The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon with an open phone line for you so you can call in if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith you'd like to discuss here on the air. Or if you have a difference of opinion from the host, you'd like to discuss that, this is the place to call. This is the number: 844-484-5737.

We have a couple of lines open, a good time to call therefore. The number is 844-484-5737 and we can, as I say, accommodate some of your calls right now. This coming Thursday, I'm speaking in a little town called Philomath, Oregon. If you live anywhere near there, it's sort of in the Philomath and Corvallis area, generally speaking. You can look at our website to see where that's going to be.

All of next week, starting Sunday next week and going on through the following Sunday, I'm speaking in various places in the general Greater Seattle area. I'm going to be one day, I think, actually up on Vancouver Island, so I won't be in Seattle then, but up in that extreme northern territory of the Northwest. Then on Monday, I guess that's two weeks from today, I'm speaking in Spokane at a church there.

Those are some things that you may be interested in. The locations are listed at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under announcements. Now, I'm also going to be passing through Idaho. This is a road trip itinerary and I'm driving home through Idaho and we have some possibilities of my speaking in Boise.

We haven't accepted any of them yet only because what we've heard so far is a relatively small venue. We might want to find a place with a slightly larger venue. If somebody has a venue that holds 30 or more people, perhaps, I mean we may not have that many, but we'd want to have at least that capacity, either a big living room or some little church room or something. If you want to set something up, that's going to be like I think maybe the 17th approximately of June.

What day will that really be? Yeah, it'd be in Boise on the 17th really, or possibly the 18th. Those would be possible times. If you want to get in touch with us, feel free to do that. You can do that through our Facebook page, Steve Gregg The Narrow Path, or you can do that if you have our email address at our website, thenarrowpath.com, at the bottom of the page. You can contact us.

That's a couple of weeks off, actually about two and a half weeks off, but if you're in the Boise area and want to set something up, get in touch with me. Again, we do have some people who've offered something and we may just end up accepting that. We haven't accepted it yet because they're small venues, but if something larger comes up, we'll take that. Otherwise, we'll accept the smaller venue. So, I'll be passing through and speaking in Boise around the 17th or 18th of June. All right, those things are on the table now. Let's go to the phone and talk to Stephen from Jacksonville, Florida. Hi Stephen, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Stephen: Hi Steve. Thanks for your labor. I've heard now multiple dispensationalists, including the ones on your YouTube discussion over the weekend, quote, I think it's Zechariah, "They will look on him whom they have pierced." But they quote it as though that's not happened yet. But John 19 makes me think that it's happened with John 19:36 and 37. "For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled: 'Not one of his bones will be broken.' And again another scripture says, 'They will look on him whom they have pierced.'" Do you know how they get around that particular line?

Steve Gregg: Well, I think what they would say, now I agree with you, I believe that has been fulfilled. I believe the actual looking on him who was pierced and mourning over him took place on the day of Pentecost because it says in Zechariah that he'll pour out the spirit upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem. That's what happened at the day of Pentecost.

But you're right, John 19 talks about how when John himself watched Jesus die, and especially when he saw the water and blood come out of his side when he was pierced on the cross, it quotes this verse from Zechariah. Also, Revelation alludes to this verse in Zechariah in Revelation chapter 1.

Some would say, well, it was therefore fulfilled, they looked upon him whom they had pierced at the cross when Jesus was on the cross. That would be a way to look at it that I don't know if anyone could disprove. But someone who was of another mind, let's say a dispensationalist, might say, well, when Jesus comes back, they'll look upon him and it does describe him as one who is pierced.

His being pierced on the cross fulfilled that aspect of the prophecy, the fact that he was pierced. They would say, okay, he was pierced on the cross, but later they will look upon him who was pierced and they would say that's at the second coming of Christ. I don't believe that's the best interpretation from the context of those chapters of Zechariah. Very few Christians I've met seem to know anything about the context of those chapters of Zechariah, so they just assume they're about the end times.

Stephen: I see. Thank you, brother. Have a good one.

Steve Gregg: All right, Stephen. Good talking to you. Thanks for your call. Matthew in New Jersey, welcome to The Narrow Path.

Matthew: Hey Steve. Thanks for taking the call. God bless you. You've probably been asked about this before. I'm embarrassed to ask it, for some in the energy. 1 Samuel chapter 15, verse 3. It's kind of a tough verse for me to stomach. It's when the command is given from Samuel or to Samuel about Amalek. Yes, the infants, the children. I'm my curiosity is why did the children, the infants, you know, in Matthew 18:3, Jesus speaks to the innocence of children. I'm just struggling with why did they have to die?

Steve Gregg: Well, they had to die because they're mortal, just like you and I have to die. Everyone dies at a different age. There's no reason to believe that those who die younger are somehow guilty of greater sin than those who die older. There's no accounting for the age that someone has to die at based only on how much bad they've done.

Here's something that we have to understand. Modern people are very often offended when they read about these kinds of things where the Canaanites and in this case the Amalekites had to be completely wiped out, men, women, and children. People say, well, what did the children do that had to be wiped out? Well, I don't think they did anything, frankly. I don't think a child that dies of cancer today or gets falls in a swimming pool and drowns, or is attacked by a vicious pitbull and killed. I don't think a child deserves that and I don't think they did anything in particular to be worthy of that.

But the one absolute fact of human existence is that all will die in one way or another at some time or another. Now, we might say, but it's not right for them to die so young. Well, we don't know. We don't know. When someone dies, we might think, well, they wish they'd been around a few more years. Yeah, but we don't know what God knows.

It's very possible that the same child would have had some very horrible things happen in his life at a later age. It's also very possible that whereas when a child dies in infancy, I believe they're saved. I believe they go to heaven. Whereas if these same children had grown up in a pagan world, they probably when they would die, which they inevitably would anyway at a later date, they might die much less prepared to see God.

Now, I'm not trying to sugarcoat this. It's an ugly thing whenever anyone dies and especially we hate it when innocent people die. It happens all the time. Innocent people are killed by criminals, they are killed in accidents, they're killed in war, they're killed in lots of different ways and that's one of the ugly realities of a fallen world.

But the one silver lining around that dark cloud is that people may die on good terms with God and that's really in the end all that's going to matter. Because even if these children had not been died in infancy, as many children do by the way, they would be dead long ago now. Thousands of years ago they would be dead and they'd be culpable to stand before God.

So the real question is not why did a person die at such and such an age and would it have been better for them to die at a different age? I've never known a really good age to lose your loved ones. I think death is a nasty thing but everyone, as innocent as children and even innocent adults, good people, harmless people, loving people, they still die. Everyone dies, it's inevitable, it's because we're mortals.

So children die various ways. In this case, they died in war. Now we might say, well that wasn't a good choice on God's part because they shouldn't be killed in war. Well, actually I'd prefer children not be killed in any way. Lots of children unfortunately are killed in war and other horrible things, diseases and accidents and so forth, criminal behavior. Lots of children, abortions, millions of children are killed by abortion.

It's amazing how many people complain about God because he ordered the slaughter of men, women, and children of the Canaanites thousands of years ago, but they don't have any outcry about modern Americans killing a million babies a year through abortion. I don't understand where the double standard is.

But the truth is when people kill innocent people, unless of course it's God's doing, then they are guilty before God. Now the Israelites were not guilty for doing this because this was the judgment of God on that whole nation. We could say, well why didn't he just kill the men and women and leave the children? To do what? What would the children do? They didn't have social services back then in those societies. They didn't have orphanages and I don't think God's purpose for Israel to simply make them a huge Canaanite or Amalekite orphanage. I mean, they had their own children to raise and so forth.

It might sound heartless, but sometimes if you avoid saying things that sound heartless, you avoid saying anything that makes any sense. What makes sense is this: any child who was killed in war in the Canaanite wars or the Amalekite wars or World War I or World War II or any wars ever, those children they died innocent. And one of the best things you can hope for is that you die innocent because you're going to die. You're going to die one way or another, there's no avoiding that. You're going to die and if you can die innocent, you're much to be envied because God knows who's innocent and who's not.

So dying on good terms with God is not a tragedy. It's a tragedy to those who are left behind but these children didn't have any people left behind. Their parents were killed too. Why should the children have to go through the suffering of being orphans with no one to take care of them? I don't have any, I'm not trying to whitewash this, people might think I am. I'm just talking sensibly here. When people say that what I'm saying isn't correct, they're not thinking sensibly, they're thinking emotionally and there's nothing wrong with emotions as long as they don't cloud out your good sense.

But the truth is when a whole population is wiped out, generally speaking, the children are wiped out too. And this we have to realize this. Some people think that this is like jihad. This is like the Muslims killing off all the unbelievers. No, there was no jihad in the Old Testament. There was no command to kill off all unbelievers. There was no attempt to convert people at the edge of the sword, which jihad seeks to do.

For the most part, God allowed all unbelievers to be unbelievers and live out their lives and die and go to hell or whatever they're going to do, whatever's going to happen to them. With two exceptions: the Canaanites and the Amalekites. These were two special groups of people that were so wicked that God said, it's time for their whole family line to be eliminated. It's time for their whole ethnicity to be taken off the earth. It's like removing a cancer from a body.

Now, that's how God viewed it. We could say God wasn't right, although I would never say such a thing. But some people do and what's interesting to me, and you're not necessarily saying this, you're just asking a question, which is fine, but there are people who think that they are in a position to judge God about these things and to say, "Hey, God was wrong to do that, that wasn't just."

Well, actually God is actually just. He could wipe out everybody at once. In fact, he did that in the flood once and that included men, women, and children too. He did that in Sodom when he sent fire and brimstone. And someday he's going to do that too of a very large portion of the people of the earth, the ones who aren't saved. This is God's business to do.

He's the judge of the universe and he's the one who decides that if he allows a certain society to continue, it's going to be bad for everybody. Just like I said, leaving a cancerous tumor in a body is bad for the body. And God is a better judge of that than anybody.

So I mean, if someone says, "Well, God shouldn't have done that," I'm going to ask them, "What time do you think those children should have died?" They're going to die, so you don't think they should have died that day, although God said they should. What day would you have had them die that would be much nicer to them?

I think people sometimes live in the denial of the idea that we're going to die. All of us are going to die. Many of us will die maybe not those listening to me right now but possibly any of you might die tonight or today. I could. So, you know, that's just reality. Babies die sadly, women die sadly, men do. It's very seldom a happy thing when people die, but it's not something that God has to answer for. Man dies because he's a sinner and if someone dies who hasn't committed any sins yet, like a baby, well, they die on good terms with God, which was what everyone should hope for for themselves. I'm not sure why those children got the benefit of going to heaven without having to go through all the trials of this earth and possibly the tests of being wicked and dying in wickedness.

So I mean, I've never found God in a compromised position there or needing to give me an answer about those things. I believe God always does the right thing and there are people who are not convinced of that and they're pretty sure they always do the right thing, or at least they always know what the right thing is and God doesn't. Frankly, given a choice between God being all-knowing and wise and the critics being all-knowing and wise, I'll vote for God every time. Most of those critics are pretty wicked people in their private lives anyway in many ways. God never has done anything wicked. He only does what is good for all. So that's my view.

Matthew? Looks like he's not there. Okay, Don from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Don: Thank you for taking my call, Steve. You've mentioned several times about being the teacher in a Christian school and I've been looking at that kind of a ministry for a number of years now where it's both discipleship and also musical training. I was just curious how did you start the school? Was it from scratch and was it a tuition-based school or was it more by faith or just was curious the nature of and how big the school was.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, well our school was very small and I did start from scratch more than one, more than one school. They were all small, about 25 students, 20 to 25 students. The shorter schools were about 25 students usually or 30 and the longer schools were more like 20 students. So it's pretty small, but they're residential groups.

Now, how did it happen? I don't want to bore you with a long story, but it is kind of interesting because most people don't think of these kinds of things happening this way. To me, it's been kind of normal for most of my life. When I was in my early 20s, somebody came to me and said, "Hey, I've got a piece of property. We're going to run a school there. I want you to do the teaching." And he said, "I'll do the administration, you just do the teaching."

And this person was running a coffee house in Santa Cruz where a lot of people were getting saved and so these were high school students, but we thought we'd have a summer program when they're out of school and just teach all day the Bible. And we had 25 people come the first time in this facility that was given.

The next year I had to get another facility, had many of the same students come back to take the other part of the Bible I taught through it in a summer time and then I did that a third time and that's when I was in Santa Cruz. But I just had to acquire facilities which in those days was a little easier. You just rent a big house and you know, pack people into the rooms and bunk beds and stuff like that and have classes and meals and that's all you do all day.

But then when I was older, like in my 30s, no, how old was I? Yeah, I was in my 30s. Somebody, a very wealthy person, had purchased a campus in Oregon on the coast in Bandon that had been a military prep school but had been empty for a long time. And this person who came to my Bible studies all the time said, "Hey, I bought this campus. You want to have a school there?"

I said, "Okay." So I moved up there. I was a Calvary Chapel Santa Cruz in those days, an elder there, and some of the other people, deacons and their families and stuff moved up with them. We started a school in Bandon and we called it The Great Commission School. And we just recruited students. I was teaching also in Youth With A Mission various places, so people would hear me teach there and they'd want to come to my school. People from the church wanted to come.

So we ran the school for six years in Bandon and then that property had to be sold and another donor came up and offered us another property. So we kept it going in a new location in McMinnville, Oregon for 10 more years. So now in that school, that was a nine-month school and I just taught through the whole Bible there in nine months. Every year different students came and we, they'd live there. We'd go through the Bible.

I did recruit some other teachers to help with some of the books eventually, but I started out as the only teacher. And you know, so did that for 16 years, really. Now, I didn't receive any money for it because there was a facility donated. I received free room and board because all the students ate at the dining hall and so I was able to do that too.

But yeah, there was no salary for me or anyone else who worked there. And yeah, but I've always lived by faith even before I had the school. I still did during the running school. And that school closed in 1999 and I moved out of Oregon at that time. So that's what I did.

Now, there were no degrees offered or anything, it was not accredited, but people were able to well, the lectures from that school are on our website. You know, if you want to listen to the verse-by-verse lectures through the whole Bible, those were mostly originally taught in our classrooms. And it's a pretty good Bible education if you want to if you can sit through it.

But yeah, I didn't teach music. I mean, we didn't teach anything except Bible. That's all we did. It was like an intensive, intensive nine-month immersion in the Bible with exposition verse by verse through the whole thing. So that's what we did. Haven't done that for a while, but pretty intensive.

What's that? Oh yeah, there was no tuition. There was no tuition. We, I can't charge for the ministry. That is my convictions won't let me charge for the ministry, never have. So the teaching was free. I did it as a volunteer full-time. And we did charge something for room and board. Believe it or not, we had bunk rooms and stuff. We provided three square meals a day and a place to stay and utilities paid, and it was $200 a month per student for room and board and that's because that was about what it cost us.

Don: That's very helpful. I appreciate that. I just had one other question with your book "Empire of the Risen Son". If I were to buy it from Amazon, should I get the two-volume set or buy them individually? Are they different or is it just the same?

Steve Gregg: Same book. You can get them as separate volumes or both in one book. The two-volume set is a little bit I mean, when there's when you get two books, the print's a little larger, but they're the same content inside. It'd be cheaper if you're going to get if you're going to get both of them, it's cheaper to buy the single volume with both in there.

Don: Right. Okay. Thank you very much, Steve. Appreciate that.

Steve Gregg: All right, Don. God bless you. Thanks for calling. Max from the Bronx, New York. Hi Max, welcome.

Max: Hey Steve. How everything? You're doing an amazing job. All praise to God. Real quick question pertaining to a friend of mine. Interesting conversation, question she asked me. I gave her what I thought but I figured let me ask you. It pertains to she saw a YouTube video where there was a woman who was murdered. The daughter sought out one of these people who were clairvoyant or precognition, whatever you call it. I don't know if it was tarot card but in any event they were able to predict precisely where the body was. True story, right? So the girls they went, they found it and so after she saw this thing she asked me, does God allow for people to provide that kind of information or or no, we shouldn't deal with people like that who could predict the future or see things, we shouldn't go to these people. What is your perception on that?

Steve Gregg: Yeah, well actually the Bible speaks directly to that in Deuteronomy chapter 18 where God says that he doesn't want his people, that'd be Israel in that case, seeking supernatural guidance or supernatural information from anywhere except from him. Now, he doesn't always provide it, he does when he wants to and other times he's, you know, he's not going to you can't just kind of coax something out of him that he doesn't have any good reason to give the information out.

But in telling them this, he said this in verse 10 of Deuteronomy 18, "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire," that has to do with Moloch worship, "or one who practices witchcraft or a soothsayer or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer or one who conjures spells or a medium or a spiritist or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out before you."

He then says in verse 15 God will raise up another prophet to you like Moses instead of these soothsayers. A similar passage is found also in Leviticus but mainly the same information. God doesn't want his people going to occult sources. Now, it's not because God is totally against us having the kind of information that might come from such, he just doesn't want us going to them for that because apparently it's a demonic thing.

I mean, when someone who's a spiritist or medium knows something that is unknowable to them naturally, if it's not something God is revealing to one of his prophets, I believe the Bible indicates it's the enemy, it's the devil. Now you might say, well why would the devil give information that's helpful? Well, some people think the devil's just all about hurting people. The devil's all about deceiving people.

He doesn't care if you have a good life or a painful life. He doesn't care if you're wealthy or sick, he doesn't care about that. Why should the devil care about that? He knows you're going to die. What he wants you to do is die deceived about God and about the nature of spiritual reality.

And so, you know, he's glad to have people come over to his side by going to his agents who also do have access to supernatural information if they're in touch with demonic powers. He likes us to go to the demons instead of to God. And so, you know, sometimes the devil will allow us to have information that is just what we're looking for, we might say it's good. But the thing that's not good about it is it makes us convinced that we it's okay to go to those sources instead of to God and that's pretty much the problem with it.

Hey, I need to take a break. I appreciate your call, brother. You're listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming up so don't go away. We will be back in about 30 seconds and we have another half hour so keep calling in: 844-484-5737.

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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. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, you have a disagreement with the host, want to talk about that, the number to call is 844-484-5737. I'm looking at two open lines on our switchboard. That's a good opportunity for you: 844-484-5737. All right, our next caller is Mo from Abbotsford, British Columbia. Hi Mo, welcome.

Mo: Thanks Steve. I think you have an awesome program by the way. Thank you. Yeah, I was just listening to the previous caller there talking about the devil. I thought the devil was he's in the pit. I didn't think he does he have that kind of power in this time and age?

Steve Gregg: Yeah, oh yeah. I mean if you get out of America and go to pagan lands, you'll find there's a great deal of sorcery and all kinds of things that the devil is able to get things done, bad things to people.

Mo: Does the devil actually communicate with demons in the pit or how does that work?

Steve Gregg: Well, see I don't believe Satan's literally in a pit. I realize that you're referring to the fact that in Revelation 20, Satan is chained or well actually a dragon is chained representing it's a symbol of Satan. The dragon is bound with a chain and put into a pit and so forth for a thousand years, which I believe does represent what happened to Satan when Jesus came.

But it's an image that's conveying the idea that Christ has conquered Satan and that Satan does not have the freedom to deceive people like he used to have. Now the freedom to deceive used to be absolute. Satan used to have the whole world as his oyster. But Jesus came and has now sent the truth through the missionaries of the gospel to all nations.

Now, Satan still deceives people, but he can't deceive the whole world anymore. He can't deceive the whole national entity like everyone who was not Israel in the Old Testament were pagans. That's not true anymore. Lots of people who are everywhere in the world have now come to Christ, so Satan has not been able to stop them.

The binding of a dragon with a chain in a bottomless pit, these are images that are conveying something very similar to what Jesus conveyed when he said that he had bound the strong man in Matthew 12, I think it's verse 28 or 29. He said he had bound the strong man and was plundering his house. Well, the strong man was Satan.

And yet, even though Jesus said he had done this, he had bound the strong man, the devil still doing all kinds of stuff including later filling Judas and deceiving him and the devil's done a lot of things. He filled the heart of Ananias.

Mo: All the wars that we've had over the millennium.

Steve Gregg: Yeah. Well, in 2 Thessalonians, talking about the man of lawlessness, which there's many opinions about what the man of lawlessness is, but certainly he refers to something in this present, in the church age as opposed to ancient Old Testament history.

And it says about the man of lawlessness, it says in verse 9 of 2 Thessalonians 2, "The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved." And so yeah, so Satan gives this this entity signs and lying wonders and powers. So yeah, the devil does have powers.

Mo: I follow history quite a bit and I look back in the 1400s and the 1500s and 1600s where the Assyrians were attacking Hungary and they're invading inside of Europe and these were peaceful people. These were Christian people that they're not aggressive at all, but these these invaders were very aggressive.

How would I respond to that? Because Jesus says turn the other cheek, Jesus says love your neighbor as yourself. How do you respond when you have like right now if we were invaded in our country? I mean, I don't know how to respond because Jesus said what he said and I don't know if he means a country or he's only talking about personal.

Steve Gregg: Well, let me try to answer that. It's not a simple question because different cases have different features. And you know, Christians are supposed to follow one basic law and all the law and the prophets hang on that one law, and that is love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Now, in different circumstances, loving your neighbor looks differently. For example, if my next-door neighbor has always been mean and rude to me, and he borrows my stuff and breaks it and doesn't give it back, and he's just a bad neighbor. I'm supposed to still do good to him. I'm supposed to pray for him, I'm supposed to bless those who curse me and so forth and love my enemy.

But if that same neighbor breaks into my house in the middle of the night with a knife and he's planning to kill somebody who's in my house, well, I'm also supposed to love my neighbors who live in my house with me, you know. I'm not just supposed to love the bad guy, I've got to love the good guys too.

And now it's between the choice is do I do something that will please this bad guy or do I do something that is for the benefit of the good guys? Now, when you take the side of righteousness against evil, you're on the side of justice and God's a God of justice. You want to show mercy as much as you can, but there's times when you know, if you show mercy to a bad guy, you're showing harsh cruelty to their victims.

So love your neighbor as you love yourself, or even love your enemy as Jesus said, doesn't mean that you would never resist your enemy in a situation where others are in danger. You quoted Jesus saying turn the other cheek, but of course he's talking about if someone strikes you on the cheek. He didn't say if somebody strikes somebody else on the cheek, I'm supposed to what, turn my cheek to that?

What Jesus is trying to tell his disciples to do is to continue to love people even if they're aggressive and nasty to you. But that doesn't mean that you have no interest in justice toward your fellow man. I mean, obviously, like a judge on the bench, if he sends a mass murderer to prison or to be electrified the electric chair, we might say well that's not very loving, that criminal doesn't want that.

Yeah, that criminal doesn't want that, but he's asked for it by his behavior. And and by the way, his victims didn't like what he did either and other victims, future victims, wouldn't much like what he'd do to them if he's let go. I mean, the judge has to out of love for the generality of humanity, out of love for the innocent and the helpless, he's got to do something harsh toward the criminal.

Now, if that criminal happened to be his own son who went bad and became a mass murderer, the judge has to show the same harshness to him. He doesn't not love his son, of course he loves his son, but he's got to do what's good for others. He's got to do the just thing. And God's no different than that and neither is a Christian.

You know, it's not our place to go judge the world, but if somebody breaks into your house and you're the defender of your children and your wife, then that's your province, that's where you're supposed to do something. And the law of Moses, which of course said you shall not murder, included in it the law, I think it's in chapter 22 of Exodus, could be in chapter 23, but it says if somebody breaks into your house at night and the intruder gets killed by the homeowner in the night, then no bloodshed, that is no retribution, shall be executed on the homeowner.

Now, that's not true in California perhaps, but but in a just society, which is what God was trying to create in Israel, if the homeowner defends his house and the intruder gets killed in the process, the Bible says there will be no punishment to the homeowner. And then it says, however, if the intruder gets away and the daylight has come and if the homeowner then hunts him down and kills him, you know, the next day, well then then the homeowner will be put to death because you're not allowed to go and kill somebody because they broke into your house the previous night.

But the assumption was if he's in your house, it's nighttime, they didn't even you couldn't just throw a light switch, everything's in the dark, the homeowner's in there defending his family and, you know, the intruder gets killed. Well, he asked for it, really, by getting he shouldn't have come in there. And that's how the Bible sees it. It's just for good people to defend innocent people.

Now, I said it's a complex and nuanced thing because this when it comes to, for example, war, Christians always have argued about this. Should Christians fight in war? Well, in most cases when you're at war, it's hard to preserve the justice of the situation because you know, if you're going to take out a whole village, you know, you might be hurting the innocent with the with the combatants, the non-combatants with them.

Now, someone was asking about Canaan the Canaanite wars and the Amalekite wars in the previous half hour. Those are special because God ordered the extermination of those races. That was just like him sending fire and brimstone on Sodom. It was a judgment on those nations. But in modern wars, we don't have God telling us to go wipe out nations. We don't have God giving commands to our generals or to our president at all.

So you know, it's complicated. But it's not so complicated in my mind in a situation where there is an innocent party clearly being attacked wrongfully and unjustly by a malicious person and a Christian standing by has the opportunity to intervene. I think that a Christian should love all people including the attacker and should probably hope to preserve the attacker's life if possible.

But if it was came down if it came down to it, there's no way that the life of the innocent would be saved without taking out completely the the attacker. I think the Christian would be in a position to have to do what he wouldn't prefer to do, and that is to even even to kill to save a life, to save lives.

Maybe if it was my life at stake, I'm not sure what I would do. I've often thought that rather than kill an attacker, I'd rather I mean, I'm ready to go be with Jesus. So dying is not a tragedy for me. I've never thought it would be a tragedy to go see Jesus. Since I was 16 years old, I've been eager for it, in fact. But you know, but it's not a matter of preserving your own life here. It's a matter of preserving other innocent people. And that'd be different different principles would be in play, I would think.

Mo: All right, brother. Thanks for your call.

Steve Gregg: Let's talk to Angela from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Hi Angela, welcome.

Angela: Hi. Thank you. I am extremely nervous. I've listened to you now for probably over a year. I catch your radio program the day after it airs and I listen on YouTube as I'm working around the house. And so I've got a question. I did what you've recommended. I have it written down but it includes a couple sentences of preface. Should I give you the question or can I?

Steve Gregg: Go ahead. Go ahead and if it takes a couple of sentences, go ahead and give those. But make it really a couple, go ahead.

Angela: Okay. So basically I was like you, I grew up dispensational because that's what I was taught. And so whenever I would read through scripture, that was the lens through which I would view everything. And I eventually even became an ultra-dispensationalist back about 10 years ago. Yes, a Bullingerite.

And it was through that that I was in a couple Facebook groups and we would kind of debate back and forth. And it was a good time because it got me to think. I'm very analytical. And so I started asking myself questions and studying some more and realized not only was hyper-dispensationalism wrong, I believe dispensationalism period is wrong.

So I would put myself where you do. I see the church as a fulfillment of what Israel was in the beginning to where, you know, they had a purpose to bring forth the Messiah, that's been fulfilled. The remnant, the believers in Israel and the believers now are one body together.

So we attend a Southern Baptist church and our Sunday school class is going through a study in Luke. And we have a small little booklet from what's called Life Guide Bible Studies. And next Sunday is Luke 21. And I don't have to tell you, you know what that's about mostly.

Yes, Olivet Discourse. And so all of the the little booklet has different questions to consider and it's presenting everything obviously, you know, most Southern Baptist churches are going to be dispensational. It's presenting everything from a futurist perspective.

So I the type person I am, I love discussion, I love talking about things, but I'm wondering first, should I even broach the subject of there being an alternative viewpoint? And if I do and they just say, "Well, you know, we believe, you know, when they asked about the temple and Jesus said, you know, there wasn't going to be one stone left upon another that, yes, that happened then, but we see it also as a future fulfillment." Would there be a good response to that or should I just keep quiet and not bring anything up for discussion?

Steve Gregg: Well, I I wouldn't say anything that would bring contention. If they don't mind hearing I mean, for you to make a suggestion but not to hang onto it like a dog with a bone, you know. If they if they give you pushback, which they will, then I don't see anything wrong I don't see anything wrong with that.

The truth is the answer they give you will not be a good one and you'll see that immediately and you'll and an answer to them will come to your mind. I would not get it into a brawl or, you know, an unpleasant or threatening or a threatening discussion at all.

But you know, you might just say even if there are some pass even if there are some prophecies in the Bible which were fulfilled a long time ago and which also have a future fulfillment. In other words, if there's what we might call a double fulfillment of a prophecy.

Right. We don't know which ones those are unless we're told by the Bible itself. You know, I mean we do know we do know that, you know, the prophecy about, you know, the virgin child was in a sense fulfilled in Isaiah chapter 8 with Isaiah's own child, but we know it also had a fulfillment in Jesus in Matthew chapter 1. Because the Bible tells us so.

You know, when there's a Bible prophecy that is fulfilled, we would have no reason to look for another fulfillment unless the Bible tells us look for another one. And it does in it does in a few cases, but in most cases it doesn't.

So when the Bible tells us the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem, well he was. Do we expect him to be born in Bethlehem again? No, of course not. When the Bible says he would be crucified, well he was. Do we expect him to be crucified again? Of course not. There's not a double fulfillment to these.

The only ones that we would would be able to say there's a double fulfillment would be if after the first fulfillment, we have something from scripture saying there's going to be another one because ordinarily a prediction that is now fulfilled has done its duty and there's no objective reason for anyone to say, "Well, I want there to be another one."

And the question is does Jesus in the Olivet Discourse, does he give evidence of there being another one? Now, as you pointed out, the discourse begins with the disciples well, Jesus mentions the temple will be destroyed. It was in 70 AD, that's 40 years after they asked the question. So he gave them an answer and it's a very good answer. It happened exactly the way he said it would happen.

And then in verse 20, of course, which is after he's given a lot of his answer, he says, "But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near." Okay, so did they? Was Jerusalem surrounded by armies? It looks like they did. So then he says then those who are in Judea flee to the mountains and let those who are in the midst of her depart. They did. That did happen. The Jewish church fled from Jerusalem and went to Pella across the Jordan.

And so this all happened. And then but we don't have anything that says and once it has happened, this is all going to happen all over again later in the end times. The Bible gives us no basis for thinking that.

Angela: My guess is and this is just speculation because we haven't had the lesson yet, that'll be this Sunday. My speculation is that they will probably not have a problem with everything you said because that's basically the information that I would give. My speculation is that they're going to have pushback anything to do where Jesus talks about his coming. Like verse 27.

Yeah. And so, you know, like in Matthew 24, I think it's verse 36 where he says, "But of that day and hour, no one knows." And I kind of see that as a delineation right there where that's the breaking line. I do too. I do too. In Luke 21, it's a little bit more difficult except that it still does have, I forget which verse, you could probably tell me off the top of your head, maybe 34? I don't remember, I don't have the Bible in front of me right now. "This generation will not pass?"

Exactly. That's right. Exactly. That's verse 32, yeah. That, you know, seems to be pretty clear. I mean, that's in Matthew as well. Yeah. I think so. I think so. But they're going to wonder, of course, how is it that verse 27, which comes before the statement about this generation will not pass before all these things are fulfilled. In verse 27 says, "Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."

Now, when you see these things begin to happen, look look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near. Right. And of course, redemption can mean numerous things. We've already been redeemed. Paul also refers to the redemption of the body in Romans 8, which probably means the resurrection.

And who knows it may be that because the church was in Jerusalem so persecuted by the synagogue and by the Sanhedrin and so forth, that the destruction of their enemies who had been persecuting them from the time that the church began and now ends, that they're redeemed out of that that problem. It's hard to say.

But the point is that at the two verses later or three whatever number of verses later, Jesus said, "This generation will not pass till all these things occur." That's that's the governing verse that tells us when the fulfillment of these things is. It's in that generation.

And now, of course, what they may say is, well, generation means a race of people. You may have heard that one. This race will not pass. Yeah. Which I have and then they point to people and mention this generation and it was clear it was those to whom he was speaking.

Yeah, whenever Jesus talks about this generation, he's talking about an actual generation of people living at a given time. And same thing, I think with Matthew. But the point here is that the burden of proof would be on them, I would say, to say that there's no sense in which those verses in verses say 25 through 28 can be said to have occurred before 70 AD.

If you're looking for an actual visible appearing of Christ in the sky, then I do not think that that did happen. I don't think that that did happen then. But I believe but most Christians have never studied the prophets enough to know what apocalyptic imagery is. And therefore like Isaiah 19:1? Exactly.

Yeah, so so that'd be the thing. Do you have my book "Revelation: Four Views, A Parallel Commentary"? I don't. I've heard you mention that and then the "Hell: Three Christian Views". I really need to get those. Or the "Why Not Full Preterism?" I think that'd be great also.

Well, the "Why Not Full Preterism?" book has two chapters on the Olivet Discourse. I go through I put all three versions of Matthew, Mark, and Luke side-by-side in columns. I go verse by verse, explain every paragraph and all the, you know, all the differences and all the sameness and how it fits in the conversation. So it's a very extensive treatment of the Olivet Discourse in that book.

Angela: Yeah, you treat everything extensively, which someone like me, I get and I love it because like I said, I am very analytical and sometimes I've been accused of overthinking things. So I totally understand.

Steve Gregg: Well, Angela, it's a pleasure talking to you. I'm looking at the clock and we have some people waiting to go on and I only have few minutes. God bless you.

Angela: Oh absolutely. It's a pleasure talking to you. I hope this won't be the last time. But thank you, sir, for your time and for your devotion and all the years you've put into your study and your work. It's been a blessing I know to many.

Steve Gregg: Well, thank you. And have a great evening. I'm going to take another call before we run out of time and that's going to be James from Hartford, Connecticut. James, welcome.

James: Hi Steve. It's James here. So I've been on with you a couple times and, you know, you tell me things and I do them. So I read your I had some questions. I read your bio and I was hearing about the Calvary Chapel that Calvary Chapel and I was just listening to some Christian music from the 70s and they were talking about it in and I just wanted to ask you what are the repercussions throughout of this Calvary Chapel for the modern Christian community in the USA?

Steve Gregg: Well, it wasn't just Calvary Chapel, but it was the Jesus movement or, you know, a movie came out a couple years ago called The Jesus Revolution. And we didn't usually call it that, though Time Magazine called it The Jesus Revolution at the time, this back in the early 70s.

We called it the Jesus movement and I was at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa which is the pretty much the hub of the movement, at least the larger part of the movement. The movement was taking place independently in other parts of the world and other parts of the country. But Calvary Chapel, I think, was the biggest the biggest hub and and that's where most of the Christian music came, not all of it.

Chuck Smith was a major leader there. And then of course Calvary Chapel, which was a single church at that time, eventually had daughter churches till I think there's about 1,400 of them around the world now and it's a big denomination now. What ramifications did it have? Well, there are there are things.

Before the Jesus movement, going to church was kind of a formal affair. I grew up in the Baptist church and, you know, you're supposed to kind of dress nicely to go to church. It was kind of in many cases it was a little traditional and stodgy and, you know, the music was organ music and sung from the hymns. By the way, which I love. I love the hymns. I don't know if I love organ music, but I love the hymns. I wish all churches sang the hymns now.

But what happened in the Jesus movement was a bunch of hippies got saved and some of them were musicians. They started writing spontaneously writing songs of worship and appreciation about Jesus and these became the songs of the movement and bands formed to play them and to record them and things like that.

But also, Chuck Smith just he kind of broke a certain ceiling of formality when he allowed hippies to come to church without them dressing up well, he let them come with their bare feet and their Levis and their long hair and things like that, which might not seem strange to us today. But church in America just didn't that you didn't do that in those days.

That's what really broke through. So among the things that have been repercussions of it that have been lasting would be those kinds of things. People now can go to church as they are, no one thinks anything of it. The music is more contemporary. But I'm not sure that those are really altogether good things. I mean, they're not bad, they're not bad things.

I mean, that's not really what you hope for from a revival. But what happened was thousands of people, tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of young people got saved. And while some of them never went on, you know, permanently with the Lord because a crowd draws a crowd, you know, so there was this dynamic that people kept coming because so many people had already come.

But there are still tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who were saved because of it. Some of them have become pastors and missionaries and Christian educators and or just Christian parents and things like that. So I mean, a lot of people got saved who probably wouldn't have.

But most of the distinctives of the movement that are you know, really aren't with us so much anymore. I mean, they may pop up here and there in different towns for a little while, little revivals and stuff. But for the most part, that that revival came and went and what it left behind were mainly cultural differences that hadn't been there before.

But there's there's a lot of Calvary Chapels out there and some of them are growing very large and, you know, doing a lot of work. But there's other churches too besides Calvary that have benefited from it. Anyway, that's a short course. I'm out of time. I hope that's helpful. You're listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.