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 each weekday afternoon with an open phone line for you to call in if you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith. We'd be glad to talk to you in this hour. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737.

We have a gathering where I'll be giving a talk about the four views of Revelation. The talk is from six to eight with a brief break in the middle. From six to eight, but if you want to come earlier, there will be food served. You have to let them know you're coming because they need to know how much food to have available. I think it's at 5:30, just a half hour before the talks.

If you'd like to join for a meal, there's a registration contact information at our website. If you go to thenarrowpath.com under announcements, find today's date, which is Tuesday, February 10th, and you'll find how to contact the church to register that you'd like to join us for food at 5:30. If you don't, then you can come at six and we'll be having our talk on the four views of Revelation from six to eight.

I may not get another chance to announce that. That's tonight and just a couple hours after the program ends. All right, our lines are not full, but close to it. We have one line open. If you'd like to join us, the number is 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Warren calling from Las Vegas, Nevada. Hi Warren, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Warren: Hi Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Not long ago you had a caller who said that they believe that Israel could have kept the law and you agreed with that. I'm wondering how you harmonize that with Romans 7, particularly verses 18 and 19 which emphatically state that we in the New Testament, using Paul as the example, could not have kept the law without himself being under the restraint of walking in the spirit.

Of course, the Old Testament persons, the Old Testament Israel, they didn't have the spirit. How are you harmonizing that with justifying that they could have kept the law? Of course, you know orthodox Christian teaching mostly state that the law was impossible to keep and we could never keep the law. I'd be interested in your take on that.

Steve Gregg: I'm not sure that we could say the orthodox Christian teaching is that the law is impossible to keep, but it's certainly what I was taught growing up like yourself, apparently. Paul did speak of being unable to perfectly live as he wished to do. You're talking about Romans 7. He says the good I wish to do I cannot do, the thing I want to not do, those things I do. He doesn't specify exactly what those things are, but nobody is perfect. That's for sure.

But God didn't require people to be absolutely perfect. That's evangelism 101 is telling people that God requires us to be absolutely perfect and we are in Christ. So that's fine. But the Old Testament doesn't say that if they are not absolutely perfect that they can't be saved. What they had to do was stay faithful to the law in the sense that they didn't, first of all, they didn't worship other gods. That was the main thing.

Then also the Ten Commandments and the other laws that are not the Ten Commandments. I'm not really sure why any of the Ten Commandments would be impossible for someone to follow if they wish to. For example, when you look at the Ten Commandments in the spiritual sense of looking at a woman to lust after her is adultery and being angry at a brother without cause is like murder, obviously people fall in many ways.

James himself said in many things we all stumble and we do. But the Bible never says we stumble because the law was unreasonably hard and that we couldn't have kept it. There are people in the Bible who are described as having been pretty much blameless in the sight of God. One of those cases is the parents of John the Baptist. It says in Luke 1:6, speaking of Zechariah and Elizabeth, they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. I don't know how perfect that really is, but it sounds perfect enough for God to speak that way of them.

Warren: So are we saying that being in Christ, to use Paul's term, gives us a certain amount of grace or latitude for our imperfections that categorizes us or positions us as righteous and fully keeping the law?

Steve Gregg: No one is perfect, but people who have desired to be, like David, David is described as his heart was perfect toward the Lord except in the issue with Uriah's wife. When Paul talks about his own background in Philippians 3, he says if anyone has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I more so.

He says circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is of the law, blameless. This is before he was a Christian. He's talking about when he was a Pharisee. It's also said of John the Baptist's parents before he was born.

Warren: Would we technically say that no one has ever successfully been able to keep the law but Christ? Is that correct?

Steve Gregg: No one has ever kept the law completely, although Paul said that he was blameless according to the requirements of the law. He's obviously thinking of the outward requirements of the law and almost certainly Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were also said to be blameless according to all the things the law said, that's speaking about outward conformity. They didn't eat unclean foods, they didn't violate the Ten Commandments, they didn't worship idols, they kept the rules.

These people happened to also be good people in their hearts. The Pharisees, I think, did keep the rules like Paul said he did when he was a Pharisee. He was blameless according to the law, but Jesus said about them, at least the ones He was talking to, that their hearts were corrupt. Their outward behavior was good, their hearts were corrupt.

The laws that God gave them, although Jesus explained in the New Testament what God's really looking for is purity of heart, what God's really looking for is perfection of love toward God, of course that was never found completely. I'm not sure it's even found completely now among even believers, but that's what we desire. We desire to be perfect inside and out. The thing is, in the law, God didn't really lay those inward parts out as commandments.

The commandments He gave them were external. For example, I'm sure every man who ever lived from Adam on had experienced lust and anger in degrees that according to Jesus' teaching would be sinful. But they weren't addressed in the same way in the Old Testament and it wasn't made that clear that that was sinful. Then the laws only said don't kill and don't commit adultery.

Jesus made it very clear there's an inward part of that that God is concerned about too, which I'm sure no one could keep. But obviously when people are said to have kept the law blameless, it is in terms of the actual commands given by Moses. People could do it. But even if they did it outwardly, like the Pharisees, they wouldn't necessarily be pure in heart.

Warren: Could we say then that inasmuch as one was able or willing to keep as much law as they could, it still wouldn't equate to salvation, it still would have to be by grace or by faith?

Steve Gregg: Salvation has always been by grace through faith as it says in Hebrews 11 where it goes through the whole Old Testament and from Abel on through the prophets and so forth. They all received a good report because of their faith. Of course, their faith acted out good deeds too, but the point is it's pointing out that faith has always been the issue. I need to move on, but I hope that clarifies things for you.

Warren: Thank you, Steve.

Steve Gregg: God bless you. Bye now. Priscilla in Vancouver, B.C., welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Priscilla: Hi Steve, Priscilla here. Thank you so much. I listen to you from KARI 5:50 AM. Shout out to everybody there including you to reach out to us and all the titans here and gone home. I would like to expand interestingly if you want, why you call the show the Narrow Path. Listening to the studies from the titans for God's kingdom, it was a study on Joseph's struggles and they brought up the narrow path. From what I get and my notes here, I put down like still being a person of principle where no rage or fear or revenge is going to be in my internal.

Steve Gregg: Let me jump in here. You've alluded to some things I'm not sure what they are, but it sounds to me like your main question is why do we speak of the narrow path. The reason for doing that is because in Matthew 7, Jesus spoke that there's two gates and two paths. Most people are on the broad path that leads to destruction. He said we need to strive to enter into the narrow gate which obviously is accessed by the narrow path.

Why does He call it that? He said because it's harder and there's fewer people who will take it because it's not a broad comfortable road. Following Christ, you can't just go do everything you want to do, everything your flesh would want to do. People who have no commitment to God, they can do whatever they want to do if they can get away with it and that's what most people apparently want to do.

Jesus said most people are on that path that doesn't really have many restrictions. It's broad, easy, and it leads to destruction. But to follow Jesus, He is the narrow path. He is the way that we follow. The reason the program's called the Narrow Path is because it's about following Jesus. Following Jesus means doing what He said. When you do what He said, you're not going to be doing everything that the world does, but then you'll be doing some things that they don't do, which are frankly more gratifying to do.

It's much more gratifying to do what God wants than what the world wants you to do. Now I've had people say well Steve, you seem pretty broad-minded about certain things, like you don't really take a hard line about what people think about hell or some of those things, so maybe you should call it the broad path. No, what you believe about hell has nothing to do with the path you're on.

The word path refers to walking, it's the way you're living. You can live following Jesus and very faithfully and very narrowly and avoid the pitfalls on either side of the narrow path and still have different opinions about things. I think one thing that the Christian Church got wrong eventually, they didn't in Jesus' day or the Apostles' day, but we know that when the Apostles were dead, the churches evolved somewhat.

They adopted traditions, they changed focus in many respects. One of the ways they changed was that in the days of Jesus and the Apostles, although there were theological views that they had to hold, the majority of the things that they were concerned about was how are you living? Are you living in obedience to Jesus? Are you living on the path, the way He said to walk? Are you walking with Him? Are you walking obediently?

If you were, there were some things you could disagree about. For example, Paul said in Romans 14, there were Christians who thought you should keep a Sabbath and there were Christians who didn't think that. There were Christians who thought you should keep a kosher diet and there's those who didn't. He said that's okay, just let everyone do what they can be satisfied in their own conscience about what they do. Why?

Because what you eat and drink has nothing to do with following Jesus. Jesus said it's not what goes into your mouth that defiles a man, it's what comes out of his heart that defiles him. Likewise, the holy days. Jesus didn't say that people had to keep one day holy, so Christians can or they may not. There are things that are relevant to following Jesus, there's things that are not. For example, if you're living in adultery, that's not consistent with following Christ.

If you're greedy and you're idolizing money, if you idolize anything, then your heart is not fully the Lord's and you're going to be walking in a way that pursues those values that He doesn't approve of. So your walk is going to be different, your life is going to be different. But on esoteric things which if you think one way or the other won't change anything about the way you live, for example, the views of hell.

People have been a little alarmed that I'm open-minded about people having different views of hell. So what? Suppose I believe one or another of those views, how will it change the way I live my life for Jesus? If one view is that people are tormented forever and ever in hell, one view is that they are punished proportionally and then they are extinguished, one is that they are punished and experience the consequences of their sin until they actually repent.

Those are the different views of hell. Obviously, some of them are familiar and some are unfamiliar to any group of Christians. The ones that are unfamiliar might seem really strange, they might even seem like evil somehow. Yet no matter what you believe about hell, it doesn't have any impact, or it shouldn't, on whether you follow Jesus or not. Because following Jesus, we don't do it because of hell. We do it because of Jesus.

If people are following Jesus only because they have a certain view of hell, then I'm not really sure they love Jesus. They may love themselves enough to want to escape punishment, but loving Jesus, you'll follow Jesus if you love Him and it won't matter what your opinion is about hell. There's lots of different options out there. Obviously, they're not all right, but they all have some support from scripture that could lead some serious Christians to believe them.

It's just not one of the things that the Bible actually puts up as a necessary thing to understand. There's no place in the Bible that says you have to believe this or that about hell. That's true about a lot of things that we Christians think differently about. Predestination. A lot of Christians have different views from each other on predestination and I think okay, I don't care which one you believe, believe whatever you think is true, study the Bible.

But you see, I can believe in predestination or not and it won't have any impact on the way I obey Jesus. In other words, if being a Christian means following Jesus, that's walking on the narrow path. But people who follow Jesus are capable of thinking different things about abstract doctrines that don't have any impact on the choices we make. Well then I, there's every reason to be broad-minded. You can be broad-minded without being loose about walking with Jesus. The Narrow Path, the name of the ministry is based on that. So I hope that clarifies things for you.

We've got a call from Fritz calling from Berlin, Germany. Fritz, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Fritz: Yes, I have a question that's a little bit involved. I hope you'll let me spell out the dimensions of it. There's a famous off-quoted verse in Matthew 23:39 where Jesus says, "For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" The verse is exactly the same in the two verses before about Jerusalem, Jerusalem who kill the prophets.

Everything is exactly the same in Luke as in Matthew with the exception of the "for". In Luke, it just says "I tell you" rather than "For I tell you". Now according to Matthew's chronology, this was supposedly said on Tuesday of the Passion Week, two days after Palm Sunday when the crowds had said this to Him, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."

But some things indicate that Matthew wasn't so chronologically exact as Luke, that Matthew tended to group things more thematically, teachings and healings together. In Luke, this is recorded in chapter 13 and the Palm Sunday where the crowds say this is recorded much later in chapter 19. The difference is there they say, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord" rather than "Blessed is he."

The reason I'm raising the question is because some Messianic Judaizers such as Arnold Fruchtenbaum, they make a big deal of this being about Christ's second coming and that there needs to be a major national revival of Jews and that Israel needs to be in existence so that they can say it. They even say that's the whole reason for anti-Semitism is because Satan knows that if he can wipe out the Jews before they get to that point where they can welcome Christ back with these words, then Christ can't return.

Steve Gregg: Well, that's a theory but it doesn't have any scripture in its favor. It's all based on that very verse. Did you have a question about it?

Fritz: Yes, my question is what your take on it is, but also He doesn't say, "Blessed is I, I tell you you will not see me again until you say again," because they just said it. And whom is He talking to as "you"? Because many of the scribes and Pharisees were in the Sanhedrin and they saw Him again a couple days later at His trial and much of the crowds saw Him when Pilate presented Him to the crowds along with the Barabbas and said who do you want me to free and they said Barabbas and what shall I do with him and they said crucify him. Clearly they did see Him again.

Steve Gregg: Jesus did not say that they were going to say, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." He said, "You will not see me anymore until you say." Now "until" has many meanings in different contexts. If you say to your child, "You will not watch any television until you finish your homework," you're not predicting that they will watch TV. You're not even predicting that they'll finish their homework.

You're saying finishing your homework is a condition for watching TV. So "until" in that case would mean something like "unless". "You will not watch TV unless you finish your homework first." I believe that's the meaning here. He's speaking to the Pharisees who have, He said their fathers killed the prophets and they want to kill Him, He said in that passage.

He's saying you're not going to see me anymore unless you say "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" like the others did who were His followers. His followers on Palm Sunday said "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" but the Pharisees rebuked them for it. The Pharisees were not recognizing Jesus as the one who comes in the name of the Lord. He says you're not going to see me anymore until you do.

Now to see Him does not mean with their eyes in my opinion because you're right, they saw Him on trial a few days later, they saw Him on the cross. But what He's saying is you people who are rejecting me, you who are going to crucify me, I'm not going to be speaking to you anymore. I've been speaking in the temple, I've been speaking publicly, you've seen me all the time around here, that's not going to be happening anymore.

The only way you'll ever see me again is if you say "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Now what's it mean to see Him? In John 14, Jesus is in the upper room with His disciples. He says to them in verse 19, "A little longer and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live, you will live also." He says at that day they will know that I am in the Father, etc.

Judas, not Iscariot, said to Him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?" because He just said the world won't see me, but you will. Jesus answered and said, "If anyone comes to me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and we will make our home with him." That's how you'll see me. He also says at the end of verse 21, "And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

The believers would receive a manifestation of Christ. Like it says in Hebrews, we see Jesus. I believe that He's talking about seeing Him in a different sense than with the eyes because they did see Him with their eyes, but they never perceived Him. It's like they read the Old Testament with a veil over their mind. They saw Him but they had a veil over their mind. Only those who believed in Him would truly see Him and that's I think what He's telling them.

You won't unless you come to that point. I don't think He's predicting that they will, He's setting a condition for it. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming up, don't go away. This is the Narrow Path.

Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. I want to announce again because I won't get another chance that tonight I'm speaking in San Juan Capistrano at a church called Ranch Church on the four views of Revelation. If you're curious about that subject, go to our website thenarrowpath.com, look under announcements. If you're in Southern California and want to join us, you'll find there the address and the time and the other necessary information.

That's tonight from six to eight I'm going to give that talk and you can find that information at thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says announcements and under tonight's date, February 10th. All right, we're going to go back to the phones but we have two lines open if you'd like to join us today. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Daniel calling from New Rochelle, New York. Hi Daniel, welcome.

Daniel: Hey Steve, how are you today? First I want to ask you, do you have a cat?

Steve Gregg: No.

Daniel: Me too because I don't like cats and I fear cats. I fear some other animals and I also fear heights and some other things. My question is, since I fear certain things but I put my faith in Jesus, does it mean that if I fear these things that my faith is futile, that my faith is made of no effect?

Steve Gregg: It probably means that if you have an irrational fear of certain things, you definitely need to grow in faith to the point where you won't fear. There is such a thing as rational fear. Fear of heights, if I'm standing up on the edge of a skyscraper looking down scores of stories below, I'd get a little dizzy, I probably would feel a little uncomfortable.

Fear of heights is a rational thing because heights can be dangerous. Fear of some animals can be a rational thing. Now most people aren't afraid of cats, I have to say that. That does seem an unusual phobia, though there have been people who have been injured by cats and maybe that made them wary. But to be fearful about some things does not mean you're not a believer in God.

It means that you're aware that there are dangers in life and a wise man will seek to avoid those dangers. Now there is such a thing as being paranoid. It says in Proverbs the wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion. If you're terrified of things that aren't realistic, that's paranoia. If you're irrationally fearful about things when there's no actual danger, that's a disordered state of mind.

The things you're afraid of, I don't know all the things you're afraid of and I don't know why you're afraid of them. There's some rational reasons to fear certain things. If you have irrational reasons, then of course it'd be the truth that would set you free to realize that most cats are not going to be danger to you or that you're probably not in great danger if you're in an airplane.

You might be in danger just getting up in the morning and walking across the room. The roof may cave in on you, but a person'd have to be paranoid to think that they can't function in the world because there are these remote possibilities of things going wrong. Things that are much more likely to be dangerous, like playing Russian Roulette, I'd be afraid to do that.

Not because I'm afraid to die. I'm actually eager to see Jesus but I don't want to see Him after I've done something stupid to end my life when He didn't want me to do that. We have to steward our lives. If there's dangers, then as a steward you avoid those dangers. But to have an irrational fear of them, then I just think you need to grow in your faith. I don't know, you might need some counseling. In any case, I think everybody has some things they're afraid of. It doesn't mean their faith is deficient.

Even if there are things that are really scary and they really are there but we can't change it, if we can't get away from it, if we can't help ourselves, then we need to trust God. So maybe there's like three different situations to think about. One is where there's no real danger but we are irrationally afraid and therefore we're paranoid. That's not good, it's not being in touch with reality.

Then there are things that there could be danger, but we have the power to avoid it. We can distance ourselves from it, we can make sure we don't take the risks. That's just responsible living. Then there's of course dangers that come upon us and we have absolutely no escape from them. A war in our area, a crime on a certain street that we find ourself caught on, plane crash in a jungle and there's tigers and so forth.

There'd be things to be afraid of there. On the other hand, you can't change anything about that. If you're in immediate danger and there's nothing you can do, that's when you just trust the Lord. Either He'll save you or He won't. If He doesn't, you get to go be with Him, which is winning the lottery as far as I'm concerned. I hope you don't have too many fears, hope it's not too disabling for you. Let's talk to Robert in Red Bluff, California. Robert, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Robert: Hey Steve, thanks. I got a question for you out of Isaiah. I was recently listening to one of your conversations or debates with I think it was Dr. Michael Brown about Israel and you were talking about prophecies in the Old Testament that were or were not fulfilled and you kind of got to the place where you conceded that Isaiah 65 could potentially be like the only place where Old Testament prophets are referring to something that has yet occurred with the reference to the new heavens and the new earth.

My question is twofold. One, I'm wondering if you still hold that or if you've thought about that a little bit more and you have different thoughts on that? And/or if you think there are other passages in Isaiah, like maybe Isaiah 11 where it talks about the wolf lying with the lamb and the verses following that that could maybe fall into that category as well?

Steve Gregg: No, I don't think that one does, but the thing about the new heavens and the new earth is that it's only mentioned in two places: Isaiah 65:17 and also in chapter 66 near the end of the book. Yet that's part of a longer discussion that begins way back in chapter 61. So the last six chapters of Isaiah are kind of a streaming prophecy and there's like eight passages from that section that are quoted in the New Testament.

They quote them as being fulfilled in Christ, in the first coming of Christ. So it looks like when the Apostles read this section, they were seeing it as fulfilled in the new covenant that they were living under. That would suggest that the new heavens and the new earth could conceivably have been seen as symbolic for the new covenant. New creation, Paul said if any man is in Christ he's a new creation. Some people have thought that the new heavens and the new earth represent the new creation or the new covenant.

I don't know that they do. I would think they do because of that context, except for the fact that Peter talks about a future new heavens and new earth that we're waiting for in 2 Peter 3:10-12. He says we according to His promise in verse 13. If the promise he's talking about is in Isaiah, then he seems to be treating Isaiah and the new heavens and new earth as future.

Though it's possible that Peter wrote this after the Book of Revelation was written and that he's referring to the promise in Revelation 21 of the new heavens and new earth and that's future. So we've got Revelation 21 and we've got 2 Peter 3 talking about the new heavens and new earth and I believe that both of those are future.

Then we've got Isaiah speaking about the new heavens and new earth and the natural thing then would be to say oh well then that must be future too because it's the same expression. But it's the same expression but in a different context and therefore it's not entirely clear to me. When I said to him it's possible, it's possible that Isaiah 65 and the new heavens and new earth is not yet fulfilled. However, it's also possible that it is seen the other way, if you're seeing it as the new covenant coming.

I was willing to be uncommitted about that and I'm not really sure that I, it's not just a matter of not having studied it, it's a matter of having studied it enough to know that the evidence can go either way. Now you mentioned the lion and the wolf and the lamb lying down together in Isaiah 11, which also is found in Isaiah 65 again. That's twice in Isaiah.

In chapter 11, it seems clear to me that he's talking about the present age because it does not mention the second coming of Christ inaugurating this, it mentions Christ, so like Paul in quotes verse 10 over in Romans 15:12 and he applies it to his mission to the Gentiles which he was involved in at the time.

There's quite a few things here. I would suggest you go to my website thenarrowpath.com in the verse-by-verse lectures through Isaiah. I'm sure there's a whole lecture on this one chapter and I would explain everything in it in terms of how the New Testament takes it and spiritualizes it.

Now what about the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat? And the calf and the young lion together? And it says also nursing child shall play at the cobra's hole and the weaned child at his viper's den, they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. That's of course verses 6-9.

First of all, the lion, the wolf, the leopard, these carnivorous animals are used in the prophets to refer to the Gentile nations. Daniel, for example, in Daniel 7, has a vision where a lion and then a bear and then a leopard and another fierce beast come out of the sea. Almost all Christians agree they represent the Babylonian Empire, the Media-Persian Empire, the Grecian Empire and the Roman Empire. So a lion is the Babylonian Empire.

In the earlier chapters of Jeremiah, Jeremiah says a lion has come out of the thicket. He's referring to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians coming to attack Israel. It's not uncommon at all. In Ezekiel 34 and Ezekiel 37, God talks about how God will rid His flock of the danger of the wild beasts, which are then identified as the Gentile nations.

The wild beasts are the untamed, they're ferocious, they're hurtful and that's what the Gentile nations were in connection with Israel. Israel was God's flock of sheep, they were his goats, they were his calves, they're called by all those things in the prophets. In other words, they are the domesticated animals. They're the ones that God has domesticated by His law, by His care for them.

He cares for them, they're not like wild animals that nobody's caring for. But they're always in danger from those wild animals. So throughout the prophets, the imagery of Israel as helpless domestic animals under God's care is contrasted with the Gentiles seen as ferocious carnivores that threatened them and are unclean animals.

When Isaiah says the wolf, which is an unclean animal, the Gentiles, shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf with the young lion and the fatling together, it's talking about how these carnivorous animals will be at one with the domestic animals. I believe this talks about Jews and Gentiles being brought into reconciliation in Christ that Paul talks about in Ephesians 2.

Then it talks about a little child shall lead them. Jesus told his disciples he that would be chief among you must become like a little child if you want to be great you have to become like a little child. And it says this, the child shall play at the cobra's hole. Jesus said to the disciples in Luke 10, I give you authority over serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and He says and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Here it says they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain in verse 9. A lot of the language from this passage is in the New Testament and applied to the Christian age. The whole chapter begins by saying there shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots. This is a reference to Christ and it's not talking about him coming from heaven, it's talking about him coming from Jesse, descending from David. This is talking about His first coming. So there's more. I would suggest you might want to hear my whole lecture on Isaiah 11 which anyone can hear for free at our website. But that's how I would look at it.

Robert: I'll definitely go check that out. Thanks for unpacking that, Steve.

Steve Gregg: Good talking to you, brother. Thanks for calling. Bye now. All right we're going to talk to John from Boise, Idaho and we have a few lines open if you want to try to get through before we're out of time here. The number to call is 844-484-5737. 844-484-5737. So John in Boise, Idaho, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

John: Thanks for doing what you do, Steve. You're a very interesting person to listen to and I appreciate your studies. I go to your website a lot. I was talking with a friend of mine at Bible study today about in Exodus when the Egyptian army follows the Hebrews and they're encamped overnight and then the Hebrews go off into the Red Sea parted and the Egyptians go ahead and follow them. They do it.

What struck us was we were so amazed at you follow this phenomenon that's so odd and all of a sudden there's a sea parted highway. I would think, oh something's wrong here, I'm not going in. And they just marched right in there. Would you talk about the culture back then and why they might have done that because it's not really detailed?

Steve Gregg: Soldiers follow orders. When you're in the military, you follow orders. If you're told to run into a jungle where there's a bunch of the enemy waiting to mow you down with machine guns, you do it. If you're going to storm the beaches of Normandy and you're walking into a tree shredder of bullets, you do it.

This is what military culture is. I imagine that the Pharaoh's armies were very terrified when they saw the sea part and when they chased Israel in there they probably thought well let's get through this as quickly as we can before those waters come down again. I don't know that they knew it was God or not, but they may have even known that when the chariot wheels fell off in the middle of the sea.

Their chariot wheels were falling off and they said this is the God of the Hebrews is fighting against us, but it was a little too late then. But they ran into danger like soldiers do when they're under orders. I'm not saying they weren't afraid, soldiers may very often be afraid but they will do what they're told anyway unless they're going to go AWOL. So that'd be how I would understand their actions there. Thank you for your call. Let's talk to Carrie in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi Carrie, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Carrie: Thanks, Steve. First of all, I'm listening on the app and there's periods of silence every now and then, just wanted to make you aware of that. But I was listening to your teaching on the crucifixion and when Christ says "it is finished" you said that that was a military term and kind of meant that we win. I've always heard that it's an accounting term and means paid in full. There's probably not a lot of difference in the interpretation but I just was wondering why you pointed that out?

Steve Gregg: I've heard both. "It is finished" is a single word in Greek as you probably know, it's *tetelestai*. Different commentators have spoken of different ways that it was used in secular Greek. I've heard both that if a bill was paid off that they'd stamp *tetelestai* on it like paid in full. I've heard it was also a term that the generals would cry out when they realized the victory had been accomplished.

I've heard some other things too. I imagine it's used more than one way. Most English words use more than one way in different contexts. I'm sure Greek words are the same way. Preachers sometimes bring out what they think is most interesting about it, but I think both are probably true. I have not personally gone back into the original sources, meaning going back and looking at Roman history to go back get the ancient records from ancient Rome to see how it was used.

It wouldn't help anyway, I can't read their language. But the people who I get things from usually at least claim to have that information. Now I'll tell you one thing I've learned in 55 or more years of teaching is that when a teacher says in the ancient Greek this was used this way or in the Roman Empire they used to do this and they use it as an illustration for something they're preaching... sometimes you just have to say well okay, I've heard people say that's true, I don't know if that's true or not.

The reason is because if a preacher thinks it's true and says it, even if he's wrong, the people who heard him say it if they find it interesting they'll repeat it. If he's a Bible college professor then his students maybe become Bible college professors and they'll repeat it too. They figure he said it must be true. A lot of times some things like that get repeated and nobody really goes back to what we call the original sources, like the ancient documents of the Romans to see if that is the way it was used.

A lot of things preachers say, including myself, we just kind of trust the people who told us. This would be about things that aren't at the very essence of our faith. To know whether Jesus rose from the dead or not, that kind of thing we'd have to know from looking at all the evidence, not just because someone told us that it's true. But there's lots of little things, little sermon illustrations and stuff like that that I've heard over the years that I think, I wonder if that's really true or not.

Then some of the things I've heard people say interpreting certain passages of scripture that have become famous or popular passed down explanations for things, when I've searched them out and I have looked in the originals, I've realized that wait a minute, that was not true.

One of the things I used to hear and I wasn't sure if it was true was that the mark of the beast on the hand and the forehead refers to the fact that slaves in the Roman Empire were sometimes branded with their master's name on their hand or their forehead. That made a lot of sense to me in terms of understanding what Revelation 13 and 14:1 is talking about, but I wasn't sure if it was true.

But I did do some research once I first had access to the internet. I was kind of looking stuff up and I looked up some old Roman history stuff and found out that is true. They put a finer point on it. They said if a slave had escaped and been recaptured they would brand them. They didn't just brand slaves all the time, but they would do that to a slave if he'd been escaped and recaptured.

So it's always good to know that you can go somewhere that's not a Christian source about the Roman practices or the Greek usage of verbs or whatever and find it yourself. But we can't always do that. We don't always have enough access to it. So some things I've learned to say I've heard this, I've heard from people who say they know that this is the way things were done back then. But I like to look them up when I can. But as far as *tetelestai* and how it was used in the various ways, I can't claim that I've gone back and looked at all the Roman sources for that.

Carrie: God bless you, Steve. Thank you.

Steve Gregg: Thanks Carrie, good talking to you man. Bye now. All right let's talk to Ryan from Atlanta, Georgia. Hi Ryan, welcome.

Ryan: Hi Steve. I just wanted to ask a quick question. When you were mentioning earlier about the gentleman interpreting Isaiah 11 and 65 and saying that those beasts referenced there were primarily about the Gentile nations, my question is do you see those prophecies possibly being, I guess as some theologians call, telic and ecbatic? Are you familiar with those terms they use sometimes?

Steve Gregg: Sometimes. I don't know that term but some people say that the prophecy has a short-term fulfillment and then a later-term fulfillment too. Is that what you're talking about?

Ryan: Absolutely. It's sort of almost like a dual, like with Isaiah talking about a woman will be with child, virgin she'll be with child and some people say oh well that word virgin there is not a literal virgin but a young woman. I've said for years I believe that's true, I believe it was a young woman there because if she was a virgin she would be Mary basically. But in Matthew I believe she was a virgin, so I think it had two different perspectives even though the prophecy was specifically for the time of Isaiah.

Steve Gregg: What you're saying I think is that the prophecy about the virgin having a child, *almah* is the Hebrew word that's translated virgin and it can just mean a young woman. *Bethulah* I think would mean a virgin, *almah* I think just means a young woman, a young woman who's probably not married and therefore probably a virgin. Therefore Isaiah's prophecy could be fulfilled and was fulfilled in part in the next chapter in Isaiah 8 where a child was born and his name was called Immanuel and so forth.

But Matthew quotes that verse from the Septuagint which is in Greek and the Jews had translated the word *almah* with the word *parthenos* in Greek which is virgin. Since Jesus was actually born of a virgin and we're actually told that Mary said that she had not had intercourse with a man, we know she was a virgin. He saw that as the secondary fulfillment of that and I do believe that some scriptures have secondary fulfillments. I'm out of time. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.