The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour every weekday afternoon so that we can have live, real-time interaction with people like you. If you have questions about the Bible, about Christianity, things related thereto and you want to call and raise those questions for discussion on the air, that's what we've been doing for 29 years now daily, and we'll do it again today if the Lord tarries for the next hour.

So, feel free to join us. However, you can't do it right now, our lines are full, but there will be opportunities before the hour's over to get through as lines open up. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737.

I have an announcement, a couple of announcements. One is that tomorrow night is the first Wednesday of the month. The first Wednesday of every month we have a Zoom meeting, which you can participate in if you want to. It doesn't matter where you are, you can log on and be part of that. That's tomorrow night at 7:00 PM Pacific Time.

Our friend Peter from Bedford, UK, who's waiting to talk on the air, is sometimes there and it must be about 1:00 in the morning where he is or something like that. So, you've got to calculate the time zones from wherever we are to wherever you are, but 7:00 PM Pacific Time is when we have this Zoom meeting. It's a Q&A just like this. Check it out. If you want to be on it, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, under announcements, you'll find the log-in data to get onto the Zoom meeting.

The other one also is coming up soon. A week from tonight, I'll be speaking in San Juan Capistrano in Southern California. It's not very often that I get out to the coast, but I sometimes do. I'm speaking at a church called Ranch Church and I'm going to speak on the Four Views of Revelation. It's a couple of hours, I think it's from 6:00 to 8:00 next Tuesday night, a week from tonight. If you are in Southern California, Orange County or anywhere near there, feel free to join us. The information about the location and time is also at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under announcements.

And now, we're going to talk to Peter in Bedford, UK, because it's later for him and we want to give him a chance to go to bed. Hi, Peter. Welcome.

Peter: Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I was talking with a friend who's egalitarian. He holds egalitarian views and he believes that men and women can fill the same church offices and we were discussing eldership specifically and he disagrees with me that it's limited to men.

He pointed out that the Koine, the ancient Greek or the language the New Testament was written in, often uses masculine language generically and he also brought up Phoebe in Romans 16 as holding an office. I don't understand ancient Greek, but I did check 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and I'm sure that it uses single singular masculine nouns that point to eldership as a male office that Paul is describing for men. I just wanted to check. Am I missing something? I just wanted to hear your thoughts.

Steve Gregg: He is making up his Greek as he goes along. The truth is, of course, the male pronoun in the plural, men, sometimes refers to humans in general just because it's more complicated to say men and women every time you mean a human. So, that's true in English, that's true in Greek, that's true frankly in almost all languages that the masculine form of man means humankind, which includes females.

But I don't know of any case in the New Testament or in Greek—of course, I'm not a Greek expert myself, but I think he's making this up—I don't know of any case where the singular for a man is used when it means just person. In other words, there are times where men, "all men," simply refers to all humanity. Just because that's the convention of speaking, it's not a matter of Greek grammar, it's simply a matter of the way human beings have spoken for thousands of years. When they talk about the human race as a whole, it's typical to use the male pronoun.

But when you're talking about specific individuals and you call someone a man, you know they're not a woman because man and woman are different from each other. The Greeks still remembered that; our society has in some measure forgotten it, but they were still sane back then. They didn't talk about women as, they didn't call them men.

And then there's more than that. It's true that all the elders are spoken of as men, but they're not just spoken of as men, they are called husbands of one woman. Now, there's frankly never a time in the Greek language when the word wife referred to a male or the word husband referred to a female. So, he said a bishop or overseer, which is the same as an elder, must be the husband of one wife. That kind of determines the gender there.

And then, he also says in the same context in 1 Timothy, of course, the qualifications for elders are in 1 Timothy 3 beginning at verse 1, but just before that in chapter 2, and Paul didn't make chapter divisions so it's just blended right into his qualifications for elder. He said, "I don't let a woman teach or usurp authority over the man."

Now, that is in the context, I believe, of whether to put a woman in the position of a teaching leader of the church as an elder. And so he says, "I don't let a woman do that," but then he goes into what he does allow. He says, well, an overseer has to be the husband of one wife. He's got to be the head of his house, too, which Paul never suggests that a normal household would be led by a woman because he says elsewhere in Ephesians 5 and in Colossians and other places that the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church.

The marriage is to be a picture of Christ and the church. The church is never—let me put it this way—Christ is never subordinate to the church. Christ is the head of all things to the church. And therefore, the husband in the marriage is presented as the model of Christ and the wife the model of the church. That's what marriage is created for, that's how God has ordained it.

So, in saying that he's got to be the head of the home, he's got to have his household in order, he's got to be a husband of one wife, a woman isn't allowed in that position. These are not gender-neutral statements. So, I think your friend is simply a victim of modern thinking. Modern thinking has some strengths to it. I think it is a good thing, and the Bible itself would suggest it's a good thing, that women should be given the same dignity that men have. Women are not lesser beings than men.

But on the other hand, the Bible would be very firm again on something some Americans don't know anymore, that a man cannot be a mother or a wife. And so there are different roles. There are different roles for men and women. A wife is the role exclusively of women, and a husband and father is the role exclusively of men. Likewise, in the church, there are some roles that go to the men, some to the women.

Now, Phoebe was a deacon, the Bible says, but of course the word deacon in the Greek is simply the ordinary word for a servant. So, when it says Phoebe was a servant of the church of Cenchrea, the word is deacon, but of course so is the word in statements where servants in general are talking about. So, some people in the church were called deacons, which again is just the word for servants, but that doesn't mean that everyone who was a servant held something of a deacon's position.

I'm not opposed to women holding deacon positions. I don't think Paul was either. When Paul gave the qualifications for deacons in 1 Timothy chapter 3, he also went on and talked about the women and their qualifications. The King James rendered it as if it's their wives, the deacons' wives, but some think it's the female deacons. It doesn't matter. A deacon is a servant. It's a very different role than an elder.

Elders should be servants too, but they serve in a different capacity. And therefore, the elders who serve in the elder capacity are to be men. The deacons can be men or women, and Phoebe was a woman and she was a deacon or at least a servant.

And by the way, no one should be resentful if they're relegated to being a servant since Jesus said that's the loftiest of all roles in the church, to be the servant of all. So, men and women have that equal honor to be the loftiest or the chief Christians in the sight of God. But their role is different in some cases. So, if we say women can be servants too and someone says, "We don't want to be servants, we want to be the boss," anyone who wants to be the boss doesn't belong in the church.

When you become a Christian, and certainly the church should only be run by Christians, when you become a Christian, you deny yourself. You take up your cross. You follow Christ. You stop saying "I want" and you start saying "What does God want?"

Now, your friend I assume is a man, not a woman, but sometimes men want to show that they're fully modern men and they're taking the side of the women, they think, when they're saying women can be pastors too. Well, much as I love women, I don't feel it's my obligation as a Christian to take the side of women or of men, but of God. And if God says something about men and women, I'm going to say the same thing lest I stand before him and he say, "Why did you say what's the opposite of what I said?"

Peter: I'm just quite worried because I think he's starting to use this whole idea about the Greek language and words like "gender neutral" and you know where that's going.

Steve Gregg: No language is as gender-neutral as English is because Greek—I'm not sure about Hebrew, I think it's true of Hebrew too, it's certainly true of most European languages also—virtually all the nouns have gender. They have masculine or feminine or neuter gender in European languages including Greek.

English only has masculine and feminine, there's no neuters—well, there is "it" but the nouns don't have intrinsic gender in English like they do in those languages. So, it's a very gendered language Greek is, and to make it gender-neutral is to do what many people want to do.

They want to take an ancient faith whose proper exercise has been defined by Jesus Christ and the apostles who, thankfully, their writings and their opinions about these things have been preserved for us in writing. And that's what we call the Bible. They want to take the ancient faith of the Bible and say, "Yeah, but we should spruce it up a little bit so it's a little more popular to people who don't think the way God does."

Well, no, God does think differently than we do in modern times, but the task of the Christian, certainly one of the main ones, is to not be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And that certainly means that in so far as the dominant culture is contrary to what God says, we want to become more like God in our thinking than the dominant culture, which is what Paul calls the world.

It is a dangerous thing when people begin to care more whether they seem thoroughly modern in the sight of others as Christians or whether they seem thoroughly faithful to what Jesus said.

Peter: Well, thank you Steve. I know you have other callers but I will see you tomorrow on the Zoom call and thanks for taking the time to answer my question. God bless.

Steve Gregg: Hey, great talking to you, brother. Bye now. Ben from Marysville, Washington, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Ben: Hey Steve, thanks for taking my call today. I just wanted to get your thoughts on a particular interpretation on Matthew chapter 7, verse 21 through 23. I'll just read a couple of these verses here and then I'll take the answer offline if that's okay.

"Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you, leave me, you who practice lawlessness.'"

So traditionally speaking, I would say many people I know, including myself, have thought of this as just evidence that the Lord never had a relationship with those people. But as I started to think about it a little bit more, I was wondering if this could be seen differently, more of a statement of denial kind of like where Peter had denied the Lord although he knew him, although he repented later.

In another place, in Matthew chapter 10, verse 32 through 33, it says, "Therefore anyone who confesses me before people, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before people, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven." And this is where I'll end it, but just my understanding of denial is not just a failure to confess him verbally, but like in Titus chapter 1, verse 16, it says, "They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless of any good deed."

So back to the original question, can his statement of "I never knew you" be more like positional, just, "I'm denying you here, this is my stance on it"? It may not be like the relationship status necessarily.

Steve Gregg: Before you go away, I'm not sure I understand your question. So, instead of him denying that they have a relationship, is he saying "I never approved you"?

Ben: Like I see it as him disowning them. Like he may have had a relationship with them, but due to their lawlessness. Maybe they were gifted, maybe they had prophecy, maybe they had all these things, which I have a hard time believing they could have those gifts somehow without at some point knowing him, but they failed to meet the other criteria. So, I'm just wondering if this could be like a declaration of denial.

Steve Gregg: Do you mean to say they have been Christians but now they're apostate? Is that what you're asking?

Ben: Yes, basically. They're living a lawless life. Of course that has implications that those who believe in once-saved-always-saved, this would go against that grain, but I'm wondering if it's possible.

Steve Gregg: Well, those who believe in once-saved-always-saved, when they deal with this verse, usually point out, well, he doesn't say they knew him and fell away. Because people who believe in once-saved-always-saved generally believe that if you end up not being saved, it's because you never were saved.

But of course, this verse doesn't talk about people who fell away per se unless we assume, and many do perhaps, that these people prophesied in his name, did wonders in his name, and cast out demons in his name as real Christians. That is, they were real Christians and then later they fell away so that he said "I never knew you." But again, I think the once-saved-always-saved people would have a case to say, in saying "I never knew you," it sounds like they weren't Christians before, where he could say, "I knew you once, you know, but you're apostate now, I don't know you anymore."

My thought is he's not talking about people who were ever really Christians. It raises the serious question, how did they do these things in his name if they weren't really Christians? I'm not really sure.

And you know, there's another case in the book of Luke where James and John said to Jesus, "We saw some men casting out demons in your name, Lord, and they don't walk with us, so we told them not to do it." And he told them, "Don't forbid them, for no one who casts out a demon in my name can quickly speak evil of us."

Now, he didn't say these were real disciples or that these were real Christians. James and John seemed to think these were not real Christians and told them, "Stop using Jesus' name like that." And Jesus didn't correct them about that. He didn't say, "No, these are true followers of mine." What he just said is that, "Listen, we need all the friends we can get and if they're using my name in a favorable way, then at least we don't have to worry about them being the ones who are going to turn against us and kill us."

So he doesn't really commit to whether they were real Christians or not. They might have been or might not have been, but if they were, it's curious why the apostles themselves were not aware of it and why the apostles themselves said they don't walk with us.

So there's questions there about can a person cast out demons in Jesus' name without being a Christian? Can they do miracles in Jesus' name without being a Christian? Can they prophesy in Jesus' name without being a Christian?

Well, that last point we know they can. We know that lots of people prophesy even in Christian churches, in the name of Jesus allegedly, and yet many of them are not saved. They prove it by their lives, just like Jesus said. I think it's probably true of the other things too. Working wonders, casting out demons in Jesus' name, I think that can be faked.

Or if it isn't faked, it could be a demonic counterfeit because the devil can do stuff that's impressive and give someone the impression, especially if he's trying to sponsor or condone one of his own agents, Satan can give the impression that that person is acting in the name of God.

We know that it says of the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, it says he does all kinds of signs and wonders in the power of Satan. So, you know, the devil can do those kinds of things. So Jesus leaves unanswered the question, were these people Christians who fell away or are they people who thought they were Christians and never were?

That remains a mystery. And I think it remains a mystery because Jesus wasn't clear about it. And he may not have been clear about it because he didn't want us asking that particular question. He wanted us to know that whether people are doing those things or not, even if they're doing them in the name of Jesus falsely or thinking they're genuinely doing it in the name of Jesus but they're not, regardless, those are not the things which on the day of judgment are going to commend you to God.

God is not going to be commended, you're not going to be commended to God by whether you did those things or not. But on another basis, and you read that in verse 21, "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven."

Now, doing the will of the Father in heaven, some might say, well, isn't casting out demons the will of God? Isn't working wonders, prophesying, aren't those the will of God? Well, they can be at times, but Jesus when he says "he that does the will of my Father" is not saying there's a few things on a checklist here that God wants done and if you do those things, you're in.

Jesus is not saying that you have to check some boxes in order to be saved. You need to be a person of whom it can be said about your life that you are doing the will of the Father. In other words, you are not doing your own will anymore. You've been reoriented from doing what you want to doing what God wants. That's what he's referring to, just like Jesus said of himself, "I didn't come to do my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me."

He didn't mean that once in a while I'm going to do something I know God wants me to do. He meant my whole life, my whole life is defined by what does God want? That's what I want to do. And that's what it means to be one who does the will of God, does the will of the Father. It's not just that there's a few good deeds that you can do once in a while and those are the will of God and if you do them you're in.

No, it has to do with your whole orientation. So, I'm thinking that there can be people who think they're Christians because, I don't know, maybe their church taught them they are because they didn't never told them what it means to be a Christian. And some churches just teach you just have say a sinner's prayer and then you're a Christian, or you just have to be baptized and then you're a Christian.

But of course, Jesus has made it very clear, no, there's something more than that. You've got to do the will of the Father. That's got to be what you're about. And if you do that, you're a Christian. If you don't do that, it doesn't matter how many churchy things or religious things or impressively supernatural things you do, you're not a Christian if you're not living to please God.

Which is what repentance does. You see, before a person is a Christian, they are living to please themselves. They might even attach religious things to their life because it pleases them to do it. They might even do some inconvenient religious things, not because it's fun for them but because it pleases them to give others the impression that they are Christians.

I mean, let's face it, we have a million ways to do our own will and get our own way and manipulate people and fool people and so forth so we get what we want. And when a person becomes a Christian, the first thing they do is repent. Now, repent means change your mind, and the thing you repent about is that very thing, that all your life your goal has been and what you have made it your effort to do is to get what you want.

And coming to Christ means you realize the folly of thinking that doing what you want really matters in the grand scheme of things, but doing what God wants is what matters in the grand scheme of things. The universe is made for the glory of God and so were you. And if you're not glorifying God in every thought and every word and every deed, Paul said whether you eat or drink, do it all to the glory of God.

If you're not realizing that your life exists for the glory of God and you're still even doing religious things for your own glory and for your own will, well then you haven't been converted yet. And I think that was the issue with these people, though there might be some other scenarios that he had in mind. I think the simplest way to understand it is he's rejecting them. He doesn't recognize them. He says, "Get away from me." That's not a very welcoming posture.

So, yeah, I think that these people simply were never converted. And I think a lot of people listening who think they're Christians probably were never converted because they're still doing their own thing and not concerned primarily with doing the will of God.

I need to take a break. We have another half hour coming, so don't go away. You're listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds, don't go away.

Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls as we did the first half hour. And as it was the case in the first half hour, our lines are full again. And so if you call right now you will not get through. You may want to try a little later. The number is 844-484-5737. And our next caller is Scott from Fort Worth, Texas. Scott, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Scott: Hi Steve, thank you for entertaining this question. And that is, what is the difference between coveting and lusting? And the reason I ask is I started thinking about when I initially met my wife years ago, that if I didn't lust after her and desire her, I wouldn't have pursued her and we wouldn't have gotten married, had this wonderful Christian little family. And so it made me question if there is a difference between these two words and what that might be.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, there actually is something of a difference because coveting is a choice that you make. Desiring is something that may come upon you whether you want it or not. The word lust, sadly, the word lust we almost always apply to sexual desire, but in the Greek the word lust just means strong desire toward something that can include sexual desire or food or anything else you strongly want.

You know, the same word that Jesus used when he said if a man looks at a woman to lust after her, the word lust there is also the same Greek word he used in Luke when he came to the last supper. He said, "With great desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I go." With great lust I have lusted. Now, the word lust of course therefore just means desire.

And the statement about women when Jesus says in Matthew 5, "whoever looks at a woman to desire her," is committing adultery. Now, by the way, the fact that he says "is committing adultery" specifically rather than "fornication" means he's talking about a married woman. In fact, the word woman and wife are the same word in the Greek. So, it can be translated—and the context seems to mean it should be translated—whoever looks at a wife, somebody else's wife that is, and desires her, or to desire her, that's the point.

Jesus said whoever looks at a wife to desire her is committing adultery in the heart. You see, now that, I'm not saying it's okay to look lustfully in a sinful way at an unmarried woman because even Job, I think it's Job 31:1, he said, "I've made a covenant with my eyes, why then should I look upon a maid," which is an unmarried woman. So, he knew that he as a married man shouldn't be scoping out the unmarried women either.

But Jesus' specific case is saying, "You've heard that you're not supposed to commit adultery," okay, that's very specifically sleeping with somebody else's wife. And he says, "But I say to you whoever looks at a wife," meaning someone else's wife, "to desire her." In other words, you're looking at her in order to desire, to stoke desire toward her. That's sinful.

Now, desire itself is not sinful, but if you're feeding a desire that's an immoral desire, that's a sinful thing. You're committing adultery in your heart, he said. Now, you know, when you're a single man and you're looking for a wife of your own and there's a single woman whom you desire, that's what motivates you to go after a woman. If a man didn't desire a woman, he wouldn't court her.

Now, you're thinking maybe desire has to do with sexual desire only. It doesn't, but of course you're going to have sexual desire. I mean, a man and a woman who are friends but are not sexually attracted to each other probably wouldn't, probably shouldn't get married because as a married couple they're going to have some expectation in the very act of being married that they're going to have kids or at least have an intimate relationship.

So, if someone says, "I'm not interested in that person sexually at all," well, then be friends. I don't think you should marry. People get married at least in part because they desire their partner, sexually as well as otherwise. By the way, I think most men, unless they're very foolish, they might know some very sexually attractive women toward whom they could probably feel sexual desire, but other things about that woman make them not desire them as a wife. There are women who look good but they turn you off by their attitude or by their values or by their behavior and so you wouldn't desire them. I'm not, you might have the capability of being sexually interested but you don't desire them as your wife.

You seek a woman because you desire a woman and you desire that woman to be your wife. Is there a sexual component? Of course. There's other components too, but the point is she's available, she's not married and you're not married, so of course you can pursue that as a wholesome desire.

And you might say, "Yeah, but I actually was sexually interested in her before we got married too." Well, that may not be able to be helped as long as you're thinking in terms of marrying her. You may feel a sexual interest, in fact, like I said, I doubt that you'd pursue marriage if there was no sexual interest. But I seriously doubt that any intelligent person simply marries someone else because of their sexual interest only without consideration of whether the person's annoying and obnoxious and ill-behaved and that kind of thing.

So, desire for your wife, desire for a wife is a wholesome thing and the desire of a woman to have a husband is a wholesome thing. It's not only sexual, but it's not going to be devoid of all sexual thought. Now, what covet, you know, it's in the law of Moses, it not only said "Don't commit adultery," but several lines down it says "Don't covet anything that is your neighbor's," and that includes your neighbor's wife.

He said you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, also his house and his animals and his servants and so forth, he's not supposed to covet anything that is your neighbor's. But I think when Jesus said if you look at a wife to desire her, I think this is referring to covetousness. This is coveting what someone else has. She's not yours, she's not available to you. The way you're desiring her is inappropriate.

It's not one of those things where two people can share the same item or where one person can sell an item that they have to someone else. I mean, if you look at a guy who's got a car that you like and he's selling it and you've got the money, well of course if you buy it, it's because you desired it. But you're not coveting. I mean, in a sense, you want what he has, but you're not wanting it at his expense. He wants to sell it. He wants the money more than he wants the car. So you're making an exchange.

You'll always, every purchase you make, you'll purchase because you desired something that you didn't have. But it may be something that's legitimately available to you and you're not desiring it at the expense of the other person. To covet what someone else has means you wish you had it and they didn't.

And to covet a man's wife, obviously you can't both have her, so it's his wife and you wish you could have her. That would mean he can't. That's what coveting is. So there's a big difference, I think, between coveting a man's wife, which is I think what Jesus was talking about when you're looking at a married woman and desiring her for yourself and you're looking for the very purpose of feeding that desire.

That's moving into the realm of mental adultery, Jesus said. That is mental adultery. But it doesn't mean that if you're a single guy and there's a single woman that you want to become her husband and her your wife that you should, that there's something wrong with you desiring her. Of course you're going to desire her.

And some of that desire's going to be hormonal, which is in the realm of sexual desire, but it's a very different thing to be fantasizing sex with somebody who actually belongs to someone else and can never be yours. At least that's what I would see as the difference.

Appreciate your call, Scott. Anonymous in Oregon, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Anonymous (Female): Hello. First off, I wanted to say that this is not a criticism, Steve. But I wanted to let you know that I was temporarily suspended from my job because a trans kid did not like what you said about homosexuality last Friday and so he reported it to where I work and why I was suspended.

Steve Gregg: You mean you were listening to the show? You were listening to the show? Oh, maybe you should use headphones.

Anonymous (Female): Exactly, yes. So I, yeah.

Steve Gregg: Okay, so what can I do for you?

Anonymous (Female): Well, I just wanted to let you know because I thought that you should know as soon as possible and that people out there can be praying too and you know, it's just a battlefield. And I just, yeah.

Steve Gregg: Well, I don't make it any part of my interest in making sure that people who reject God are never offended by what I say.

Anonymous (Female): Of course, and I totally agree with you. Absolutely. And so in a sense, you know, I am glad that he heard and I'm just praying that hopefully the Lord can do something with it in his life.

Steve Gregg: Now, how did your boss justify suspending you because you were listening to the radio and something came across that someone else didn't like? How did that impact, how's that you?

Anonymous (Female): He reported it. Yeah, I know. What are you not allowed to listen to stuff? Exactly. I know, I don't know what to do about it. I mean, it's just, yeah.

Steve Gregg: I would think unless they let you back at your job, I think you might have a legal case there, I don't know.

Anonymous (Female): I know. It's temporary, it's temporary suspension, hopefully they will stick with that.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, well shame on them. Shame on them. And you know, I can't blame a trans kid for not liking what I say about homosexuality because what I say about homosexuality, what I say about the subject is what God says about it and trans kids don't like what God says about it. So, you know, I agree with you and I agree with the Bible and all you said was that it's immoral.

I've never heard of that being done. I mean, unless you're not allowed to listen to the radio on the job then I could see that you could be in trouble, but if you're allowed to listen to the radio on the job, I don't know how you could be held responsible for what somebody on a talk show says. It's ridiculous.

Anonymous (Female): Exactly. Well, they said it's if it's too conservative or too liberal not to have it on while the child's in there.

Steve Gregg: Well, I guess our views are conservative, which just means they're the common sense views that everybody believed until day before yesterday. Anyway, alright well thanks for letting me know.

Anonymous (Female): And I appreciate so much your show. Been listening for years, at least 20 years. So thank you.

Steve Gregg: Well now you've got some time off work to listen to more, you can listen back programs now. God bless you. Bye-bye. Alright let's see, we've got Fred in Alameda is next. Fred, welcome to The Narrow Path.

Fred: I was looking at Psalm 119, verse 22. And it doesn't make sense to me but I was thinking is there a correlation between Psalm 119, Psalm 119, verse 22 and Job 2:3 because what I don't understand about the 22nd verse in that Psalm, why would David receive reproach and contempt from God if he was keeping God's testimonies? I don't understand that.

Steve Gregg: "Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies." I would never have assumed, although it's an interesting thought that you raise, I would never have assumed that this was God's contempt he's worried about and reproach. If he's kept God's testimonies, I would think that he knows that he doesn't have God's reproach and contempt.

But people often—I mean, we just talked to a caller who was reproached and I suppose if her boss had called me and I'd be reproached because I said some things that are true to the Word of God. And if I keep God's testimony, there's going to be some people who hold that in contempt and who will reproach. Reproach means of course to criticize and to condemn.

So, in other words, there was a listener or someone who was eavesdropping while someone else was listening who didn't like something that the Bible says that was repeated on our show and so I guess I and the person listening are subject to that person's contempt and reproach. But who cares? I mean, I think the writer is saying, I'd rather people didn't reproach me and contempt me, could you preserve me from that from the hatred of other people? But it's only a request because a godly person knows that if you follow the testimonies of God, if you follow God's Word, there's going to be a certain element who hold you in reproach and contempt. Though if you're in good company they won't.

Fred: Yeah, so are you pretty sure it's talking about people and not that God's reproaching and finds them contemptible?

Steve Gregg: Well, I can't say I'm sure only because this is the way I've always taken it. I've never assumed it was God's contempt. But it would seem more likely that I'm correct since there's no reason why he should think that God is reproaching him or holding him in contempt.

Unless he's saying this: "You know, I did misbehave before and I have felt your reproach and your contempt. I've turned around and I'm doing the right thing now, so could you kind of lift your hand of discipline off of me?" That could be, I guess, I don't think it's as likely to be the meaning, but one could see it that way.

He doesn't say the source of the reproach or the contempt. But I assume that since he is obedient and throughout that Psalm, Psalm 119, almost always the writer's saying that I've kept your Word, I meditate day and night on your Word, I've been loyal to you, and therefore I thought that figured that's what he's saying in that verse too.

But one of the consequences of being loyal to God and keeping his Word is that you're going to have contempt and reproach from the world.

Fred: All right, thank you. Bye-bye.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Fred. Thanks for your call. Seth in Greenville, South Carolina, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Seth: Hey Mr. Gregg, thank you for taking my call. I just want to start out by saying what a blessing your ministry is and just had a question about dispensationalism. I know you come from that background and similarly I as reading through scripture, things just not adding up.

But I was watching one of your videos the other day and it made me think of what had to be accomplished within Daniel's 70 weeks. And it made me think when at in those 70 weeks that there's an end to sin and it made me think the dispensationalist believes that there's still sin in the Millennial Kingdom. And so even if if that tribulation period is the end of sin, it still isn't fully dealt with. So that didn't make sense. I didn't know if you had come across that or if there's something I'm missing there, but it just struck me as odd.

Steve Gregg: Well, I don't know if I've had that exact thought, it's a good thought. For those who don't know what you're talking about, Daniel 9, an angel said to Daniel that there's going to be 70 weeks, which just a shorthand we're going to say 490 years is what it refers to, that are determined on Daniel's people, the Jews, and the holy city Jerusalem to do certain things. There's six things in this 70 weeks or in this 490 years.

It's one, to finish the transgression, two, to make an end of sins, three, to make reconciliation for iniquity, four, to bring in everlasting righteousness, five, to seal up the vision and prophecy, and six, to anoint the most holy. There's a sense in which these kind of build up as one is the cause of the others, each one kind of as a domino effect, I think, but they all happen basically within that period of time.

Now, the thing is dispensationalists, as you say, they don't believe that time is finished yet. They believe the 70th week has been postponed until the future and therefore they say these things have not happened yet. And they would even say they must be future because look, Jesus didn't bring in an end to sin. Well, he did. He brought an end to sin's claim on the human race.

I mean, true, people still sin, but it depends on what is meant by "made an end of sins." But if they think it means to do away with all sin so no more sinning takes place and therefore they believe it happens in the future tribulation when Jesus comes back, he gets rid of all the sin. You're saying, "Yeah, but if that's what making an end of sins means, it doesn't happen even when Jesus comes back by their view because they've got a millennium of peace but then after the millennium there's more sinning for a little while."

So, even the second coming of Christ doesn't make an end of sins in that sense of the word. We have to understand make an end of sins differently than what they are insisting upon. So, you've got inconsistency in their system is what you're saying.

Seth: Yes sir, it's just like what you had said. But I appreciate your ministry very much and appreciate you taking my question. Praying for you and that the Lord will continue to bless and provide.

Steve Gregg: Thank you Seth. God bless you man. Bye now. Teresa in Antioch, California, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Teresa: Hi, this is Teresa. Thanks once again for the knowledge that you do give us. My question to you would actually be how does God see the way the world is because you probably studied it a lot deeper than most of us. How does God see that woman to woman and man to man? How will he judge that according to their works or according to their sin or how would he look at that?

Steve Gregg: Well, I'll tell you what. He's going to judge everyone according to his works, the Bible says. And it says it again and again and again and again that when God judges everyone they'll be judged according to their works and their deeds, the things done in the body, those are the terms that are used for it. And so each one will be judged individually.

Now, how does God feel about sin? He doesn't like it. I think you can get a good idea of how he felt about sin by the fact that he had Jesus crucified for it. I'd have to say if he took sin lightly he wouldn't do that. That obviously means he takes sin very seriously. On the other hand, because Jesus died, it is possible for God to be gracious toward sin. And so God loves the world though the Bible says in one place he's angry at sinners every day.

So it's sort of like when you love your kids but they're rebellious. You still love them, you'd die for them if that would help. You'd give your life for them. But they make you mad by their bad choices. And mostly what they're making you mad is not because they're hurting you but because they're hurting themselves. They're making dumb choices.

So I think that's how God views the world. He loves the world. He loves everyone. He wants everyone to be saved. He wishes everyone would repent. That would be good for them. Would it be good for him? Maybe in some way that I can't conceive of it would be good for him but yeah it could be good for him too. But the point is he doesn't need that. He didn't even have to create people, he doesn't need people, but he loves people.

Just like I didn't have to have children, but the fact that I did have children means I care for them and my happiness is tied to their well-being. So I think God's like that too, at least that's how God describes himself to us. As far as how he feels toward that, the person who got the other lady suspended from work because he's living a sinful lifestyle and then he wanted to make sure that no one could speak against it in his presence, you know, I gotta say that's not a good work when he stands before God. I don't think that'll go well.

But I will say this too. Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 4 in verse 5, he says, "Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts and then each one will receive his own individual praise from God." Which seems to be saying that yeah we better be careful not to think we know exactly how God's going to judge every person even though we know their deeds are bad.

Everybody has bad deeds and we know that some of those they're going to be ashamed and embarrassed to stand before God with those deeds when they have to give account for them. But we also know that God loves them and we also know that he's—well, not all Christians know this, but I think the Bible teaches that God is sympathetic toward people. He's a friend of sinners. Like a doctor is sympathetic toward the sick. Jesus compared himself to a physician going to the sick and he compared that to him going to the sinners to call them to repentance.

A doctor, if he's a good doctor, is sympathetic toward the sick. He hates the sickness, he doesn't hate the sick. He loves the sick and he tries to cure them of their sickness and that's how Jesus is toward sinners. He hates their sin, he sees it's destroying them, but he cares about them and therefore he is in a sense by default sympathetic toward people although the sin that is destroying them really bothers him.

And that's why Jesus died to cure them from that. I don't know how that will be applied in every case at judgment. I know that if when all my works are shown, they are not all good ones. Not everything I'm going to have to answer to God for if I were to answer for everything is good although I believe that we only have to answer for those things that we have not repented of. I think we only have to answer for those things that we haven't already answered for by repentance.

So if I commit a sin and I truly repent, I am bringing that to judgment. And Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, "If we would judge ourselves we would not be judged by God." And so I think when we repent we are judging ourselves and the thing that we've judged ourselves for, the thing that we've condemned in ourselves by our repentance, we won't be have to answer to God for.

But if the young man who caused that problem doesn't repent he'll have to answer for the harm he's done to that lady and just like anybody who doesn't have their sins accounted for before they die, they'll have to give account of that. Anyway, but it's a loving God that we serve and he does he loves sinners.

Jesus was—it was the Pharisees that complained that Jesus was the friend of sinners. Why they say that? Because he was. He was very friendly to sinners. Doctors are friends of their patients. The Pharisees, religious people, if you meet someone who's not a friend, you know, not on the side of sinners wanting to see them healed and cured and repent, then you maybe a religious person but not much like Jesus, not much like God.

God's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, Peter said. 2 Peter chapter 3. Hey, I'm out of time. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. We pay really scores of thousands of dollars every month, well over a hundred thousand a month, to radio stations to play the program. We don't have any salaries, don't have any expenses except for radio costs. If you'd like to help us, you can write to The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593 or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.