The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are live Monday through Friday at this same time, as we are today, to take your calls. We want to answer your questions if we can. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, I hope you'll call in and we'll do our best to answer them. If you don't like the answers you've heard before and you think we should correct something or balance comment, I welcome you to do that as well. We'd love to have you call in if you think something needs to be corrected.

The number to call is 844-484-5737. If you'd like to be on the program, I want to announce again that for those in the Seattle area particularly, I'll be speaking in several locations early next month. I think probably about a week from now is when I start, or a week from tomorrow, coming up soon. If you're in the Seattle area and interested in seeing where I'll be speaking, you can check that out. Go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under the tab that says announcements and you'll find all the dates and locations listed there. We're going to go to the phones now and talk to Christie from Seattle. Speaking of Seattle, Christie, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Guest (Female): Hi Steve, my question is, how do I know if I love God enough? I know we're to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. I try to see people as Jesus sees them, think like Jesus by reading his word, obeying his commands, praying for myself and others. I know I am in Christ, but how do I know if I love him enough?

Steve Gregg: Well, I don't know if there's a meter that he will use on the day of judgment to show whether you, on a scale of one to ten, whether you loved him enough. The main thing is that you make it your heart's goal to love him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Obviously, we all fall short. None of us is perfect.

But the main thing is that it is your desire to love him supremely and to please him, which is, of course, a symptom of loving him. If you love someone, you want to please them. And it sounds like you're there. I mean, it sounds like that's where your heart is at. I don't know you, but the very way you ask the question makes me think that you're doing what you're supposed to do.

Now, could you love God more than you do now? I don't know. I don't know your heart; God does, fortunately. But if you're doing all you know to do to be devoted to God and your life is self-defined as to please God, then I'm going to say you probably love him enough to be counted one of his children, to be sure.

As far as whether you could love him more, love is a fruit of the spirit, and therefore, like all fruit, it ripens. It grows more mature. It starts out green and becomes mature fruit. So the main thing, I suppose, is simply to be sure that as you grow, because when time goes by you do change, but not all change is growth. A lot of change is not progress.

But if you're determined to set God as your chief heart's goal to please him, just make sure that as you change, you're changing in that direction rather than another direction. And you'll be growing in love for God and others. Again, I don't know how we would measure this.

Jesus said greater love has no man than this, but that he lay down his life for his friend. I think you should ask yourself, would I die for Jesus? Would I be hesitant to do so? If someone had a gun to my head and said, deny Christ, curse Christ, or die, would I have to hesitate? If you're not sure what you'd say, then there is room for improvement.

I do believe that a lot of people think they'd die for Christ, but they've never really been in that position. But if you would give up your life, you'd also give up anything else in the meantime, though you may never die for Christ in that sense. There may be any kinds of sacrifices he would want you to make short of that.

But the point is that if you're prepared to die for Christ, then you love him as much as Jesus said you can love somebody. That's greater love has no one than that. People can be too nervous about these things. I don't think any amount of concern, the greater concern you have about this, the better, that you're making sure that you're not allowing things to crowd God out of your heart.

But as for being worried about it, sounds like what you're doing is everything you know to do. And it sounds like it's the right things. So I'm going to just say you're probably just fine, though that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement. But God, if you die before you perfectly love, if you say, I love God as much as I know how to do, but what if I'm not perfectly loving?

Well, God knows you want to. If you die before you're perfect, you're about like the rest of us, probably. And God's not going to say, well, I'm sorry, I wanted you to love me 100%, it looks like you only loved me 95%, sorry, go to hell. That's not God's attitude toward those who are on his side.

Guest (Female): Okay. Thank you, Steve.

Steve Gregg: All right, Christie. Thanks for calling. Bye now. David in Houston, Texas, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Steve. I've got two questions about God's character that really bother me. I was hoping you can straighten me out. The first one's in Romans chapter 11, specifically verse 11. It sounds like us Gentiles are an afterthought. Israel rejected God so God now turns to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous. That bothers me. It sounds like a man bought a diamond ring for a woman, she rejected him, and then he marries another woman, giving her the same diamond ring that was originally meant for the first one. Can you help me out with that? The second question is kind of similar, found in Judges.

Steve Gregg: Well, let's take the first one first and we'll hopefully get to your second one too. The Bible does not indicate at all that Gentiles were an afterthought for God. The story of the Bible begins in Genesis and of course it moves through God's promises to Abraham and then how he developed those promises and fulfilled them ultimately in Christ.

The entire rest of the Bible after Genesis 12 1 through 3 is a commentary on how God fulfilled his promise that through Abraham's seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. That's the Gentiles. Now, that's where it begins. God desired all the Gentiles to be blessed. And we find in the New Testament this means through Christ being saved to receive justification by faith and to receive the spirit.

That's what Paul identifies in Galatians 3 as the promise that was made to Abraham: that God would justify by faith and that we could have the spirit of Christ. And by the way, he specifically says that it might be on the Gentiles. That's Galatians 3 verse 14.

It says that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith. And he's also mentioned earlier in verse 9, so then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. So to be blessed with Abraham is to receive the benefit of the Abrahamic promise. Now Paul specifically says this is for the Gentiles.

The idea was God was raising up somebody, a seed of Abraham, to be the missionary to the rest of the world, to be the savior of the world. The world includes the Gentiles. So God never had the Gentiles out of his concern. It was because of his concern for the Gentiles that he raised up Abraham and his seed to be a blessing to all the nations. That's the Gentiles. So I'm not really sure how this would be making the Gentiles second. It makes the Gentiles the goal.

The Jews are the means by which God intended to bless all the Gentiles. But it's like if I train my children to be rescue swimmers because I want to live on a dangerous shore where there's a lot of people who need rescuing. The idea of giving them training is so they can go out and rescue people. That doesn't mean I'm putting everyone last, putting my children first and everyone else last. It means my children are the ones that are going to be used to rescue everybody that I can reach and that's how God had Israel in mind, that they'd be the ones to bring the Gentiles to Christ.

So God has as much concern for the Gentiles as for the Jews and the Bible's very clear on that. Romans especially is very emphatic about that. For example in Romans chapter 2 he says in verse 25, for circumcision is indeed profitable, meaning being Jewish. For circumcision indeed is profitable if you keep the law, but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

Therefore if an uncircumcised man, meaning a Gentile, keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? That is, he'll be counted as a Jew even though he's not a Jew because he's doing what everyone's told to do. The Jews that do it have no advantage before God and the Gentiles who do it do, so it's not about your race.

And he develops that a little earlier in the chapter when he says in verse 6 through 10, that God will render to each one according to his deeds. Eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor and immortality, but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but only obey unrighteousness, they'll receive indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

But glory, honor and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also the Greek, for there is no partiality with God. Now it's interesting he says to the Jew first and also the Greek. Judgment will come on the wicked, Jewish wicked first, Gentile wicked later. Also blessings and glory will come on all the righteous, the righteous Jews first, the Gentiles later. That's simply talking, that's not talking about God loving the Jews more.

In fact he summarizes saying because God doesn't love anyone more. God shows no partiality, he doesn't show favoritism toward one race over another. They're all going to be treated the same way. The Jews got a first chance because if you're going to train rescue swimmers, you're going to have to train them before they go out and save other people. So he had to work with the Jews first to make them agents through whom he might reach the Gentiles.

Now the nation of Israel didn't live up to that, but Christ who's the seed of Abraham and a Jew did. I mean about a third of the people on the planet Earth today profess to be following Christ and therefore all the nations of the world have been impacted and continue to be through the gospel. So no, it's not that God had no interest in the Gentiles until the Jews rejected him. The whole purpose of God calling the Jews was so that they can reach the Gentiles. You had a second question very quickly.

Guest (Male): Yes. Judges, where Israel prayed to God asking should they go fight against Benjamin with the thoughts that they'd go fight against them and win and God said yes. And so they went and they lost. Sounds like God lied. Can you help me with that?

Steve Gregg: Well actually they did win, they just didn't win in the first battle. They had more than one battle and they did win and they almost wiped out the Benjamites. You're right, the first time they went against the Benjamites, they didn't win that skirmish. It's a little like when the Romans invaded Israel in 66 AD, the Jews in Galilee practically drove back the Romans and the Romans had to regroup and come back and then they wiped out everybody in the city in 70 AD.

If you win the war, it doesn't count that you lost a few of the battles. And God didn't say that they wouldn't lose anything. He didn't say that no one would be killed in this battle, he just said they'd win and they did. So I don't think he lied to them at all. The Benjamites were almost wiped out by them.

Guest (Male): Okay, so it's not just the first time, it's the whole victory.

Steve Gregg: Right, many times wars are fought in waves of battles. One battle, especially if you get beaten in the first battle, you have to retreat and regroup and make another incursion. So that's what happened, but that's all one war and it certainly had the results that God said it would. Thanks, David. Good talking to you, brother. Bye now. Delia in Seaside, California, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Guest (Female): Delia, thank you Steve. I love your program, I learn a lot. Thank you. My question today is, what happens to the soul when we die? I know the body, physical, goes to the earth, the spirit goes to God, but what about the soul? What happens to it?

Steve Gregg: Well, that's a hard question to answer simply because theologians aren't fully agreed as to whether the soul and the spirit are separate entities. I know you've probably heard that human beings are made up of three parts: body, soul, and spirit. But there's many theologians, and this has simply been a theological controversy for centuries, who believe that man's made up of only two parts and that the soul and the spirit are essentially the same.

It's almost impossible to resolve this to me. I've looked at the arguments from both sides and there's ambiguity on this subject in scripture. Some scriptures seem to distinguish the soul from the spirit, though not unambiguously, and others seem to use the soul and the spirit as if they're interchangeable.

So it's a very hard call. Paul, for example, didn't clear this up. He made a distinction between the inner man and the outer man. He said while our outer man, meaning his body, was perishing, the inner man, which would be his soul and spirit, is renewed day by day.

Now he didn't say whether the inner man was made of two parts or whether there were two different names for the same part, whether the inner man is simply called the soul and the spirit alternately, or whether the inner man is a composite of soul and spirit. He didn't really make that unambiguous. So I don't know.

There's an inner man and an outer man, and certainly when we die our outer man perishes and goes into the ground and will be resurrected on the last day. The inner man, I believe, is that which goes to be with the Lord. Now Peter also made that distinguishing thing because in 1 Peter chapter 3 he told women that their adorning should not be the outward adorning of the plaiting of the hair and wearing of gold, but it should be the hidden man or the inner man of the heart in that which is not corruptible which is adorned with the meek and quiet spirit.

So there's the inner man, this outer man. Now the question, of course, is the inner man one thing that is sometimes called soul, sometimes called spirit, sometimes called the heart, sometimes called the mind? That is a very real possibility and some people believe that's the case. Or the inner man is a complex of components including a soul and a spirit and a mind and a heart and so forth.

I don't know the answer and I'm not sure we can, at least with the sparse information the Bible gives us on this. I tend to believe we have three parts, but I believe that the two that comprise the inner man, the soul and the spirit, live together when the outer man goes into the tomb. In my opinion, the soul and the spirit go to be with the Lord.

Paul did say when we're absent from the body we're present with the Lord. Now what's absent from the body? Well I guess the part that isn't the body. Whether we're a dichotomy or trichotomy, whether we have three parts or two, the body alone is said to go into the ground and the part that is us does not remain in the body and is then absent from the body until the resurrection.

So I would say that whether we're thinking in terms of the soul and spirit being separate things or different names for the same thing, it really doesn't change very much. I think the part of us that lives in the body, which is the non-material part of us, is what lives on and goes to be with the Lord when it moves out of the body at the point of death. Those are my thoughts. I don't claim to have complete understanding of this because the Bible doesn't focus much on it and doesn't give us as much as our curiosity could wish. But I hope that may help somewhat.

Guest (Female): Yeah, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Steve Gregg: Okay. God bless you, sister. Good talking to you. Fred from Alameda, California, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Guest (Male): Yes, I have a question. You've heard of these reports about people across the globe, not that it doesn't happen in the United States necessarily, but people mutilating their bodies to gain acceptance from God or to win God's favor or salvation. And then I asked a friend like, why September 11th in 2001? Why would they do that when they know they're going to die themselves? And he said, well, in their religion they believe that if they give up their life they would automatically go to heaven.

I'll just give you one more example and then I'll ask the question. My father, who was a young man during World War II and in the Navy, used to marvel at the kamikaze pilots. Why would they do that when they're going to die themselves? So my question is, those are extreme examples, but on a more practical level, what do you think God's trying to say to us when the Bible says obedience is better than sacrifice?

Steve Gregg: First of all when you talk about people mutilating their bodies, I think you mean dying. I would consider dying as a martyr is not the same thing as mutilating your body because mutilating your body is like if you cut off body parts or if you cut yourself or things like that. That's very different than killing yourself and it's a different kind of behavior to discuss.

When it comes to martyrdom, people of various religions, including Christianity, believe that there is a life after this one and that certain virtuous things that you do will set you up better for the next life. Now as far as kamikaze pilots, I don't know if most of them were Buddhists or Shinto or Japanese, but my guess is that they believed that if they die for their country or die for their emperor, this is one of the great things that will privilege them in the next life when they come back reincarnated as something else. I can't really speak for them, but that's what I've always assumed they would think.

Certainly Muslims believe that if they give their lives in Jihad that they will in the next life have a whole bunch of virgins. At least the men think that. And Christians likewise, the Bible, Jesus said whoever will seek to save his life will lose it, but he that loses his life for my sake will find it. And many Christians have been martyrs. So there's that.

Now, what does it mean when God says to obey is better than sacrifice, which is from 1 Samuel chapter 15, which is what Samuel said it to Saul? Well, in that particular case it wasn't related to anything that led up to the question. It was a case that God told Saul to do a certain thing and to annihilate a whole group of people that were wicked people and he didn't do it.

He killed the people except for their wicked king, kept him alive, but more importantly he kept a bunch of the sheep and the livestock because he said he did it to sacrifice them to God. So Samuel said, God didn't tell you to save the sheep and to sacrifice them; he told you to wipe them out, all the people and the livestock.

And it's better to obey God than to sacrifice. Now what he meant by sacrifice there is that Saul had decided that he could disobey God in order to offer religious sacrifice of these sheep. And Samuel was saying, sacrifice is fine if it's done in obedience to God, but sacrifice doesn't really excite God. David knew this, David said, sacrifice and offerings you did not desire.

He said that in Psalm 51 and in Psalm 40. It was understood that God does command sacrifice in the Old Testament temple system but it's not that that's what he's impressed with. Anyone can offer animal sacrifice. He said what he wants is obedience. Now for Saul to take the Amalekites' sheep and livestock and sacrifice them to God, that's at no expense to Saul. He got them for free in battle. They were just the spoils of battle.

To offer them to God, in many circumstances that might reflect a commendable love for God. But when God told you not to do it and you do it, then it means that you're rebelling against God. So if you're going to be a rebel against God, you aren't going to atone for it by offering a whole bunch of sheep and goats and bulls as sacrifices to God. God is not going to be pleased with sacrifices when they're offered without obedience.

In Proverbs it says the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. He wants people to not be wicked, he wants them to be obedient. He doesn't care that much about such sacrifices. That's what it means. I'm out of time for this segment. We have another half hour coming so don't go away. Our website's thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Stay tuned.

Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour to take your calls. And we have some lines open. If you call right now you can get on our switchboard and we can probably get to you before the half hour is over. Call now and we can put you on the board. The number is 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Anonymous from Phoenix, Arizona. Hi Anonymous, welcome.

Guest (Male): Hey, how you doing Brother Steve? We spoke a lot of times before. I just had a question for you, hoping that you can help me out on this biblically. So I have a church that I go to here in Arizona and I'm part of the leadership there for a long time and I discovered that our pastor in the church, he doesn't really involve us in decisions such as when he picks people for the prayer team or when he ordains them for the youth center to teach the youth or to teach kids' classes and stuff like that. And he makes those decisions on his own.

So I confront him and tell him, hey look, why aren't you letting the leadership all have a vote on this? And he feels strongly that he doesn't need to. And it just it makes me feel like well what are we here for then? If we're not allowed to make decisions together as the Book of Acts did, as they all made decisions together, why is it just a one man's decision versus all of it? So I'm kind of removing myself from the leadership and stepping down from there and just to be a member of the church. I just wanted to know is this right for me to do biblically? Like is this a right decision that I'm making or am I acting foolishly?

Steve Gregg: Well, I don't know that you're acting foolishly. I don't think so. But I don't know if it's the right thing to do either, so I'd pause before stepping down unless you've already done so. Your pastor obviously has an institutional hierarchical view of church leadership. Now he's not alone; frankly most pastors do. And I'm not going to necessarily blame them for that except they should be able to read their Bibles and find otherwise. But it's a cultural thing.

In the United States and frankly before there was a United States in the Protestant churches, even when you go back before Roman Catholic times to the second century with Ignatius and his writings, the church took on a hierarchical leadership structure, which is what all secular organizations do. And frankly I think the more secular the churches are, the more they do this without question.

Now even the churches that want to serve God and read their Bible, they often read it through a grid that's based on their upbringing. Who hasn't been raised in a church that has a pastor? Well, people in the first century were raised in churches that didn't have a pastor, but who since then hasn't? It's almost like having a pastor who's like the CEO of a corporation and maybe an eldership board that's maybe like a board of directors of an organization is the way that churches are set up. In fact they almost have to be if they're going to be tax-exempt organizations because, and I know this because the Narrow Path is a 501(c)(3), although the Narrow Path is not a church. But churches often are 501(c)(3) organizations, corporations. And that means in order to get tax-exempt status from the government, they have to do paperwork and fill out forms just like any corporation would. You've got to have an executive director or CEO or something like that. You've got to have some kind of board of directors and that kind of thing.

Which means that if the church is going to set up as a 501(c)(3), they're going to have to set up like a corporation because the government knows of no other kind of church than that. Now God knows of other kinds of churches than that, like in the first century they didn't have that kind of thing going on. That developed after the apostles were dead and not even in the first generation. But it has certainly become normal.

Now because of that, people who are raised in the church or trained to be pastors, there's a cultural expectation that they're going to be like the leader of a corporation. And depending on how independently they want to run something, they will make decisions as they think a corporate leader should. Now I believe that this is a wrong way of looking at things. I'm trying to be generous toward the pastor because he's not really different than many others and he probably knows no better.

But Jesus said to his disciples, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. He that would be chief among you let him become the slave of all, the servant of all. So in other words Jesus said earthly kings and corporations have this top-down authority kind of thing. They got a boss at the top and they exercise authority over everyone else because that's the way secular things are.

But it can't be that way in the church, Jesus said. The people, there's not some top guy or guys that everyone has to obey. That's how the pagans do it. That's how secular organizations are set up. The church is a family. Jesus told his disciples, the apostles, don't call anyone father and don't let anyone call you teacher and you're all just brothers. There's not this hierarchical thing.

Now it is true that in the different gifting that God has given to people, and Paul lists different gifts people have, some have a gift of leadership. That is, some are better than others at taking the lead, but taking the lead in the church is not supposed to be like a Gentile CEO becoming the boss of everyone else. Taking the lead according to scripture, if you read the qualifications for elders and the exhortations that's given to them in the Bible, means be an example. Set a lead for people to follow, not dictate to them how things are going to be. That's how the pagans do it.

Now the person who's chief among you is the slave of all. He's the one who provides leadership as a gift, as a service. It's a serving. People need leadership; sheep need shepherds. People who are young Christians need older Christians to guide them and help them grow, but that doesn't mean that those older Christians become their bosses and make all the decisions for the organization. And I have a whole lecture series on this called Some Assembly Required at our website, thenarrowpath.com. You might want to listen to it.

Given the fact that most churches are set up like that and the pastor is seen as kind of the CEO kind of a guy, some people think that's an abomination and it should be stamped out. I think it's an imbalance, I think it's a misrepresentation of how Jesus set things up. I think God can still work through situations like this and God has used many pastors in a good way. So I'm not going to just condemn the people in that situation. I will say that situation is not biblical, but there's people who don't know any different and that's how they do things.

But let's say a man is in an organizational church where he has that power. He may try to be a servant of all or he might try to be the big boss of all. If he's the big boss of all, then he's like Diotrephes in 3 John who wanted to have the preeminence. I can't speak for your pastor because I don't know. If he's appointing Sunday school teachers and child care workers and people to different positions in the church, he might be doing it because it makes him feel big and strong and powerful. Or he might simply know that we need people in those positions and he's not going to bother you guys in the eldership about it, he can just make some appointments and save you the time. I mean he might feel that he's doing the church a service in doing that.

But if you and the elders come to him and say, yeah we'd like you to involve us in those decisions, and he says no, I'm not going to, well then he's the big boss man. He's the Diotrephes who wants to control everything. And that's not a good thing. If you had not confronted him on the situation and if he simply was by default making appointments without consulting anyone else, he might be figuring well that's my job, someone's got to do it, it's not exactly a fun job but I'll do it, save someone else the trouble of doing that. He might feel like he's doing a good thing. And it may be that in God's eyes and his own he is.

But if the leaders say, hey we'd like to be involved in this, he says no, this is my business, this is my authority, then he's on a power trip. That's just what it comes down to. And for you to step out of leadership is not necessarily a wrong thing to do, but it may not be the right thing to do. It depends on how much he's been confronted about the whole idea of involving the elders in the decision-making or the church itself.

Again, in the Bible, there's no church that has a single pastor; it's all elderships. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in every city, Paul told Titus to appoint elders in every city, and each city had one church. So eldership is how the churches were led in the biblical time, not by having a CEO type pastor.

On the other hand, even the elders are not there just to be the boss; they're there to carry the load. There is a load of leadership; leadership is a responsibility and a heavy burden. Not everyone wants it. I wouldn't want to be an elder or pastor if I could avoid it. I mean if God made me I would, but I don't want to. I mean that's not something I envy.

And by taking on that load, these men are serving the church. But if they interpret it as a power position rather than a service position, and that's the easiest thing for carnality to do in a person's thinking, then of course you're going to have a top-down hierarchical structure that's exactly the way Jesus said it should never be among you. So maybe if you're on an eldership and the pastor's doing stuff just on his own and maybe making decisions that a lot of people don't feel good about, I think there has to be a long talk sit down with the elder to say listen, what are we here for? Why are we even in this position? That's what I would suggest there.

Guest (Male): Thank you, my brother. Words of wisdom. God bless you and your family. Christ be with you. I love you. Thank you so much for the words.

Steve Gregg: All right, thank you brother. God bless. Bye now. Gary in Las Vegas, Nevada, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Guest (Male): Yes, hi Steve. Question about Luke 21:27 and Matthew 24:30 talking about Jesus coming on the clouds. I know there's Old Testament references to him coming as judgment on say Egypt or Edom. What are those references in the Old Testament? I couldn't find them, but I remember they were there.

Steve Gregg: Well, two that come to mind right away would be Isaiah 19:1 where it says the Lord rides on a swift cloud and he will come to Egypt. Psalm 103 talks about how God rides on the clouds as his chariot. Micah chapter 1, let me turn there so I can rather than try to quote it. Jonah, Micah, okay here we go. In Micah chapter 1 it says in verse 3, for behold the Lord is coming out of his place, he will come down and tread on the high places of the earth, the mountains will melt under him and so forth. Doesn't mention the clouds in this particular case but the same imagery of God coming down and it's referring to the Assyrians coming against Israel.

This is the imagery that is used in the prophets, that God comes, not personally in such cases, but that he's coming in the persons of agents that he sends, which is invading armies that will conquer them. It's a judgment from God and therefore it's God coming. That's how they talk. And a number of places it mentions on clouds as well.

So when it says in Matthew 24 and elsewhere that Jesus will come on the clouds, it's possible. I mean I'll say this, there is a place where it doesn't mean that. And that is in Daniel chapter 7 verses 12 and 13 where it says I saw one like the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven and he came to the ancient of days. Now in this case the coming of the son of man on clouds is upward. He ascended from the Mount of Olives and he came to heaven, he came to the ancient of days and it says he was given a kingdom and glory and all that.

In other words he sat down at the right hand of God and was given all authority in heaven and earth to rule, which is where Christ is now. So you have to take each passage in its proper context because such images are not always used in only one way. It's not uncommon for coming on the clouds to be a downward imagery of God coming in judgment on some earthly entity, but in that case and maybe in some of the cases that Jesus mentioned because he talks about the son of man coming on the clouds, well that's the very imagery of Daniel chapter 7. One like the son of man came on the clouds of heaven and he came to the ancient of days. That is, he came to God, he came to heaven and he was given a throne.

The study of the Bible is not a light thing. People get one rule of interpretation or one figure of speech and they feel okay I can just understand everything where this is found. Sometimes that's true, but many times it's nuanced. I really believe every passage has to be taken in its own context and of course depending on the context we can see okay is this talking about one way that this is used in some passages or is it referring to the way the same thing is used in other passages? And it shouldn't be too difficult to tell in most cases.

Guest (Male): Okay. Well, very good. I appreciate it.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Gary. Thanks for your call. God bless. Matthew in Citrus Heights, California, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Guest (Male): Thanks for taking my call. Just quick question. I've heard you say when people ask about hell or like lake of fire that only the beast and the false prophet will go there. But in that passage...

Steve Gregg: No, I never said that. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says all whose name is not written in the book of life will be cast in the lake of fire. Revelation 20:15. So no, I wouldn't say that.

What I have said is that only in the case of the dragon and the beast the false prophet is it specified that they're tormented day and night forever and ever. They are thrown in the lake of fire, so is everyone else who's lost. But only those three are mentioned that they are tormented day and night forever and ever.

Guest (Male): Well then in chapter 14 it says that everyone who worships the beast and receives the mark will be tormented forever.

Steve Gregg: Well it doesn't say that. It says the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast or have taken the mark of his name or number. The smoke of their torment ascending is not quite the same phrase as they are tormented day and night. The smoke of their torment ascending is actually a citation from Isaiah in a passage about the destruction of Edom in that case.

We know that destruction of Edom didn't take place by them going to the lake of fire, at least not in the passage it's not talking about that. It's using apocalyptic imagery but with reference to that. In 34:10, I believe it is, we know that this is a prophecy about Edom because it actually says so in verse 5, my sword is bathed in heaven, indeed it shall come down on Edom, the people of my curse. And it goes on talks about how it's a day of vengeance and so forth and then verse 9 and 10 it says its streams shall be turned into pitch and its dust into brimstone. Now you've got the fire and brimstone there.

Its land shall become burning pitch, it shall not be quenched day or night, its smoke shall ascend forever and ever from generation to generation. So this language of burning pitch, brimstone, not ceasing day or night, smoke ascending forever and ever, these are all images that are taken from Isaiah chapter 34. Now I'd also point out that in chapter 14 of Revelation, which you mentioned in verse 11 where it says the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, the smoke is ascending forever, it doesn't say whether their torment goes on or not.

Whenever fire and brimstone are mentioned, the imagery is borrowed from the Sodom and Gomorrah story. Sodom and Gomorrah were wiped out by fire and brimstone. The next day Abraham looked out toward there and he saw the smoke going up like the smoke of a furnace. The city was already burned up, no one was suffering there. They were dead. But the smoke was still going up, sometimes the place still smolders after it's burned down to ashes.

Now the fact that the smoke is going up tells us that they were wiped out in that case. So it's very possible that with this smoke going up with other images from Sodom and Gomorrah is simply saying the memorial of their destruction continues as it were forever and ever, which is in my mind a figure of speech. But also we're told later on in chapter 19 of Revelation verse 3 they're talk about Babylon the Great has fallen. It says in verse 3 again they said Hallelujah for her smoke rises up forever and ever.

Now if Babylon is destroyed on earth, let's say it's burned and its smoke goes up, does it still go up after the whole planet is burned up and remade into the new heavens and earth? The idea that its smoke goes up forever and ever is to my mind exaggerated language, what we call hyperbole, which is very commonplace in the Bible and especially in Revelation. So in Revelation 14:11 which you mentioned, I'm not even sure that's referring to hell.

Some people do, in fact I certainly used to think so too until I noticed that the imagery of fire and brimstone is used in other places in Revelation when it's not talk about hell at all. For example in the sixth trumpet it says in chapter 9 of Revelation verse 17, thus I saw the horses in the vision, those who sat on them, the breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, sulfur yellow and their heads were like the heads of lions, out of their mouths came fire, smoke and brimstone. Okay well this is certainly not talk about hell, this is some battle it's talking about, but fire and brimstone again borrowed from the imagery of Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned that connection.

So Revelation does mention fire and brimstone in connection with the lake of fire but it also mentions fire and brimstone in not relation to the lake of fire. So the fact that there's fire and brimstone and perpetual smoke going up in Revelation 14:11, I have to say I used to think that referred to hell and maybe it does, but it's not clear that it does. It doesn't say that it's talk about the afterlife there. So there's different opinions about that and I think there's room for different opinions about that.

Guest (Male): Thanks for the answer. Do you have any resource that explains the non-premillennial view of all the stuff like the angel preaching the gospel and the stuff that's supposedly all happened already?

Steve Gregg: Well there's my lectures. They're all free at matthew713.com which has a topical index of a whole bunch of calls about those kinds of things. There's also my book on hell. So those are resources. I mean there's other resources that aren't my own, but I certainly recommend my own on those.

Guest (Male): What's the specific topic that I could find for all the Revelation stuff?

Steve Gregg: How about my verse-by-verse lectures through Revelation? I've got verse-by-verse lectures through every book of the Bible at my website, so you can go to any passage you have question about, listen to my lecture. I go into great detail explaining all this stuff.

Guest (Male): Cool. Thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it.

Steve Gregg: All right. God bless you. Thanks for your call. Anonymous from Murrieta, California, just down the road from where I am. Hello.

Guest (Male): Hey, what's going on Steve?

Steve Gregg: Well what's going on is the clock is gone, we only have a few minutes. Go ahead.

Guest (Male): Real quick. I know that the Bible says that David couldn't build the temple because he was a man of bloodshed, so why would bloodshed and war disqualify him from building God's temple?

Steve Gregg: Yeah, that's a good question, especially since many of the wars he did he did at God's command and with God's blessing. In fact the wars that David conducted are sometimes in the Bible referred to as the wars of the Lord. And yet God told him, we only read of this in Chronicles, we don't read of it in the story of David and Samuel, but God did tell him that he wouldn't be building the temple though he wanted to because his hands had shed blood and he had been a man of war.

Well, this was not apparently a punishment, but God just felt it was an inappropriate thing. Different people are called to do different things. And a man whose vocation is bloodshed and warfare might be expected to be passed over for another person, a man of peace like Solomon, who would do a peacetime building project. I don't think we should understand that God is punishing David for that. I don't think David felt that God was rebuking him for that.

I think it's just saying the temple is not the same kind of a project than fighting wars. David came at a time at the end of the period of the judges where the Philistines were still oppressing Israel and there were other nations, the Moabites and others, still fighting with Israel and it was through David's efforts that the empire of Israel became established. Saul had been the king before but he never drove out the Philistines, he never really got these things done. David got these things done. And therefore at the end of David's reign the whole area had been pacified and he left a peaceful kingdom to his son Solomon who could now go about the business of establishing the religious building of the place. So it's just a different kind of project for a different kind of time. He had his son do it instead of him.

Anyway, I appreciate your call. Thank you for joining us today and all of you who've called. You've been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We are on Monday through Friday for an hour each day doing this same thing. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. The lectures I mentioned are all there for free. Verse-by-verse lectures through the whole Bible by yours truly, also many hundreds of topical lectures, also free. We are listener-supported. If you'd like to help us out, you can go to thenarrowpath.com and there's a donation link there too, but everything is free. Feel free to take it. Let's talk tomorrow.