The Narrow Path 07/15/2026

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon taking your phone calls through the whole hour. You can call in with questions you have about the Bible or the Christian faith. You can call in with differences of opinion you have with the host; we'll be glad to talk to you about those as well. We have some lines open at the moment. If you want to call right now, this is a good time to get through. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. And I don't think I have any announcements to make today that I can think of, so we'll just go to the phone lines and talk to Christina in Oxnard, California. Hi, Christina. Welcome.
Christina: Yes, hi. Can you hear me?
Steve Gregg: Yes, ma'am.
Christina: I am doomed. I guess God came to me in 2017 and only stayed for two years. He told me to get rid of the internet and stop smoking cigarettes. I couldn't quite do either, even though I struggled back and forth. Then His spirit left me in 2019. Then I prayed as hard as I could for Him to come back. He seemed to come back two or three months later, and I was glad, but then He said, "Your hatred of yourself is really a hatred of God," and I was really perplexed. And then He told me—
Steve Gregg: Let me stop you there. I don't know if I can hear the whole story, but that was not God speaking to you. Why do you think it was?
Christina: Well, because it sure did seem like it. It was this huge spirit.
Steve Gregg: The way you know if God is speaking to you or not is by what He says. God will not speak to you and say things that are nonsense or contrary to what His word is. But the devil will. There's also demons. God is known to sometimes communicate with people, but so are demons. You know the difference by what they say. In 1 John 4:1, it says, "Don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world." It says that you know the spirit of God by what it says. What the Holy Spirit says is about Christ. I don't believe God has ever come to anyone and said, "You're in trouble because you're smoking cigarettes." Now, I do believe that sometimes if a person is a Christian walking with God and they smoke cigarettes, God might convict them of that and might tell them, "This is the next battle you've got to fight and get over. You've got to get rid of those." But the Bible doesn't actually say that smoking cigarettes is even specifically a sin. I think it's a foolish thing to do, but I don't know that it's sinful. But the point is, if God came to your life, He's going to reveal Himself and Christ to you. He's not going to come and talk about stuff like whether you're smoking or not.
Christina: Well, it was fear. All I could do was talk about the fear of God.
Steve Gregg: Talked to who about it? Who did you talk to about it?
Christina: Internet people.
Steve Gregg: Maybe that's why God wants you off the internet. I think it's a good idea to get off the internet, but I don't think God was coming to give you an ultimatum. God does direct His people, and if they're doing something they shouldn't do, He may very well convict them of that and say, "This is something you need to stop doing." But it's not going to be the basis of His relationship with them. In other words, if you say, "Well, I tried to stop smoking, I tried to get off the internet, but I just couldn't get off and so God just left me," God doesn't leave you because of that kind of stuff. He'll keep working on you. Have you ever been a disciple or a follower of Jesus Christ?
Christina: I was trying to, but the second day that that spirit came, He said I was going to hell and I did not receive the love of the truth. That was seven years ago, and I became a drunk. And then I cursed Him and I yelled at heaven and cursed Him for leaving me and abandoning me. I've been so miserable for seven years.
Steve Gregg: I'll tell you this too. More recently, you say God told you that you need to stop, that you need to love yourself more, things like that. That's actually not anything God tells people to do. Jesus said, "If you want to come to me, deny yourself." Forget about yourself. To cultivate love for yourself is a very foolish thing because the Bible never tells us to love ourselves. It tells us what we need to learn how to do is to love our neighbor the way we already love ourselves. The Bible says no man yet ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it (Ephesians 5). So obviously, God doesn't think we have a deficiency in the area of self-love. If anything, we are obsessed with self-love, and we have to learn how to love others that way. So those messages you get, they're just not from God. That's not God.
Christina: That was seven and nine years ago and it's been—
Steve Gregg: I can't get into your whole story with you. What I can say is that if you want to know God, you need to just read the Bible. I would say read the Gospels. Read what Jesus said. I don't know if you're in fellowship with Christians anywhere, but you really probably should be, going to church or something like that so that you can be guided by something other than the internet. The internet is—I realize many people are listening to me on the internet, but that doesn't change what I'm about to say. The internet is one of the most unreliable places to get any information. Not because there's no good information on the internet, but because there's all kinds of information on the internet, good, bad, and indifferent. If you're not very good at discerning between what's good and evil, then lies can get into your head through it. I don't know that God tells you to get off the internet, but I would think that anyone who's giving you counsel would say maybe you should get off the internet for a while and spend some time reading the Bible and hanging out with Christians and talking about the things of God. Staying on the proper path is not easy in this world at the best of times, and we're not living in the best of times. Even when you go to church regularly, and let's say it's a pretty good church, there's still struggles with the world. But if you're not going to church and you're getting all your information from the internet, you're going to be really confused. You said you're doomed. I don't believe you're doomed because it doesn't sound to me like you're at a point where you say, "I hate God, I don't want God in my life, I don't want to be saved." Now, if you are at that point, then you're doomed at the moment until you repent of that. But people do repent from even that. As long as you've got breath, you're not finally doomed. If you walk away from God, if you cultivate hatred for God, if you disobey when God wants you to do things, that will move you further from where you need to be with God. If you get far enough away, you might neglect Him altogether, and that's soul danger. But there's no reason in the world for you to say at this moment, "I'm doomed, I can't go to heaven, I can't be saved." God wants you to. The only thing that would keep you from it is you. But the real question is: what are you doing in order to draw near to God? It's not God's responsibility to chase you down. The Bible tells us to seek God with our whole hearts and we'll find Him. If you end up doomed, it'll only be because you didn't do that. And you can do that. So I'm going to just counsel you to do that. I don't know if you're going to church or not, but I would say you probably need to do that. Most Christians are better off in some kind of church. I don't even tell you which kind of church, just a church where you go and someone's reading and teaching the Bible and people love God and they're friendly and they'll fellowship with you and encourage you. That's what churches are for. That's why there are churches in your town. I would suggest if you're not taking advantage of that, then you're not going to probably prosper given the fact that you're easily confused by things you read on the internet and you hear voices. Those voices could be your imagination, but they could also be demonic. If demons are speaking to you these kind of things, then your soul is being targeted and you need to really become alarmed enough to become a serious-minded follower of Christ, a serious-minded Christian, because this is a warfare. If the demons are after you, there's really only one defense from them, and that's to resist them by your commitment to Jesus Christ. Let me urge you in that direction. I appreciate your calling and I hope you'll respond to what I've said because I think you need to do so and I think it would be well for you. Let's talk to Steve in Alberta, Canada. Welcome to the Narrow Path, Steve.
Guest Steve: Hi Steve. I have two quick questions. The first has to do with Jay Dyer. Do you know who he is?
Steve Gregg: I don't think so. The name might sound familiar.
Guest Steve: Jay Dyer was a Protestant guy, very articulate, who became Greek Orthodox. He was recently interviewed by Tucker Carlson. Fascinating interview, giving perspective on things from an Orthodox perspective. I was listening to him and thought, "Boy, I sure would love to hear Steve interacting with this interview and see what he would say." I don't know if you ever do that, but I just wanted to ask if you ever do something like that.
Steve Gregg: Something like what? Be interviewed on a podcast?
Guest Steve: No, no, just interacting, like listening to it on your own and then giving feedback to us based on what you heard on the interview.
Steve Gregg: I'd have to find the time to listen to it. There's an infinite number of things on the internet to listen to, including Christian things, so I'd have to have some time cut out for it. Maybe I'll get a chance to listen to it.
Guest Steve: I thought maybe you might want to listen to it, but if not, that's okay too. My second question comes from Philippians chapter one. Paul identifies a group of people who were preaching Jesus from envy and strife, selfish ambition and in pretense, in contrast to those preaching the gospel from goodwill, pure motives and in truth. I was just wondering if you could elaborate on this because I know what it looks like in our day with the TV preachers. But back then, what did it look like? The gospel was being preached, but you had teachers and preachers of the gospel that fell into two camps with two different motives. So early on in the church's life, I was just wondering if you could elaborate on that.
Steve Gregg: Commentaries on Philippians I've read many times about this because it is not at all clear whom Paul is speaking about or what it is that's really motivating them. He says that because he has been put in prison, there are many Christians who've taken up the mantle and are preaching the gospel, apparently in Philippi or maybe in Rome. Paul's probably writing from Rome. He doesn't even say where they are, but he said since he's been taken out of circulation, others have stepped up. Now not all of them are really that good. Some of them are doing it out of bad motives. It's really hard to know what those bad motives are, but he makes it sound like they're people who don't think well of him. He says in verse 16 they are supposing to add affliction to my chains. In other words, he's in chains and they're trying to rub it in and give him more trouble by preaching the gospel out of selfish ambition. He says in verse 15 they're doing it from envy and strife, although some of them are doing it out of goodwill. So he's saying the vacuum that has been caused by him being taken off the streets where he was preaching and put into prison has been filled by various other people who've tried to represent the gospel to the public. Some of them he doesn't have very high opinions of their motivations. Who they are, what their motivations are, how it is that they're seeking to add affliction to his chains... if you read the commentaries, they're pretty much grasping too. They're trying to guess at what this might be because we don't have enough information. This is one of those many times when you read the epistles that we realize we're reading somebody else's mail. Clearly, the Philippians that he wrote to knew what he was talking about. They would know of these people who are doing this, and they would even have some sense of why somebody out of bad motives might be preaching the gospel, even out of some kind of antagonism toward Paul. We can only guess and we'll have no certainty that we'd be right. It may be that he's saying that his influence, his popularity, his fame as a preacher has bothered some other Christians of lesser spirituality who would like to have his notoriety, would like to have his reputation as a great preacher. So they're taking advantage of the fact that he's off the street, he's in the prison, and now they're hoping to occupy that position. They're doing it out of envy and strife, which as he called it, would mean they envy him, although I don't know of any other thing that could refer to. It might refer to something else, but I've got nothing. If they envy him and they're competing with him in their own minds, he says they do it to add affliction to my chains. It may mean that they're hoping that he hears about it and that he now gets jealous of them. And if he does, he says, "Well, if that's what they want, that's not happening because I'll just rejoice that the gospel is being preached." I don't think they're doing it for the right reasons, but if they're preaching the gospel, at least it's getting preached and I can rejoice in that. I don't think he's talking about people who do it to start cults necessarily, or to bilk people of money. There are people who do that and some of the people you've talked about on TV and so forth pretty much fall into that category. Not all of them, but some do. There are definitely people who do it for money, and Paul warns about those kinds of people when he writes to Timothy about those who think of godliness as a means of gain. He says have nothing to do with those people. I don't think those are the people he has in mind here because he wouldn't speak positively of the effects of their preaching if he did. I think these people are probably preaching the gospel similar to the way Paul did, so much so that he figures they're saying what I'd be saying, so I'm glad. Since I'm cooling my heels here in prison, at least someone is out there preaching the gospel. I wish they were more mature. I wish they were more selfless about it. I wish they had better motives, but he interprets their motives as being envy and strife and selfish ambition. That's what he says. Actually, the interesting thing is the word selfish ambition is a Greek word *eritheia*, which means work for hire or susceptible to being bribed. So he may be saying not that they are being paid or that they are being bribed, but they have a selfishness about them that would make them susceptible to that. For a preacher to be susceptible to being bribed is not the same thing as a politician usually. Usually a preacher doesn't have somebody in a trench coat come up with an envelope under his jacket and say, "Here, preach this message and I'll give you this money." That'd be one way to bribe a preacher. I think more often it's maybe people saying they'll support them as long as they avoid certain subjects or if they... even a congregation in a sense can bribe the preacher without offering money in the fact that he lives off their donations. If he's preaching things they don't like and they'll leave and won't put money in the bag anymore, that can motivate him to alter his message to keep the butter on the right side of the bread for him. Anyone who can be bought is dangerous because they probably will be. If you've got a price, the devil will usually be willing to pay that price to get you to compromise and get you to forsake your duty. There are preachers no doubt like that. No one's straightforward bribing them, but they are seeking their own popularity, the popularity of their ministry. That's what Paul seems to indicate these people are doing. Such people then, of course, their teaching can be turned this way or that way by the perception on their part of what people will pay to hear or what people will stay to hear. Those may be some of the things that were going on, but no one really knows for sure who these people were or exactly what was their relationship with Paul. Obviously, he's not as upset about them as he would be if they were preaching some kind of heretical doctrines because he says what they're preaching is the gospel. He's glad to have it, but he doesn't think they're good people to be doing it. He doesn't think they're motivated like a minister should be. I think there may be many people in our time of whom that could be said as well. I wouldn't doubt it. Thank you, brother, for your call. Tom from Little Rock, Arkansas. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Tom: I've often read about the Lord's Prayer—"Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done," etc. I've often wondered about the part where He says, "Thy kingdom come." I understand that the kingdom is the church, which was established on the day of Pentecost. Can you expand on what else "Thy kingdom come" may have meant? Did it mean something along the lines of God's sovereign rule over everything, possibly? I'll take your answer off the air.
Steve Gregg: It does mean that. The kingdom has set foot on this earth. Jesus the king landed here 2,000 years ago. He gathered subjects, His disciples, who are now the subjects of the king. Since then, He's been enthroned in heaven at the right hand of God and He reigns from there over those who are His subjects, who are His disciples. Now, He has said that we need to disciple all the nations and teach them to observe everything He said. So as the past 2,000 years has gone by, the church has been doing that, sometimes rapidly, sometimes not doing it very well. But over the past 2,000 years, the kingdom has come to new continents that it wasn't when Jesus was here, to new countries, to new cities, and so forth. Missionaries are still out there preaching the kingship, lordship of Jesus and bringing people into submission, which is what the commission is. And as they do, the kingdom then, the same kingdom that He began on earth 2,000 years ago, is now spreading and coming to new areas. The coming of the kingdom is an ongoing thing. Not the coming to earth—it's already come to earth—but the coming to new regions to spread. Daniel described the kingdom of God in Daniel 2:44, or actually the whole section before that too, as like a stone that struck the image, the metal image at the feet, and then it began to grow into a great mountain to fill the whole earth while it consumed these other images, these other metals. These metals represented the kingdoms of this world: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and so forth. The kingdom of God, which was planted when Jesus came, has grown to consume... citizens of every nation have become citizens of Christ's kingdom now. This continues to be so. This is the coming, the continual coming of the kingdom. I believe we're supposed to be praying for the progress and the success and the prosperity of the kingdom as it advances. I think the kingdom coming as we pray for it now is really praying for its advancement and its spreading and coming to new geographical regions. But also, of course, you mentioned it could have a lot to do with just God's... the second line there after "your kingdom come" is "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Of course, that's part of the consequence of the kingdom coming. When people come into Christ's kingdom and are converted and become His disciples, their lives are changed so they're doing God's will in their lives instead of their own. So in a sense, as the kingdom takes more territory, then a larger percentage of people are doing God's will on earth in their lives and to pray for that to continue. Obviously, the goal would be if every human being on the planet embraced the kingdom and that the kingdom covered the whole world like the waters cover the sea, and that every person on earth was doing the will of Christ instead of their own will. Some people think that will actually happen before Jesus comes back. I'm not predicting that, but I am saying that that is the goal. When Jesus comes back, it will be that way. So what's supposed to happen between now and then? Well, we're supposed to be advancing that direction. The whole purpose for our being on earth is to advance Christ's kingship, not just as a concept, but as a reality in the lives of people who are His now loyal followers and so their lives, they've turned from doing the will of man, it says in 1 Peter 4, and they're doing the will of God now. So when we're doing the will of God instead of something else, then His will is being done on earth in that little corner where we're doing it. We're hoping that it'll be done in every corner by every person. So I think that's what we're praying. We're just praying that the enterprise that Christ began when He was here will succeed and prosper and advance and basically have global impact so that God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven. And that is done when we make disciples and teach them to observe all things Jesus commanded. That's our great commission. Our prayers are therefore that the commission will be fulfilled as we are engaged in it. I've got to take a break, but I appreciate that question. You're listening to the Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming so don't go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Tons of resources, all of them free. You can donate there if you want; we are listener supported at thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. I'll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour, don't go away. Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. I'm looking at a couple of open lines on our switchboard. If you want to get through, have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith and want to ask them on the air, you want to disagree with the host on the air, that's always fun. Feel free to do so. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. We're going to go to the phones now and talk next to Jimmy in Staten Island, New York. Hi, Jimmy.
Guest Jimmy: Hey Steve. The other night before last, a guy called up with that translation of "a woman should not usurp or teach a man, usurp authority," and the guy brought out that that word "man" could also be "husband." It was pretty good, but it reminded me of what the Lord showed me in Luke 15:8. Have you ever considered what that woman is?
Steve Gregg: The woman who lost the coin? The story of the lost coin? I don't think it's any particular woman. I think it's just a woman.
Guest Jimmy: In like manner, that word is *gune*, or in the English, *gyne*. It's translated 129 times as woman, but 92 times as wife. So when you look at verse 3, where it says Jesus spoke this parable (singular) unto them, it's one parable. So when you realize who this wife is... we know who the shepherd is, it's Jesus. We know who the father is, that's Father God. But the one in the middle always perplexed me, but that's the wife, that's the one animated by the Holy Spirit. So you have what I call now the Trinity parable, and it's only one parable. Also, it talks all about repentance. Look at that word and see if you can see what I see, that it's God. A lot of people say the Trinity's not in the New Testament. It's right there, right before your face. It shows repentance from the perspective of Jesus in the first part of the parable, the lost sheep. The second part of the parable shows the repentance from the perspective of the Holy Spirit. And God in His mercy showed repentance in our perspective, that we decide to get up and return to our father. And it also says this son was lost—I'll stop right there.
Steve Gregg: We got three stories in Luke 15. One is about a lost sheep and the shepherd goes and finds it. The second one is about a woman who has ten coins and she lost one of them, and so she sweeps the whole house until she finds it. Then the third one is of course the famous prodigal son. You're saying that obviously the one who lost the son is the father, the shepherd who lost the sheep is Jesus, and then the woman who lost the coin you think is the Holy Spirit. It's an interesting thought. You said this proves that the Trinity is mentioned in the New Testament. I believe the Trinity is a New Testament teaching, but I don't think it's laid out for us anywhere in the New Testament, including here. It's not as if Jesus would speak this chapter and say, "Okay, now you understand the Trinity, right?" There's many references in the Bible to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, sometimes all in one passage. Though none of them actually lay out a doctrine about the Trinity—that is the idea that God is one in three and whatever other nuances there are of the doctrine. I don't think I could get the Trinity from this. Now, I'm not even sure we're supposed to because although Jesus is the good shepherd, the idea of a shepherd seeking sheep comes from Ezekiel chapter 34 where Yahweh says He's seeking His sheep and of course He does so by sending Christ. But I don't know that there's supposed to be a focus on the three persons of the Trinity here. And I don't know that the Holy Spirit would be likened to a woman. Jesus always called Him "He" and never "she." So I don't know. It may be an interpretation that edifies you to think about it. I don't think anybody would be exegetically necessarily drawn to it, but then again there's many things that you may feel God shows you when you're reading and they're a blessing to you. I'm not going to take that away from you. I appreciate your call, brother. Jacob in Orange County, California. Welcome.
Guest Jacob: Hey Steve. Cut me off if this is too lengthy. I do have a question baked in and I tried to rehearse this. Since you say disagreements on the air are fun, let's pretend I staunchly hold this view. Regarding the historicist view of Revelation, I've heard that the Caesars were the sixth form of Roman government, which echoes Revelation 17:10 in that symbolically speaking, five kings or forms of government have fallen, one being the emperors is, and then the seventh form, which would hypothetically be the brief reign of clan leaders in the city of Rome until Justinian frees it after only 60 years.
Steve Gregg: Let me stop you just for a moment. It's not that you're going too long, but you're talking awfully fast and you haven't let us really know what your assumptions are behind... you're making points that not everyone would see in scripture or agree with. You're talking about the historicist view of Revelation, correct? For those who don't know, the historicist view of Revelation is the view that the visions in Revelation carry us from John's time to the end of the world through history. Therefore, when you come to, say, the seven heads of the beast which you're referring to in Revelation 17, in verse 10 it says that they are seven kings. It says five have fallen and one now is and another is yet to come, and there's an eighth it says. Now what you're saying is the seven kings, they are... you're taking the beast I think to be Rome, the Roman Empire. And so you're saying the seven kings are seven forms of government that the Roman state went through. Republic... I can't remember each one of the first five, and then they were replaced I guess hypothetically by an eighth which would be the Papacy. And then the Roman Church I guess in turn ends up continued extensive persecution of the true church body via their ornate torture devices, massacres, speaking vain and great things like some of the papal bulls claiming to be the Vicar of Christ or taking claim on every living soul. And then lastly, I've heard this claim that there were sort of ten tribes like the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians that become essentially France, Portugal, Hungary, basically they give their power to the beast by being the statecraft and military wing of the Catholic Church. And my question is: what say you regarding a refutation against the more traditional Reformation era historicist view, not necessarily the newspaper exegesis as you'd put it type of view. Unless you think they all lead to newspaper exegesis invariably.
Steve Gregg: This is a view you've heard or this is a view that you now hold?
Guest Jacob: I'd say I've heard. I'd call myself a partial preterist, but I've heard this view.
Steve Gregg: As you probably know, my book *Revelation: Four Views*—are you familiar with it?
Guest Jacob: It just arrived in my mailbox today.
Steve Gregg: Great, because as you know I go through the entire book of Revelation and there's four columns of commentary under every passage, and one column has the historicist view, then one has the preterist view, one has the futurist view, and one has the idealist view. So all the things you're talking about, I don't know if all those details are in my historicist column, but I read about a dozen books or so from that viewpoint and tried to summarize them. But what I do find is that they don't all have exactly the same points that they make. There is some speculation involved in all the views. As far as newspaper exegesis—for those who don't know what we mean by that—people who teach the Revelation as a book about the future often are looking at the newspapers or current events and trying to confirm their view of Revelation by showing that something that's happening in the Middle East or in Russia or somewhere else, China, maybe America, that they can see that's fulfilling something that's in the book of Revelation. So they try to see parallels with current events. That's called newspaper exegesis. The historicist view and the preterist view both do this in measure, but really from the standpoint of looking back. You see, anything that's in the newspaper today might seem significant, but then the story might go away tomorrow. It may not develop into anything. The thing about the historicist view and the preterist view is that they believe that these things in Revelation are referring to things that actually have happened at various points in history. The preterist thinks it's the Jewish war, 66 to 70 AD, and the historicist believes it transcends the whole of the period of 2,000 years. Each view does in fact turn to historical data to confirm their interpretation. So generally speaking, the historicists often lean very heavily on Gibbon's *Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire*, very famous work, very authoritative work on it, and they can show that although Gibbon hated religion and hated Christianity, nonetheless what he said they say lines up well with their ideas of the meaning of certain visions at certain periods of time. Of course, preterists do the same thing, only they don't use Gibbon, they use Josephus. Josephus gave a detailed history of the war of the Jews and you can find... and Josephus was no Christian, but he does say things happened that line up very nicely with things in Revelation if you're a preterist. So you could say that those are kind of like newspaper exegesis too in the sense that, "Well, Revelation means this because this thing happened" while they're not applying it to the future or the present, they are kind of documenting it from things that happened, just like newspaper exegesis does for the futurists. The difference is the historicist or the preterist can look back on these things as a finished project, more or less, and see what these developments that happened in history did result in and find out if they can actually claim that they did result in what we would expect, whereas the futurist is still just guessing about whether what's going on in the news today is going to have anything to do with the end times or not. They think it will but they can't prove it until it's done. A lot of times it doesn't. That's been the case—Hal Lindsey's books back in the 70s, he had all kinds of newspaper exegesis and the things that were going on that he identified as signs of the end times, many of those things have just evaporated in history and aren't part of the geopolitical world anymore. I'm not against the historicist view. I'm not persuaded of it. But yeah, those things that the ten horns represent ten ethnic nations into which the Roman Empire dissolved and so forth—the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths and the Heruli and the Burgundians and the Angles and the Saxons and all those people—that's standard historicist rhetoric. It could be true. I mean I, as you know, I lean more toward the preterist and the idealist views, but Revelation is hard to understand. I could be wrong; I've been wrong before. Thank you for your answer and thank you for your ministry, sir. I appreciate it.
Steve Gregg: We're going to be talking to Mary in Lewisburg, Tennessee. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Mary: Hello, Greg. Thank you so much for taking my call. I just wanted to ask... it's in the book of Zechariah, the second chapter, and it's where Zechariah sees the angel coming to measure Jerusalem. And then it says another angel come, but it says that Jerusalem shall be inhabited as a town without walls. And then it says that the Lord will be the wall of fire and the glory in her midst. And so he couldn't measure it. It seemed like to me, is that not the kingdom of God?
Steve Gregg: It is, absolutely. Isaiah 60 also says something very much like this, talking about the new Jerusalem. It says in verse 18, "Violence shall no longer be heard in your land, neither wasting nor destruction within your borders, but you shall call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise." In other words, you won't have physical walls like the physical city has physical walls, but the spiritual city has spiritual protections. Salvation is our walls, gates are praise, we enter into His courts with praise. Zechariah is definitely talking about the spiritual Jerusalem because he goes on to talk about the Gentiles and the nations in verse 11. He says... let me give you verse 10 and 11. He says, "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst, says the Lord. Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day." That means Gentiles, lots of nations. "And they shall become My people." That has happened, by the way. That has happened because many Gentiles have come and been joined to the Lord and they make up what Paul called the Jerusalem that is above, or what the writer of Hebrews just said, the heavenly Jerusalem. So the earthly Jerusalem in Zechariah's day was being rebuilt. It had been destroyed 70 years earlier by Babylon, by Nebuchadnezzar, and now Zerubbabel and others had come back from Babylon. Zechariah was one of the prophets who was encouraging the project along with Haggai. Zechariah's saying, "Okay, you're building Jerusalem, you're building the walls, but you need to have a bigger picture of what God has in mind ultimately for Jerusalem. There are going to be walls, but there's going to be a Jerusalem that doesn't have walls. There's going to be a Jerusalem that's full of people from all the nations, Gentiles, and it's going to be that city without actual physical walls, but the Lord will be the wall. He'll be a wall of fire for them." Then he goes into how the Gentiles will be brought in. This is talking about the spiritual Jerusalem, which as you said is the kingdom of God. It's the New Testament phenomenon that we know of. It uses language of the old Jerusalem because that's what the Jews were... their minds were on the old Jerusalem. But he's basically saying, "Yeah, okay, this Jerusalem you're building has walls. There's going to be a Jerusalem that doesn't have walls and you won't be able to measure it." See, that's the thing too. When you're building walls, and that's what they were doing in Zechariah's day, they were trying to rebuild the city from rubble, so what they do first of all, they cast a line to measure. You don't lay a foundation stone or build a wall before you've pulled a line out to see where the direction it's going to go and where it's going to end and so forth. So he says, "Yeah, but what we have here is a guy is going out with a measuring line to measure Jerusalem." That's basically how the chapter opens. And he's corrected, "Oh no, you can't measure it. This is going to be a city without walls. You won't be able to put limits on it because of all the Gentiles that are going to be joining it." This is also something Isaiah says in a couple of other places about Jerusalem will have so many children from the nations that they won't have room for them. They'll have to stretch their tents out, it says in chapter 54 of Isaiah. There's another passage in Isaiah, I forget the reference, where Jerusalem's going to say, "Who are all these children of mine? I never had these children before. How come I have to have such a big tent for all these people?" He says, "Well, it's because the nations are coming in." The idea... the Jews always thought of Jerusalem and their country as God's chosen people and the Gentiles were something else, excluded. These predictions are about the body of Christ, about the kingdom of God. The Messiah comes and He doesn't just bring in the believing Jews, He brings in believing Gentiles too, so they need a much bigger tent. They can't build the walls where they would expect to build them because they won't be big enough. That's what this is saying, and that's what Isaiah also says a few times.
Mary: So that's like the new Jerusalem coming down in Revelation, that's like his people, right?
Steve Gregg: Yes, that's His people. And let me just say this. In Revelation, you do in fact see Jerusalem coming down from heaven as a finished project. Paul in Galatians 4 says that the new Jerusalem, the Jerusalem in heaven, is the mother of us all right now. We're all part of it. We're all citizens of it. It's the mother country, motherland or whatever, of us all. So the people who are in Christ are governed by Christ. He's the king. He sits on David's throne in heaven over a spiritual Jerusalem as David sat on a physical throne over a physical Jerusalem. So Christ is now reigning in David's kingdom, fulfilling the Davidic Covenant, and we're part of that kingdom, we've been brought under Him. That Jerusalem is unfinished right now because people keep... it's made of people. Remember Peter said it's made of living stones. We are living stones being built up into a spiritual house. So as the kingdom is being built of people, this is the assembly of the heavenly Jerusalem. Really, that's kind of the words that the writer of Hebrews uses. He uses the word assembly with reference to heavenly Jerusalem and the believers as a collective group are that assembly and are that city. It says in Hebrews chapter 12 in verse 22, "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven." So we have come into that general assembling of the building, the assembling of the people of God into a community of God. That is being built. In Revelation, what John sees after the heavens and the earth are destroyed and there's a new heaven and new earth, he sees the heavenly Jerusalem descending dressed like a bride ready for her husband. It's all very symbolic, of course. You can't make a city dressed like a bride, especially not the one described there because he describes it as 1,500 miles wide and tall and thick. So it's like a cube shape. How are you going to put a bride's dress on that? So it's mixing metaphors. The church, the body of Christ, is the bride of Christ, it's also the city of God, it's also the temple of the Holy Spirit, all that. So but you see in Revelation 21 it's coming down from heaven and it has the glory of God, it says. I don't think we possess the glory of God yet. We've not been glorified yet. We will be glorified when Jesus comes back. So that's what I think the city is being built, it's being assembled. It's interesting, when Solomon built the temple, the Bible says that the stones were made perfect at the quarry. They actually chipped the stones into perfection at the quarry, not anywhere near the temple site. And only when the stones were completely chipped and perfect, they moved them to the temple site and assembled them. It says they did that so that at the temple site it wouldn't be noisy. There'd be no hammering and chiseling going on that they could hear at the temple site. So the temple site where they're assembled is quiet and peaceful, but the chipping and the preparation of the stones is done at the quarry where they're dug out of the ground. That I think is an interesting analogy because of course the city of Jerusalem is being assembled in heaven. That's when Christians live and die, they go to heaven and then they're assembled. But when it's assembled completely, it comes down from heaven to be on the new earth. In the meantime, we're those stones and we're the ones being chipped and shaped. It's noisy because we cry out and grumble a lot because it's a painful process. He didn't want to hear that going on at the temple site in heaven. So we're in the quarry being chipped and prepared, and then we're taken up there to be assembled. When the whole thing is assembled, it comes down when Jesus comes down. That's how I see it. Anyway, I appreciate your call, sister. Hope that's helpful to you. April in San Bernardino, California. Welcome.
April: Hi Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I'll make this real quick since we don't have much time left. I think it's Romans 9:5 where Paul basically says, "I wish I could be accursed and cut off from Christ for my brothers." Can you expand on that? I don't understand that one bit because I as a Christian would not give my relationship with God up for anything, even my own kids. And it's almost like he's saying, "Oh, I would give it up for one of these Jewish brothers." Why would he do that? I don't get that at all. Can you please expand on that?
Steve Gregg: He's not saying he'd give up his salvation and change it for one Jewish person to be converted. He means for all of Israel to be converted. What he's saying is God and Paul both want all of Israel to be saved. Of course they aren't, for the most part. Paul was and he was part of Israel, but most of Israel was not saved. What he's suggesting is... he says, "I grieve for Israel, my countrymen. If I could get them saved at the expense of my own salvation, I think I'd do it," you know. Now, he's using hyperbole because it wouldn't be possible to do that anyway. You can't trade your salvation for someone else's. But I think he's just trying to emphasize by way of hyperbole how passionate his longing is to see them saved. He may be thinking that if he gives up his salvation... of course he doesn't want to give up Christ, but if all the Jewish brethren, if they all get a relationship with Christ and he just misses out, well then that's a rather unselfish thing for him to do. I don't think Paul would give up his relationship with Christ for anything that really was available to give it up for, but he's speaking very hypothetically and hyperbolically, I believe. He says, "If it were possible, I wish myself accursed from Christ," which only means I would wish myself to forfeit all the benefits of my salvation so that they could have those instead of me. But he doesn't mean if I could find a Jewish man I'd trade my salvation for his lack of salvation and get him saved instead of me. He's thinking of the whole of Romans 9 through 11 is talking about Paul's concern and his understanding of how the promises of Israel's salvation are to be fulfilled. So he's not really ready to trade his salvation for some one other guy who'd have it then. But he believes... many people thought Paul didn't like the Jews because they didn't like him. And he said some pretty hard things about the unbelieving Jews. They tried to kill him many times; he was not real happy with them. But he's making it very clear, just in case you thought otherwise, "I really do care about the Jews, I really do love the Jews, they're my countrymen and I would even give up my soul for them if that were possible." It isn't, so don't ask me to do it. But I mean, would he really actually do it? Who knows? He may have been just exaggerating to make a point. I can't say. But I've wondered about that too, because of course you shouldn't give up your relationship with Jesus for anything. But on the other hand, if the idea is if Jesus gets me or gets all the Jews instead of me, I think it's better for... I think Jesus would be happy to have all the Jews, so I'd be willing to make that sacrifice. Not that He wanted to. I'm sorry we're out of time. I appreciate all the calls and those who did not get on today, call tomorrow, we'd love to talk to you. You've been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are a listener-supported ministry. All the money that is given to this ministry goes to radio stations because we buy the radio time from them at great expense. God has provided for us the last 29 years to expand and be on more stations all the time. But we don't have any sponsors, no commercials, we don't sell anything, and we don't really have a fundraising apparatus. We just let our listeners know, "Hey, we're listener-supported, you want to help us?" You can write to the Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593 or our website's thenarrowpath.com. Check it out. I'll be back tomorrow.