we're told if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. It doesn't say anything about if we have the demons of the flesh cast out of us because I don't think there are demons of flesh. I don't know if there are demons of pride and demons of lust and things like that.

There could be. I mean, the Bible does speak about such things as works of the flesh. And for that reason, I know people say, well, see, there's not a demon of lust or there's not a demon of alcoholism or there's not a demon of pride. You know, that's just the flesh. Well, whenever you say that's just, whenever you use the word just, you're limiting things and you'd better have a good reason to limit them that way.

You know, I will say this. If you've got a problem with lust or greed or pride, that is the flesh. That is the flesh. But I don't know if it's only the flesh in every case because I'm not sure. But that demons don't kind of get hold of people through those kinds of things, too. I mean, there are works of the flesh.

But the more you surrender to the flesh, the more you establish, say, a habit or even a bondage to a certain kind of way of being. And I don't understand demon possession enough to know how necessarily demons always would get into somebody. But I can't rule out that, you know, me coming in bondage to certain sinful patterns that are of the flesh, I can't rule out that they might, not in some cases, you know, bring in demonic power, too. I don't say that with any certainty because the Bible doesn't really tell us how people come under demonic influence. We encounter people who are demon possessed in Scripture and we encounter exorcism.

But we're never really told how they get in. So when someone says, well, you know, when they talk about a demon of lust, that's just the flesh. Well, maybe. I mean, probably in a lot of cases, it is just the flesh. But I don't know that we can make sweeping generalizations like that without biblical warrant. Because unless we feel like we have great expertise on the whole subject of the unseen world, and I don't know that anyone has that kind of expertise.

So I don't broad brush all deliverance activities as if they are, you know, misleading. But some of them certainly probably are. I mean, when someone thinks that the reason you crack your knuckles is because you have a demon, and I've actually encountered people who had that position, you see that they've become a little bit overboard, maybe a lot overboard, in trying to see demons under every bush. I don't believe that all people have demons. The Bible does say that Jesus cast demons out of people everywhere He went, but He didn't cast demons out of everybody. And there's no suggestion that everybody needed to have demons cast out of them. Different people have different kind of problems that Jesus has to help them with. And one of the kinds of problems that some people had was demons in them. And Jesus drove them out.

Now, therefore, I do think it is a tendency of many in deliverance ministries to interpret everything that strikes them as abnormal in a person's life as being demonic. I remember back in the early 70s, I had a friend in California who wanted to go to a Bible or a discipleship school of some kind in Texas. I don't know who was running it or anything about it, but he didn't have any money, so he hitchhiked from California to Texas. And his hair was a little long, and of course, when you're hitchhiking out in the sun, you don't get a lot of showers and stuff. Let's face it, you're kind of smelly and dirty when you get there. And when he got there, they told him that he had a demon of long hair and a demon of B.O. Now, see, I don't think that demons cause long hair. I think that's a rather natural process.

If you don't cut your hair, it tends to get long. And I don't think that B.O. is a demon either. I think that's quite biological. So, there are people clearly who just have such an overcharged, supernaturalist worldview that everything is either directly from God or directly from demons. And I think there's a third category, and there's just plain old nature. By nature, we struggle with sin. We have a flesh. By nature, you get B.O.

if you're out in the sun without taking a bath for many days in a row. I mean, so, I do believe that demons often need to be cast out of people. I do believe that. I believe that there are people who have demons, and I've encountered them on occasion. But I don't think everybody I know has demons.

And so, I think that that's what I can say. Somebody who's got a deliverance ministry, that's all they do. I mean, usually that is the case. If they say they have a deliverance ministry, that's what they do. They cast demons out. Well, in order to have plenty of business, they're going to have to find a lot of demons, you know.

Whether they're really there or not, they're going to have to do some diagnosing of people as having demons, or else they won't need their services. So, I think there's a natural tendency for people who see themselves in that role to over-diagnose the problem. And honestly, a lot of these people don't seem to be very balanced. I mean, I've met some people who say they have deliverance ministries, and I'm not saying they aren't Christians.

I'm just saying they're not very balanced in many ways. So, those are some of my musings on the subject of your question, and I hope that may give you some insight. Maybe not. Let's talk to Jacob from Fife, Washington. Jacob, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Thanks for calling. I don't think that's Jacob. Jacob, if you're not there, I'm going to have to move along. Hi there. Okay, what's up? Okay, if you don't talk, I have to move along. Well, I asked you what's up.

Did you call for something? Well Paul does talk about a vision in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 that he said he doesn't know if it was in the body or out of the body. But in chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians, we talked about as long as we are in this body, we are absent from the Lord. He says in 2 Corinthians 5, 6, and he says two verses later in verse 8, we are confident, yes, well, please, rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. He's actually talking in the context about dying. In Philippians chapter 1, likewise, he talks about the prospect of dying and he says he's eager to depart and to be with the Lord. So obviously Paul believed that when a Christian dies, they leave their body and they go to be with the Lord until the resurrection, after which the body is raised by Christ when he returns. So I don't think he's talking about a vision at all in that particular case. But he is in another case where he talks about a man who had a vision and Paul says, I don't know if he's in the body or out of the body. Obviously that's a similar kind of concept because Paul apparently believed that a person can be in their body or they can be out of their body. He didn't know in this case which was the case, but he obviously thought both of those were possibilities. So Paul believed it's possible for a person to leave the body and in the one case, in 2 Corinthians 12, he is specifically talking about being caught up into heaven and seeing things and hearing things that he can't repeat.

But in seven chapters earlier when he talks about while we're in the body, we're absent from the Lord, but we want to be absent from the body and present with the Lord, that's talking about death and our going away to be with Christ, not really talking about visions. All right, thank you for your call. Jerry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, or maybe it's not Pennsylvania, there's other Pittsburgh's too. Jerry, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. I'm going to be stupid today.

I'm going to quote a little song if you don't mind. I'm sorry. Well, let me just say, I can't really understand what you're saying because your voice is distorting. Maybe could you pull away from your phone a little bit and talk because it's distorting too much for you to understand you. What are you saying? Okay, is that better?

Could be, yes. Okay, I want to quote a little Christmas song. It's going to be sort of stupid like I'm going to change a word or two. Why do you want to do that? It's a Christmas song. Right, but why do you want to do that?

I mean, why do you want to quote a Christmas song? Are you going to make a specific point? Yes, absolutely.

Okay. You better watch out. You better not shout. You better not pout. I'm telling you why.

Jesus Christ is coming to town. He knows when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake.

He knows if you've been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake. Okay, now what is the point you're trying to make for us there?

I mean... The point is that we're supposed to have the mind of Christ. We're supposed to die. No longer Jerry that lives, but Christ that lives in me. And if I live now, I live by the faith of Christ living in me.

Okay, so do you have a question? Well, the point is that we're putting Santa Claus in the place of Christ. I'm not.

Well, the whole world is almost doing that, isn't it? They took Jesus out. Now, you're not allowed to talk about Jesus and the government restricts the conversation of Christ and this virus is coming down because God's kicking butt.

We're not allowed to talk about Jesus. Okay, so in other words, you came to give a sermon. Thank you. I appreciate your call. Let's talk to Paul from Dallas, Texas.

Welcome to The Narrow Path, Paul. Hello. Hi. Are you there?

Yes I'm still here. Go ahead. Okay. I just want to comment. You are an example for so many people when you have so many people try to convert you and you say you're so cool.

And it helps me just to listen to you every day going home. And the other comment I wanted to make is when it comes to possession, I think a lot of things don't start off possession, like when I started smoking for 40 years. At the time, it probably didn't start for years. I tried hypnotism, drugs, it's like everything to quit. And one night as a joke saying, okay, God, I'm out of cigarettes. Don't give me the urge and I'll quit. And I've never picked them up since I never had the urge sense. Sometimes I think it's God taking that whatever is inside of you, whether it's possession or whatever, when he takes it, it's not part of you no more. All right. It's almost like it was a demon that he took because no matter what I tried, I couldn't quit.

But when he decided it was time, it was done. That is a possibility. That is a possibility. See, like I said, I don't know anything more about demons than I can get from the scripture or from the very little experience I've had in dealing with demon-possessed people. And that's not enough for me to know to what degree people who have problems that we might refer to as fleshly may have indulged the flesh or surrendered enough that they've given a foothold to the enemy. For example, Paul says in Ephesians chapter four, he said, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Now in Galatians five, Paul says that wrath and anger, those are works of the flesh. But Paul suggests that if you yield to the flesh, if you become angry, the verse before that says be angry, but do not sin and don't let the sun go down on your wrath, neither give place to the devil. It sounds like perhaps even though wrath and anger are in fact works of the flesh, that if you yield to them and if you give them place, you may in fact be giving place to the devil in ways that you don't know about. I'm not sure exactly what that looks like, but it certainly is something to avoid and that's I think the most we can draw from it. Likewise, habits that are addictive, like cigarettes and alcohol and drugs and things like that, and for some people things like gambling or pornography or things of that sort that get a hold of them. I would suggest that that begins certainly as simply indulgence in the works of the flesh, but for all I know, and I don't claim to know much, but for all I know, it may also result in some cases in people coming under the power of demons that keep them in bondage to them. So I appreciate your testimony.

That may fit well into the overall paradigm I was suggesting. John from Frisco, Texas, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi Steve, how are you today? Fine, thanks.

You need to turn your radio down maybe. I'm hearing an echo. Okay, I got it.

Okay. Well, I heard the guy's testimony and kind of got emotional. I wouldn't call it emotionally blessed or anything. I think it just, it hit me because, I mean, dealing with my own problems and just having that compassion for that person saying they wanted to maybe take their life or just give up, I found it very touching. Well I think that lady who called and said that she was blessed by what you had shared was- I heard it. I think she was basically saying, we don't have enough compassion most of the time, and that the compassion you expressed was something that she found refreshing and a blessing just because you're sensitive to the pain of other people.

You know, there's not enough of that around here. In fact, I was talking to somebody yesterday who's not a Christian, and they were talking about how even though they're not a Christian, they feel the pain of people more than a lot of their friends do. They're amazed at how many of their friends, unlike themselves, just don't really have any compassion at all for other people. They're just so self-centered. They feel nothing for others, and even when they know that somebody's hurting, they just think, well, that's not my problem. So this person was telling me that he, though he isn't a Christian, he was saying that he is shocked at the lack of compassion people have for others.

Of course, that's because people are quite narcissistic now, many of them, and all they care about themselves. Anyway, I appreciate your call yesterday and today, and I think that's where she was coming from. It's very unusual but pleasant to hear somebody so moved, as you were, over someone else's problems.

I do have a question, and it was the question I was going to ask that day, but I was so ripped by what he was saying that I just lost it. My question is, I've been praying for that person ever since I heard them, so I hope they know that. And my question is, when I pray every day, like I pray before I leave work, I feel like my prayers are just so repetitive, like, thank you for this day, thank you for your blessings that you give me, please help wash me of this sin, please take it from me, please help me to walk in the person that you want me to be. And I just feel like it's so repetitive, and it's almost like I'm kind of just regurgitating what I said every day, the day before, the day before, and then I hear people say, well, you're supposed to pray in the Spirit, and if you don't have that Spirit in you, then it doesn't flow from you naturally, and then it's just regurgitated.

If you're a believer, then the Holy Spirit of God does dwell in you. Now, you can certainly pray that God will allow the Spirit to guide you in your prayers and to put on your heart the things that he wants you to pray. About this repetitious prayer, we might be mindful of the fact that Jesus said in Matthew 6 that we should not be like the heathen who use vain repetitions in their prayer. But not all repetition is vain repetition.

A vain repetition would be when you're just mouthing a lot of extra words repeatedly, thinking that the repetition is going to have more impact, like, well, I mean, frankly, I think the way that sometimes the Roman Catholics are encouraged to say, ten our fathers, you know, the priest says, okay, when you make your confession, say ten our fathers and ten Hail Marys and so forth, and so they just rattle off ten recitations of the Lord's Prayer. And I think we can do that, too, as Protestants. We might just pray the Lord's Prayer all the time, so much so that we're not even thinking about it.

It's not even expressing anything that's in our heart anymore. It's just a habit, and that would be vain, I think. But it's never vain to be thankful to God, even if you're thankful today for the same thing you were thankful for yesterday. Frankly, I think we should be thankful to Him every day for certain things. You know, I might forget sometimes, but generally speaking, it's my habit to thank people who do things for me. Like my wife cooks for me every day, and I usually thank her for a good meal. And I don't feel like I'm being vainly repetitious because it's a different meal than I thanked her for before. But to be interactive with God and to recognize, hey, His mercies are new every morning, so this morning I've got new things to be thankful for. But they're the same kinds of things I was thanking Him for yesterday, just new instances of it.

And I don't think God is ever bored or tired of hearing us say thank you for things if we really are thankful. And so I think the main thing is not to worry about, did I pray this too many times? But rather, having prayed it so many times, am I still thinking about it when I'm praying it?

Am I still expressing something that's genuinely in my heart? If it is, then I don't think you can repeat it too much. You know, the Lord's Prayer itself contains the line, give us this day our daily bread. In other words, you're praying for the bread for a single day. That means you're expected to pray tomorrow for your daily bread and the next day for your daily bread. The fact that you're asking for something that occurs daily suggests that the prayer is to be prayed daily, and yet it's the same prayer. So it's not wrong to repeat the same prayer.

The main thing is that you must be really in your heart praying, that is, you're really addressing God and expressing something that's genuinely on your heart. Hey, I have to take a break. Can I hold for you?

Pardon? Can I hold for you? Okay, I'll put you on hold here until after the break. We have a break coming up here, and we'll be back in about 40 seconds.

You're listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. And please stay tuned. I'll be right back.

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

Study, learn, and enjoy. We thank you for supporting the listener-supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast.

My name is Steve Gregg, and we're live for another half hour. Take in your calls if you have questions about the Bible or anything like that that you'd like to ask on the air. The number to call is 844-484-5737. And our lines have filled up again, so right now you'd get a busy signal if you call. But call in a few minutes, and you may find a line has opened.

The number is 844-484-5737. And let's see, we were just talking to John from Frisco, Texas before the break, and we're going to come back to him here. He had something more he wanted to say. So hi, John. Welcome. Hi. I keep this really short because I love hearing other callers. So living the lifestyle that I've been in and trying to come out of it, and I hear that you're supposed to get with the church or be yoked with other believers, every time I've been in that kind of situation, I've always felt I didn't feel like I was around the right people.

I'll just hang up. Is there any, I mean, I know there's organizations out there that do it, but with that lifestyle running amuck and taking over and cramming it down people's throats, is there any place that we're true believers, take people like that and accept them and help them in their walk? You're saying that when you've gone to churches in the past, what, you felt judged because you have struggles with homosexual temptations? Not necessarily judged, but felt uncomfortable. The last church I went to, I mean, the pastor used the F word right in front of me as I was sitting across from him. Not the curse word, but the derogatory slang, and even though, I mean, when you're reaching out to people and you want them to be believers, you don't, you do it with love and kindness and not derogatory. And it's not like it was directed towards me, but just use the word with me in front of a room full of people who I was like, crap.

And I didn't go back. Well, you know, it's true, there are special ministries that reach out to homosexuals and sometimes help them. Though it's important that persons like yourself, if you want to follow Christ and you're struggling with temptation, then the church should be a family that assists you to overcome that.

Just like if you had any other temptation, to me, you know, for you to be struggling with same-sex attraction is not really totally a different thing than for you to be struggling with a, let's say, alcohol or drug addiction. And there's people in the church who come into the church with those addictions or those problems and generally speaking, the church's attempt to help them. And I would think that there's a growing number of churches, certainly in the past few decades, that are sensitive to the fact that there are so many people who struggle with that attraction. I would think there'd be a lot of churches, in fact, I would expect most churches to be quite welcoming of somebody like yourself and attempting to, you know, disciple and help you. So maybe you've just gone into the wrong churches.

There are certainly judgmental churches, there are churches that don't represent Christ well at all. But I can't tell you of any particular church, for example, in your town, in Texas, that I have any acquaintance with. I mean, I don't even know where Frisco is near, it looks like you've hung up now, so I can't even ask you. I'm not sure where Frisco, Texas is. Is it near Dallas? Yeah, I'm not familiar with the churches in Dallas, I'm afraid. I mean, we have listeners in Dallas, and I spoke in Dallas very recently, but it was in a home, to a home group. So I have to say, I don't know who to recommend.

Maybe somebody who is in the Dallas area will call in with a suggestion, and then if you're still listening, you can hear it. We also have, there's a website called Matthew713.com, it's Matthew713.com, and there's a number of resources there that's associated with us. But there's a place there, I think, where people can put in fellowships in various areas that they either, either they're in or they're looking for, of like-minded people.

And I don't know what's there, I haven't, I've never visited that site, because I'm not looking for that. But it is a resource for people like yourself who don't know where to go, and I'm not sure how many people have added, you know, put in anything there, but you might want to check it for, you know, fellowship resources in your area. Or just keep visiting churches, and you know, if they don't like you, that's their problem, it seems to me. I mean, if you're seeking God, and you want to follow Christ, and you're just looking for fellowship and help, and somebody is unkind to you or something like that, that's not your problem, that's theirs.

We have to be, I know you're a sensitive person, we know that, but you don't have to be so sensitive that if they are unkind that you can't handle it. You need to be strong in knowing that God knows your heart, and people often are not very much in touch with God and don't have his heart toward things. But definitely keep seeking, because with the particular struggles you're having, you really need some fellowship and some support from the body of Christ.

I believe God will lead you to the right people if you do a little bit of looking into that. I'm sorry that it hasn't happened yet previously. Let's talk to Joseph from Albany, Oregon. Joseph, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hey, Steve, thanks for taking my call. Sure. So I live in the state of Oregon, and so I had a question about the situation with our governor, Kate Brown, she has announced that starting next week that it's going to be mandatory for all churches, no more gathering than 25 people, and all restaurants are closing down, et cetera, et cetera. So I guess what my question would be was, what were your thoughts on that with governors like putting regulations on churches?

Well let me just say first- That you can't gather more than 25. First of all, I want to say that God never ordained the government to make those kinds of restrictions. The Bible does say in Romans 13 and in 1 Peter 2 that God has ordained government to punish criminals.

Now, punishing criminals is a very different activity than restricting Christians from meeting together. So those kind of restrictions are not within the sphere of the authority of any government official, which means that if you ignore them, you are not ignoring their authority. They don't have any authority to say that kind of thing. That's not what God authorized governments for. And so when you submit to the government officials when they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, you are thus submitting to God because God ordained them to do what they're supposed to be doing. But when they do what they're forbidden to do or what they're not allowed to do, they don't have any intrinsic authority. There's no authority except from God, Paul said. And therefore, if they're not exercising the authority that God has given them, which is defined as punishing criminals and protecting innocent people, if they're not doing that and when they're doing something else, they're outside their sphere and they don't have any authority at all over the Christian.

Nonetheless, I would say this too. The Bible does not command you to meet in groups more than 25. That's an important point to make because some churches, they defy the governors and that's fine. If the governments make, you know, illegitimate calls like that, then I think we have every right to defy them and just ignore them and keep doing the right thing. But we may get into trouble with the government and that's, I mean, Christians sometimes historically have because we can't compromise on our positions. We often, not so much in America, but in many countries and certainly the early church in Jerusalem and so forth, they got in a lot of trouble with the government because they would not submit to the government when they gave orders that are not authorized to give.

And the church wanted to continue doing what they're supposed to do, so they ignored the government authority and that's the right thing to do in those situations. However, we don't have a command from God that we must meet in groups larger than 25. As a matter of fact, the group I'm meeting when I go to church is less than 25 people, so it wouldn't have any impact on me, and we meet in a home. So I'm not saying that Christians must meet in small groups in homes, but we kind of have a choice.

If you're in Oregon and you're a church, you kind of have a choice. You can say, well, we're going to ignore what the governor says and we're going to meet anyway and maybe we'll go to jail and maybe we won't. And if we go to Supreme Court, if we take our case to the court, we might win. You know, we might have to be fined first and have to get our money back when the Supreme Court rules in our favor, but these governors have no right to give those kinds of restrictions.

But they don't know that they don't have that right and the police don't know that they don't have that right. So if we're going to defy them, we better be prepared to be jailed or fined or something else like that. That can be challenged at a higher level, but I mean, that's the inconvenience we have to accept. That's something that John MacArthur, I think, is willing to accept. He's been very vocal about the fact that his church is going to continue to meet no matter what the governor says.

And he's, of course, facing legal challenges on that, but I believe he'll win. On the other hand, if you don't want to engage the enemy like that in that way and you don't want your pastor to go to jail or whatever, there's always the option of meeting in groups smaller than 25. And so, in other words, you can thumb your nose at the government when they're making illegitimate demands, or you can just do and run around them and say, well, we don't have to meet in such big groups. We can meet in small groups. We'll meet in homes. Yeah.

And then it'll be a lot more like the early church because the early church met in homes too. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.

So that's what I would suggest. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for taking my call. You have a good day. I appreciate your call, Joseph.

Thank you very much. Bye now. All right. Okay. We have an anonymous caller from an anonymous place.

Welcome to The Narrow Path. I hope you know who I'm talking to because I can't use your name. Hi, Steve. Can you hear me okay? Yes, sir. Okay. Good.

You're a little quieter than normal. But anyways, so my question today is about prayer and it's a bit of a situation I'm experiencing. So I wrote this down. Now when I experienced periods of success in overcoming certain temptations involving the internet and lust, I start to pray for not just continued success in overcoming that, but also for kind of the whole industry of all that to just be done away with. And I'm praying for those who are in the industry and that the culture would and its attitude towards it would change. But I find that when I pray for these broader areas and outside of just my own personal success is it feels like, I guess, like a spiritual attack in terms of heavy temptation comes on me when I pray these things. I mean, I'm guessing it's just because the enemy is not liking my prayers against this. I'm dismayed to say that the attack and all this temptation, it feels so strong that it kind of scares me out of praying for these things. Well, one thing you might do is pray with another person or two when you pray for those things. That does mean temptation won't come upon you, but you'll be shouldering that burden along with some other people.

It'll distribute it a little bit. But another thing is, are you married? No, I'm not.

I see. That would have been helpful because you could always have your wife totally have the only password to your computer and she has to open the computer whenever you're going to use it. I mean, it sounds like treating yourself like a child, but frankly, if you don't have any more self-control than a child has, then supervision is a helpful thing. I would suggest, and this maybe seems a little radical, but society got along without computers for many millennia. Of course, we've become very dependent on them for a lot of our shopping and for a lot of our business, especially if we're not going to work and we're working online or whatever. But to the degree that you can avoid using your computer at all, to that degree, you can have somebody else keep your computer for you or something, and maybe that's not realistic.

Now, I am married. If I had a problem with internet porn or something like that, or even simply with internet shopping and I couldn't control myself, I'm just spending all our money going into debt, I mean, if there's some way that the computer is defeating me spiritually, I would definitely, in my case, I'd change out the password on my computer so that I didn't know it and let my wife know it. Then I wouldn't use the computer except when she opens it for me and when she's able to look at it. Again, that sounds like treating yourself like a child, but hey, don't flatter yourself. If you can't control yourself, someone has to change your diapers for you, someone has to put them on for you.

I mean, self-control is a mature trait and a lack of self-control is an immature trait. So to the degree that you don't have self-control, you really need to have external controls and somebody else supervising you would be one solution. Now, you weren't really asking about how to control the internet porn, but so much about how to pray about the whole matter without it bringing greater temptation upon you. Yeah, how can I react to those attacks, I guess?

Right. I would say, again, I would say partner with some other Christian. If you know some other Christian who knows God and who prays, suggest, hey, there's some things I want to pray about, but I feel like I'm fighting a spiritual battle here all by myself.

And I may be taking on an enemy that's too big for me alone. And so why don't we pray together about this? Could we get together once in a while and pray for this? It might seem a strange thing to suggest to someone because I don't know how many Christians really do this anymore. I mean, it was fairly commonplace when I was a young Christian that if you needed someone to pray with you, there were Christians ready to do that because everyone I knew was really trying to walk with God and believed in praying.

I don't know if people do that as much anymore. I'm not sure how many Christians really believe in prayer anymore or how many Christians really want to be bothered with it. But I would hope that if you're not entirely devoid of fellowship, that you could find somebody who will join you in prayer.

You might even, if you have a church or you have a group of people that you fellowship with and you should have some, then I would say to suggest to them, you know, we really have to recognize that a lot of our brothers have serious problems with addiction to internet porn. And I'm praying for the downfall of that whole industry. But every time I pray for it, it seems like I get attacked big time.

So I'd like to have more help praying for it, really, frankly. In other words, don't let the devil scare you off because if the devil's doing that to you, you're giving him a black eye. That's why he's coming back at you.

You've engaged him in battle. Most Christians don't. Most Christians just let the devil run free and do what he wants to do. But when Christians rise up to say, no, not on my watch, we're going to fight you off on this devil.

Well, don't be surprised if the devil says, well, if you're going to do that, I'm going to fight back. But if you engage, you know, a group against him, I believe, remember when Jesus talked about the value of two or more agreeing on something and it being done. I believe there's certainly prayer of an individual person is powerful. It says in James, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

But it seems to me that the Bible suggests that the combined prayers of more than one righteous man even has something more potent about it. And I would I guess the best thing I would suggest, I would not suggest that you stop praying for that necessarily, because then the devil has fought you off. You know, you hit the devil, gave him a black eye. He gave you a black eye and then say, OK, I quit.

You know, you're laying down now. I come back at him, give him two black eyes, you know, and this is a fierce fight. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of the rulers of the darkness at this age and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.

And yet we can win if we don't give up. And I think Christians often do give up too early because, frankly, this kind of thing happens and it's very it's not the easiest thing in the world to find a group of Christians that really are interested in praying together. You know, I I used to make an announcement on the air every week. I was living in Santa Cruz, California, at the time, and I would announce that Wednesday night at a particular church that was open to me, I was going to meet with anyone who wanted to meet to pray for revival. And I went there every single Wednesday night.

And one day, usually there's one other person there. And I think once there were two people who showed up and in my whole radio audience, you know, you know, I'd make this out. You want to pray for revival? We'll get together right here to do it.

Come on out. And and they didn't. So, I mean, I'm for it, but it's not always easy to people find people who care about the kingdom of God, who care about defeating the enemy, who care about holiness, who care about prayer or who believe in prayer. And this is sad because we're talking about Christians here. These are the things that Christians supposedly are all about.

So you've got to wonder what kind of Christians we're talking about here. But I hope you can find some of that. That's my suggestion.

I mean, maybe there's something else. You can do. But that is what I would suggest.

And I think that could possibly be a solution. Yeah. Although I think you'll still be battling.

You'll still be in war. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Based on that, I think I'll try and check in my church, see if I can get a group of guys together.

Yeah. Or even even your pastor, your pastor, I don't know how to pray. Just say, you know, I want to get together with you once a week or every morning or, you know, twice a week. And pray specifically about this because I've got a problem I'm trying to overcome. And so do a lot of the people in the church and so do a lot of pastors, by the way.

And I and I think we ought to be praying for this. I mean, any pastor says, well, I'm pretty busy. I don't think I can do that. I don't. He got to find another job.

Not as a pastor. All right. OK. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. OK. We love this man.

Yes, sir. Thank you. God bless. Thank you, brother. I appreciate your call. Welcome to California. Thanks for waiting.

Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Yes. Hello, Steve. So.

Excuse me. So I called to because I heard a caller earlier asking about, you know, how someone may be possessed or whatever. So I first wanted to make a comment on that. And then I had a quick question, if that's OK. OK, quickly.

We really are running out of time today. OK. OK. So my comment about possession was in the Bible, it says, I can't remember the book, but it says somewhere in there, you know, not to take part in, you know, so sorcery or or a pharma Kia or or magic or stuff like that, which if you look in like the Strong's Concordance, I think it was the word magic actually mean it was a pharma Kia, you know, which is like drugs.

So I wanted to say that, you know, drug use could be a path or possibly make you vulnerable to, you know, I think my experience, I tend to agree with you. Yeah. Yeah.

OK. And the question was there. And the question is, so with this coronavirus stuff going on, there's a lot of stuff out there, you know, going around. And with it being a worldwide thing and not just a American problem, you know, so a worldwide thing we got going on. And they're talking about, you know, they've got six hundred million doses ready to distribute and all this stuff and possibly more lockdowns and a dark winner and all this stuff.

And, you know, I've studied the book of Daniel and revelations and those prophecies and kind of feel like I know where we're at on the timeline. And if they were to come out and say, you can't work, you can't enter the store to buy anything or anything like that unless you've got proof of vaccination. And there's already research and investing being done by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Micro Dot Inc. And basically, I know about that.

I know that. So you're wondering you're wondering if the vaccine might be the mark of the beast, which is a lot quicker way of saying it than you were saying it. The answer is I don't see the mark of the beast as a literal chip or a vaccine or anything like that. However, whether I see it as the mark of the beast or not, I think it'd be a very sinister thing. You know, not everything that sinister is what revelations refer to as the mark of the beast.

But but I do think it'd be a very sinister thing. And I certainly would not voluntarily take a vaccine if there's any possibility that it had some kind of a microchip in it. But frankly, even without the microchip, I wouldn't take the vaccine unless if they held me down and made me take it or something like that, then, you know, I wouldn't expect to go to hell for it. I don't think it's a sin to take a vaccine.

But I do think I do think the science behind it is too difficult for me to vet. And I don't like to put things in my body if I have any reason to believe I don't need them there or don't want them there. And I've never I don't take I don't get vaccines anyway.

For example, I've never got a flu vaccine or anything like that. Nor have I seen any I've never had the slightest temptation to get it. I don't think it's a sin to get it. It's just something frankly, I'm not sure why people would voluntarily get things like that.

But that's their business. I would see a vaccine as something optional. And I would take the option of not getting it. Now, if there was a chip in it, too, I'd I'd most vociferously and violently refuse to take it. So but that that in my mind, that would not make it the mark of the beast. And that's partly because I have a certain understanding about the mark of a beast in the Book of Revelation, which is which does not make it something like that. But you know, lots of things. There's lots of things I wouldn't do, which I would not regard as the mark of the beast.

They're just things I wouldn't do because as a Christian or simply as an individual with my own idiosyncrasies, I would not want them. So anyway, your question, I think, was, is that the mark of the beast? And my thought is, well, you know, by some ways of thinking, some by some people's interpretation of the mark of the beast, it could certainly be a credible possibility. But I don't see the mark of the beast that way in Revelation.

It's I have a totally different way of understanding it. We don't have much time left. But Carol from Sacramento, you've been waiting a long time.

I can only give you a couple of minutes at the most. Go ahead. Thank you for your ministry, Steve. I just have two quick comments as if someone is a born again believer and the Holy Spirit is in you, he should be leading your life. And if you're overcome with addictions, he will be telling you to go into a 12 step program.

Now you don't do it because I'm saying it. You need to go to him in prayer and that's usually where he leads you. And the second thing is that I totally disagree with you that we're supposed to not observe what the medical community is telling us because the Lord has taught me since the beginning to put a mask on.

If I even walked out my door without one, he kept reminding me and he's impressed upon me to follow the rules. So I don't understand where you're coming from, because it's not the same with the Holy Spirit is leading me in my life. So obviously we disagree on this. So that's all I wanted to say. I know you have a ministry and I know you're a kind man, but I don't think you follow the Holy Spirit. I really don't.

That's all. Well, I think we may be not, we're not hearing the Holy Spirit the same way as each other. Which means either I'm not hearing him correctly or you're not, or maybe he's saying different things to you than he's saying to me.

You know, there's more than one possibility here. I would say you have a lot more confidence that you know what God is saying about everything than I have. For example, you said Jesus will tell you to go to a 12-step program. I'm not sure how you know that Jesus would say that. I don't necessarily require people to go to 12-step programs if they have addictions. Lots of people overcome their addictions by being delivered.

And why go to a 12-step program if you don't need it? Well, you're pretty sure you know what God says to everybody, I guess, and to you too. So I can't change your mind, nor will I try.

I don't have time anyway. But I appreciate your call, always. We always invite people to call who see things differently. You've been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are listener supported. You can write to us at this address, The Narrow Path, P.O.

Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. And our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a good weekend. Let's talk again Monday. God bless.