The Narrow Path 08/07/2026

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 so that we can talk to you in real-time and you can talk back in real-time using your telephone. If you have questions about the Bible or about the Christian faith and you'd like to call and talk about those things on the air, we will gladly talk about those things. If you disagree with the host and wish to talk about that disagreement and balance comment or maybe correct something, feel free to call about that too. We are as happy to have those kinds of calls as any other kind. The number to call is 844-484-5737. If you'd like to be on the program today, there's one line open right now. The rest are full. All right, we're going to go to the phones and talk to Brad in Coupeville, Washington. Hi, Brad, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Brad: Yeah, thanks, Steve, for taking my call. First, I just want to quickly say I've really enjoyed your teaching over the last six months since I found you when I was starting to look into dispensationalism. I grew up in the evangelical church and of course, I was brought up with that. I had not heard of any other viewpoint. Real quickly though, I'm getting really confused because it seems like in all the conversations there's not a definition of terms. People will use the term Israel in one breath and then the term Jew in the next, and Israelite. In my mind, these aren't the same. There's plenty of Jews that don't consider them Israeli. I know that people like Sammy Davis Jr. was a Jew and Melania Trump is a Jew, but they're certainly not the same race. I just started your series, "What Are We to Make of Israel?" and I was just wondering, can you help me understand when we talk about Israel, is it the country over there right now headed by Netanyahu or is it just being a Jew? I get confused with all that.
Steve Gregg: Well, it is confusing and you say, "Which do we mean?" I'm going to have to say, well, in which conversation are we talking about? Because the word Jew is used more than one way. The word Israel is used more than one way, and the different meanings of these two words don't always slide together. For example, Israel, as you pointed out, is a geographical nation in the Middle East right now. People who are citizens of that country are considered to be Israelis, part of the Israel nation. Now, a lot of those people are Jews, but not all of them are Jews. There's a lot of Arabs in Israel. It's quite an international population. I think it's primarily Jewish. I think the largest percentage certainly ethnically in Israel are Jewish people, but there are citizens of Israel who are not Jewish by race. So to be Israeli isn't quite the same thing as being Jewish, though there are Jews who are Israelis. Now, the word Israel also is applied biblically and in some Christian conversations, Israel is sometimes referring to the ethnic descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now, that's not the same as the nation of Israel since the nation of Israel only has about 45 percent of the Jewish people living in it worldwide. America probably has almost as many Jews as Israel has. There's been more migration in the last few years to Israel, but the point is that about half of the Jews in the world live in Israel. That means half of the Jews are Israelis and another half are not. They would be American or Russian or German or British. It has to do with where they live and where their citizenship is. So Israel can mean the nation and the people of it called Israelis, though they would not all be the same people that call themselves Jews because there's many Jews outside of Israel. Then Israel can refer to the racial group that we call Jews, but it wouldn't be co-extensive with the population of the nation Israel. Israel is a political nation and it's not a religious nation, so it's not like the Israel in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, Israel came into existence as a nation after the Exodus when God brought them to Mount Sinai and made a covenant with them and said, "As long as you keep this covenant, you'll be my nation. You'll be a holy nation." They agreed to that, so he had them build a tabernacle immediately so that they would worship him in the tabernacle, which was later replaced by the temple in Solomon's day. That temple became the central defining institution in the nation of Israel. It was the one nation in the world dedicated to Yahweh with a center for worship in Yahweh in the center of its capital. Its very purpose for existence, as they all knew, was that they are God's people. They are God's nation. Okay, well, that nation was destroyed in AD 70 and there hasn't been one there since. True, a nation now exists, a political nation, but there's no temple. There's no acknowledgment of Yahweh. Most of the Jewish people there are not Jewish by religion. A great number, probably an equal number, are atheists. Extremely few are Christians. So even if they were Jewish by religion, that doesn't count for anything with God. The Pharisees and Judas Iscariot were Jewish by religion, so was Caiaphas who killed Jesus. Being Jewish by religion doesn't help anything. You're one of God's people if you follow the Messiah. Many Jews do, but a very small percentage of those who live in Israel do. So we've got Israel as a secular nation. It's no more religious, it's no more a people of God as a people, it's no more a holy nation than Egypt or France or Brazil. It's a secular nation. It's not the nation of Israel that was in the Bible. The nation of Israel in the Bible had no reason to exist except as the worship center for Yahweh and as long as that temple or tabernacle were there, they were a holy nation. There's no temple there now and they've been there now for 75 years since 1948, whatever it's been, almost 80, and they haven't built one. Some Jews would like to, but the majority of Jews couldn't care less. And so it's not really a restoration of the biblical nation of Israel. They take the same name and they live in the same territory, and to a certain extent it's the same ethnicity of the majority of the citizenry and that's fine, but they're not the biblical nation of Israel by any definition. So being Jewish and being Israeli are not the same thing. Being Jewish can be a religious designation. You mentioned Sammy Davis Jr., an African American entertainer a generation before my own. He converted to Judaism. He famously was a Jew, but he didn't have any Jewish blood in him. He was not descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he adopted the Jewish religion. Now, that was always possible in the Old Testament too. A Gentile who wished to become part of Israel could get circumcised, keep the covenant, and be like a native of the land, the law said. And so that's kind of you don't have to be descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be part of Israel or to be a Jew, if by Jew we mean somebody of the Jewish religion. So that's where we've got some confusion. You could be called a Jew because you're descended from a Jewish line ethnically, or you could be a Jew regardless of your ethnicity if you just joined the Jewish religion. That's why it's so confusing. You mentioned the confusion of these different words. Israel can be a national designation. It can be an ethnic designation. In the New Testament, it's actually a spiritual designation. It has to do with a person's heart. Paul said in Romans chapter 2, verses 28 and 29, "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly." John the Baptist said to the Jews, "Do not say within yourselves, we have Abraham for our ancestor. God could from these stones raise up children to Abraham." In other words, it doesn't really matter who your ancestors are. You're not a Jew inside. In John chapter 1, when Nathanael was seen coming, he's a Jewish guy who had a good heart and Jesus said, "Here comes an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit." What's interesting about that is in Zephaniah, it says when the Messiah comes that the remnant of Israel will speak no lies, there will be no deceit in them. So Jesus is saying here's one of those part of the remnant and they are the true Israel. He said this is an Israelite indeed, as opposed to all the other people around him who also called themselves Israelites but they were not all Israelites indeed, just like Jesus on one occasion said, "If you keep my word, you're my disciples indeed." There's a lot of people around call themselves disciples, but they're not really disciples as far as God is concerned unless they keep Christ's words. Likewise, a lot of people in Jesus' day called themselves Israelites, but Jesus said, well, but the real ones, here's one of the real ones. They are the ones that like Zephaniah said, part of the remnant who speak no lies, they have no guile in them. So in other words, in Jesus' usage and later on Paul's, Israel referred to the people who had the heart of an Israelite, a proper heart toward God. And that's why Paul in Galatians 6:16, referring to his audience who are mixed Jews and Gentiles but all who believe in Christ, he called them the Israel of God. So yeah, the words Israel and Jew are very confusing. And you say, which one are we talking about? All of them in different conversations. The main thing, of course, is hopefully in a conversation if the word Jew or Israel comes up because of the nature of the conversation what's being discussed, it should become evident what is meant by the term in that conversation. If we're contrasting Jews from Gentiles, we're talking about ethnic Jews. If we're talking about contrasting Jews from Christians, we're talking about religious Jews, although some ethnic Jews are on the Christian side of that. They're ethnic Jews but they're not religious Jews, they're Christians. And so it's really hard. But the more important thing is when you read in Scripture when it mentions Israel or it mentions Jews, which one are they using in any given passage? Once again, you're going to have to go by context there. But I will say this, that one thing that has changed in the New Testament is it doesn't matter who goes by the word Jew or Israel. There's no Jew or Gentile in Christ. God doesn't have favorite races anymore. The Jews were chosen by God to bring the Messiah into the world. Once he came, it was their obligation just like everyone else's to accept the Messiah. They did bring the Messiah into the world. Mission accomplished. Now, like anybody else, it's their obligation to receive the Messiah that God brought through them to the world. Most Jews do not. Some Jews do. And some Gentiles do and most Gentiles don't. But the point is, God doesn't judge people as to who their ancestors were. He judges them as to where they stand with relation to the Messiah. A Jew like Judas Iscariot who doesn't stand on good terms with the Messiah is lost. So was Caiaphas, and so are many Jews. So was no doubt Sigmund Freud who is an atheist or Karl Marx who was a satanist and others. There's plenty of Jewish people who are lost because they reject the Messiah. And so we really don't have to worry. I mean, it's as important to decide who's a Jew and who's not as it is to discern who's a Korean and who's Japanese or who's white or black. These are racial distinctions that don't mean anything to God. In some conversations, there may be some value in discussing the different demographics, but when it comes to being a Christian, we have no concern about anybody's race. Paul said this in 2nd Corinthians. He said, "Henceforth," that means from now on, "we know nobody according to the flesh." Now, according to the flesh means according to their genealogy, according to their racial characteristics. He's talking about according to characteristics that have nothing to do with who they really are. And he says, "Henceforth we know no one according to the flesh." But you know, he says, we used to know Christ according to the flesh, yet now we don't even know him that way. We don't think of him as a Jew or not a Jew. That statement, by the way, is 2nd Corinthians 5:16. What Paul is saying is Christians are 100 percent non-racist. They don't care what race you are. Everyone's alike racially, though not everyone's alike spiritually. And it's the spiritual differences and only that that determine how we evaluate a person. All right?
Brad: So if I may, real quick follow up, in your lecture, "What Are We to Make of Israel?" which Israel is this? Because I'll be honest with you, I grew up under fear of losing my salvation if I was to condemn or say anything bad about the nation of Israel.
Steve Gregg: Well, there is no nation of Israel in terms the Bible speaks of today. Like I said, the only nation of Israel known in Scripture is a nation with the temple at the center where God is worshipped and the nation that exists because of a covenant they have with God. That nation does not exist today. No man can build such a nation. The United Nations can't create such a nation. God could, I suppose, but he hasn't done that. So the nation of Israel today is as secular, probably more secular than the United States. Am I free to critique the United States if they do the wrong thing? I think I am. Am I free to critique Spain or France if they do the wrong thing? I think so. Well, why couldn't I critique Israel or some Middle Eastern country? They're secular. Most Middle Eastern countries are not secular, but Israel is. A secular country that doesn't acknowledge God in any way, how is that a nation that I have to respect? I don't see it. Now, I'm not anti-Semitic because I have no concern whether someone's a Jew or not, but the idea is that saying a criticism of Israel, there was no one more critical of Israel than the prophets in the Old Testament. And that's when Israel was definitely God's chosen people. I mean, nobody really doubts that Israel was God's chosen people throughout the Old Testament. And yet the prophets lambasted Israel and criticized them and condemned them. And yet they were not anti-Semitic. Jesus also critiqued Israel, and so did Paul, but they weren't anti-Semitic and they didn't go to hell because Israel is not immune from criticism. No nation is. And so you were raised with a sensitivity that is unbiblical. Anyway, in my series you asked about the "What Are We to Make of Israel?", I give all the definitions there and I also I trace the history of the nation of Israel and the people of Israel and so forth and basically analyze from the Old and the New Testament what the attitude of Christians toward all Israel should be, whether they're racial or national Israel. Anyway, I'd recommend everybody who's interested in that subject go to thenarrowpath.com. There's a tab there that says "Topical Lectures," and there's a series of lectures called "What Are We to Make of Israel?" and I do go in great depth. And I think I leave nothing out in terms of what the Bible says on the subject. I appreciate your call. I need to give someone else a chance here. Shannon in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho was on the waiting to speak to me yesterday and we didn't have time to get to your call, so Shannon, welcome.
Shannon: Hi, Steve. So that's interesting that you bring up Zephaniah with the previous caller. My question was I was talking with somebody who was using Zephaniah 2 as evidence of futurist perspective on eschatology and talking about the forsaking of Gaza and the coming Day of the Lord. And I was curious, for I hold to an amillennial, partial preterist view, and so I was curious for any kind of historical context that you might be able to give for what that is actually talking about if it's a past event.
Steve Gregg: Any particular verse you're thinking of or just talking about the book of Zephaniah as a whole?
Shannon: Zephaniah 2:4, I believe, specifically is where it talks about the forsaken Gaza.
Steve Gregg: Yeah. Well, Gaza was forsaken. That was a Philistine city. There were five Philistine cities along the Mediterranean coast in biblical times from the times of the judges and even before the judges on to approximately the time of the Babylonian exile. Now, Zephaniah was written probably contemporary with Nahum, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah. So all of these were writing just before the Babylonian exile to Judah. And so much of what is there is about the Babylonians and the judgment coming on Israel because of their sins. God was going to take them into Babylon. Several times he mentions the remnant of his people though who will be saved. But these passages about the remnant often are talking about the salvation of the remnant in Christ because that's typically what prophets did. They would talk about the return of the exiles from Babylon and they'd be talking about the literal return of the exiles from Babylon, but they would see that as a foreshadowing of deliverance for people or salvation in Christ that would come when the Messiah comes. By the way, the Exodus from Egypt is treated the same way in Scripture. The Exodus is a real historical event but it's a type of salvation in Christ. Likewise, the return of the exiles from Babylon, that's kind of another Exodus. That's also a type of Christ. So prophets will talk about the coming exile, the judgment on Israel. They'll speak about the return of the Jews from exile and many times in that context they'll move on to talk about the ultimate salvation that will come through the Messiah of which the return of the exiles is a type and a shadow. Now, when he says in verse 4, Zephaniah 2:4, "For Gaza shall be forsaken, Ashkelon desolate, they shall drive out Ashdod at noonday and Ekron shall be uprooted. Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast, the nation of the Cherethites." The Cherethites are the Philistines in the Bible. "The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines. I will destroy you so there shall be no more inhabitant." Now, all this, there were as I said, five throughout Old Testament history, there were five Philistine cities on the coast of Palestine. This mentions four of them: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron. The fifth one was Gath. Gath is where Goliath had come from, but Gath had faded into insignificance by the time this was written. So Gath was not mentioned. But Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron are and they are referred to the nation of the Cherethites, which is the Philistines and refers to it as Canaan, land of the Philistines. So this is talking about, of course, what Nebuchadnezzar would do. In 604 BC, Nebuchadnezzar conquered and destroyed these cities. And this was of course what Zephaniah was predicting. Now, if someone wants to say, well, this is talking about modern Gaza. First of all, the city of Gaza isn't there anymore. I mean, there's a region called Gaza, but that region is not inhabited by Philistines. It's inhabited by Arabs. Arabs are totally of different lineage than Philistines. So it's not the same when Zephaniah was writing, it was Philistine land and he's talking about it being destroyed when it is in fact Philistine land. And it was destroyed in 604 BC. So if someone says, well, this is going to happen in the future, this is a little bit like saying, you know, Zechariah 9 said the Messiah will ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, and that did happen about 30 AD, Jesus did ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, but since I read it in Zechariah today, I'm going to make it a future thing too. I'll ignore the fact that it was fulfilled because I'm living now and everything's about me and anything that's read, if I read something in the future tense, it has to mean future from my point of view, which is a rather stupid way to read the Bible. I mean, it is stupid but I should just say it's naive, it's very uninformed way to read the Bible. You should assume that when the prophet spoke and predicted something, that before you decide whether it's going to be fulfilled in the future, you should find out if it was already fulfilled after they spoke it in our past. And in virtually every case, you're going to find that to be the case.
Shannon: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Steve Gregg: All right, Shannon, good talking to you. Thanks for your call. All right, Michael in Denver, Colorado, welcome.
Michael: Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. Such a pleasure to speak with you again. I just had a kind of a quick question today and I know we're kind of up against the break, so I'll be brief here. So I was reading something about Pope Leo recently, found kind of interesting, Pope Leo the 14th where he was talking about the idea of climate change and environmental protection saying it's an issue of faith, saying that environmental justice and climate protection is a requirement of faith. And you know, obviously he's put like a big emphasis on reminding people that taking steps to reduce climate change is essentially a part of being Catholic or being Christian or religious as much as reading the Bible or actually going to church itself is. And you know, sometimes to me, Steve, it actually seems like he puts more importance on people taking action to reduce climate change than actually reading the Bible or going to church. And so I was just going to ask what do you think about Leo's kind of assertion that reducing climate change is an essential part of a fundamental principle of being religious in a sense?
Steve Gregg: Let me jump in here because we're going to run out of time. First of all, I don't agree with Pope Leo on his statement and I'm not a Roman Catholic so I don't give special credit to the Pope anymore than I give to any other person. I'll just check out what the Bible says and if they're speaking according to this word, fine, if they're not, there's no light in them, the Bible says. Pope Leo has assumed, apparently, that climate change is a man-made problem and that if it's not addressed by man, then it's going to increase in a direction that's going to be lethal to future generations. That is, of course, the propaganda the people who tell us to trust the science tell us to just believe that. By the way, the people who said to trust the science were also telling us to believe Fauci when he was telling us his lies about COVID. I would have to see more proof than I have and more consensus among people who have no political agendas to believe that climate science is real science and that man needs to fix it. I do believe, however, that as Christians we're not just supposed to read the Bible, we should do that obviously, we should also do good, we should promote justice, we should also steward the world for future generations so that if there's some way that our behavior is wasteful and damaging and it'll hurt future generations, well, we shouldn't do that because that's not loving your neighbor as you love yourself. However, I'm not as convinced as the Pope is that climate change is an issue that we can change or have any responsibility about. I think it's a natural phenomenon. I need to take a break here. Thanks for your call. You're listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour so don't go away. When calling The Narrow Path with your question, please be considerate to listeners. One, be in a quiet place with a good connection. Two, if possible, avoid using the speakerphone. Three, if you have a problem articulating your question extemporaneously, write it down in advance. Four, while waiting on hold, stay on your phone. If you leave your phone and are listening to your radio, the broadcast delay means you won't hear when your name is called. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. You got questions about the Bible, we'll talk about them. If you raise them for conversation, if you've got a difference of opinion from a host, we'd love to hear it and talk about that. We have a couple of lines open right now. The switchboard has two open lines. You could get through if you call right now. The number is 844-484-5737. Once more, that's 844-484-5737. And our next caller is Tony from Greenville, South Carolina. Hi, Tony, good to hear from you.
Tony: Hi, Steve. Can you hear me?
Steve Gregg: Yes, sir. Go ahead.
Tony: Okay. I have basically two questions but they're both in the area of the essential to the faith and doctrines versus non-essential. One is Sola Scriptura. Which language is scriptural? Is it the Greek, the Hebrew, the Masoretic text, the Textus Receptus? Which one is considered perfect scripture that should be? And then the judgment and interpretation of that scripture in practical use, is that not the same as what the Catholics and the Orthodox do when they read the scripture? So for instance, in theory Sola Scriptura teaches that every doctrine, practice, and dispute ultimately be judged by scripture alone, but the scripture itself being infallible and the rule of faith. But you have pastors, elders, teachers, councils that when in practical work they have to make a judgment and an interpretation. So the first part is which language and the other is is Sola Scriptura really Sola Scriptura in the Protestant churches and is it not the same as in the Catholic churches when it comes to practical use?
Steve Gregg: All right. Well, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is not a discussion of which manuscripts are the best manuscripts or which translations are the best translations or what language you're reading in. Actually, of course, the Old Testament was mostly written in Hebrew. A few chapters were written in Aramaic and the New Testament was entirely written in Greek, although Matthew's gospel in a first draft was apparently written in Aramaic but we don't have that. Some of the church fathers mention it, but it was translated into Greek before our manuscripts came around, so we have only Greek manuscripts of the New Testament as our oldest. Now, all these manuscripts were translated, the Greek was translated into Syriac and into Latin within the first two or three centuries, and those are very old translations. Then of course, it's been translated into almost every language in the world now. The one we read is English and there's been many translations into English. Now, these translations differ in their wording, but for the most part they don't differ in their message. Now, Sola Scriptura doesn't tell us which of these translations or what language you should read it in. Of course, there's no holy language that is better than other languages. The language you should read it in is the one you understand because there's no sense reading it in Latin if you don't read Latin, don't understand Latin or Greek if you don't understand Greek. So English is the language English-speaking people should read. Now, this has nothing to do with like the conflict between scripture and tradition because it doesn't matter which manuscripts of the New Testament you read or what English translation you read, you're going to get the same doctrines in all of them. You're not going to get some strange Marian doctrines about her eternal virginity or something like that. None of the translations have that. Now, when we talk about Sola Scriptura, we mean that the scriptures are the primary authority. And of course, it's our desire to get the very best translation of the scriptures as possible, but even if we have a not-perfect translation, even the imperfect translations teach the same doctrines as the better translations do. Essentially the differences between translations and the differences between the manuscripts do not affect the teachings of the Bible because you can say the same thing in different language. People can use different strings of words from each other when they're saying the same thing and they can both say it clearly. So it's not as if the Bible somehow its message is hanging in limbo because we don't know which manuscripts were the earliest or we don't know which English translation is the very best. Its meaning is equally clear in all of them and that's the point. The point is not that the Bible is a magic book and you have to know the exact words that were written by the original authors in order to gain anything from it. No, you can get their message. It's been preserved very well in many manuscripts. Some of them differ in a few words from each other, but they don't differ in their teaching. So the things that are essential to believe as a Christian, you'll get those out of any Bible you read. And the question is not then do you have the best Bible, but are you teaching doctrines that have no support in any Bible? And that's really where the Lutheran and the Catholic difference emerged in the days of Martin Luther, and even before that because John Huss a hundred years before Luther was saying some of the same things Luther said. Wycliffe and Tyndale had some of the same ideas too before Luther. So we think of Luther as the founder of the Reformation only because he didn't get killed and his doctrines survived, and they did because he had a printing press and the other guys before him didn't. There weren't printing presses before his time. So Luther, his doctrine of Sola Scriptura is simply that the Catholic Church makes up a lot of doctrines that are not mentioned or hinted at in any scripture. They are made up by the priests and the bishops and stuff like that. So he's saying, well, the stuff that's made up that doesn't come from scripture is not what Christians are bound to believe or follow. But what the scripture does teach, we are. Now, he's not talking about the German translation that he made of scripture. He's not talking about the Greek or the Hebrew passage. He's talking about the message which by the way, I'm not sure how many languages you're familiar with, but it's possible to say the very same sentence in a thousand different languages which using different words convey that same sentence to the people who know those words, who know those languages. So to try to make Sola Scriptura dependent upon having the very right language is mistaken. It's more a question of does the Bible, do all Bibles teach it or do no Bibles teach it? If you believe something that's not taught in any Bible or any manuscript, that's the violation of the Sola Scriptura principle. If what you teach is in fact found in every Bible and every manuscript, and if that's the authority you're going by, then you're following Sola Scriptura. Now, by the way, the Bible doesn't enunciate a Sola Scriptura doctrine and Catholics often point this out. They say you Protestants, you say Sola Scriptura but where in the Bible does it teach it? Well, everywhere in the Bible it teaches that God's word is true and that men's words are not always true. So what God has given us through his prophets and through his apostles and through Christ is true. That's what we call the word of God. That's preserved for us in books we call the books of the Bible. Outside of those books, we don't have those things. We don't have the writings of the apostles or prophets or the sayings of Jesus reliably given outside of the books of the Bible. So that's why in other words, it's not that we're making a magic book out of the Bible, it's just the only record we actually have that has survived of what God said through the prophets and the apostles and through Jesus. And so we're really saying Sola Jesus. You know, it's what Jesus said and what Jesus believed and what Jesus endorsed, which he did endorse the Old Testament and the apostles' writing. So we're this is more Sola Jesus. Being a Christian is about following Jesus and the best and only information we have about what he said and did is in those books. Now, the Catholic Church adds lots of ideas and doctrines that aren't spoken by Jesus or any of the apostles, and where they get them I don't know, but they didn't get them from the Bible. And that's why we have to say we're going to go with what the Bible says. And so that's really what Sola Scriptura's about. It's really about giving Jesus the final authority about everything because he has all authority in heaven and earth. All right, thank you for your call, bro. Mary in North Carolina, we were just talking to South Carolina, now in North Carolina. Mary, welcome.
Mary: Hey, Steve. I called yesterday and I was the one who called last about the Bema Seat things. I was talking to my husband about it after I got off the phone with you and he posed a good question, I don't really have a good answer for it. When believers pass away before the Great White Throne of judgment, I am under the impression that we go into the presence of the Lord, but why would we then have to stand before the Great White Throne? And where do the unbelievers wait for the Great White Throne after they pass?
Steve Gregg: Yeah, we don't know much about the unbelievers. Most Christians would say they are in Sheol or Hades, very possibly consciously waiting for the Day of Judgment when Jesus returns. Some say that the lost are not conscious anywhere. They've gone into Sheol or Hades which they take to be the grave and they're not conscious, but they will rise from the dead to go to the judgment. The fate of the lost is hardly described in the Bible, certainly not in detail. So Christians sometimes reach different conclusions from the minimal information we have, nor is it important for us. The Bible wasn't written to satisfy our curiosity about what happens to somebody who's not us. The Bible's written to tell us how to live and not to be speculating about other people all the time. But the point is that we do go to be with the Lord because we belong to the Lord and God knows his own. He doesn't have to wait till the judgment to find out who's his. He knows before they die. I mean, I'm a Christian, he knows that. Sigmund Freud I mentioned earlier was not a Christian, he's dead, God knows that he's not a Christian. God doesn't have to wait until the final day to discover who's a Christian and who's not a Christian. He knows that during our lifetime. I hope he knows because I'm counting on it. I'm counting on the fact that the hairs of my head are numbered, he knows everything about me. He certainly knows I'm a Christian. So it's not like when I die he's going to go into a panic, "Well, was Steve a Christian or was he something else?" I mean, no, God knows the answer to that question and it will determine whether I'm with him forever or not. The judgment day comes in which everybody will be judged for all their works. Now, why? Because they'll be rewarded according to their works, the Bible says. And so both Christians and non-Christians are going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, which is like I said in 2nd Corinthians, it's called the Bema seat. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, Paul said, the word is Bema in the Greek. But there's also other references to the judgment seat and in Revelation 20 it's called the Great White Throne. And I said before that premillennialists believe that the Bema seat comes before the millennium and the Great White Throne at the end. I don't believe there is a millennium, so I don't see anything in the Bible that would justify the suggestion that there's more than one judgment. That's basically the sheep and the goats. Jesus said when he comes, he's going to call all the nations before him, he'll separate between the sheep and the goats. The sheep will go into eternal life, the goats into eternal punishment. That sounds like it's all at one time and there's no suggestion elsewhere in scripture. So yeah, God already knows who his are and who are not his the very moment that we die, and he knows even before that. But on the judgment, he determines what the penalties or rewards will be. Everyone's going to their works will be assessed. In other words, not everyone who's an unbeliever is going to get the same punishment exactly, and not everyone who's a believer's going to get the same rewards exactly. That's the Bible always says will be rewarded according to the things that were done in our bodies, the things we did, our deeds. And all the references to the judgment tell us that in the Bible. Now, the judgment then will not just decide who's saved and who's not saved. I don't even think that's going to be a consideration because again, God doesn't need that to decide that. On the other hand, it may well justify his decisions. I mean, if someone's about ready to be thrown into the lake of fire and they say, "Hey, that doesn't seem fair," well, God's going to Jesus said every idle word a person speaks is going to be given account of on the day of judgment, so they'll get the proof. They'll get to hear what they said again. "Oh, yeah, I did say that. Oh, yes, I did live that way." Yeah, that's what the judgment is for. And some will be judged more harshly than others. And so that's why the judgment has to happen.
Mary: Okay. Thank you so much.
Steve Gregg: All right, Mary, thanks for your call. Okay, we're going to talk next to Nelson in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Nelson, welcome to The Narrow Path.
Nelson: Yes, thank you for taking my call. I just want to ask you quickly the concept Bema Seat. Is that a Greek word for the Olympian runner who's awarded a crown or a leaf around his head for being a runner and he puts his body under, like the Apostle Paul says, "I run, so I run and I put my body under." Is that the concept of the Bema Seat?
Steve Gregg: Well, that's what I understand. I understand that the Bema Seat comes from the Olympic games and it's the rewards seat or the awards seat, the judges there pass out when the race is over. And so Paul uses that expression in order to compare when we stand before Christ, that's when we'll be rewarded for the way we ran the race.
Nelson: I see. Now I also have a second question. Can I go ahead to a second question?
Steve Gregg: Go ahead.
Nelson: Yes, it's totally unrelated. When I was a kid and we're both in our 70s, there was this author called Salem Kirban and he wrote books called "666" and another book called "The Last Goodbye." Now, after World War II, is that when that concept started creeping into Christendom about our unnecessary sensitivity about Israel? Is that when it started happening?
Steve Gregg: Well, it escalated at that time. No, the idea that Christians are supposed to elevate Israel in their concerns because on that view God does so, the idea being that God favors Israel over other nations and nations need to treat Israel well or else God will treat the nations badly. He'll vindicate Israel if they're not treated well. Those who curse Israel will be cursed, those who bless Israel will be blessed. This idea came actually long before World War II. It came with John Nelson Darby in the 1830s. It spread throughout the evangelical world. He was in England, but it spread to America and America probably became the main seedbed for that doctrine to be promoted through the Scofield Reference Bible, through Dallas Theological Seminary and similar dispensational schools and through radio broadcasts and through Bible conferences and things like that. It started in 1830, but it really took off in the early 1900s in the United States. The doctrine itself taught that God is going to restore Israel in the end times and that they are God's favorite people. They are still his beloved, they're the apple of his eye. They're the ones who God's going to judge everybody how they treat Israel. Which is interesting because the New Testament tells us everyone's going to be judged by how they treated Christ and how they respond to him. The dispensational idea arose in the 1830s and what it did is it replaced Jesus with Israel as the focal point. Dispensationalists commonly say in their books and preaching, you know, if you want to understand Bible prophecy you got to keep your eye on Israel, Israel's the center of Bible prophecy. The Bible doesn't say that anywhere. It always says that Jesus is the center of Bible prophecy. Only Jesus is mentioned as having fulfilled all the promises that God made to Abraham and David and such. I mean, that repeatedly we're told that Jesus is the fulfillment of all that. But dispensationalists decide, no, let's take him out of that position, let's put Israel in that position. So they made up a new doctrine in the 1800s that now Israel is important more than Jesus, at least in the same position Jesus used to hold. Jesus, according to the Bible, is the hope of Israel. According to dispensationalism, the hope of Israel is the end times restoration of a geographical, geopolitical, ethnic nation in the Middle East. Well, the church never believed that until 1830 or so and there was no reason to believe it and there still isn't. It's just that people, many times they've heard no teaching on prophecy except the dispensational teaching, so they have no idea what the church always taught or what the Bible actually does teach. After World War II, you mentioned, of course that's when the Holocaust occurred and when that became clear, that was used, I mean, I hate the Holocaust, everyone should hate it, but dispensationalists, you know, it's sort of like liberals today say "never let a crisis go to waste." You know, the dispensationalists didn't let the Holocaust go to waste. They used it to ramp up concern about Israel and so forth and to push for the re-establishment of a nation in the Middle East which it became in 1948. Now, that was done largely by two kind of movements. One was dispensationalism in America largely and England, and the other was Zionism which was a secular Jewish movement that started in the 1890s in Europe. Again, it was not a religious Jewish movement. The people who founded Zionism had no faith and they didn't practice Judaism. They were Jews, but they didn't practice Judaism. They were just had a political agenda. Theodor Herzl being the considered to be the founder of that. So there's secular Jewish Zionism and then there was dispensationalism, and since America and England were Christian countries and dispensationalism had by the early 1900s permeated evangelical Christianity, there was strong influence from the dispensational leadership of the churches upon Truman to push the United Nations to recognize Israel as a nation in the Middle East. So I mean, that's what happened. People can interpret what was going on behind it, God was behind it, the devil was behind it, it was just nothing, just one of those movements of history. People can have their own interpretation. I've just given you the facts. So after World War II, it did really propel this idea of Zionism in especially the Christian parts of the world. So yes. All right, thank you for your call, bro. We're going to talk next to John in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hi, John, welcome.
John: Hey, Steve, thanks for taking my call. So I want to preface this by saying that I struggle with alcoholism and gambling and I find myself talking to God at night and asking for forgiveness most nights before I go to sleep. I really wanted to hear what your thoughts were on once saved always saved because I feel like my soul is in jeopardy constantly and I've watched a lot of internet videos with pastors online talking about how if you're actually saved, then you won't want to commit the sins that you continue to commit. And it just I find myself worrying for my soul.
Steve Gregg: Well, that's a good thing. All people should be concerned. Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 13 that people should examine themselves to see if they're in the faith or not. He's writing to Christians, so it's good to question, good to re-examine. Now, the fact that you have an attraction to alcohol and gambling, that's obviously not a good thing. It doesn't mean you're not saved because Christians are human and they have the flesh which is attracted to things which we are not allowed to indulge in. Drunkenness would be one of them, abuse of drugs would be another, probably abuse of gambling, abuse of sex. I mean, there's things like that. The flesh desires these things and Christians have a flesh. Paul said in Galatians 5:17, "The flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these things are contrary to each other." They're both going on inside of you. But if you are true Christian, you desire to live according to the Spirit. You desire to please God. But that means you have two sets of desires. You have the desires that your flesh has which, by the way, is unredeemed. Your flesh will be redeemed, Paul said, when Jesus returns in Romans 8, the redemption of our body is what he calls what we're looking forward to. Our flesh is not redeemed yet, at least hasn't realized that redemption until it's resurrected. But we have a flesh that has its desires. We have our spirit. Now, if we're born again, our spirit is our dominant desires. I mean, we want to please God. We want to live a holy life. We want to defeat sin. We want to have no more sin in us at all. That's part of us wants that, the other part is our flesh which wants to sin. Now, if you're really a Christian, you've got to make sure that your desire to follow God is the dominant desire. If you say, "Well, you know, I don't really care if I sin that much, I kind of don't want to go to hell, so I'm going to try to stop sinning," but you know, I'm not if your motivated only by fear that you're going to go to hell, you probably need to have a re-orientation because a Christian never has to fear that they're going to go to hell because a Christian isn't going to go to hell. But a Christian might have to worry that they would stop being a Christian because some of them give up on that. Then they'll go to hell, but the point is that I need to be concerned that I'm pleasing God, not because I'm afraid to go to hell, but because God owns me. Because he created me, he owns me, he purchased me. Jesus purchased me with his blood. I'm not my own, I'm his. And therefore, if I take that seriously, my dominant desire is to please him in all things and it bothers me if my flesh is attracted to things that I can't approve of and that I know displease God. So I don't know what's in your heart. It sounds like you want to be a Christian. But if being a Christian to you just means I want to make sure I don't go to hell, your motivation may not be strong enough to keep you from sin. I think you need to be motivated by love. Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments." And when you love God, it breaks your heart to think that he's done so much for you and you do so much to offend him. You don't want to do that. Not because of his retaliation, but if you love someone you don't want to break their heart. If you love someone you don't like disappointing them. And that's really what it is. Your Christian life should be God-oriented, not self-oriented. Can a person lose their salvation? I believe they can abandon Christ. Paul said the Galatians had done that. He said they've fallen from grace and they're alienated from Christ. They were Christians, but they've fallen from there. So that can happen. But it doesn't have to. No one has to lose their salvation of course, and although we do fall into sin out of weakness, falling into sin isn't the way you lose your salvation. Giving up on following Christ is how you apostatize. When you decide, "Oh, well, I don't want to follow Jesus anymore, I think I'll do something else." That's apostasy, and that's abandoning Christ. You abandon Christ, you abandon life because that life that we have is in Christ. You can't leave Christ and take the eternal life with you. It's part of him. So if you're in Christ, you've got eternal life. What if you sin? Well, if you sin but you're in Christ, you'll repent and you don't lose your salvation. Christ forgives us. On the other hand, of course, if we say, "Well, I'm not sure I do want to stop sinning. I think I do want to follow my flesh." Well, then you probably aren't a Christian anyway. If you listen to my lectures online at thenarrowpath.com, I think you'll re-orient yourself pretty well because they are scriptural at thenarrowpath.com. Hey, I'm done. I don't have time. I got to get away. Have a good weekend. Let's talk Monday.