The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live taking your calls for this next hour where you can call in with your questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith or to talk about some matter which you may disagree with the host about. We'd be glad to talk about that.

Now right now our phones are full so you can't call right now, but let me give you the number and urge you to call in about five minutes or so and see if some lines have opened up because they do. The number to call is going to be 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. And our first caller today is Tony calling from North Webster, Indiana. Tony, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Tony: Hi Steve, thanks for taking my call. My question is basically this: given the background and probably you've heard some of the things that are going on in the popular press and how people are taking sides regarding Israel and the future, the end times, the megachurches, the traditional dispensationalists and all that, and then people like Tucker and Candace Owens, this seems to be a time that that narrative is really coming to the forefront within the evangelical community and there seems to be a lot of discussions.

I think even yourself you've had conversations or a debate with Joel Richardson. So my question is this: given how that's going, and in the past it's always been an agree to disagree, it's not a salvation issue and all that, but with all these things happening, are we really now trying to sort this out within the body of Christ and is it important that we sort this out going forward and living for the Lord in His kingdom as His finished work within the new covenant? Is that a question you can answer?

Steve Gregg: Sure, I'll try. First of all, as you probably know I'm not dispensational, but that doesn't make me an ally with Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens necessarily. They also are not dispensational but they are very—I don't know what term to use—obviously there are people who would say that anyone who's not dispensational is anti-Semitic. And that term is used far too widely because it is not the case that all people who are not dispensational and who are not Zionists are somehow anti-Semite.

I will say that some of the statements I hear from some of those guys, Tucker and Candace and so forth, although I don't listen to them regularly so I'm not sure everything, but I've heard clips and reels from them on the internet. They sound kind of anti-Semitic to me. Now I don't want to call them anti-Semites because I don't know what their actual position is, but they seem to be rather obsessed with speaking against the nation of Israel. Now I do believe that Israel does not deserve any particular treatment with kid gloves. Israel is not really a religious nation. It doesn't have any special status; it's a secular nation.

There was a nation Israel in the Bible times; they were not a secular nation. They had a covenant with God and they knew it. They had a temple right in the middle of their capital city that everyone attended. It was a nation that was founded on a covenant with God and was defined by it. Well, modern Israel doesn't have any covenant with God. They don't define themselves that way. They don't have a temple. They don't worship God; many of them don't believe in God at all. So this is not the same nation; it's in the same spot but it's a very different kind of nation than we read about in the Bible.

Now is it a fulfillment of prophecy? I don't think so. I don't know of anything in the Bible that predicts that an unbelieving nation will exist in that particular place and call itself Israel. There's nothing in the Bible that predicts that. So I don't see any specific relevance of Israel. Now that doesn't make me against Israel or for it. I think that there's a sense in which dispensationalists put Israel as if it's a very special nation specially to be favored, and other people on the other end seem to make Israel a very special nation to be specially opposed, specially hated.

I can't see any reason to take either view. I don't see Israel as the worst of all nations or the best of all nations. It's not a holy nation certainly, it doesn't have any relevance to God, but it's not uniquely devilish either. It's just another nation. It happens to be a very controversial nation partly because of the Middle Eastern crisis that's been going on for a few centuries and partly because of Christians who want to make it the most important thing in the end times.

And I think the Christians' influence in that respect has not been good. I think it's forced people to either say Israel is God's chosen people or they are the devil's people or something like that. And I just don't think that's true of any particular political nation on the planet, including that one. I think that when Christians get sidetracked either because they're all about supporting Israel or all about opposing Israel, I just don't think they're going about the Lord's business.

The Lord is Jesus. Israel has very little to do with Jesus. There's not very many people who believe in Jesus in Israel—I mean there are thousands, but there's a very small tiny percentage of the population that believe in Jesus. And so if people are about Jesus, they can't be about Israel specifically, although people sometimes mix up those categories. I'm not one who does. So if someone says, "Well Israel's doing anti-Christian things," yeah, they have done some anti-Christian things throughout their history and so has every other nation unfortunately.

I don't know why we'd single Israel out for special criticism for that, but I just feel that they're another nation that needs to be assessed like we do our nation or any other nation, needs to be assessed by their actions. And when you assess any nation's actions, you're going to find some of them are okay and some of them are good and some of them are bad. So I think when a Christian becomes totally absorbed with issues in the Middle East, they're being distracted from Christ.

Christ is not absorbed with the Middle East; Christ is absorbed with the salvation of the world. So that'd be my thoughts on it. I appreciate your call, brother. We'll talk next to Ron in Orange County, California. Ron, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Ron: Hi Steve, thank you so much for taking my call. So I've called before and I love your show. I have some disagreements with you, mostly creation/evolution stuff, but I have gleaned a lot of insights off your show. I wanted to call today because I have a situation I would love to get your recommendations on. Okay, just a real brief background: I've got a group of guys that I've done activities with for about 20 years now. And our families have gotten to know each other, our kids have gotten to know each other, and we just were friends.

We love each other, we hang out and stuff like this, and most of this group is professing Christians. Lately, one of the members of this group has become non-binary and it came to a head recently when this person showed up in a skirt, a dress, and it was startling. And this is a professing believer. Him and his wife actually graduated from a nearby seminary and but they are all in on the LGBTQIA+ and I'm just kind of trying to get your feedback on how you navigate a situation like this? Do you have recommendations, especially in the light of the love of God, because that I agree with you that that is the most important thing we can do as Christians? Do you have help, I guess?

Steve Gregg: Well, since the person claims to be a Christian, since you're a Christian and he's a Christian, have you taken him aside and said, "Are you aware that this whole LGBT thing is wrong in the sight of God?" And if he says, "Well we're not supposed to judge," I'd say, "Well if I do judge, are you going to judge me for judging you? Are you going to say I'm wrong? If you say somebody's doing the wrong thing, you're judging, but the Bible doesn't say we're not supposed to judge.

The Bible says we're not supposed to judge hypocritically and we're not supposed to judge with a double standard, and we're not supposed to judge by appearance but by righteous judgment, the Bible says. But yeah, we judge things when people do things that are sinful, when people do things that grieve God, we have to share God's judgment on that. Now it doesn't mean that you have to be harsh with them necessarily, but it means that you need to share with them that this is something that you don't want your kids exposed to and you don't want your family associated with because it's frankly ungodly.

Now if he says, "Yeah, but we're just supposed to love everyone," you could say, "Yeah, and I love you, and that's why I'm telling you what you need to hear. If I didn't love you, I might just stay away from you and not tell you this, but because I love you, I'm interested in warning you that this is really something that's the wrong direction for a Christian to be going." And I'd ask him how he can support it as a Christian. You say he wore a skirt or something, but does he live a gay lifestyle or what's his whole issue with why is he seeking to dress like a woman?

Ron: He's not gay. He's actually married to a woman and as far as he's just saying, "I'm non-binary now." And I'm like, "Well you're showing up in skirts, so that looks kind of binary."

Steve Gregg: Yeah, that's taking a gender role.

Ron: That's what I thought.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, so let's face it, "non-binary" doesn't mean anything at all. It just means, "I am what I feel like I am any given day." And just say, "Well the truth is you are not whatever you think you are any given day. You are a man; that is biologically demonstrable. That is something you've known most of your life. And a man cannot be not a man. You can't be a man and not a man at the same time. You can only be a man or not a man. You can't be non-binary where you don't have a choice, you don't pick between." I just say he's—I don't know if he's pushing your buttons or what, but I'd just say, "Listen, you know this is—I assume you guys have children who are friends with each other and things like that?"

Ron: We do. And that's the major sticking point right now as I don't know how to explain this to my kids.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, well you need to make sure that you don't in any sense normalize it. In other words, if your kids think, "Well I guess Dad thinks this is okay, it must be okay." Whatever you allow to be normalized with your children will in this realm reshape their minds in the wrong direction. Christians are supposed to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, but not in that direction, in a more godly direction. So you should tell this guy it's going to make you—it won't make you popular, but if you're looking to be popular, you might change religions. Christianity is not going to be popular religion in this society.

But you should tell him, "You know this is something that is forbidden in scripture. The Bible says that for a man to wear what pertains to woman is an abomination to God. It's a denial of what the Bible declares, of what Jesus declares about God made them male and female. He didn't make any non-binaries." And therefore you're going to have to decide—I mean I would tell him—"You need to decide whether you're going to be a Christian or whether you're going to go the route you're talking about going now because you can't follow Christ and be in rebellion against Him at the same time.

And if you're choosing rebellion against Him, I don't really want my kids around you. I hate to say it, it's not that I don't love you, but what my kids are exposed to imprints on them and I have a responsibility before God to make sure that no perversion gets imprinted into my kids' heads as if it's normal. If you want to dress like a man and be a man and so forth when you're around us, we got nothing against it. But I'm not going to have my kids hanging out with families where the man dresses like a woman. It's just your choice."

If he says, "Well you're being mean," I'd tell him, "No, you're being mean. You caused me to trust that you were a Christian friend and I endangered my children by making them vulnerable to you, to your acquaintance, and now you're the one who's endangering my children. If you don't think you are, well you are, and don't think I'm the mean guy. I am devoted to my children, I have a responsibility for them. I also have a responsibility to my brother and if you're my brother I'm telling you, I'm discharging my responsibility, you need to not do that because it's taking you away from obedience to Christ."

Ron: And it's not bigoted or transphobic to do any of that stuff, it's just this is what the love of Christ compels me.

Steve Gregg: Transphobic? Is anyone transphobic really? Is there such a thing as transphobic? I've never known anyone who's afraid of trans. "Phobic" means afraid. I don't know of anyone who's afraid. This term "phobic" when it's applied to anything trans or gay or whatever, it's just nonsense. Nobody I know who is opposed to the gay lifestyle is homophobic. That's just a political term to make you feel embarrassed about taking a sensible view about the subject. I'm not phobic of anything; I'm obedient to God. And so I mean I'm not adultery-phobic either, but I'm against adultery. I'm not murder-phobic, but I'm against murdering. To be against something doesn't mean I'm afraid of it, it just means I know it to be wrong. That's all.

Ron: Steve, I appreciate your time, I really need to move forward. Yeah, I'll let you go but I really appreciate your time and love your show.

Steve Gregg: All right, brother, I'm sorry this is happening but it sounds like you're going to have to have an uncomfortable conversation with him.

Ron: Yeah, I'm going to have to.

Steve Gregg: Thanks, Ron. Love you, man. God bless, man. Bye. Okay, let's see. John from Saylersville, Kentucky. Welcome, John.

John: Hi Steve. My question is about Matthew chapter 1, verse 18 when it says that Mary was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Wouldn't that mean that the Holy Ghost is the father?

Steve Gregg: Well, God is the father. Yeah, and the Holy Spirit is God.

John: Okay, that was my question. Thank you.

Steve Gregg: All right. Yeah, the Bible says both; it says He's the Son of God and He's begotten by the Holy Spirit. All right, John. I know you're—I think oneness Pentecostal—so your position is that the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are all just different hats, roles played by the one person, God. And so what you're probably suggesting is if Jesus is God's Son and He's the Son of the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit begat Him, then they must be one and the same.

And that's not a problem to a Trinitarian. We do believe that the Holy Spirit is God and God is the Holy Spirit. But we believe also that the Son is and that the Father is and that they all are simultaneously as opposed to serially, which would be the oneness position, I think. Michael in Englewood, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Michael: Yes, Steve. I have maybe a kind of silly question but I believe the word "saris" is officer in Hebrew. And Genesis 39 it talks about Potiphar. And my question is: is it possible that Potiphar was a eunuch because the "saris" is also the word for eunuch? Is it possible he was a eunuch and that's maybe why his wife was trying to sleep with Joseph and probably other guys?

Steve Gregg: It's quite possible. Many times officials of the monarch were made eunuchs, that is they were castrated, because that was thought to keep them undistracted. But usually if someone was castrated they wouldn't be married, and he was. It's possible that he was castrated at one point and then maybe he came to the point where it was better for his image to be married or whatever and he married a woman but didn't have the ability to perform because he was castrated.

We don't know, this is only speculation, but some have thought that since he was one of Pharaoh's officials and very possibly since most officials were castrated, that perhaps the marriage was simply a sham, for public purposes, and that his wife of course didn't have a sexual relationship with him and perhaps that's why she was so hot for Joseph. But on the other hand, he could have been quite able to perform and she could still be hot for Joseph. Joseph was a handsome young man and competent. So we can't really say. It could be a factor, he might have been a eunuch.

Michael: Okay, thanks Steve.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Michael, thanks for your call. Let's see. Kevin in River Rouge, Michigan. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Kevin: Yeah, hold on Steve, I have to turn this down. I had to make a statement and two questions real quick and I'm going to hang up.

Steve Gregg: There's some echo there though. Are you on your—

Kevin: Yeah, it's off. I turned the radio off.

Steve Gregg: Okay.

Kevin: First, the statement I want to make is regarding psychology. I got your CDs, I've listened to them at least three times regarding Christian psychology and I'm not going to get into everything you covered right now, but how that's moved in the church. Also on the call last week on the man talking about—I think he's a universalist—that he mentioned what a guy grew up with, went to high school is that you can repent after you die.

So those two issues, the psychology that has moved in with the New Age and incorporated Eastern mysticism. I'm going to hang up and listen to what you have to say because my main question—

Steve Gregg: Well wait a minute, you just said there are two subjects. I don't know what you're asking about those subjects.

Kevin: Well, I know what the Bible teaches. Oh, I wanted to mention as far as obedience. I didn't agree with you, I turned you off for a long time because I've been in and out of hospitals and rehabs. But I agree that like Paul told the Romans, we're to obey God from the heart and He's taught me that a lot since I've been broken a lot and as a single, never been married, and listen to you that man last week also.

I wanted to say when you prayed with him, he was crushed and I understand that sorrow. And when you told me things that you didn't know about your personal life and your first couple wives and then your wife dying, I knew about that. But I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your show now for those listening and John Schaffer, if you're listening, give me a call sometime. But also, if you could just answer the question regarding that psychology—

Steve Gregg: What is the question about it?

Kevin: Just how that's kind of a slippery slope in the church today and that all this universalism—

Steve Gregg: Kevin, hang on just a minute, Kevin. I just need you to give me a question. You've mentioned two subjects but you haven't given me a question. What do you think of the idea of where the ecumenical movement has moved into the church and the way that people that once stood for the word of God and the gospel of grace have now amalgamated into that belief, into that New Age and New World Order?

Now let me get some information for you. You've mentioned two subjects: you mentioned Christian psychology and Christian universalism. And now you're mentioning the ecumenical movement. I'm not really clear, you're kind of all over the place. I think this idea—like I asked this gal where she went to church, this old elderly lady across the street, and she said a non-denominational. And I think you would agree that all of these whether it's Methodist, Episcopal, Catholic, Protestant, whatever you call yourself, and outside God sees us as either born again or not.

Okay, Kevin, you have not given me a question yet and I'm almost out of time before our break. I wish I had a question from you. You talked about the ecumenical movement. Ecumenical movement speaks of churches of different denominations working together on things. Now that can be a good thing or a bad thing. In the bad sense, it would be if they compromise the gospel, that is if there's some churches that don't preach the gospel and they're just into liberal politics or something like that, and then there's other churches that are compromising because they're working together with them.

I'm not sure of any cases of that myself, but I think it's good for Christians to work together who are not all in the same church if that's what you're talking about the ecumenical movement. Now you mentioned the New Age movement, you mentioned a whole bunch of different things: Christian psychology, universalism. Each of these things is a subject that I've taught about. I have whole long lectures on each of these things, but I'm not sure what you're asking.

I wish I did because I'd love to answer. Maybe you can call back when you have an actual question in your mind and then I'll be glad to answer because I do want to answer your question. Write it down; write it down before you call and then you'll know what you're asking and you can just read me the question. Because it does no good to just take up time on the air and at the end no one knows what you're asking, including me.

All right, but feel free to write down your questions if you're not sure how you'd say them off the cuff. In fact, that's always a good idea. You're listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming so don't go away. We are listener-supported. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. Or you can go to our website; it's thenarrowpath.com. Lots of stuff there all for free. narrowpath.com. Let's talk in 30 seconds.

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 have a question about the Bible or the Christian faith and you know how to state it as a question, I'd be glad to attempt to answer it if I can. You can call if you disagree with the host and I'd be glad to talk to you about that too. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Danny from New Rochelle, New York. Hi Danny, welcome.

Danny: Hey Steve, how are you? Steve, today I want to ask you—based on all our trials and tribulations, right? All our trials, tribulations, and suffering in this life. Why is it that God wants us to suffer and go through all that suffering?

Steve Gregg: Well, suffering is one kind of testing. It's one kind of temptation. We are tempted in more than one way and one is to—we're tempted to sin simply by being allured or seduced through our lusts to certain wrong behaviors. Another way we're tempted is to doubt God, to doubt His goodness, to doubt His promises, to doubt His character, to doubt His omnipotence. And trials sometimes do that; that is they tempt us to doubt.

Why would God do this? Does God really care about me if He let this happen to me? Why couldn't God have stopped this from happening? I mean those are the kind of questions people are tempted to ask when they're suffering. And so suffering becomes a temptation to doubt God. Now the whole purpose of temptation is to test us, to see if we'll trust God, to see if we'll obey God, if we'll be loyal to God, if we'll maintain our allegiance to God.

And one way that we sometimes compromise that allegiance is by disobeying God through seductive temptations, but another way is by giving up our confidence in God because we can't see why He would allow such trials to come upon us or other people that we read about or hear about and we just think, "Well you know I don't know if I can believe God is a good God if He's letting that happen." Well of course He is a good God and the Bible shows again and again that people who suffered in the will of God, like Joseph for example, or Job, or Jesus, or the apostles, that they are vindicated and rewarded and it's all good when they come out faithful.

The whole purpose of our living this life and the reason God has us in this life is He's vetting us, He's testing us to see if we're the right stuff to reign with Him. If you're going to appoint somebody to a position of authority and responsibility like God intends to do, you want to make sure they're capable, you want to make sure they're competent, you want to make sure they're loyal to the project and so forth. Adam and Eve were tested in that very respect and they failed that test, but each of us since then have been tested.

Those tests can take various forms as I said, and suffering is one of those ways. Job was tested by sufferings. Jesus was tested by sufferings, but He's also tested in the more traditional sense of temptation when He was in the wilderness and Satan tempted Him to do wrong things. It's all a form of testing and this life is a test, that's what we're here for.

Some people think we're here to earn heaven or make the right choices to go to heaven or something like that. Yeah, well if you follow Christ faithfully you'll go to heaven, that's true, but God's not just interested who's going to heaven. He's interested in whom He can trust to become as Jesus put it, rulers over five cities and rulers over ten cities in the resurrection in the new world that He's bringing. So He's testing us to see who He can trust and that's a very normal and sensible thing for someone to do when He's vetting people for positions of authority and responsibility.

So there may be other reasons besides this that suffering takes place. Some suffering takes place simply because we live in a world where injuries happen, sickness happens, and so forth. We don't have to assume that God is specifically inflicting people with these things; there's viruses, there's germs, there's accidents, there's wars, there's criminal violence. People suffer from these things.

But the Christian knows that God has promised that He can take care of us and that He will take care of us and that the angel of the Lord encamps around about those who fear Him and delivers them just like Job had a hedge about him so the devil couldn't bring any harm to him until God gave the devil permission. And that means that no harm can come to us until God has decided that this would be an occasion where that harm could be—or it's not harm, hurt. We'll call it hurt. I'm going to differentiate between hurt and harm because I don't think God will ever harm you but He may hurt you.

Just like a child who's disciplined by his parent is hurt by the discipline but not harmed. If it's good wise discipline, the child is benefited from it, not harmed. And so God doesn't intend to harm us but He certainly allows us to be hurt. And that's partly because pain is a good test of our loyalty, but it also has a surgical value. If you have a cancer in you and let's say you live before there were anesthesia, then you'd have a very painful operation to remove that cancer.

Or in the old cowboy movies where someone's got gangrene in their leg and they throw them down on the barroom table and give them a pint of whiskey and hold them down while they saw his leg off. That's pretty painful stuff and yet that was done to save a life. We don't suffer like that much because we have anesthesia, but the point is sometimes to do a painful thing is more than worth it if it's going to cure a deadly problem. And we have a deadly problem and that is sin.

And sin is self-centeredness, sin is putting ourselves first and thinking that life is all about ourselves instead of God. Well, when we're in pain, it could either make us more selfish or can make us realize that we're helpless and we need God. It can make us less inclined to look to ourselves and more to God, which is what our sin sickness requires us to do.

In other words, it can be a therapy that God uses. But it's always a test. It may also serve as a therapy if we respond properly to it and get over whatever it is God's trying to get us past and there's a lot of stuff in us that He tries to get us to be cured of and suffering is one of the ways that happens. I would suggest to you, Danny, that you go to my website, thenarrowpath.com, look under Topical Teachings—that's a category, there's a tab there—and you'll find a series of four lectures called "Making Sense Out of Suffering."

If you listen to that, you'll get my full answer to your question, which I can only give briefly just now. Thank you for your call. Linda from Auburn, Washington. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Linda: Hi, is it coming in clearly? Yes, very. Okay great. So my question is if you will agree with me on this approach to if somebody knows somebody like a former caller and there's an issue of somebody being trans, identifying with both sexes. So my suggestion is that we can say, "Well God allowed free will choice so that we can come to love God freely and part of that free will choice is there's a lot of things that are going on like toxins in our environment. And there's a lot of toxins that actually are hormone mimicking and estrogen mimicking chemicals."

So that could be part of the issue. I mean I guess it would be to ask if the person would want to have a conversation about the general issue and then if they will, then we can say it would be a way of showing compassion about this can be part of the issue could be toxins, part of the issue could be spiritual. I have known of a story where somebody actually cast out a spirit of homosexuality and the guy was formerly dressed like a woman.

Steve Gregg: I do believe that many people who are in this deception probably do have a spiritual bondage, a spiritual cause. Whether there's also a biological or physiological reason, chemically, that they are having this confusion too, I don't know. I won't deny that there could be. All I'm saying is it doesn't really matter—in one thing doesn't matter—whether it's caused by spiritual factors or physiological factors, it doesn't change anything. It's still wrong to live contrary to God's will.

I remember when I was younger a lot of people used to say that alcoholism was a disease, that some people were just born with this propensity toward being addicted to alcohol. Now I don't know if that's true or not, it could be or it could not be, but it wouldn't make any difference. If I had that gene—that inclination toward alcoholism—I'm still responsible to be not a drunkard. I'm still responsible not to drink.

I remember not so very long ago the Time Magazine had a cover story about how scientists had discovered an adultery gene, that there's a gene that makes men want to commit adultery. I thought, "Well I don't think there is except maybe the whole man's whole sexual apparatus might tempt him that way." But the point is: so what? If you had that gene, you still don't have to do it. You're still responsible; you can't commit adultery and say, "Well I'm sorry I had that gene," or, "I'm an alcoholic and I get drunk every night because I'm an alcoholic, I can't help it but I inherited that from my dad."

No, you still make choices and you're responsible for those choices. If there's some toxins in the environment that change your hormones so that you start feeling like the opposite sex, well you're going to have to believe the word of God. That's why we have the word of God. Because things in culture, things in our environment, things in our social group, they bring confusion. Fortunately, the Bible doesn't bring confusion, it's the word of God and it's a rock that we can go by.

So whatever my inclinations may be—and I'm not saying there are not really people who are homosexuals, there are. There are people who have same-sex attraction and they don't have opposite-sex attraction. That's what I would assume is a homosexual. But if I had that problem, I would simply become celibate. I'm heterosexual and when I was single, I had to wrestle with heterosexual drives just like a homosexual has homosexual drives. But if you're not able to legitimately exercise those drives or relieve them or whatever it is you do, then you just don't do it.

So a man who's attracted to other men instead of to women, and a man who's attracted to women but can't get married because no one wants to marry him or whatever—they're both in the same position really. They both are attracted sexually to other people but they can't legitimately do anything about it. So what do you do? You live in obedience to God. Seek the help of God, seek His Holy Spirit. Walk in the spirit and you won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

You might say, "Well that's all very theoretical, who can really do that?" Well Christians can do that. The problem we have in our time is Christianity has been so watered down. The assumption is on the part of many that Christians aren't really different from anyone else except they have certain unique beliefs that they call Christian beliefs, but they still can't be expected to live a holy life if they've got challenges. No, that's not true. They can be; they're required to live a holy life regardless of their challenges.

That's always been the case. Some of those challenges included someone going to throw you to the lions or burn you at the stake if you don't deny Christ. That's a challenge, but Christians throughout history have never felt that they were unable to be faithful unto death and they proved it. I think our problem is we have a lot of people who call themselves Christians but don't have any Christian experience such as the Bible would recognize. They're not born again, they don't have the Holy Spirit, they've never been taught to walk in the spirit if they do, and they've said a sinner's prayer, they've joined a church, they pay their tithes, they sing the songs on Sundays and they try to be good.

But that's not what being a Christian is. Being a Christian is being born again, having the nature of God given to you through the Holy Spirit. You're a partaker of the divine nature. Your heart is changed. God's Spirit in you enables you to live a holy life. If that's not in there, if that's not in a person's experience, that's not what Christianity is—I mean what they have isn't. And it may be what everyone in their church teaches and believes, but the church wasn't started yesterday with your church.

It was started 2000 years ago with Jesus and the apostles and they defined what Christianity is. And what Christianity is is a new creation—a person who's got a heart that's inclined to follow Jesus and a Holy Spirit that enables them to do it. And we like to make excuses for people who call themselves Christians but who still live in sin as if they can't change. Well if they can't, then they're not born again yet. I'm not saying born again people never sin. I'm saying that born again people can change and they can obey if they will.

So that's my whole understanding of those challenges that people sometimes talk about us having. Another Linda. The last one was Linda from Washington; this is Linda from Michigan. Hi Linda, welcome.

Linda: Hi Steve. Could you please explain Romans 11:32: "For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all"?

Steve Gregg: Yes. In the context he's saying that in previous times the Gentiles were disobedient—meaning when they were pagans. Until the Gospel came to Rome or to other Gentile areas, everybody was a pagan there except the Jews. But most people were pagans; the Gentiles were pagans. And therefore Paul says there was a time when the Gentiles had to receive mercy because of their wickedness.

And now the tables are turned and the Jews are in disobedience so that they need to receive mercy, so that God can have mercy on all. That is to say the salvation of all is a basis of God's mercy. The Jews thought that they would receive salvation because they were God's people, they were circumcised, they kept the Sabbath, they kept the laws. But that the Gentiles, if they were saved at all, it was a very special mercy of God because those Gentiles are pagan.

And Paul is saying, "Well but the Jews are now the ones as disobedient as the Gentiles are, so the salvation of both, Jews and Gentiles, is on the basis of mercy." So he says in verse 30: "For as you were once disobedient to God"—meaning the Gentiles, he's writing to Gentile Roman Christians—"yet you have now obtained mercy through their disobedience"—that's through Israel's disobedience. "Even so these"—meaning Israel—"also have now been disobedient so that through the mercy shown to you they also may obtain mercy.

For God has committed them all to disobedience"—meaning all people—"that He might have mercy on all," meaning that everyone who's saved is coming from a place of disobedience and requiring mercy so that God's salvation is a matter of mercy to everybody, Jew and Gentile. Unlike the thoughts that the Jews had that they were different than the Gentiles, that if God might have to show great mercy to save a Gentile but them not so much, they're Jews, they're children of Abraham.

He's saying, "No, the children of Abraham just as disobedient as anyone else and they've proved it by their rejection of Christ. So now they have to look to God for mercy the same as Gentiles do and no one can claim that God owes them salvation on any other basis than that." That's what I understand Paul saying.

Linda: So in other words, everyone whether it be Jew or Gentile were born into disobedience?

Steve Gregg: Well at least have been disobedient. He's not talking about what people were born into specifically, he's talking about their behavior. I mean yeah, true, we've all been born into disobedience, but he's not talking about a birth condition, he's talking about behavior. He's saying that the Gentiles were disobedient because they worshipped idols basically and fornicated and did all the things Gentiles did.

The Jews didn't do those things. But now they've rejected the Messiah, which makes them just as guilty as sinners as the Gentiles are. Maybe the Jews didn't do the same things the Gentiles did, but they did things equally evil so that they need the mercy of God just as much.

Linda: Great. Thank you very, very much.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Linda, thanks for your call. Jonah from Vancouver, BC. Welcome.

Jonah: Hi, this is Jonah. Yeah, I just heard about your program, it's very great. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, do you have a question for me? Yeah, that's right. Actually, it's a life choice question, but I do want to hear your opinion. I'm single, I'm over 40. I encountered a girl in the church and I thought she was the one that I meet with my whole life. But after we are dating for a while and we are talking about the marriage and because her family has more wealth than my family and she insists that I have to buy a home to give her safety, to give her security.

Steve Gregg: And are you saying you can't do that, right?

Jonah: Based on my family conditions, it's a little bit difficult because maybe I have to bring a mortgage.

Steve Gregg: Well, maybe she's not the one. You know a lot of things have to be in sync between two people in order for marriage to work. Obviously they want to be attracted to each other in various levels, physically and personally. They like to enjoy each other's company, but there's also very practical matters of compatibility like if one person wants children and the other one doesn't. Well I don't care how attracted you are to each other, you shouldn't be married if one wants children the other doesn't, they're not going to be in the same marriage happily.

If one wants the both parties to work and one wants—let's say the man wants his wife to stay home and raise a family and she's determined she wants to go out and work. Well if they can't come to agreement about that, they're not meant for each other because they can't please both and both probably have pretty strong feelings about it. Likewise about the money thing. Lots of times people are not compatible in terms of their financial goals.

Now I don't know what her reason is to insist that you buy a house, I don't know what else is going on in the relationship, but if her parents say you can't marry someone who's too poor to buy you a house, then she's going to have to decide whether she's going to submit to her parents' view of who she should marry or make a decision based on some more godly standards. But there are definitely women and men who have a certain standard of living they want to live up to and they can't be persuaded otherwise.

I don't think that's wise, but I do think that women in particular, especially if they're looking to a husband to be their provider, they would like to think that the husband can provide. Now you don't have to buy a house in order to provide, but it's a certain level of providing that some women would demand. If so, then she's not the right woman for a man who can't buy her a house. And I'm not saying you should be able to buy a house. There's nothing wrong with not buying a house.

I've never bought a house until—well, I did when I was older, but I lived in my single years I lived in apartments and even as a married person too. So if a woman doesn't want to live in a rented place then and you're going to rent a place, then she's not the one. At least she's not today. Maybe she'll change her mind, but you don't want to get married to someone who says there's a very basic thing about you that you can't change that I'm not okay with. Okay, then move on, find somebody who is okay with the way you are.

Okay, let's see. Lief in Denver, Colorado. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Lief: Hey Steve, how are you doing today? Hey, I was just wondering if you could just elucidate a little bit on the mechanism in dispensationalism because I know you taught it for many years, but just the mechanism that teases out this Zionist ethic, the Christian Zionist ethic. And is there something special about the seventh dispensation, just how it manifests itself or how the nature of it is? Is it our role in the bringing about the eschaton? I just never quite understood—

Steve Gregg: Okay, well let me try to—we're going to run out of time. Let me try to get into this. The dispensationalists believe that God has divided history into seven different dispensations and the current one is the dispensation of the church or of grace. They believe this dispensation will end with the Rapture of the church and there will be another dispensation in which God is dealing with Israel bringing them into the Kingdom which is realized, they believe, in a future millennium.

In other words, they believe the ultimate act in this play of human history is about Israel. The church is in there but they say we're a parenthesis. God was dealing with Israel when Jesus came, they rejected Him so He put it off for a little while and in the meantime He's dealing with the church as a parenthetical kind of activity on His part. When He's done with the church, He'll rapture the church then He'll get back to Israel, His first love.

And the thing is, if they're right, then we're not in that dispensation for Israel. We're still in the dispensation of the church until the Rapture, so they shouldn't be thinking about Israel yet. But things are happening in Israel. They aren't anything that the Bible said would happen, but they are happening along the lines of what the dispensationalists think should happen at least after the church is gone. And maybe they feel like God's jumping the gun a little bit here and getting Israel together before it's really their time, but they're just kind of adjusting to current events and they interpret what's going on in the Middle East as having something to do with their eschatological views.

Which again, if their eschatology is true, there should be nothing in particular that God's doing with Israel until He's raptured the church. So they are not a very consistent group. But they believe that when God begins to work with Israel again, He's going to bring them back to the land and they're going to follow God and then the Antichrist is going to kill two-thirds of them and stuff like that. Those are all part of their belief system.

But honestly, dispensationalism teaches that God doesn't deal with Israel and the church at the same time. That's why they think the Rapture has to happen so God can deal with Israel and not with the church. But if God's already dealing with Israel, then He's dealing with Israel and the church at the same time, which is not really part of their system but they're trying to live with it nonetheless. Anyway, they believe that we have to support Israel because God's ultimately going to do something with Israel that's the most important thing He's ever thought about doing.

They're mistaken and they're certainly not historic Christians. They may be Christians, but they're not following historic Christianity in this particular respect. I'm out of time, I'm sorry to say. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website's thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.