The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon, and welcome to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for an hour each weekday afternoon. We're commercial-free, and we have room for a lot of people to call in if they want to. You can raise questions for discussion about the Bible, about the Christian faith, which is what we mainly do and have been doing daily for 29 years.

Almost 30 years we've been on the air. The whole show is given over to people calling in, asking questions. We’ve been doing that every day. It seems like a long time when I think about it, but it doesn't seem all that long just experiencing it. I still enjoy it very much. I hope I never quit. The only way I'd ever quit doing this is if I had to, perhaps a health crisis or something.

Anyway, we're here today, and that's what we've got before us is an hour with an open phone line. If you'd like to call in with your questions, the number to call is 844-484-5737. Again, that's 844-484-5737. One announcement I want to make: it's coming up in a few days this coming Tuesday. I'll be speaking in San Juan Capistrano, California at a church called The Ranch Church, or maybe just Ranch Church.

I'll be speaking on the "Four Views of Revelation." They also are going to be serving food to those who register so they'll know you're coming. I don't believe it costs anything for the food, but I think you just have to let them know to order it and prepare it. If you want to come to that, I think they're going to be serving the food at 5:30 perhaps and the lecture is basically from 6:00 to 8:00.

There will be a short break in between and we'll be having Q&A also. So that's what's coming up. That's Tuesday, this Tuesday, the 10th of February, San Juan Capistrano, in the evening. Check it out at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under announcements. You'll find the location, the time, all the contact information since they want you to register so they know how many to expect. The Narrow Path dot com under the tab that says announcements. Look at the date February 10th and that's where you'll find everything you need to know.

All right, we're going to go to the phone lines now to talk to James in Memphis, Tennessee. Hi, James. Welcome.

James: Yes. Thank you for taking my call, Steve. Steve, how does the church get the third day of crucifixion from Friday to Sunday? How do they count that?

Steve Gregg: Well, it's counted, I believe, in a Jewish manner. Now, there's different people who have tried to solve this following an American way of thinking about things. That is, they want to find literally three days and three nights from the crucifixion of Jesus until the resurrection either Saturday night after dark or Sunday morning before dawn.

So some people have argued for a Wednesday crucifixion so they've got Wednesday night and Thursday, Thursday night and Friday, Friday night and Saturday, and then they would have the resurrection on Saturday night and discovered the next morning when the empty tomb was found. Some have done a similar thing and they've argued for a Thursday crucifixion. So you've got Thursday night and Friday, Friday night and Saturday, then Saturday night and Sunday morning would be the three days.

However, the Bible seems to speak of a Friday because the day that Jesus was crucified, we're told in John 18, was the preparation day of the Sabbath. Now, preparation day of the Passover. Now, Passover was a week long, and preparation day was a term the Jews used for Friday because they prepared every Friday for the Sabbath the next day. So Friday, like we call it Friday, we have other names for days of the week, they called that day of the week "preparation" and that was generally for the next day's Sabbath.

Now, this was the Passover week, and it was the preparation, that is the Friday, of Passover week. Now, some would dispute that, but that's the simplest way to understand it. So we've got Jesus crucified Friday, he's in the tomb overnight, he's there Saturday and overnight Saturday, and he rises Sunday morning. Now, the problem with this obviously is that doesn't have him in the tomb three nights, only two nights: Friday night and Saturday night. It also doesn't have three whole days because Friday is only part of a day. He was buried before the sundown and he rose Sunday three days later before dawn or around dawn.

So that would seemingly not make it three days and three nights. In fact, it wasn't in that scenario. But there's only one time in the Bible that speaks of Jesus being raised after or being in the tomb three days and three nights, and that's when he was comparing his situation to that of Jonah. And that was in Matthew chapter 12, verse 40. And he said that as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, speaking of his burial.

So because he said he'll be three days and three nights, many people are trying to find literally three days and three nights between his crucifixion and his resurrection. The thing is Jesus spoke about this same situation several other times where he said he'll rise on the third day. Now, think about it: if he's in the tomb three days and three nights, then the earliest he can rise would be the fourth day because he's spent three full days in the tomb and then he'd rise on the fourth day.

If he was crucified on Friday, then from that point, if Friday's the first day and Saturday's the second day, Sunday would be the third day. So we would have Jesus crucified on Friday and raised on Sunday on the third day. Now, like I said, there are many references to Jesus being raised on the third day. Jesus himself predicted it three times in the gospels that he'd rise on the third day. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 said that Jesus died for our sins according to the scripture, he was buried, and raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

So in retrospect and in anticipation, the resurrection of Jesus is said to be on the third day, which means that he can't have been literally three days and three nights in the tomb and still rise on the third day. Now, why does he say three days and three nights in Matthew 12:40? Well, this is something that simply is known about Jewish culture. They would refer to a series of days inclusive of the first and last day of a set even if the first day and last day it was only a little portion of the day. In other words, if Jesus was buried just before sundown Friday, well, to the Jew, sundown Friday was now Saturday.

So if he was buried just two hours before sundown, he was only in the tomb for two hours of Friday and he might have been there less of Sunday, but part of Sunday, part of Friday would be considered one of the days. Not only one of the days, but they'd call part of the day a day and a night. Now, this might seem strange; it is strange. I don't know why they did that, but it's known that they did. There are other Jewish documents that you can see this is done. A doctor puts a person under a five days and five nights quarantine, but you look at it, it ends up being only three actual days with a little bit of a day before and a little day bit of a day at the end.

And so you've got five days and it's called five days and five nights. It's a very inexact, very imprecise way of speaking, but a very recognizable way of speaking. So that when Jesus said three days and three nights, they would understand him to mean at least parts of three days, even though we would take it much differently; we’d take it 24 hours for a day and a night. They would just say parts of three days can be spoken of that way and that's how he spoke of it. And I believe he chose the language on that one occasion because it mimics the language of the book of Jonah because he is actually, of course, referring to the book of Jonah.

He says as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Well, it actually says in the book of Jonah in Jonah 1:17 that Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. So Jesus, in making the comparison, actually uses the language from the book of Jonah. Jonah was three days and three nights in the fish and so I'll be three days and three nights, which in the Jewish mind means at least parts of three days. So if he's crucified on Friday and buried before sundown, that's part of Friday, then Saturday, the whole of it, and then a little bit of Sunday apparently. Because Sunday would begin at sundown Saturday. So you've got Jesus's parts of three days and therefore rising on what would literally be the third day. And since we have a handful of places in the Bible where it says he rose on the third day and only one place where he used the expression three days and three nights, which was obviously an idiom, then I think we can do fine with it being Friday crucifixion, resurrection Sunday. That's how I understand it.

James: I see. Can I make this point in regards to Friday being that Adam was created on the sixth day and Friday being the sixth day? Would that have something to do with it also being that God said in the day that you eat of the fruit you will die? So being that that would seem like that would be a shadow of Jesus dying on Friday on the sixth day also.

Steve Gregg: Well, that's an interesting take. I don't know if that's how God saw it, but it is interesting because Adam was told on the sixth day—well, we don't know if he actually ate the fruit on the sixth day. He was just created on the sixth day. If he had sinned that same day and God said, "This day you're going to die," and he meant the second Adam, Jesus, is going to die on this day, meaning Friday, that'd be interesting. I don't know; I can't confirm or disconfirm that meaning, but it's an interesting take.

James: Yeah, okay, I just thought about something that came to me. But thank you for taking my call, Steve.

Steve Gregg: All right, James. God bless. Thanks for calling. Troy in Cottage Grove, Oregon. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Troy: Hey, Steve. Yesterday you spoke with a gentleman about girls being boys and boys being girls and that no other nations before us would have ever even thought to do that. Is that correct?

Steve Gregg: Is that what?

Troy: Is that correct? Is that how I heard you?

Steve Gregg: Right. I mean, there were always cross-dressing men and women. They didn't think they were boys and girls, but they were what we'd call transvestites. That was something that's so ancient that the book of Deuteronomy actually forbade it and said it's an abomination to do that. So cross-dressing was always something that was done by some people, usually considered to be weird.

Troy: I just wanted to clear that up because Ishtar started all this and it goes all the way back to Babylon.

Steve Gregg: Well, yeah. I don't know what "all this" means. I think probably if you mean homosexuality and transgenderism, that kind of stuff, I don't know that it does come from Babylon. I don't know that it doesn't, and it wouldn't really matter because we don't live in the days of Babylon, we live in these days. So we'd deal with the issue today. But yeah, you may be right or you may be wrong. I don't have historical information about that. Thanks for your call.

Karen in California, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Karen: Yes, I think I took it off speakerphone. On the radio, I heard a preacher say, "God is not binary." He seemed to base it on Genesis 1, verses 1 and 2, because of the Creator gender is male and the Spirit gender is female. I thought of two verses which I haven't found yet. I'm wondering if you can give me the references: the one about God is not a man and the other one about God created man or humans male and female. Also, could you please give a better explanation and other reasons why this logic that he supposedly used isn't good biblical study? Thank you.

Steve Gregg: All right. Well, where it says that God made man male and female, that's in Genesis chapter 1, verse 27. I can turn to there. It says, "God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female He created them." Okay, so humankind is made in the image of God. Of course, this is not talking about God's sexuality, since God is a spirit, he's not sexual. He doesn't have anatomy; he doesn't have biology, and therefore he's not really—those are the things that would make us male or female.

So mankind as a whole is made in God's image, which speaks of the spiritual nature of man, not the physical biological nature, because God isn't biological. So to say that God isn't binary—I'm not really sure what they mean by that. I mean, humanity is binary because there's male and female, and male and female are different. That's binary; there's two different ones. God—God is not binary, I guess, in that sense. He isn't—there isn't in God two opposites.

But I'm not sure why that'd be important to say. If he's saying because God is not binary—meaning gender binary—humans made in his image are not gender binary, but I think he'd be in real trouble there biblically because the verse that tells us that he made male and female in God's image is the one that says they were binary. So I don't know how he could deny that. I'm not sure what he's trying to say.

What I would have said is that God is not a sexual being, and therefore the sexuality of humans is kind of irrelevant to the nature of God. It's not irrelevant to human nature; it's very relevant. God made men for something, and he made women for something else, and we should try to fit into his plan. He made humans a binary species, just like most—well, virtually all mammals and many reptiles and birds mostly are binary, and lots of fish and amphibia are too. I said, and insects—I mean, most creatures that are not single-celled are binary; there's male and female. And humans are no exception.

Now, God is not a created thing; he's not a biological creature, so there's no reason to think of him in those terms. But there's also no reason to mention it because the subject is irrelevant to him. Now, where it says "God is not a man," that is mentioned a number of times in the scriptures, but in the book of Numbers, and the verse number I have to say I—if I could find it, it would be just by luck here. It's Numbers 23:19 where Balaam said, "God is not a man, that he should repent."

So you see, it's 23—my wife just found it for me. Yeah, 23:19. And it also says that in 1 Samuel 15:29 when Samuel said to Saul, "God is not a man, that he should repent." So a couple of times it says God is not a man, which of course he's not; he's not a human being. God existed before there were such things as human beings. If you're thinking that when it says God is not a man, it might be suggesting he could be a woman or he could be binary, male and female, that's not what's being talked about there. It's talking about how God is not a human being, not like us men. You can't persuade him to change his mind just because under pressure, like you can with some men. Anyway, yeah, I don't even know what the preacher meant when he said "God's not binary," but if we're talking binary in terms of sexual, well, God's not sexual at all, so the whole issue of being binary is an irrelevancy.

Okay, let's talk to John in Kent, Washington. Hi, John. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

John: Yeah, hey Steve. A quick question about Ecclesiastes 10, verse 2, where it talks about a wise man goes to his right and a fool goes to the left. I think that's the way it's written, but I was wondering if you could explain that. I'd like to hear your answer off the air. Thanks.

Steve Gregg: Okay, yeah, well thanks for your call. It says, "A wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart is at his left." I have to say, it's not obvious exactly how he means it. The heart, in many cases, can refer to the mind. We make a distinction between the mind and the heart; in fact, we talk about how some people accept Jesus with their mind but they miss him by 12 inches because he doesn't get down into their heart. This is a statement that is made just from the idiosyncrasies of English usage.

Of course, the heart doesn't think at all; it's a blood pump below the fifth rib. It doesn't have any thoughts. But in our society, we think of the heart as an emblem of where the emotions are, and we think of the head as where the intellect is. But truly, the Bible is not obligated to follow those metaphors. And in the Bible, "heart" and "mind" and "soul" and sometimes even "kidneys" are used rather interchangeably.

Where we would say "I feel it in my heart," some of the ancient Hebrews would say "I feel it in my kidneys." The King James uses the word "reins" (R-E-I-N-S) when it means kidney—well, that's an old word for kidneys. And he says he feels this in his reins. These are just metaphors where parts of the body are attributed figuratively speaking with certain emotional and intellectual powers.

But to say the wise man's heart is at his right hand, I think heart may refer to his intelligence, his mind. He's thinking. He's conscious and guided by—because the heart is also that from which actions flow. In Proverbs chapter 4, it says, "Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." I think that's Proverbs 4:23; it might be 4:18, one of those two. So Solomon also wrote that, and he said, "Guard your heart with all diligence; out of it are the issues of life," out of your heart.

Jesus said in Matthew 15 the evil things that defile a man come from his heart, and he lists a whole bunch of things which are behavior things. They come out of the heart. So the heart is the place of reasoning, the place of deciding; it's the core of your being. And for Solomon to say in Ecclesiastes 10:2, "A wise man's heart is at his right hand," his right hand is his skilled hand; it's the thing he does his important work with.

His left hand follows up. Most boxers, unless they're the unusual left-handed guy, they lead with their right. Their left hand is there too, and they can use it if they need to, but it's the right—you use your right hand for most of your skilled labor, unless you're a lefty like me. But the assumption of scripture is that unless someone is mentioned to be left-handed, which it sometimes does mention people who are, it is assumed that people are mostly right-handed.

So he's saying that a man's works—his main works, his important work—if he's a wise man, his heart guides him, his mind, his intellect, his wits guide his main work. The fool, not so much. He thinks secondarily; his main works are done without thought, without heart. He's doing foolish things, acting without premeditation or without thinking. And I think that his left hand speaks of the lesser works that he does; it's not like your primary activities.

So it's a figure of speech, obviously, and that's I think what he means. Now, he might mean something else because it's not transparently clear how he means that, but as I look at it, I think he's saying a man's primary works, if he's wise, will come from his heart and his mind, his thoughts; he'll think it through first before he acts. A fool—his thoughts may follow after his deeds, come later. He'll act without thinking first. He may have to backtrack and fix it with his left if he blows it.

But this is a kind of a principle that I believe that is being taught here. It certainly is a general principle of scripture, and whether Solomon's making that very principle in this statement, which is obscure, or not, I can't be certain. But I think that probably is correct. So I'm just going to give you what I think is a probable answer here, best I could do. Hannah in Downey, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hannah: Hi, Steve. My question is because I've been looking a lot about Jesus dying on the cross and everything. My question is that after he died and rose again on the third day, it says that he defeated sin and death, but Satan still is around today and tempts people today. So my question is, was Satan conquered at the cross and to what degree?

Steve Gregg: Yes, Satan was conquered at the cross. It says that in Colossians 2 and verse 15. It says that through the cross, Jesus disarmed the principalities and powers, meaning the demonic forces, and made a show of them openly triumphing over them in the cross. So at the cross, he disarmed them and triumphed over them. That's Colossians 2:15. In Hebrews 2:14, it says that Jesus through death destroyed him who had the power of death, that is the devil.

We have in Revelation 12 a depiction of Christ's birth and ascension. And when he ascends into heaven, Satan, who's been accusing the brethren throughout history before that time, up until the time of Christ, is thrown out of heaven. His case is thrown out of court; the accuser is cast out. So in what way has he been defeated? I believe that he had some kind of a legal claim on mankind from the time that man defected to Satan's side.

And that Jesus came and conquered that claim, has claimed all things for himself; all authority in heaven and earth now belongs to him and Satan doesn't get any. Now, we say well, why is the devil still active? I believe it's like when David killed Goliath. When David killed Goliath, the war was over. The Philistines were now the servants of Israel according to the pre-arranged agreement. Goliath fell; the war was over. The Philistines, however, fled and the Israelites had to pursue and enforce the victory. There was no chance of the Philistines ever winning; they had already lost, but the Israelites had to go and carry out the victory and make sure it stuck. And that's what we're doing right now until Jesus comes back.

I need to take a break. You're listening to The Narrow Path. I'll be back in 30 seconds. We've got another half hour coming.

Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you've got questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you have a disagreement with the host, want to talk about that here on the air, feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. We have some lines open right now, so if you want to call now you can get through. 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Peter from San Jose, California. Hi, Peter. Welcome.

Peter: Hey, Steve. I got one question for you. Okay. So considering the Epstein files and Trump's response or I should say his non-response, based on the fact that David had a wise counselor in Nathan and then his son Solomon had Nathan's son, Zabad... without them, I don't think David would have survived too long as king. Now, Trump doesn't have a wise counselor that is visible to us. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do what we can for Trump. What would be your question? My question would be: what would you advise us to do in response to Trump's lack of response to all that's come out?

Steve Gregg: Well, I honestly don't know. What can we do? Honestly, I really don't know what is available. There's not sort of a plan of action presented to me or choices. Whatever happened on Epstein Island is a thing of the past now. Obviously, some very important people did some very bad things there. I don't know what Trump did there. If something has come out in the last day or two that I haven't heard about that implicates him, well I guess then it does.

Last I heard, there wasn't any evidence that Trump had been on Epstein Island. I don't know. He certainly knew Epstein, but he didn't like him, he said. So, I don't know what we've got; I don't know what we have on Trump here. But I'm not sure what I would do if I had something. If I found out that Trump had done criminal things, okay, so what do I do? There are people in power who are in the position to do things about it, but I'm not one of them.

And by the way, I don't really believe that my responsibility is to make sure that all the political figures do the most moral and godly things. I'd love it if all of our political figures were godly people and they didn't do bad things. But I mean, let's just say someone said we should—something has come out about Trump and we should impeach him. I'm not aware of anything that's come out and I don't know if we should impeach him, but that'd be someone else's decision; I can't make that decision.

But someone else would make it. Let's say they impeached him. Well, who's going to replace him? Do we have somebody who's spotless? Do we have people who've never done anything immoral? I don't know. How are we going to find that out? We often don't know the deep dark secrets of the people who run for office or who hold office. It's very clear sometimes people can be in office for a very long time and then we find out they did something really bad.

So what did I do about them? Well, about the same thing I'm able to do about Trump: nothing. We can say this: if he's a bad guy, then they'll either impeach him or he'll cease to be president in the next three years. We've had some really bad presidents in my lifetime. And sometimes I wondered how the country would survive their term. One of them was elected to two terms. I thought, how in the world—the first term was horrible, and now they've elected him for another term? I don't know how we'll survive this. But we did. Time goes by. There may be something that'll be so bad it'll take us out as a country, but it hasn't happened yet.

Now, I will say this about Trump: I'm not here to say he's a good man; I don't know him. I'm not here to say he's a Christian man; I certainly don't have any real evidence of that, although he talks sometimes like he is, but all politicians do that. But I will say that the policies he embraces are better than the policies of his competitors at this point. At least better for the country. And so that's what presidents are for: they're to do good for the country, and I'd say the country has done better under him than under any of his competitors in the previous races would have or did.

So what do we do? I don't know. I guess we wait and see what comes out. But like I said, I'm not even aware of anything that has come out about Trump being compromised at Epstein files. Certainly, it's very clear that President Clinton was. So much so that he violated a congressional subpoena to come and be questioned about it until he was threatened and then of course he had to come. So we got Clinton on those things. Little late to impeach him. But if something's there about Trump, I missed the news. I missed it. I'll probably see it in the next few days if it's really there.

However, people have been saying things like that about Trump for actually some years now. And it seemed to me when the files came out that they really didn't show anything, at least that I heard of. All right, let's talk to Brandon in Ohio. Hi, Brandon. Good to hear from you.

Brandon: Hi there, sir. It's a pleasure to take my call. I had a question about baptism. I've come across a lot of people who I talk to, and a lot of people believe that baptism isn't unto salvation, unto where if you don't get baptized you don't go to heaven. My question is: do you believe that baptism is unto salvation, in terms of like John 3:3 and John 3:5 and like Acts 2:38? My main reference is 1 Peter 3:21 where it talks about the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us. So my question would be: do you believe that baptism is unto salvation? If so or if not, how would you explain 1 Peter 3?

Steve Gregg: Glad to. Glad to talk about that. First of all, I don't think that John 3:3 or John 3:5 are talking about baptism. It talks about being born of the water and born of the spirit. I don't see any indication he's talking about baptism there. So I know people use that to speak of baptism, but I don't think that's relevant to the question. I do think Acts 2:38 is relevant, where they said, "What must we do?" He said, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And then of course, 1 Peter 3:21 which says the like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God.

Those two are stronger than the John 3, I believe. Now, in Acts chapter 2, "Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins." Some people say, well, see, baptism has to be done for the remission of sins. And if you're not baptized, then you haven't had your sins remitted. Well, you could take it that way if that's what the Bible taught in general. In general, it seems to me like the Bible teaches that we're justified by faith.

And Paul seems to go very strong on that. And Peter, even in the second sermon—of course we're quoting from his first sermon in Acts 2—in Acts 3, when he talks about how to be saved, he doesn't mention baptism. I'm looking at the sermon there to see where the best verse is for that. Verse 19, Acts 3:19. So this is just a chapter later, another sermon by the same guy. He says, "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."

Okay, so your sins will be blotted out if you repent and are converted. Now, converted talks about being changed. I believe that's a heart change; I believe it's being regenerated. But the point is in chapter 2, he said repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. Here he says repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted. The common denominator is repent. And of course, faith isn't even mentioned in either of these, which of course he is calling them to be saved by faith, but there are things you do when you have faith.

You repent, you get baptized, you converted—these things happen when you have a saving faith. If you don't do these things, then we have to ask, well, how can it be said that you have a saving faith? Because if you have a saving faith, that faith makes you desire to be obedient. And if you know you're supposed to repent and believe and should be baptized and be converted, well you'll do those things.

Now, the thief on the cross, of course, repented and he believed. He was not baptized, but Jesus said today you'll be with me in paradise. Now, some people say, well that was Old Testament. Jesus hadn't died and risen again yet, so the old covenant was still in force. That's always seemed a strange argument to make. It seems to say that if you were in the Old Testament and you believe and repent, you'll go to heaven when you die, even without being baptized since people throughout the Old Testament were not baptized.

But if the same thing happens to you after Jesus died and rose again, you can't be saved that way unless you get baptized. Now, obviously being baptized is less accessible to some people than to others, and frankly, much more difficult than to simply believe and repent. Now, baptism is not a work, it's not a hard thing to do, but let's face it: someone may be out in the desert and there's no water there and they're dying. Or there may be some other situation where baptism is just not accessible, there's no Christian church, there's no Christian person there to baptize you before you die.

Okay, well what then? Are you going to go to hell because you believed and you repented but you didn't get baptized? No, I don't think so. If so, then Jesus, by dying and resurrecting from the dead, has made salvation less accessible to people than it was before. Because on that view, people could just repent and believe in the Old Testament and they'd be saved. Now you can't do that. You can't just repent and believe, you have to also add some stuff, baptism being one of them.

So Jesus, who is said to be the savior of the world bringing salvation, actually is simply removing salvation away from mankind by one step further than it was in the Old Testament because they could be saved without it in the Old, but not in the New. I think that's faulty thinking. What I believe is Christ commands us to be baptized. Obviously, if we know that command and we are believers and want to follow Christ, we'll be baptized. Unless of course we're like the thief on the cross or a person dying in the desert or somewhere where there's no Christian to baptize you, then you're going to die unbaptized, probably.

But will you die unsaved? I can't imagine why. Isn't God hoping to save everybody? Why would he bust you on a technicality? And that would be a technicality. You believe, you repent, you want to be baptized, you can't, you got no choice. Busted, you're going to hell. No, that's nonsense. That is simply nonsense in terms of biblical salvation. Now, it nonetheless is the case that everyone in the New Testament who believed in Christ was evangelized by a Christian who could baptize them and who did.

No one got saved in ignorance of whether they should be baptized or not. People do sometimes now. Some people come to Christ and they've never heard they're supposed to be baptized, and they're shocked to learn of it years later. Well, then the fact they weren't baptized may not be their fault. But in biblical times, all people who were converted were evangelized by someone who they knew you get baptized, and they're told that. That's how you entered into the community of the Christian church by baptism. And they found a way to do it.

Now, if anyone in the early church died suddenly after they were converted and weren't baptized, we don't have any reference to that kind of a case, but if that did, I believe that everyone would have known they were saved; they didn't get a chance to be baptized but they were saved by their faith. But that would be the rare, rare case. Certainly Peter could write to the Christians of his day and say, "You got saved when you got baptized."

And that's true. Now, he didn't say it that way; he said baptism now saves us. But baptism—I'll tell you what I see in scripture. The Bible says in both Acts 2:38 and numerous other places that being saved requires repenting, it requires other things too, believing certainly. Being baptized was done the same day. Receiving the Holy Spirit was done the same day. All four of those things were done in rapid succession.

There wasn't probably any convert other than maybe Saul of Tarsus that we know of who believed prior to being baptized, that is more than a day prior. Everyone in the Bible that we know of who got converted got baptized the same day. So Peter's writing in a situation where Christians are baptized people. And they could look at the fact that they were converted, they were baptized, they repented, they believed—that all happened the same day.

That was just one conversion experience as far as they're concerned. They didn't see it as a bunch of steps; they just—that's what you did. You got saved, you got baptized. You got saved, you repented. You got saved, you received the spirit. That's what they did. And so Peter could talk about any one of those things, and Paul and others too. Paul could talk about, "it's just faith." But by faith, he realizes that the people who had faith also would repent and be baptized.

Paul didn't know any Christians who had faith and didn't repent and be baptized and receive the spirit, neither did Peter. And therefore to say, "I was baptized on such and such a day and I got saved," would be saying, you know, it doesn't have to be mentioned I also repented and believed; that's what you do before you get baptized. So to them, I think the early Christians could say "I believed on this day" or "I repented on this day" or "I was baptized on this day" or "I received the spirit on this day."

And they'd be talking about the whole sequence of salvation: repentance and faith, baptism and receiving the spirit. All four of those things happened the same day for them. So faith saves you, repentance saves you, receiving the spirit saves you, baptism saves you. Those would all be like normal things to say. And it's not saying that baptism alone washed away your sins, and it's not saying that if you happened to be one of those rare people who believed and repented and didn't get a chance to be baptized, that you failed to be saved. At least I believe not.

To say that we are saved by being baptized requires that we lean on like three proof texts: the two we mentioned and another one in Acts where Ananias said to Paul, "What are you waiting for? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord." People got baptized and they called on the name of the Lord at the same time. We don't find that in our modern church. Shame on us. Apparently, people can get saved in our churches and we don't tell them they're supposed to get baptized, so they think it's optional.

Shame on us if we don't tell them. We're teaching the gospel differently than the New Testament preachers did. But if someone has never heard it, but they have given their lives to Christ, I seriously doubt that God is going to say on the day of judgment, "Oh you did what you knew to do, but no one told you you're supposed to do this and you didn't do it so you're going to hell."

I think that some people picture God as somebody whose default attitude toward humans is "I'm going to burn you unless you check the boxes I want you to check," and baptism's one of those boxes. No, God's default toward sinners is he wants to save them. God is looking for any excuse to save somebody. There's many people who are so wicked and so hostile to him, I'm sure there's no excuse that he can find to save them.

But if people are doing all they know to do and calling on Christ and so forth and they miss something that normal Christians were supposed to do but they didn't know, to suggest that God wouldn't see them as his friend on the day of judgment and that he wants to burn them, that's simply an image of God and of salvation that I think is not scriptural. And it's based on, like I said, the over-emphasis of one feature of a few verses. Certainly, the New Testament assumes that all Christians—all the ones they knew—were baptized. There weren't any unbaptized Christians in those days, and there shouldn't be today.

But of course, the church has neglected some of the things the apostles taught, to our discredit, we have. And therefore, there are people who have neglected to be baptized and someone should tell them that they should meet the conditions that are supposed to be there, but I don't believe that that's a matter of salvation. But if somebody says, "Okay, I know I'm supposed to be baptized, but I don't care, I'm not going to be baptized," well then it's a very hard sell to say they have faith in Christ.

What do you believe about him? Do you believe he's your king? Do you believe he's your Lord? What do you believe? If you don't believe he's your Lord, you're not saved. If you do believe he's your Lord, then you're going to say, "What must I do? Lord, what are your orders for me? Oh, baptize? I'll do it!" But if someone knows that Jesus commands baptism and says, "Well, maybe I will, maybe I won't," it's very hard to convince me they're saved. I think they believe something about Jesus; they apparently don't believe he's the king and the Lord that they're supposed to obey, which is sad because Jesus said many will say, "Lord, Lord, we did these things," he'll say, "I never knew you, you didn't do the will of my Father."

All right, I appreciate your call, brother. Let's talk to George in Scottsdale, Arizona. He's back. Hi, George. Sorry we lost you before.

George: That's okay, I was glad to hear that last call so that's good. A few nights ago at a men's group, somebody said that they had difficulty not lusting after hot women when they encounter them during their day. And someone suggested, "Why don't you pray for them?" and somebody else said, "I'm too busy trying to fix myself, I don't have time to pray for them." The other day you responded to a presumptive Christian who struggled with pornography. That's different because that's inanimate as opposed to seeing a woman and lusting. What if you're a Christian—what is the best way scripturally to handle lusting after a woman? Is it simply looking away or is it engaging the person as a person, you know, loving your neighbor as opposed to lusting?

Steve Gregg: I hear you. Well, there's a holistic set of things that Christians are supposed to be doing which, if they do, will have a strong mitigating effect on the problem they have with lust. Everybody has some lust for something. Lust means desire. Our bodies are made to desire certain things: we desire food when we're hungry, we desire sleep when we're sleepy, we desire sex at certain intervals when our hormones are active or whatever.

Now, the whole Christian life is one of walking in the spirit so we don't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. But what does walking in the spirit look like? Well, the spirit will convict you about things, the spirit will guide you about things. And no doubt, if you're looking at a woman and you're sensing inappropriate desires toward her, the Holy Spirit will certainly convict you to look away. Now, looking away won't make your heart pure, of course, in itself; you need more than that.

You need to set your affections on things above, Paul said in Colossians chapter 3. Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 7 to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and every woman her own husband. In other words, that's one of the things. Obviously having a wife isn't going to be in itself a complete guarantee you won't have temptations with lust because frankly, sometimes people have wives that are unresponsive and it makes it even harder.

Or they—or their wives, you know, they're not as attractive after some time as other women that they come across. So I mean, that can be an issue. There's a whole lifestyle of seeking purity that has to be practiced. There's not just a three-step plan. I would say that a person needs to learn how to desire his wife and his wife needs to learn how to not see that as a perverted thing. I've known some women who have very, what shall I say, tweaked views of males who desire sex. Men desire sex, normal men desire sex, and God says that their wives are given to them partly to save them from the temptation of women outside the marriage. And by the way, the same thing, husbands are given to the wife to save them from the temptation. Paul said, "Don't deprive each other lest the devil tempt you."

So a warm sexual relationship with a spouse is probably the strongest context for avoiding lust. That doesn't mean you won't be surprised by lust occurring at some visual stimulation somewhere; you should avoid those stimulations. Look away. Certainly, if you find that you're watching a lot of television or movies or websites or whatever where the women there are sexually alluring, well, cut that out.

Someone might say, "How? I thought I can't get rid of TV altogether." Sure you can. Why not? I did. "I can't get rid of the internet altogether." Well, you can get rid of websites and YouTubes. You say, "Are you crazy?" Yeah, are you aware that all the people who ever lived until the 20th century lived without television at all? And until the 1970s or 80s or 90s, they lived without the internet. Until the 90s, they lived without the internet.

So yeah, TV and internet are not indispensable. It may be hard to avoid them, but if you throw the TV out, that may help. If you don't have a TV and you maybe get someone to monitor your computer use. Someone say, "That's kind of extreme, isn't it?" Well, it depends if you want to be saved or not, if you want to be pure or not. Jesus said if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and cast it from you. That's pretty severe.

Now, I don't think you'll ever solve your lust problem by plucking out your eye. I think he's using a hyperbole there; he's not being literal. But he's saying there are things in your life which you value, you treasure, which you'd love to keep and never would wish to be separated from, like your eye, your hand. But if it's causing you to sin, get rid of it. It's better for you to go into life without it than to keep it and end up in Gehenna, he said.

So, you know, take drastic measures is what I would say. Hey, I'm out of time, sorry to say. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.