The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're on for an hour live so that we can have conversation live through the telephone and over the air. If you'd like to call in with questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith, I'd be very happy to talk to you. You have to call in if we're going to do that, and the number to call is 844-484-5737.

I've been listening to some of the old programs back when 5090 was our phone number and I said it for years. I gave that number out for many years and then we moved to another area and got a different phone number, so that's an interesting mistake. I haven't made that mistake before that I know, but it's 844-484-5737. That's the number.

I have some announcements to make about what's coming up in the immediate future here. Tonight, for nearly a week, I'll be speaking in the general Seattle area, with the exception of one time in British Columbia on Vancouver Island. Tonight, I'm going to be in Kenmore, Washington in a home and it's a Q&A for a couple of hours.

Tomorrow night, I'll be speaking for men only in a church in Kent, Washington. Then I'll be in Poulsbo on Wednesday night, Poulsbo, Washington, Wednesday night. Then I'll be in British Columbia, actually on Vancouver Island, on Friday. Then on Saturday, I'm going to be on Mercer Island speaking in a home.

I'll be in North Bend at a lovely little church there that I've been at before for Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon. All these things are listed at our website. Then I'm going to be in Spokane on Monday and in Idaho on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I'll be in Kamiah, Idaho on Tuesday night and I'll be in the Boise area on Thursday night, the 18th.

Not this Thursday, the following one. By the way, I have never spoken at any meetings in Boise before, even though I lived in Idaho for a while. I lived further north. So this is my first time speaking in the Boise area. I know we get phone calls from that area.

If you're interested in any of those meetings, you can find out when and where they are by going to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Go to the tab that says announcements and there you'll find everything you need to know if you want to join us at one of those gatherings. Having said that, there's nothing more to say except welcome to Angela calling from Chattanooga, Tennessee, first of all. Hi, Angela, welcome.

Angela: Hi, it's nice to talk to you again. It was last Monday that I spoke with you with a conundrum about what to do in our Sunday school class. I wanted to give you a brief update that I really didn't have to end up having or giving any pushback or giving any questions because our Sunday school teacher started off the whole thing with saying that many Christians differ as to whether premillennial, amillennial, or postmillennial.

He talked about pretrib, midtrib, posttrib, and then one thing I did say was I mentioned there's also that it's past already. But the Sunday school lesson was just focused on some of the things that Jesus warned about and how we can use those and apply to our lives today. So it actually worked out wonderfully.

But I do have a question. It's something I've always wondered. I mentioned to you last time I'm real analytical and you addressed it to somebody, but I still don't understand how it works. So in 2 Peter 3:9, it says, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

For people, we all have a short lifespan and people that lived years ago have died. So how is it that Jesus's tarrying gives them any more time? I don't know if that makes sense.

Steve Gregg: Well, He's not saying that by Jesus tarrying, those who have already died will have another chance to be saved. He's saying that the reason that Jesus hasn't come yet is because there's a lot of people alive who are on the path to destruction and He doesn't want them to perish.

So He's waiting and giving them a chance to repent. He's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. He's not saying that there aren't people already who have perished. He's not denying that.

He's saying there are people saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?" They're doubting that He's coming back. He says, first of all, a day to the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. So it doesn't matter how long it is, He's still coming. The timeframe is of no consequence to Him.

But He says He is not slack, that is, He's not a slacker when it comes to keeping His promises. He is coming when it's the proper time. But He says the reason He hasn't come yet, when perhaps people thought He would come earlier, is because He's still waiting for more people to repent because He doesn't want them to perish. So He's only saying that there's a lot of people alive today who will perish if He comes back now, so He's waiting for them, giving them more opportunity to repent. That's all He's saying there.

Angela: I think for me, I wish the context weren't what it is because the context definitely seems to be related to His second coming and the end of time as we know it. If it weren't for that, it would make more sense in my mind that the context should be about 70 AD because then there would be a limited period of time. Okay, well, Jesus will come back, but He's wanting to give everybody alive now as much time as possible. So He's not slack, He will come back, but He's wanting to give everybody as much time as they can have.

Steve Gregg: Well, it's true, and there are full preterists who believe that He is referring to 70 AD because He's talking there about how the present heavens and earth are being preserved until they'll be burned up in fire. Full preterists believe that the heavens and earth are a symbolic reference to the old temple system and predicting its burning up in fire.

One of the main problems with that argument is we don't have any biblical basis for saying that the temple system was ever called the heavens and the earth. This is something that full preterists often suggest. They say it was commonplace for the Jews to refer to the temple as heaven and earth. Well, if it was, we'd have no record of it.

We don't have it recorded in Josephus, we don't have it recorded in the rabbis, we don't have it recorded in the Bible. The Old Testament doesn't ever refer to it that way. And of course, it's much more likely that He's talking about the literal heaven and earth because earlier in the chapter He says that the first heavens and earth were destroyed by the flood with water.

He said, now the present heaven and earth is being reserved until fire. So the idea here that He'd be talking about the real heaven and earth that were affected by the flood, but symbolically a different heaven and earth, namely the temple, when He's talking about destruction by fire, would seemingly be counterintuitive.

At least there's nothing exegetically that in my mind would point that direction, but it's a very common view. Many preterists, actually some partial preterists, think He's talking about that here too, so I don't agree with that. By the way, I did write a book called *Why Not Full Preterism?* and I do deal with that. I have two whole chapters on the question of what is meant by the new heavens, the new earth, which Peter talks about in this passage, so I go into it in more detail.

But I'm not sure why that would even be more fitting for Him to say God hasn't destroyed Jerusalem yet because He's waiting for all people to repent. He's not willing that any should perish. Well, but what if He's talking about the end of the whole world? That's even more that He's not willing that any should perish. He's putting off that so that more people will repent. So I don't really know that the saying itself would be more fitting or less fitting whether He was talking about 70 AD or the end of the world. However, I think exegetical factors in the passage would point to the end of the world and the second coming of Christ.

Angela: I don't disagree at all. Absolutely. It definitely seems to be the end.

Steve Gregg: All right, well good talking to you, Angela. Thanks for your call. Now Alex in Kent, Washington. Hi, Alex, welcome.

Alex: Hello, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I have a quick question. I was reading the Bible yesterday with my wife, and I was reading in Genesis 31 where Jacob fled from his father-in-law. Then in verse 42, at this point they're making a covenant. Then Jacob says, "unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac had been with me..."

Then go down a little bit more to verse 53, it says that Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. Oftentimes in the Bible, we'll hear the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then also in my Bible, it's capitalized, "Fear". So is Jacob's fear following God, or is it like he's given God a name, like Fear? How can you go about this?

Steve Gregg: Well, in the Bible, the word "fear" sometimes is used to refer to that which is feared. We don't use it that way generally, but for example, in Psalm 34, it says that God has delivered me from all my fears. Well, it doesn't mean I don't feel the emotion of fear anymore these days, it means that all the things I feared, He's delivered me from.

When Job said, "that which I greatly feared has come upon me," he could have said, using the same idiom, "my fears have come upon me." In other words, the word "fear," which we generally only use to refer to the emotion of being afraid, is sometimes in the Bible just idiomatically used to mean the feared thing. The thing feared is your fear.

So when it talks about God as the fear of Isaac, it means that He's the God that Isaac feared or worshipped. The fear of the Lord and the worship of God are considered to be very closely related subjects in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, but also in the New. So He's saying He was the God of Abraham and He's the God that my father Isaac worshipped or feared. That's what the fear of Isaac is referring to here. It's just an idiom.

Alex: All right, well I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Alex. God bless you, man. Bye-bye now. Okay, Ade in the United Kingdom. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Ade: Hi, how are you doing? Thanks for having me. All right, so I have a few questions, but they're all aligned with each other. The Ancient Near Eastern perspective of looking at the book of Genesis, for example, John Walton pushes this understanding and also Michael Heiser pushes this understanding. I wondered what your view is on biblical exegesis through the Ancient Near Eastern perspective. For example, they take Genesis and say it's functional ontology, it's not literal. Adam's not the first person, there were many humans around whom God formed Adam from and then gave him His image. God was creating order rather than creating out of nothing, things like that. Then it completely affects the understanding of the Old Testament as you go into the New Testament. I know that you've studied Old to New Testament many times and I wondered what your view is on that.

Steve Gregg: Well, I've read John Walton and Michael Heiser on this and what they say is no doubt true, that is to say you could see Genesis 1 that way, that is, not entirely literal but as following the normal literary conventions of Middle Eastern thought and writing. I have believed for many, many years that although I do take Genesis 1 literal by default, I would have no problem taking it non-literally if I was fully persuaded that it was to be non-literal.

It wouldn't have any adverse effect on my beliefs. Now, if you don't take Genesis 1 literally, then you probably will not be a young earth creationist, but the Bible doesn't insist that a Christian has to be a young earth creationist. I incline that way myself, but I also study all the different sides and I've known for decades in my ministry that there are people, Christians, who believe that Genesis 1 is to be taken non-literally and that it's poetic.

There's one of the views out there called the framework view, which just sees, as you say, that Genesis 1 is just affirming that God created everything by His word. That is affirmed elsewhere in scripture too. But as far as it taking place in six literal days over one literal week, a few thousand years ago, they have felt like that's not necessarily what the passage is trying to affirm. It's trying to affirm something else about God being the creator of everything and that this idea is cast in a narrative that fits the poetic and literary customs of writing of the time.

When I read John Walton, frankly, his argument sounded very good. But not as if they were compelling in the sense that, okay, now I can't take it literally anymore. To my mind, when we look at Genesis 1, we have to make some decisions, or well, we don't have to, but if we're going to interpret it, we do. The truth is we don't have to interpret it. I mean, we could simply just say, well, I believe because Genesis 1 tells us so that God created everything. And I do.

Now, whether He did it in literally six days, a few thousand years ago, or whether it happened over a lengthy period of time, billions of years ago, as modern secular science would lead us to believe if we followed that, is not an issue to me. I don't really care when it happened. I can't imagine why it would matter whether He did it billions of years ago or thousands of years ago.

Some people think it matters, for example, the Answers in Genesis people. They would say, well, it definitely matters because if it's not literal, you can't believe anything in the Bible. But to my mind, that is not really logical. If the Bible itself says, take everything in this book literally, then I would agree with them, that if I didn't take Genesis 1 literally, I'm going to have to throw the whole Bible out because I'd be compelled to take a hermeneutic that says I have to take everything literally.

Oops, I can't take this literally, so goodbye, Bible. No, that's not necessary at all. There is nothing in the Bible that says you have to take everything literally. In fact, we know you don't because the Psalms and Proverbs use figures of speech, metaphors, hyperbole, they're poetry. Now, Genesis 1 isn't poetry, it doesn't appear to be, but it could be, and some have thought that it is.

The main thing is that to insist that everything in the Bible must be taken literally, or even that Genesis 1 has to be taken literally, is to insist on something that the Bible makes no demands that we do. So in other words, I don't have any, I'm not threatened in the least by John Walton or Michael Heiser suggesting that this is not a literal account of creation.

I tend to take it that way. Now, I'll tell you why I do, not because I can prove it over these other theories to be true, but frankly, I'm a basically conservative person. I've always seen it this way and I've always found evidences and arguments from Bible scholars that have made it seem possible to continue to take it that way.

If the time came where I could not be true to scripture at all while being a young earth creationist, I'd abandon it immediately because I want to be true to scripture. What I will say is the same people who say that it couldn't be literal, that is the non-Christians who say that it can't be literal because science says otherwise, those are the same people who say Jesus couldn't rise from the dead because He can't. Without a miracle, no one can rise from the dead.

But I believe Jesus did rise from the dead and the same power that caused Jesus to rise from the dead, it would certainly be capable of a six-day creation and even a creation that had functionality from day one so that it looked like something that had been around longer. So I mean, those, I'm able to believe that. I don't insist on that and it doesn't, it's not something I would necessarily try to urge everyone to believe the same way I do because again, it's one of those things that Christians disagree about and can disagree about.

It's not absolutely necessary to take everything literally, some things, yes. The question is, is Genesis 1 intended to be understood literally? And that's what they're discussing. They're saying no, the way it's written is not intended to be taken literally, it's a literary form that the Hebrews would not necessarily think is intended to be taken literally.

And they may be right. They may be right. I'm not really, again, I don't have any skin in that game. I will say some people think I should stop talking about literal young earth six-day creation at all because they think it makes Christians look silly because modern people don't believe that that's a possibility.

Of course, modern people don't believe it's a possibility partly because they don't believe God can do that, and I'm just not one of those people who puts any kind of limits on what God can do. The question is what has He said He did? So it all boils down to really whether that passage, Genesis 1, is intended to be taken literally or not, and that's where the conflict of opinions lies. And I'm willing to leave that conflict unresolved. That's where I'm at.

But you know, if somebody says, like I was debating an atheist who challenged me to debate him, we haven't heard from him since, he used to call the show frequently and challenge me to debate him on one of these debate platforms. So we did, and he hasn't called since for some reason. But I wanted to debate with him, or I mean, I told him I would debate him if we talked about is Christianity true?

Which means is Jesus real, did Jesus rise from the dead, is Christianity true? And he agreed to debate, but he didn't want to debate that point, although that was the agreed topic. He wanted to talk about young earth creationism and how silly that was in light of modern thinking and the global flood. And I kept saying those aren't things that can be debated, but that's not what we're debating here.

Whether young earth creationism is true or not, or whether the flood was global or not, I have an opinion about that. But on the other hand, if my opinion was wrong, it wouldn't create any challenges to my Christianity because Christianity is based on one thing: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which is one of the most well-established historical events in ancient history from witnesses who were there and so forth.

Frankly, I don't believe it's impeachable. And therefore, since Christians can believe in a local flood or global flood, or they can believe in a young earth creation or older earth creation, and there's different views, to discuss those things does not render Christianity vulnerable to disprove. Because if you could say, well, I can prove that Genesis 1 wasn't literally true, I'd say, okay, if you can prove it, then it wasn't literally true. Fine. I don't see anyone who's proven it beyond question, but if they do, fine, I can accept that. It doesn't have any impact on me believing that Jesus rose from the dead or that I should be a Christian.

So people want to bring those kinds of things up as if they are significant in ways that, frankly, in my belief, they're not. So I hope I appreciate your call about that. Let's talk next to Kay in California. Kay, welcome.

Kay: Yes, I think you already answered these two questions, but here goes anyway. Do I need to take it off of speakerphone, or can you hear me?

Steve Gregg: You know, it might be better if you're not on the speakerphone. It is a little echoey.

Kay: Is it better now?

Steve Gregg: Probably. Yes, go ahead.

Kay: I can't hear you, but can you hear me?

Steve Gregg: Can you not hear me at all, or I'm just not loud enough for you?

Kay: Let me ask my question and then I'll switch it back so I can hear you. I've just gotten the book *Revelation: Four Views*, and I remember, but I don't know what you said. Where can I find your view, the view that you prefer? I think you said you don't tell in the book, but there's some other place that you tell it.

Steve Gregg: Right, my book *Revelation: Four Views: A Parallel Commentary* goes into great depth about the strengths and weaknesses of each of the four views, but I try not to tip my hand at all to favor one view in the book. It's intended to be educational, not indoctrinating people. So I just want people to know the best arguments for and against each view and make up their own mind.

But I do my best not to advocate any one position more than another. But my lectures, of course at our website, we have my lectures through the whole Bible verse-by-verse, including Revelation. And while I do give an introduction to the four views of Revelation in my lectures on Revelation, I also make clear what my position is on each passage.

So if you go to thenarrowpath.com and there's a tab that says verse-by-verse lectures, go there and you'll see all the books of the Bible listed and click on Revelation and all the lectures are there. All of those audio files are free, so you can't get the book for free, but you can get the audio files for free. So that might even be better than buying my book.

Kay: In your book, do you address the three views on the rapture, or are they addressed somewhere else?

Steve Gregg: Well, the rapture isn't really mentioned in the book of Revelation, well, there may be allusions to it. But I don't really go into the pre and post-trib rapture, mid-trib rapture. I do though in my lectures, not the Revelation lectures, well somewhat, a little bit, but another set of lectures called *When Shall These Things Be?*.

That's a 14-lecture set that talks about all these eschatological stuff and there's several lectures near the beginning about the rapture and pre-trib, post-trib, that kind of stuff. So again at the same place, thenarrowpath.com, that you would go to to get my Revelation lectures, there's another tab that says topical lectures.

Under that tab you'll find a series called *When Shall These Things Be?* and you'll find a thorough discussion of the rapture issues there. I need to take a break. You're listening to the Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming. We're not going away, so stay tuned. I'll be back in 30 seconds.

Commercial: In this series, *When Shall These Things Be?*, you'll learn that the biblical teaching concerning the rapture, the tribulation, Armageddon, the Antichrist, and the millennium are not necessarily in agreement with the wild sensationalist versions of these doctrines found in popular prophecy teaching and Christian fiction. The lecture series entitled *When Shall These Things Be?* can be downloaded without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.

Steve Gregg: Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for another half hour taking your calls. There's a couple of lines open if you want to call right now. You can get through and we can probably get to your call in this half hour. The number is 844-484-5737. One more time, it's 844-484-5737.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the hour, I am speaking at a variety of places in the generally in the Seattle area. Now when I say the Seattle area, sometimes it's an hour from here. I'm in Seattle right now, but all through the week, I'm in this general part of Washington State.

If you're interested, if you're there, if that's where you live or you are, check at our website and see where I'll be tonight and all the other nights. You're welcome to join us. The website is thenarrowpath.com and you can get that specific information about my speaking locations and times under the tab that says announcements. All right, we'll go back to the phone lines now. Again the number is 844-484-5737 and we talk next to Linda from Auburn, Washington. Hi, Linda, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Linda: Hi. I just heard somebody talking about Genesis 1 and I wanted to say that as we evangelize, it is helpful to be able to say that some Christians can see somewhat literal and scientific the Genesis 1 account if we look at Zechariah Sitchin, who studied Hebrew.

He moved from Russia to Palestine growing up and he was curious about when they said Nephilim, why did sometimes they say giants when literally it was the fallen ones. After he studied journalism as an adult, then he went to Sumeria, near Babylon, and he studied those Sumerian clay tablets and pictographs and he started translating.

God could have helped him. So anyway, this has a story that can tie in that God could have. It's fallen ones, these can be the Nephilim and some of them it does say were heroes of old.

Steve Gregg: Excuse me, just for a moment. Actually we weren't discussing the Nephilim, we were talking about Genesis 1. We weren't talking about Genesis 6.

Linda: Well, it relates to a planet coming into our solar system, hitting a bigger watery planet. So in one day, there could be this collision and they say they have weapons in their tablets, blasted part, they say it was destiny like God created it. So one day you had a new moon.

Steve Gregg: Let me just say this. You're talking about how somehow this knowledge will help with evangelism. I think this information you're giving would simply be more confusing and distract from evangelism. I don't really know how that information relates to the question of the literal or non-literal creation event.

You're talking now about Genesis 6, which is 1500 years after the creation event. So I don't see that as a resolution to the problem. In my own opinion, that wouldn't be extremely helpful in the process of evangelizing people. I appreciate your call though. Thank you. Let's talk to Max from the Bronx, New York. Hi, Max, welcome.

Max: Hey, Steve, how are you doing? Real quick pertaining to my last call, which was I think last week. I posed a question, and just to recap, a sister goes to one of those seers, those psychic people, to try to find her murdered mother, and she was actually able to predict accurately where the body was.

You and I both agreed that that's something that God doesn't want us to do. My follow-up question is, are there any truly genuine Christians that have that ability as a gift from God to be able to do that? Because I know prophets have powers, but today, talking today, 2026, do we have any evidence that people are given that gift from God in order to do that?

Steve Gregg: Well, let me just say there are in fact gifts of the Holy Spirit, prophecy being one of them, the word of knowledge being another one, which seem to be instances where God reveals information to a person that would not naturally be known to them.

Going to a psychic is making that same claim that there's information that's not naturally known, but they're getting a supernatural revelation. The trouble is psychics are not operating through the gifts of the Holy Spirit but through, I believe, demonic spirits. That is in so far as they're not fakes.

There are fake psychics and there are no doubt genuine psychics, but psychic phenomena are not the same as the gifts of the Spirit. Now whatever is done through the Holy Spirit is specifically intended to glorify Jesus. That's the only intention that the Holy Spirit has. He's not trying to satisfy curiosity or intervene in police work or things like that, at least as far as we know.

So I would not, I mean, I can't tell you what does or does not exist in the world. I can't tell you that God would never give a prophetic word to somebody who's otherwise known to be a Christian prophet, wherein He reveals some needed information that might help in an investigation. But these psychics, I don't believe they are prophets.

There's a difference between a prophet and a psychic. Psychics pretty much are involved in all kinds of psychic activity revealing all kinds of things that have nothing to do with glorifying Christ. Even the finding of a dead body that was not otherwise discoverable without their help isn't particularly glorifying Christ unless they're saying the Lord Jesus Christ showed me that this is where the body is.

Well, then if they said that and it turned out to be true, then I'd probably be inclined to see that as an operation of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Max: Understandable. So in essence, if someone glorifies God and says, listen, I'm a child of God, they've been going to church and they actually express that they have these gifts, then it's acceptable? But if they're like, no, I don't believe in God, I don't really care about God, I just have this gift, then we know.

Steve Gregg: Well, I need to clarify that because many psychics do claim to be Christians. In the Philippines and stuff, there's psychic healers and things like that that are operating either as frauds or as through demonic powers and who claim to be Catholics, Christians, and they have pictures of Mary and things like that in their homes where they're doing this kind of stuff.

Anyone can claim to be a Christian, even people who are operating in demonic power can. I'm saying that in a Christian body where a person is known to be to have a prophetic gift, and that is of course where that gift would be demonstrated and revealed, it's possible that the Holy Spirit could reveal such information for some special purpose.

But it would have to be for a special purpose because otherwise we'd be looking to prophets to answer all the mysteries that are unsolved crimes and things like that. And frankly, that's not what the Holy Spirit has come to do. He's come to glorify Christ. That kind of information in a certain situation might be seen by God as something by which He would be glorified and I'm not going to put limits on what the Holy Spirit can do.

I'm just saying that psychics who are helping policemen find dead bodies, they've been around a long time and generally speaking, many of them are not Christians and even the ones who would say they are Christians are not necessarily operating as a Christian prophet. So and so I'd just say Christians don't get into that stuff. We are definitely warned in scripture not to go to psychics or not to go to mediums and things like that.

Max: Precisely. I totally agree and I approve this message. I just want to say this, I know I'm taking up time. Dealing with listening to you, right now when I get off the line, there is no way to continue to listen to you. Is there a website that I could go to to continue listening to this program?

Steve Gregg: Well, you're in New York. I believe we're on WMCA in New York City, but the program is delayed a few hours. I think it plays on your station from 7 to 8, if I'm not mistaken. There's also our website, thenarrowpath.com, and the program can be heard live streamed at the website or the archives. You can hear it later, live or later. But in New York City, we're on delayed at 7 o'clock, whereas we're live, as you know, because you're on the phone with me, between 5 and 6 on the East Coast. All right, so you can listen to the program a couple hours from now.

Max: Thanks again. Appreciate it.

Steve Gregg: All right, God bless you, Max. Thanks for your call. All right, let's talk to Waldie in Orlando, Florida. Hi, Waldie, welcome.

Waldie: Hey, Mr. Gregg. The question that I had is more of a discipleship question and it's in regards to dealing with things like lust. Because I've followed Christ since I was 15, I'm 28 now, and that's obviously been a struggle since high school, latter years of middle school and stuff.

Steve Gregg: And for most men at that age, yes.

Waldie: Correct, yes. It's gotten to that point where the more I mature and the closer I get to Christ, it's starting to get to a point where I'm like, okay, what is the one thing that I'm still missing with this in regards to truly being free? Because I've had seasons of being free from pornography and masturbation and stuff like that, but never to the extent of two, three years, four years of just not falling into that.

Recently I've been asking God for clarification and the two things He brought to me that I need is to understand these two things: the fear of the Lord and self-control. I'm convinced that I don't have self-control. I want to ask the Spirit to help me with that and to understand the best way to cultivate that. I also want to understand what it truly means to fear the Lord. So I guess the question to you is: what is your best definition of what it truly means to fear the Lord, and what are some practical ways that I can practice self-control, which is a gift of the Spirit?

Steve Gregg: Okay, I appreciate your heart and your intentions to overcome sin in your life, that's absolutely important for a Christian. As far as the fear of the Lord is concerned, sometimes people think of the fear of the Lord as you're afraid of God. Of course, the term "fear of the Lord" kind of sounds like it's talking about being afraid of God.

But the fear of God, as I mentioned to an earlier caller, in the Bible often refers to someone who worships God. Someone who fears Yahweh is someone who doesn't worship other gods but worships Him. But it is literally fear in a sense. It's not like I'm walking around afraid of God.

But if I begin to contemplate doing those things that would put me at odds with God, the very contemplation should be terrifying. In other words, I don't have to be afraid as long as I'm living as pleases God, and that is my intention and that is my habit. But the very thought of displeasing God is a horrendous, terrifying prospect.

Not because I think He's going to send a lightning bolt, but simply because of who He is, to show disrespect to Him, to just ignore Him or His instructions is just totally so out of whack, out of sync with reality, since He's the creator and Lord of the whole universe, that considering it is actually considering to put yourself at odds with reality, God Himself, and the whole universe that is in sync with God.

Why should I be the one person who's not? And there are consequences that can be feared too because even if I'm not afraid to go to hell ever, I've never been afraid to go to hell. I've been saved since I was a child and I don't remain a Christian or live my life as a Christian because of any contemplation of going to hell.

But I do know God and I know God well enough to know that He cares about the way I behave. He wants my obedience, He wants me to love Him, He wants me to be loyal to Him. And as a father with a child, He will discipline a disobedient child. While I don't have any fear of ever being in hell, I do have a reasonable fear that if I incur God's discipline, it will be a situation that I will be wishing at the time that I had avoided.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom basically looks at distant consequences and avoids the things that will bring them about. That's basically what Proverbs is about. The instruction of Proverbs, more often than not, is simply telling us: these are the consequences of certain behaviors, don't do them.

They're not necessarily instant. It talks about if you want to be poor, just be lazy. Well, a lazy person may not be instantly poor, but that's the way that it tends to go. If you want to be rich, be diligent, hard-working. If you want to avoid problems, speak kindly to people rather than aggravating them.

If you want your kids to behave well when they grow up, raise them the right way. Now, these are not promises of God that things will always go that way, but it's recognizing that if you don't do certain things that you should do, consequences that will come from it may very well be very displeasing to you.

Wisdom seeks the path that will avoid the most undesirable consequences. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If you fear God, that means you basically fear consequences that will come, perhaps from the hand of God, to correct you when you're doing stupid things.

So to me, fearing God, and I've used this illustration many times, it's like fearing freeway traffic. I get on the freeway and I'm not the least bit afraid of traffic because I'm going the same direction with it. I merge with it. I'm in the proper relation with the other cars, we're all going the same direction.

But I would be terrified of freeway traffic if I mistakenly got up an off-ramp and found myself opposed to the traffic, or if I had to cross the freeway on foot at a busy time. It'd be terrifying because that's not being in the right relationship with the traffic.

The fear of God is simply: it doesn't mean you're afraid of God as long as you stay in sync with Him, as long as you stay in the proper relationship with Him. But you go against Him, and that ought to terrify you to have God as your enemy. Why would you wish to make an enemy of the God who, were He inclined to do so, could squash you like a bug easily?

I'm not saying He always does that. I'm not even sure He does. We do know of cases in the Bible where boom, someone did the wrong thing, like Nadab and Abihu the priests and fire from God came out and consumed them. Or where Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit and they dropped dead on the spot.

Or Herod, people were praising him as a god and he didn't give the glory to God, so the angel of the Lord struck him and worms ate him and he died. That's kind of like what worldly people call instant karma. That doesn't happen very often. But when it does happen suddenly, it only illustrates that that's the kind of thing that will happen eventually if you do those kind of things for very long.

So a wise person will say, listen, I'm going to walk in the ways of God and avoid anything that would put me in the wrong relationship with Him, like trying to drive the wrong way on a busy freeway. I don't want to be in the wrong relationship. And because I remain in the right relationship with Him, or correct myself when I'm not, I don't live in fear. But I don't because of the fear. Because of the fear of God, I don't have to be afraid because it says in Proverbs, "by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil."

Well, of course, if they fear God, they will depart from evil rather than put themselves on a collision course with God by choosing evil. Now as far as self-control is concerned, this is a large issue. It says in Galatians 5:22 and 23 that the fruit of the Spirit is certain traits which include self-control.

Self-control is one of the nine things Paul lists there as fruit of the Spirit. That's at the tail end of a discussion where he's contrasting the flesh and the Spirit. He says in verse 17, "the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary to one another, so that you cannot do what you will."

But in the previous verse, verse 16, Galatians 5:16, he says, "walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh." In other words, walking in the Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit, which includes self-control. In other words, if you are walking in the Spirit, self-control will be manifested in your life just like oranges are manifested on an orange tree in their season.

There's similar statements said in Romans 8:4 where it says that the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. So walking in the Spirit means walking in the Spirit's power. It means we're submitting ourselves to the Spirit, we're obeying what He says to do, and we're trusting Him to give us the power to overcome the things we're facing.

Whenever you're walking in the Spirit, you will not be doing those things that you're trying to stop doing. You will have self-control. Walking in the Spirit, you will always be self-controlled. The problem is you don't always walk in the Spirit, neither do I. We want to, we're told to, but that's just something we're not very consistent about.

The more consistent we can become about doing so, the more self-control we'll have. Now I want to say this, that if you're striving or desiring and praying that God will deliver you from sin and you're seeking to walk in the Spirit, you'll gain self-control more and more because fruit is fruit of the Spirit, fruit matures and grows over time if it's cultivated.

But on the other hand, you'll probably stumble sometimes. James said, "in many things we all stumble." And when you've been fighting a particular challenge in your life for a long time and then you're maybe making some progress and then you stumble back into it, it's particularly galling, it's particularly frustrating because you're like, "I was doing so well, now I fell again."

Well, the devil will like to use that to bring condemnation and discouragement to you. But just don't. I mean, God is frankly not surprised when we sin. He doesn't want us to sin, but He knows we don't want to sin also if we're seeking to please Him. And yet He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust, it says in Psalm 103.

As Jesus said about the disciples when He commanded them to stay awake and they didn't, they disobeyed Him, but He said, "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." He's very sympathetic. He knows. This doesn't give us an excuse to sin by any means, but it means that if we fall when we're trying to do what's right, we just repent and say, "God, I need your help again, I need you to give me your help, forgive me."

Brother Lawrence, who wrote the book *The Practice of the Presence of God*, said that when he does something wrong, and I don't know what he did because he was a monk, I don't know what he may have done wrong, but he said whenever he does something wrong, he just says, "Well God, that's the way I'll behave unless you help me, unless you deliver me from this, unless I have your assistance, I can't do any better than what I just did."

And that's a humble acknowledgment of your own inability and your trust in God. Fortunately, there is grace, especially for those who are looking to God, even when you stumble, there's grace and forgiveness. When you stumble, you just get back up and try to keep walking in the Spirit again.

I have some lectures on those things at the website. There's one series called *Cultivating Christian Character* which might be helpful to you. At the website, thenarrowpath.com, under topical lectures, that series called *Cultivating Christian Character* may be helpful to you. I actually hope very much that it will be because I want to see you get that victory. Thank you for your call, brother. We don't have much time, but we have some callers waiting. Let's talk to Kevin from River Rouge, Michigan. Hi, Kevin, welcome.

Kevin: Hey brother, I really love you, the way that that last call you responded. I had two questions, I'll just get real quick. In Jeremiah 2:6, "for they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and hewn them out cisterns, which can hold no water, broken cisterns." Anyway, I look at it as like people decide what they want to do. Can you give me your take on that?

Steve Gregg: Well, yeah, He's talking about Israel, how they have gone after idols instead of God and it's not going well for them. The Babylonians are coming, they've been defeated. There was relief and there's help from God, which He likens to living waters as opposed to waters that are not reliable.

Obviously, everyone needs thirst and needs water, so the idea of needing water is a reasonable analogy for needing what's necessary. He says, "when you were following me, I'm a fountain of living waters. I slake your thirst, but I also meet all your needs."

But you've departed from me, and of course you still need water by this analogy, so you've made cisterns, which would be pits or ponds where you hold water. But he says these cisterns, a lot of times they were carved out of rock, a lot of times they have cracks in the rocks and they just leach out and they leak out and they lose the water there.

He says you've made yourself broken cisterns, which cannot hold water. He's saying that worshipping idols is an unreliable thing to look to, just like if you're going to need water long-term, best to have a fountain, a spring on your property of living water, moving, running water, and God is that.

You leave Him and you start storing up your own water in a cistern and it just can't replace Him. The water leaks out, it's stagnant, it's not living, it's not moving. So I think He's just saying that. It's just one of many analogies He uses to discuss the backsliding of the nation of Israel.

But it is a neat spiritual analogy. Sermons have been preached effectively about how that, you know, people need God and they find living water like Jesus told the woman at the well, "if you ask me, I'd give you living water and it's springing up to eternal life." Whereas people who leave God, they still have to replace whatever it was He was providing, but there's no replacement.

They find their own resources, but those resources are never adequate and they don't last. So I mean, that's an analogy that is made in sermons from that passage and I think it's effective and legitimate one. I'm out of time here. I'm sorry to say because we have a lot of people waiting still to go on the air.

Call tomorrow, you who have not been able to get on today. I apologize and we'll try to get your calls on. If you can, each day when you want to call, call as early as possible because of course the clock runs out of minutes usually before we've run out of callers who want to get on and it grieves me to end the show with callers still waiting.

You're listening to the Narrow Path. We are listener-supported. You can help us out if you want. Go to our website thenarrowpath.com. Take anything you want for free. Goodbye now.