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 taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or you disagree with the host, maybe you're a Christian and you disagree with something the host has said within the camp, and you're welcome to balance comment. If you're not a Christian you're also welcome to call if you disagree with Christianity altogether.

Now right now our lines are full, so this is not the best time to call. But if you call in a few minutes, we have lines that will be opening up all through the hour. So take this number down. I'm suggesting a couple minutes or so from now, go ahead and give a call. 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. And we'll talk first of all to Daryl, calling from Sacramento, California. Daryl, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Daryl: Thank you, Steve. Could you suggest or recommend a book on prophecy that you are in line with your thinking?

Steve Gregg: Well, what aspect of prophecy?

Daryl: About Christ.

Steve Gregg: Prophecies about Jesus? Well, you'll find that in an awful lot of books that cover that kind of thing. I know that the book *Evidence that Demands a Verdict*, which has been out for 50 years, has a section where it has a lot of the fulfilled prophecies about Jesus. Now, you're talking about prophecies about his first coming, right? You're not talking about end-time prophecy, right?

Daryl: Well, I think there's a combination of ones. I think I know the ones he came the first time, but I'm not sure about the second.

Steve Gregg: Oh, well, there's not as many references to his second coming as there are to his first coming in prophecy, although there's quite a few passages in the Old Testament that people think do apply to the second coming, which I think in many cases they're misapplied there. But in the New Testament, certainly, Acts 1:11, the angels say that Jesus will return in the same manner as that in which he left. That's probably one of the clearest prophecies of the second coming.

There are allusions to it in Jesus' own teaching. For example, Matthew 25:31-46. Jesus is talking about when he comes and judges the world, he'll divide the nations into the sheep and the goats and so forth. Paul, obviously, in 1 Thessalonians chapter four, actually all of 1 and 2 Thessalonians have a much greater emphasis on the second coming than you'll find in any of Paul's other books. But 1 Thessalonians 4, the beginning of chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians 2, there's a lot.

Now, as far as books that have that information, I'm assuming there's going to be a lot of books out that have that kind of information. Books on Bible prophecy are almost endless. Many of the books would probably inflate the number of prophecies that they would say are about the second coming because there's a certain ilk of Christian teachers who kind of see the second coming of Jesus in all kinds of prophecies, whether they apply to that or not.

I mean, there's prophecies in the Old Testament about the destruction of Babylon or the destruction of Edom or something and some will apply those to the second coming of Christ when those really happened hundreds of years before Christ and they're not really about the second coming of Christ. But most of the ones that are, are going to be found in the New Testament. Some people see Zechariah 14 and Zechariah 12 through 14 as about that. I don't.

A lot of these prophecies I believe the New Testament writers have identified for us. They're Old Testament prophecies and Christians often apply them to the second coming, but the New Testament writers themselves do not. The New Testament writers themselves actually apply them to something else that has been fulfilled since then. But anyway, I don't know of one particular book on that. I know of lots of books that talk about it. In fact, once I was just not too long ago looking online for books about that, not because I need their help, because I actually disagree with these books in a lot of cases.

But I just was curious to know what kinds of things people were these days pointing to as fulfillments of end-times prophecy. And I found, just going on Amazon, I found lots of books about supposedly the signs of the times and so forth, which purport to connect Bible prophecy with modern times. I myself am very familiar with all the prophets. I've taught through the Old Testament verse by verse, including all the prophets, more than 20 times.

I'm aware of all the prophets in there and I would say that I once thought there were a lot of things in there about the second coming. But of course, once you study them in their context, you realize no, that's not... I had no good reason for saying that's about the second coming. That's really about something that happened since the prophets' time and prior to ours. Anyway, I know I can't recommend a particular book on that. But honestly, you just have to go to the booksellers and see what's there.

But I'm going to tell you, any book that's about the signs of the times or about prophecy about the end times, there will be some prophecies that they identify that are indeed about the second coming of Christ. But they're going to inflate that with a lot of prophecies that aren't really about that just because that's just the trend. People who talk about the prophecies of the end times, they tend to just go wild with their listing and identification of prophecies that they would say are about that.

So you have to look at every prophecy in its context and ask yourself, did this prophecy already... was it fulfilled after Jesus came the first time? And in many cases, that is the case. Or even before... sometimes they're fulfilled before Jesus came the first time and they not only have nothing to do with the second coming of Christ, they're not about the coming of Christ at all. They're about some judgment of some nation in the Old Testament times. But prophecy teachers, for the sake of inflating the material that they want to apply to the end times, they typically will see them. They'll see almost everything about the end times even when it's not.

So no, I'm sorry I don't have a book for you about that. But honestly, I would suggest the Bible. Read the Bible about it. And if you have a hard time understanding the prophets, for example, as you go through the Bible, my own lectures on the subject are available free online. I go verse by verse through all the prophets, it's right there. And I do mention the prophecies which some people would apply to the end times and I point out when necessary what the real context would point to. So going to thenarrowpath.com, as I'm sure you have before because you've been calling me for years, and going to the verse by verse lectures, which are numerous, you could go through any of the prophets or all of them and get a pretty thorough explanation of what those prophecies are about.

Daryl: Okay.

Steve Gregg: All right. Well, thanks for your call. Andy in San Diego, California, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Andy: Hey Steve, happy Friday. Beautiful day in San Diego. Hank Hanegraaff had a phrase: "Satan is a lion on a leash, the length of the leash determined by the Lord." What are your thoughts on that phrase from Hank Hanegraaff?

Steve Gregg: I have no objection to it. I mean, basically what he's saying is that it's not as though the devil isn't dangerous. I mean, a lion on a leash is dangerous if he can reach you. And that God determines how long his leash is. That's... I mean, that's a figurative way of talking, but basically what we see in the book of Job, in the first two chapters especially, is that Satan is trying to do harm to Job. And I think Job is the quintessential godly man, which we might apply to ourselves also, hopefully, if we're followers of Christ.

And the devil wants to hurt him. He wants to kill him. He wants to harm him physically. He wants to take his family from him and his goods. And God lets him up to a point. And one thing that's very evident is that God determines exactly how much Satan will or will not be allowed to do to him. And so it's very clear that Satan is not a free agent. From Job we see that God uses Satan to test his people. But God will not, as it says in Paul wrote to the Corinthians, that God does not allow us to be tempted beyond what we're able to endure.

So that he allows us to be tempted because that's part of the program. Part of the program is that we're tested to see if we'll be loyal to God under temptation. But God would never allow us to be tempted beyond a place where he could, if we're looking to him, that he would allow us to make it through successfully as Job himself did and as Jesus did and as any Christian who's walked with God for very long has at times. Certainly we succumb to temptation once in a while.

But anyone who's followed God for very long has also said no to a lot of temptations. And even the ones that we have fallen to, we have to say, you know, I didn't have to fall. That was stupid. I could have not... I mean, I could have obeyed God. I could have looked to God for strength in a way beyond what I did. And so I mean, I believe that the Bible is fairly explicit on the fact that the devil does tempt us or test us, but he doesn't do so without God's permission. But the permission God gives is limited to what God sees as ideal for the tempting situation, but not enough to crush us if we look to God.

So if Hank Hanegraaff calls that the God determining the length of the leash that the lion is on, he can do that. I mean, to say it that way is not... I don't think it's conveying wrong information. I guess that's about as much as I could say about that.

Andy: No, that's a great answer. No, appreciate it Steve. I love listening to your show. Thanks for your response.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Andy. Thanks for your call. Good talking to you. Hank in Youngsville, North Carolina, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Hank: Hi Steve. A week or so ago someone asked you about a book which you said you just started reading. It is a book called *God, The Science, The Evidence* by Michel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies. These guys are very well informed, but they've got this old argument about the Jews returning to Israel. They say the Jewish nation as a future miracle is awaiting the return of all Jews to Israel. Now they present Romans 12:25 and 26 as their main argument, but I've read your commentaries and I'm sure they must have read that as well. They may be aware of it, but is there in your opinion any other argument that one could give to such astute guys to refute?

Steve Gregg: Well, first of all, these two gentlemen are not what we call Bible scholars. I'm not saying they don't know their Bibles, in all likelihood they know their Bibles pretty well. But there's lots of Christians who have been raised to believe that the return of the Jews to their land in the end times is something that was prophesied in Scripture. It's like I was talking... and these two men apparently think that. I noticed that they do have that view also.

And many people do. I mean, many people believe that the return of the Jews to their land in the modern era is a great proof of God and fulfillment of prophecy. Now, first of all, I think we've got abundant proof of God and fulfillment of prophecy without that in our arsenal. I think that their book would have been just fine without that chapter, without that whole idea. Because most of their evidence they give is scientific, the first half of the book certainly is the scientific evidence that has led many atheist and agnostic scientists to kind of get soft on their atheism or to become agnostic or even to believe in a creator God even if they don't become religious.

And that's, frankly, modern scientific discovery has led any open-minded person that way if they know it, if they've studied it. And I've read the material that they have in this book. I'm looking at it right now, I have it on my desk. I've read those things they bring up, I've read in many books over the years, but it's a good compendium of the science of modern times that has led so many who were staunch atheists and scientists to eat their words, basically.

There's quite a lot of modern discoveries, especially in the 20th century, the late 20th century, that have simply become a citadel of evidence for the belief in God. And even scientists who don't want to be religious have had to admit this. Many of them. I mean, they have one chapter that's like a hundred quotes from scientists, some of them are believers, but most of them are like atheists or agnostics who say, you know, well, the evidence does point that way.

Now, they don't need to have a chapter in there about the Jews coming back to their land. This is a view that many Christians hold. I mean, I'm not sure, I think these fellows are probably Catholic, the guys who edited this book. There's like 20 different scientists involved in the making of this book, but the two editors, they're French. It's a French book. It's interesting how many French scientists there are that I didn't know existed that they appeal to. But it's a very good book.

But they also have a whole chapter about the Fatima revelations, which is a Roman Catholic kind of thing. So they're probably Roman Catholic Christians, I'm assuming. But of course, what they're saying is true about most of the stuff, the part I'm not in agreement with is them pointing to the return of the Jews to their land, which by the way has not exactly happened in the way the Bible would predict if it predicts it at all.

There are predictions in the Bible about the Jews coming back to their land, but they were fulfilled, and the Bible says they were fulfilled in about 539 BC when the Jews... many of them, thousands, tens of thousands, returned to the land from the Babylonian exile and this was the fulfillment of all the prophecies in the Bible that mention it. Romans 11:25 and 26, though it says something about Israel, it doesn't say anything about them coming to their land. It doesn't say anything about that would encourage Zionism. It basically says all Israel will be saved.

Now I, as you exegete Romans 11, you'll find that all Israel shall be saved is not necessarily saying that all the Jewish people on the planet will actually come to Christ. But even if they did, that still has nothing to do with their geography. Every person who's a Jew on the planet could become a Christian, then they'd be saved, but they wouldn't have to move from where they live today. So it's not a prediction about migration to the land of Israel.

There is no prophecy in the Bible about a modern migration of Jews to Israel. All the predictions that predict that that will happen were written in the Old Testament and were then subsequently fulfilled. I was talking to our first caller today about this kind of approach to prophecy, that there's tons of prophecies that have been fulfilled a long time ago. And there's a certain kind of Christian, many times they're of a more sensationalist type, who will take those prophecies that were fulfilled 500 years before Christ and claim that those are being fulfilled today. And these prophecies about the return of Israel would be in that category.

And so I disagree with these men in using that, although I will say this. If someone says, well, don't you believe God has brought the Jews back to their land? My answer would be, well, there's several aspects to that answer. One is they haven't all come back to the land. There's at least half of the Jews, if not more, still live in America and Europe and other places and most of them don't have any travel plans, they haven't bought a plane ticket to go back to Israel.

So some Jews have returned to that land. This is not what was predicted. What was predicted and was fulfilled before the time of Christ was that the Jews in exile, the remnant of them, meaning a small number of them that are godly, would turn to God, would repent, would come with singing, mixed singing and weeping, weeping in repentance and singing in rejoicing in their salvation to Zion, which I believe has been fulfilled long ago, not in 1948 but back in the old days, centuries ago. And it happened.

So, you know, I just don't... frankly, the Jews who have come to Israel today are not repentant. They aren't even believers for the most part. Most of the Jews in Israel are not believers in God and only a tiny percentage are even practicing the Jewish religion. And very few have come to Christ, not one in 200 of the Israeli Jews believes in Christ. So this is not what the Bible predicted.

The Bible did predict that the Jews in exile would come to God, would repent, and as a result of that, Deuteronomy 30, verses 1 through 10 is very explicit about this, they will turn to God with their whole heart and then they'll be restored to their land. Now, that did happen when Cyrus released the Jews from the Babylonian exile and the remnant under Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel at different times did return from Babylon, did re-establish their land. That was 500 and some odd years before Christ.

There's nothing after that that predicts such a thing. And if someone says, well, there's a double fulfillment, this is the same thing again. No, it's not, because the people in Israel are not believers. The Jews who returned in the days of Zerubbabel in 539 BC built a temple, the first thing they did. They built a temple so they could worship God because they were the historic Israel.

The historic Israel was founded as a nation to worship Yahweh at Mount Sinai. They built a tabernacle initially, later they had a temple and that temple existed until they ceased to be a nation in AD 70 with the brief period of time that it was broken down and then restored in the Babylonian era. So the nation never existed as a nation in biblical times without a central shrine of worshipping Yahweh.

There's been three or four generations of Jews back in Israel since 1948, it's been what, 75 years or more, and they've never built a temple. They don't worship God. They don't even believe in God, most of them. So this is hardly anything that the prophets would have ever predicted. It isn't... it's not a fulfillment of prophecy. So I would say that in their use of that as one of their proofs of God, I think it's weak. I'm not sure that it's valid at all. Thanks for your call. Barbara in Roseville, Michigan, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Barbara: Oh hi Steve, thank you. I was wondering if you were familiar with Ecclesiastes chapter 11 and verse 3, the latter part where it talks about where the tree falleth, that's where it lies. And I was always taught that that meant, you know, there's no change after after you go into the ground, after the grave. If you go down a liar, you come up a liar. I just wasn't sure if you were familiar with that. Now, I'll hang up and listen. Thanks.

Steve Gregg: Okay, yeah. Thank you for your call. First of all, I'm not sure that's what he's saying there. The verse says: "If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap." There's a lot of different principles here. This is like Ecclesiastes is like the book of Proverbs, it's got individual statements that have some kind of application to life, and it's not always clear what all their applications would be, in this case included.

But, and I don't think it's talking about people, that when people die they don't change. Although it would not be impossible for him to mean that, I just don't see that as the obvious meaning so I wouldn't... I wouldn't teach that that's what he meant. But let's just say for the sake of argument that that is what he means. Let's say he is saying that if you die, you'll never change after that. Well, he's not saying it very clearly, first of all. It's a very obscure statement.

Secondly, I don't know that Solomon knew what happens to people after they die. God had not revealed anything about that in Old Testament times. There's not really any discussion of life after death in the Old Testament, that was brought up in the New. So whatever Solomon's observations were, the most he could see and know was that people do die. And he could speculate that they would never change.

He actually speculated wrongly that they don't know anything after they die, which is found in Ecclesiastes chapter 9 and verse 5. Ecclesiastes 9:5 he says, "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing." And he says, "And they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten." Well, that's true of some people. There's some people been dead a long time and the memory of them has not been forgotten.

I'd say Alexander the Great is still remembered. Obviously Moses is still remembered. I mean obviously there's millions of people who've died who are remembered by somebody, and hundreds certainly are remembered by most people. Abraham Lincoln and so forth. So it's not really true that of when a person dies they are not remembered and that they know nothing.

Now why would Solomon say that if it wasn't true? Well, he was speculating. And more than that, as you read the book of Ecclesiastes, he's made it very clear that he's relating to you his life after he departed from God and the way he was thinking at the time. And he's kind of relating the philosophical notions that went through his head at that time.

For example, in that statement Ecclesiastes 9:5, "the dead know nothing at all," people like Seventh-day Adventists and people who believe in soul sleep usually say "Oh that... that's... there it is. That's what the Bible teaches." No, it's not what the Bible teaches. That chapter begins with these words: "For I considered all this in my heart." In other words, back when I was walking away from God, and he says that he was, he was seeking meaning and a purpose for man "under the sun," which is a term he uses frequently in the book of Ecclesiastes. "Under the sun" means on the earthly level. It means not including heaven, not including God.

But things under the sun when he was seeking happiness, he talks about how he used... he resorted to alcohol, to women, to philosophy, to horticulture, to parties, to all kinds of things. Lots of stuff. He was looking for something to make his life meaningful without including God. And this... the book of Ecclesiastes is sort of like his inspired confession of where he was at during those years. And many times he says, "I thought this, I concluded this." And among the things he concluded were things that aren't actually true and which a man would not conclude if he was aware of God in the way he should be.

In other words, when a man is... has become a secularist and God is not in his... in his reasoning, then he'll have to come up with ideas nonetheless, but without light about what happens to people after they die. And one thing he said is that the dead don't know anything. Well, I think the New Testament indicates that the dead do know things.

And if he was saying where a tree falls it won't be moved from there, if he was saying, and I don't think he was, but if he was saying that when people die they don't change ever again, nothing ever happens beyond that, well, I don't think he knew what he was talking about. He's just expressing the kinds of things that he thought about when he was not what we'd call a believer.

I need to take a break, but we have another half hour coming so don't go away. You're listening to the Narrow Path. We are listener supported. We've got tons of resources at our website. They're all free. Lots of lectures, like 1500 lectures, all free at thenarrowpath.com. You can donate there if you want, but you don't have to. Just use the website, thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour so don't go away.

Steve Gregg: Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. Now at the beginning of the program I said the lines were full so don't call. Right now we have some open lines, so this is a good time to call if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or a disagreement with the host you want to talk about, feel free to join us right now. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Mike from Cool, California. Hi Mike, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Mike: Good afternoon, Steve. Hope you're having a blessed day. So I had two questions, but one, boy, everyone seems to have questions about that book, *God, The Science, and The Evidence*. I was going to ask if you thought it was a good read, and it sounds to me like you do.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, I do. It's about 600... what? It's about 500 and something pages long. It's quite a thick book. It's kind of large print and there's a lot of space between the lines so it's not a dense book in terms of reading. It even has pictures and stuff through it, so you know if a person's not into reading technical books, it's a little more easy on the eye and so forth for someone reading a big book. But it's full of good information and it's well stated. It's well presented.

Mike: Well, I just finished reading your last book for the second time and it's a long read and it's a great read. I absolutely loved it.

Steve Gregg: Are you referring to *Empire of the Risen Son*?

Mike: Yes.

Steve Gregg: Okay, yeah. There was one book since then but I think *Empire of the Risen Son* is the better one, most important one.

Mike: It's a great book. Anyway, so I've had this thought in my head recently. How do you put together that through the Bible we're called... we go from slaves of sin to slaves of God, but then we're called sons and daughters of God? The relationship of a slave and the relationship of a son and daughter are two extremely different things. Now I just thought if someone asked me this question, how am I going to explain it? So I called you.

Steve Gregg: All right. Well, of course, the main theme of the Bible, or certainly one of the main themes, probably the main theme, would be related to our relationship with God. Now, our relationship with God is a spiritual thing and there's supernatural aspects to it like, you know, his Spirit comes and regenerates us spiritually and things like that. And the Bible looks for analogies in human relationships to help us understand that.

For example, a husband and wife is a relationship the Bible sometimes uses to describe the relationship of Israel to God or of the church to Christ. But it's not the only analogy. There's, of course, children of God as you point out. Since we're born again spiritually, to speak of us as children is reasonable given we've been included in God's family.

When the Bible speaks of us as slaves or servants, this is speaking of us more in terms of what our duties look like. And by the way, when the Bible was written and right up until fairly modern times, everybody in the world knew what a slave was. We don't have any slaves in America, fortunately, not legally. But certainly slavery was legal in every part of the world for the first 6,000 years of history pretty much.

And so it was when it said we're a slave of God, everyone knew what a slave was. Now they knew that a slave was not a child in the family, but on the other hand, they knew that sometimes slaves were treated like family members. And that was true even in the American South, not always but sometimes. Slaves were beloved of their masters and the masters... you know, they loved their masters and they were like family members.

But they still were slaves in the sense that they had the duty to serve. And when the Bible says we're slaves of God, it's not denying that we are God's children, it's just an emphasis on the fact that we have a role that includes serving God as our master. But in a sense, in biblical times, a child wasn't much different than a slave in terms of their duties. I mean, a child to serve his father was not a very different analogy than a slave to serve his master.

In fact, in Galatians 4, verse 1, Paul says: "Now I say that the heir," that is the heir of a household like the child, "as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is the master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive adoption of sons."

Now Paul's saying, you know, we were servants already, but now in the fullness of time God has come to give us the Spirit of sonship and made us sons. But he says, you know, in childhood, a child's relationship in the home to his parents isn't very different than that of a slave to his master. I mean, parents were absolute authorities and the children's role was to do their parents' bidding. So the analogy isn't that different in biblical times.

Now also, the Bible talks about us being friends of God. Jesus said to his disciples in John 15, "I don't call you slaves anymore, I call you my friends, because a slave doesn't know what his master does." So someone might say, "Oh, well then we're not servants or slaves anymore, we're now friends." But we have to look at what he said in the verse before that. He said, "You are my friends if you do whatever I command you to do."

Okay, so his friends... it's like he's the king, that's another relationship. You know, we are his subjects, he's our king. These are all human kind of institutions and relationships that the Bible employs to help us understand aspects of a very variegated relationship that we have spiritually with God. And we are his children, we are in another sense his friends. But you know a king, like David for example, take King David. He had friends and he had children, but they were just as subject to him as other subjects were.

In other words, a man who's a king can befriend some of his counselors or whatever, but they're still his subjects. He can have children in his kingdom, but they're still subject to him as he's the king of the whole realm. So to speak of these different aspects of our relationship to God, they don't contradict each other. They're all true and they all give a different aspect of the whole picture.

The picture being that God is the universal sovereign and we are subject to him. We are owned by him. We are to serve him. He has also gathered us into his family as children, without canceling out the fact that we have to submit to him, but rather underscoring it. And he's made friends of us too. And so none of that changes the fact that he's the king and he's the Lord.

And it's funny because I once taught on the Lordship of Christ in a certain area and a Christian afterwards said, "Well, I prefer to think of Jesus as my friend, not my Lord." And I said, "Well, I understand that, but he said you are my friends if you do everything I command you to do." So you go ahead and think of him as your friend, that's not inappropriate, but realize that being his friend means you obey him. You do everything he commanded. So being a friend doesn't change the fact that you're a servant or subject. So none of these things are mutually exclusive or contradictory to each other, they're just each one adds a little bit of color and aspect to our understanding of our relationship with God. Thank you for your call.

All right, let's talk to Joy in Southern California. Joy, welcome.

Joy: Hi Steve. I just wanted to see if I could get your opinion on something. I have an aunt and we go visit her about once a year for Thanksgiving or something and it's always kind of difficult to go see her because she's not a Christian and she'll use the Lord's name in vain quite a bit and stuff like that. And we love her, we like to spend time with her to some degree, but we feel like we have to suppress our Christianity around her. But anyway, every once in a while she'll say something like, "Oh, well make sure to save a room for me because I might have to come live with you someday." Now, am I wrong to feel like there's no way I would want her to come live with me someday? Do you think as a Christian that's completely a wrong mindset?

Steve Gregg: Well, you'd have to just... really you'd have to just be led by what God leads you to do if such a thing occurs. I mean, does she have no children of her own?

Joy: She does have children of her own, but it's kind of before specified. Yes, I think so too.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, if she became dependent on intensive care and needed someone to house her and so forth, that responsibility according to the Bible falls to her children, or her grandchildren if they're in a position to do so and if they're adults. As far as nieces and nephews or whatever, there's no direct responsibility the Bible places on you because Paul when he tells Timothy that the church... though the church supports widows, this is at the beginning of chapter 5 of 1 Timothy, Paul said that the church should support widows if they are, as Paul puts it, "widows indeed," meaning they really don't have anyone else to take care of them.

He says, "but if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them take care of them and don't burden the church with it." He said but they should repay their parent. Now what he's saying is, you know, their parents raised them. Their parents brought them into the world, their parents kept them alive and fed and housed and clothed them, met all their needs when they were helpless. And so you're kind of indebted to your parents, and so when your parents may be needing someone to house and clothe and feed them, well you've got a debt to pay.

But that wouldn't be true of your aunt unless she was necessarily... raised you. I think Paul would be suggesting that what they invested into your life constitutes a debt that you owe them. But most people were not raised by their aunts or uncles, but some might have been, in which case I would think a similar obligation may apply. But no, she can't be the one to decide whether she lives with you, that'd be up to you to decide and whether it'd be a detriment to your household or not.

Now, of course, if you were her daughter or granddaughter and you were the only person who could help her, you might look for ways that you could help her to live on her own, bringing in help if she needed help, or you could take her into your house. But that would be something you, your husband, your household would have to decide in consideration of what would God have us do.

And that would not be based on the fact well, she is my aunt after all, so I should take care of her. The fact she's your aunt, if she did not raise you, doesn't give her any special privileges although it may cause her to be... you may have more emotional attachment to her because you grew up knowing her and she might have been nice to you and so forth. So, I mean, you're going to have to decide your moral obligations in when that time comes.

But I don't see why you would be obligated to take her in. If no one else would, you might choose to as an act of mercy and as a godly thing. But you know if you bring anyone into your house to live with you, you have every right to say "We are a Christian household here and we don't use the name Jesus that way. We don't use it the way you're using it, when you curse or whatever. Everyone under this roof is going to reverence Christ. And if they speak of him at all, they'll speak of him respectfully. And you don't have to live with us, but that's what people who live with us are expected to do."

Joy: Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Do you have time for one more quick question?

Steve Gregg: Maybe. Go ahead.

Joy: Okay. Do you agree with this phrase: "I am counting on Christ, and Christ is counting on me"?

Steve Gregg: Yes, within measure. I mean, a lot of people would say well Christ can't count on us because we're sinners, we're unreliable and so forth. Yeah, well that's not supposed to be the case. When we come to Christ we're supposed to be faithful. That means reliable, loyal. And faithfulness to Christ is part of what it means to be a Christian.

So you know if when two people make promises to each other, let's say they make a contract or a couple make a vow at their wedding or whatever, they're both promising things and they're both supposed to be trusting the other person too, or counting on the other person to keep their promises. Now people can only be trusted so far, unfortunately, people are flawed. But we are still to live lives that are faithful.

So married people, whether they're Christians or not, but especially Christians, should keep their wedding vows. People who enter into a contract should keep their side of it. People who promise God that they're going to be his followers and disciples, well, they should uphold that. And there were no Christians in the early church that hadn't made that commitment. That's what becoming a Christian involved.

I know we've watered it down to the point where all you have to do is say a prayer and say you believe Jesus is true and that kind of stuff and you're a Christian. Yeah, that wasn't the way Christianity was looked at in the first century. In the first century, you were committed to death. You're committed, that is you're committed to be faithful unto death. And that's the commitment you made when you're baptized.

And we've got sort of a watered down, wimpy kind of version of Christianity that we think of now, but I'm not sure that God honors it. Remember Jesus said "Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, we did many things in your name,'" he'll say "I never knew you." So there's lots of people who think they're Christians because Christianity's been presented in a very diluted way and what people have responded to in some cases is not necessarily historically what the early church would recognize as a true commitment to Christ.

So if we want to have a true commitment to Christ and make sure we're not among those that he says, "I never knew you, depart from me," we're going to have to be committed in the way that Christians are supposed to be committed. And that means I'm faithful unto death. He's my king, he's my Lord, I'm faithful to him like I'm faithful to my spouse and loyal.

And I am faithful to my spouse so in a sense God should be able to count on me. Now God's realistic. God knows that you're weak. God knows our frame that we're but dust. He knows the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. But still, a person who's a real Christian is expected to take that seriously. It's not just "Well, I got my fire insurance now because I went forward at an evangelistic meeting and said a prayer, now I can just kind of do what I wanted to do anyway." No, you become a Christian, you're loyal to God. You're loyal to Christ. You're a follower of Christ.

And if somebody isn't, then they're not a Christian in any sense that the Bible would recognize. They would not be called a Christian in the first century if they're not committed to Christ for life. Notwithstanding their foibles and their falls, as James said "In many things we all stumble." We're not perfect. But perfect or not, I'm not a perfect husband but I'm committed to my wife for life and loyal. She's pretty close to a perfect wife, but whatever imperfection she may have doesn't change the fact she's committed to me for life. So that's what it means. It doesn't mean you're perfect, it means you're determined to be as perfect as you can be because you're loyal. You have allegiance to Christ.

Now if you have allegiance to someone, they're counting on you. It's not like... it's not like if you do something wrong, God's whole program falls to pieces and he's just devastated and doesn't know what to do with himself. He's not counting on you in that degree because he knows not to entrust himself to men, it says in John chapter 2. It says God, Jesus didn't entrust himself to people because he knew what was in people. But he would like to be able to. He was trusting Job not to... he allowed Satan to test Job because he knew that Job... or trusted Job to be faithful. He expects us to. So to say that God's counting on me, I would say yeah, in some measure he is. He's counting on me. That doesn't mean that if I fail him, his whole project is just done. It doesn't depend on me, but he's depending on me to keep my promises and to be loyal just like your spouse depends on you to do the same. Keep your vows.

I'm out of time for today's program. Appreciate all the calls. You've been listening to the Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Our website has many resources, all of them free to you. You can also donate there if you want at thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.