The Narrow Path 07/30/2026

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. The reason for having a live broadcast is I like to have you talk to me as well as me talk to you. You can call in during the broadcast and you can ask questions like about the Bible or the Christian faith, which we'll then discuss on the air. Or you can call to disagree with the host because after all, many things that I have said on this program would be things that many, well, a lot of people would disagree with. I don't mean only non-Christians. Probably people who are not Christians would disagree with most of what I have to say and you're welcome to call about any of that you want to, but even Christians have different views on many things. There are many listeners, I'm sure, who see some of the issues differently than I represent them on the air and so we welcome you to call in to balance comment or to challenge or to correct. That's what we do and we've been doing it for 29 years daily on this program. We have one line open at the moment, the others are all full. You can call me at this number, 844-484-5737. Once more, that's 844-484-5737 and we'll put you on there as soon as we can. Our first caller today is Manny from Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Manny, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Manny: First-time caller here. I have two quick questions. I grew up Pentecostal and they always sort of taught us to always ask God for signs before we make major decisions. Sometimes I have some decisions that I had to make up in terms of jobs and maybe going into ministry, but sometimes when I pray for a sign, I don't receive one, so I'm not sure what to do in that situation.
Steve Gregg: Pentecostals put a large emphasis on the supernatural, on the gifts of the Spirit, on revelations from God, prophecies, and things like that. Therefore, they sometimes also will wish to normalize various supernatural things like signs for guidance. I would think, for example, of Gideon, who was being told to lead the children of Israel against the Midianites and he asked for a sign. As we say, he put out a fleece. He put out on the ground a sheepskin, a fleece, and said, "God, if you really want me to do this, then in the morning let the fleece be all dry, but the ground around it be all wet from dew." It worked out just that way and Gideon said, "Well, let me do this one more time, just the other way around. This time let the fleece be wet and the ground be dry." I might have these two in reverse order, but it doesn't matter. The point is that he asked for signs. He was somewhat intimidated about the call of God to go and fight the Midianites since he had only, as it turns out, 300 men and the Midianites had 30,000, a quite unbalanced conflict. God gave him the signs and he went. This is not the only time when God gave signs to people, but it is relatively rare in the Bible that God gave signs. In other words, there's nothing wrong with God giving signs and He might even not mind if you asked for signs. But we can't require God to give signs. It's not normative. For example, you talk about major decisions. There's hardly any decision a person would make in their life than choosing a mate. If you make a bad choice, that could be very bad for your life and for your kids and so forth. If you make a good choice, it can be really great for the kingdom of God and so it's a very important decision. And yet, we don't read that anyone in the Bible asked for a sign before choosing their mate. In all likelihood, the Jews in the Old Testament just got their mates the normal way through matchmakers and parental involvement and arranged marriages. In the New Testament, we do read a fair amount about marriage, but we don't read of anybody asking for a sign to know if this is the right one or not. Now, I would say this, if we had such signs that gave us a sure answer to whether we're making a mistake about this or not, it'd be wonderful. But it just doesn't happen all the time. The Bible doesn't say that it should. We don't have an example in the Bible of every major decision awaiting signs. We do have some major decisions, like when the disciples were confused when Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke were wondering which way to go from north Turkey and God gave a dream to go into Philippi and over into Macedonia in Acts 16. But even most of the time, we don't read of them waiting for signs or waiting for dreams or getting prophetic words about what to do. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. What I think this means is that signs could be one way in which God will make His will known. There are other ways too and God is as fond of other ways as He is of that way. Now, I would say people who are kind of stoked on seeing supernatural stuff, of course, we'd always rather see a sign. We'd rather say, "Lord, if this is really you speaking, let the sun go back 10 degrees, the shadow on the sundial." If that happened, we'd be really, really excited to see something so amazing. But not everything in the Christian life is amazing and not all guidance is through amazing things. The Bible says in Romans chapter eight, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." Christians are led by the Spirit of God. But the Spirit of God doesn't only lead through signs and dreams and prophetic words, which He sometimes has been known to do and may still do. But He leads lots of ways. For example, the Scriptures were inspired by the Holy Spirit. As we read the Scriptures, we read, frankly, there are very few decisions I've really had to make that weren't possible to be made in light of what I read in Scripture. Some of the things we do, we just follow God's ways, which are revealed in the Scripture. We just walk in His ways. We do the thing that's righteous, we follow the themes of justice and mercy and faithfulness and therefore His Word guides us. Now, when it comes to decisions that have to be made that are really personal like which person to marry or what school to go to, if we're going to go to school, or what job to take if we have more than one offer, those things are pretty important things. But the Bible won't usually tell us which of those to accept because in many cases, after we've considered everything in the Bible, there's still more than one possibility. Now, I would simply say at times like that, there's nothing wrong with just saying, "God, I'm asking you to guide me. I'm your sheep. I'm going to follow the shepherd. If you don't give me some stupendous, unmistakable sign, I'm going to proceed as seems best to me because you write your laws in my heart and because you guide me from within by your Spirit. So I'll just make a decision based on all I know about righteousness and goodness and justice and also wisdom. And as I do so, if you don't want me to go the way I'm going to choose, then you have to stop me." God has been known to do that even in the Bible too. Paul and Silas and Timothy once decided they wanted to go preach the Gospel in Asia and they started to, and the Holy Spirit forbade them. So then they wanted to go into Bithynia and they started to do that, and the Holy Spirit forbade them to do that too. Somehow God stopped them. Now, they weren't in disobedience. It's just that they didn't have any clear word from the Lord and they decided to go a way that seemed like a good idea and they trusted that if it wasn't God's idea, that He'd stop them. And He did. We don't have to be stressing about knowing the will of God. If I understand how you feel, if your church teaches you don't make any major decisions without getting a sign from God, well, that can put a lot of weight, a burden on you like, "Okay, well, how do I make God give me a sign? And what if He doesn't want to?" The Bible doesn't have God doing miracles every time somebody wants Him to, or giving signs every time. There's lots of ways God guides and I'd say the Scriptures are among them. And of course, getting good counsel from wise people is another way, wise Christians, and just doing what you really feel strongly is what God's put on your heart is another. You can proceed with the agreement between you and God as "If I'm making a mistake here, you stop me because I don't want to go the wrong way." And then just trust Him. We're walking by faith, not by sight and not by signs. We're walking trusting God. That's what faith means. We're trusting that God is guiding us to do the right thing as we commit our ways to Him. So I'm not of the same mind as those who say you must get a sign for everything. It's not up to you to get a sign. God's the one who gives signs if He wants to. It's true Gideon asked for a sign and Hezekiah asked for a sign, but God sometimes just chooses to give people a sign. So anyway, it's not a balanced way of looking at the Christian life to think that we have to wait for a sign before we do anything.
Manny: All right. So the other one is recently you spoken about people praying for you and you received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I have three kids, 15, 12, and six, and I've been feeling like praying for them so they can sort of receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit as well. But I'm afraid of doing it and nothing happening. I pray with them all the time and I pray for them all the time, but just for this specifically. I'm not an apostle and I don't know that I have an anointing for that, but it's something that I've been thinking about doing.
Steve Gregg: To me, that'd be very similar to baptizing them in water. Being baptized in water and being baptized in the Spirit are both important things, but I think the person who's being baptized in both cases needs to desire it, needs to make the decision. In other words, I don't believe in infant baptism like some churches do. Some people, they baptize their babies. But in the Bible, people are baptized because they choose to follow Christ. They believe and they repent and then they get baptized of their own volition. I think being baptized in the Holy Spirit is that way too, except God sometimes unilaterally will baptize somebody in the Holy Spirit, like He did the household of Cornelius. They weren't baptized, they hadn't even come to faith before Peter was preaching to them, and then the Spirit just fell on them. So God sometimes sees that their heart is ready for it and just does it. But I don't know of anybody who was baptized in the Spirit who themselves didn't want to be and or who somebody else made the decision for them. So I can understand you wanting your kids to be filled with the Spirit and I believe they can be, but I don't think I'd urge it upon them if they're not if there's no certainty that they have a responsible knowledge of what's going on. I would just suggest that you make them aware that being baptized in the Holy Spirit is a biblical teaching and then continue to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And the time comes, I don't know if your kids have been water baptized yet, if they come to a place where they want to follow Jesus and get water baptized, that would be a good time also to talk to them about being baptized in the Holy Spirit and to lay hands on them at their baptism. That's the way things were usually done in the New Testament. But I don't think you could just go up to somebody and say, "Okay, I'm going to lay hands on you, you're going to be baptized in the Spirit," if they haven't had any interest in it, if they don't have any desire for it. So I would, in the case especially you have a six-year-old and 12-year-old and a 15-year-old, I would say the six-year-old is probably pretty young to be making a decision like that. I don't even know if the six-year-old has reached the age of accountability yet. I don't know what age that would be, but in this case, there are children who are six years old who make a solid decision to follow Christ and continue and carry on through it. I did, before I was six. But I've also known many people who kind of rushed their kids to make a confession of faith when they were little children and later the children thought, "I didn't have any idea what I was doing. That wasn't really me doing that. I'm not sure I really would have made that decision." So I'd say be patient with them. I'd say continually fill their minds with the truth and follow Jesus in your own life in a way that makes them say, "I'd like to be like my dad. I'd like to follow Jesus that way." And that'll make them thirsty. Remember Jesus said this in John 7:37. He said, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me. And he that believes on me, as the scriptures have said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." And in verse 39, John says, "This he spoke of the Holy Spirit, who was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified." But the thing here, Jesus said, "If you're thirsty, come and I'll give you this living water," which is the Holy Spirit. I think you need to probably wait until such a time as they are thirsty because if you try to force water on somebody who's not thirsty, they just won't drink it. It's like leading a horse to water. When they're not thirsty, they won't drink it. And yet, they will be thirsty if you raise them and live before them in a way that inspires belief in them and then inspires admiration for a godly life and for the things of God. So those would be my thoughts. I would just say raise them up to desire that. And when you can see that they desire it and that you know you're not pressuring them, that's when I would talk about them being baptized and being filled with the Spirit. I hope that helps you, brother.
Matthew: Hey, brother Steve, thanks for taking the call. God bless you. My question is in regarding in Genesis. I just I'm going through your verse-by-verse on the website. And the first chapter, man, there's a lot to digest there. I guess my question here is you had made this statement, and I don't know how old it is so forgive me if I'm dating it and your thoughts have changed, that you believe that the accounts are historically accurate. And I believe the reason you gave is solid enough, you believe so because Jesus believed so. And I'm I guess what I'd like you to explain further is where exactly led you to believe that. So like, for example, I'm not disagreeing, I'm just genuinely curious for your insight. Like the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, like Jesus doesn't precursor that by saying this may or may not be rabbinic literature. Jude chapter nine, right? He talks about the Assumption of Moses, allegedly the Assumption of Moses, but speaks on it as if it was like true and actual fact. So like giving like instances like that, just if you could explain where you were so convinced that Jesus does believe the historical accuracy of Genesis.
Steve Gregg: Okay, sure. Excuse me. For those who don't know what you mean, sometimes Jesus or New Testament authors will cite materials that neither they nor their audience believe are true, but they are great sermon illustrations. And this is something that's a quite legitimate thing to do for a preacher to do. A preacher might be making a good point from which he uses something from Aesop's Fables or from Poor Richard's Almanac or from Pilgrim's Progress or some other book or even some philosopher even who says something quite correct or brilliant or suited to the point the preacher's making. Now, if somebody quotes Poor Richard's Almanac, which was written by Benjamin Franklin, there's a lot of good stuff in there and a lot of good quotes that could be used in sermons. But if somebody said, "And just like Benjamin Franklin said, blah, blah, blah," and quotes one of the proverbs in there, nobody in the congregation, none of the listeners nor the preacher believe that Benjamin Franklin was an inspired prophet or apostle. And therefore you're not affirming something that you're not affirming. What you're affirming is that they said that and that what they said is worthy of notice because it's really quite an acceptable thing they're saying. You're not saying and therefore these people are inspired writers. So Jesus in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is seemingly using a parabolic template that was very familiar with the Jews from the preaching of the rabbis. The rabbis had lots of parables too and many of them were very similar to Lazarus and the rich man. Neither the rabbis nor their audiences believed that these parables were true. And Jesus and His disciples probably might not have believed this parable was true either, generally speaking. But not always, the Bible sometimes says, "He began to tell this parable," and then we're told he's using a parable. But he doesn't always tell his audience that he's using a parable. So sometimes he just says, "A certain man went out and did such and such," and he tells the story and it sounds like he's telling a true story. But we're told by Matthew or Mark or Luke who's recording it that this was a parable. But we don't have Jesus telling the audience it's a parable. They were to understand and recognize this was a parable. He's not talking about a particular individual. Or when Jude quotes from the Book of Enoch or from the Assumption of Moses, now, these were familiar works that lots of people read. And to my mind, even I mean, it doesn't mean that he's saying those were Scripture or that those were inspired. He might not even be saying that these are literally true. But I think he probably is. I don't know, he may be affirming they are true. But lots of things are true besides inspired Scripture. But I mean, it's like when preachers preach about hell. Sometimes they say, "Like C.S. Lewis said in The Problem of Pain, hell is the door to hell is locked on the inside." Now, what they mean by that is people go to hell because they want to be there and they stay there because they want to stay there. But there's really no one is really trying to say if you go to hell you'll actually find a locked door and the lock is done on the inside. It's a saying that some preachers think is helpful and true, but nobody is saying that C.S. Lewis in writing that book was inspired. Now, what did Jesus think about Genesis? Well, the thing is, the Jews did believe that Genesis was true. Genesis chapter one and two and three, which have the creation and the fall, are followed by stories with genealogies. So Adam had Cain and Cain had this line and one of the guys seven generations down in Cain's line, you know, married a couple women and he killed a guy and so forth. And then of course from another line from Adam, there was Seth and we have his generations, exactly how many years each person lived when they had the next child and how long they lived after that and their death is recorded. And then it comes down to Noah. Then from Noah we have the same thing, genealogies every generation from there to Abraham. And there's not a Jew alive who did not believe in Abraham. And I doubt that there was a Jew alive who didn't believe in Noah. In fact, I seriously doubt there was a Jew alive who didn't believe in Adam and Eve. So when Jesus, when they said, "Well, is it lawful to divorce your wife?" he said, "Well, don't you remember how God made it? Don't you remember how it says in Scripture, God made them male and female?" That's Genesis 1:26 and 27. And he said, Jesus says quoting now Genesis 2:24, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, leave his wife, the two shall become one flesh." Now, he assumed that those are true statements and he said, "Therefore what God has joined together," that is what God has made one flesh according to Genesis 2:24, "let no man put asunder." What he's saying is, you're asking me a moral question. I'm going to answer this moral question based on what God did. And you know what God did because it's recorded in Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two. In other words, he's saying you can just go back to that history and see what God did. And what God did and what He said on that occasion tells us what He thinks about this subject. That Cain and Abel were real characters, that Cain really killed Abel, certainly appears to be understood to be true by Jesus because Jesus said in Luke 11:49-50, he said that all the blood of all the prophets from Abel to Zechariah will come upon this generation. Now, he's saying there's blood guilt on the Jewish nation that they'll be punished for in that generation in 70 AD. They're going to be punished for the blood guilt of all the prophets who died beginning with Abel. Now, if Abel was a fictional character and never died, how could anyone be held accountable and punished for his death? You can't be punished for the death of someone who's a mythical character. Jesus treated these things as if they're true. In Luke 17, Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they were given in marriage." Now, what's interesting is Genesis doesn't record them in the days of Noah eating and drinking and given in marriage. It mentions them doing criminal acts and being violent and evil. But there's no mention of their eating or drinking or given in marriage. Jesus is assuming that's obvious, people do eat and drink and get married. He's saying this is historically the way it was in the days of Noah. I'm not basing this on some statement in Genesis, I'm basing it on the reality that Genesis is talking about, the days of Noah and the flood. In other words, if Jesus just thought that these were parables or myths, then he certainly didn't let on. And therefore he spoke about these things as if they're true and he also as if they carry some actual culpability, like Abel was killed in Genesis 4. Somebody's got to pay for that. And that payment, that penalty's going to come on this generation. Well, who's going to pay for Humpty Dumpty being pushed off the wall? I want to know that. Well, nobody, because Humpty Dumpty never existed. Abel did and he really was killed and that's why people could be held guilty of it. And so that's what Jesus is saying. Jesus does not indicate that he saw these stories differently than those he's talking to did. Whereas quoting Enoch or the Assumption of Moses or as Paul sometimes quotes Greek poets a few times, his audience did not imagine that those were inspired Scripture and so he didn't have to tell them that they were or weren't, he just mentioned what they said. And that's... so the way he treats the stories in Genesis is as if they are true and he's speaking to an audience who also believe they're true and he doesn't correct them or put any kind of caveat on that. Whereas in other places, there are things he says or Paul says or someone else says that everybody knows that the source is not an inspired source, so it's just being used as a sermon illustration. So that's how I would answer that, Matthew. I hope that helps.
Matthew: Yeah, awesome. Luke 11 is a great reference point, Steve. God bless you, man.
Steve Gregg: God bless you too. Appreciate your call. You're listening to the Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming, but right now we just want to let you know the Narrow Path is listener-supported. If you'd like to know how to help us, you can go to our website thenarrowpath.com. There's a donate link. There's also all kinds of free stuff, no charge for anything. Lots of stuff free. Or you can donate at thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Don't go away. Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for another half hour taking your calls. You got questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, we have a few lines open. This is a great time to call, but it's getting late in the broadcast. I recommend if you want to get on the air, you call as soon as you can. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. All right, our next caller is Earl in Mississippi. Welcome to the Narrow Path, Earl. Thanks for calling.
Earl: Hey, thanks, sir. Can you hear me? Yes, thank you for taking my call. I've lately been encountered the dispensationalist argument of the two-day prophecy regarding that book "The Coming Prince." So I listened to some of your teaching on that. I'm not quite sure I followed what you're saying. I'm not sure on the grounding of that particular line of thinking, but I wonder what's a good way to refute that biblically? And then also they like to take that line of thinking out into the future with the 1948 establishment of Israel. And yeah, I just wonder if you could maybe talk some more on that or point me in the right direction maybe.
Steve Gregg: Sure. Well, what you're talking about, and many people don't know, "The Coming Prince" was written by a famous British author, Sir Robert Anderson, in the early 1900s or maybe even late 1800s. What he was doing was talking about the seventy weeks of Daniel, which is 490 years. The prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27 says that it's going to be that length of time between the decree to rebuild and restore Jerusalem and the Messiah the Prince. Now, there's a lot of ways this has been understood. Sir Robert Anderson, there are three different decrees that were made in ancient times by kings allowing the Jews to go back and do more rebuilding on Jerusalem. The first of them was made by Cyrus in 539 BC and then there were two such decrees made by Artaxerxes and the same Artaxerxes made both of them. One of them was in 457 BC and the other in 444 BC. So there's three different years that you could start this because the prophecy just says "from the going forth of the command to rebuild and restore Jerusalem." It doesn't say whose command or which one, and there historically there have been three of them. The first one caused Zerubbabel to go back with the remnant of 50,000 and rebuild the city. But later, Ezra received a command from Artaxerxes in 457 BC or 458 BC to go back, and that could be the one. And then of course later Nehemiah received such a command to take some people back and do more work on the same project and that was in 444 or 445 BC. In other words, where do you start? The 490 years starts at a decree to rebuild Jerusalem. Which one do you start at? Well, believe it or not, there are Bible scholars who've chosen each of these. There's some who start with Cyrus, there's some who start with Artaxerxes' first decree, and there's some who start with Artaxerxes' second decree. And they calculate variously and come up with different dates. Now, what's the endpoint of the 490 years? Well, it says it's till Messiah the Prince. Okay, and we recognize Jesus as the Messiah, so we look for an endpoint somehow related to Jesus. But to say "from that point to the Messiah," well, what point in the Messiah's life are we looking at as the endpoint? His birth? That would make sense, "till the Messiah is born." That'd be one thing. Another theory is "till the beginning of the Messiah's public ministry." I mean, the Messiah was on the earth for 30 years before anyone knew he was around and he started publicly preaching in 30 AD or 27 AD probably. That would be then the Messiah fulfillment is when he presents himself to Israel. Or some think it's Messiah's death that is the coming of the end of it. Now, there's another factor too. I don't mean to confuse, but it is confusing. I'm trying to make it as unconfusing as possible. There are three alternative starting points. You can't prove any one of them to be the one. Therefore, there are good scholars who've chosen each of them and done their own calculations from that. Likewise, there are at least three different possibilities for the end of the period of time, perhaps the birth of the Messiah, perhaps the beginning of his public ministry, his baptism, perhaps it's his death. Now, there's another thing. There's one group of people who think that only 69 of those weeks, which is 483 years—a week being seven years in this prophecy—69 of those weeks make 483 years, leaving seven more years to make up the compliment of 490. Anderson and dispensationalists believe that the Messiah came, rode into Jerusalem on a donkey at the end of the 69th week. Now, before his time, there were different theories about that. Some think that Jesus' ministry, his baptism, took place at the end of the 69th week, which is the way I lean myself. And a person could argue if he wished that Jesus' birth came at the end of the 69th week or at the end of the 70th week. Here's the question. Anderson believed, as dispensationalists believe, that the 69th week caused a pause to occur and the 70th seven years has been postponed until the end of the world. That's where they get the idea of a seven-year tribulation. They think that the 70th week of Daniel is going to be a seven-year tribulation, though the Bible never refers to it that way. But so that's their view. Now, what Anderson did is he calculated the dates from the first decree of Artaxerxes in 458 BC and forward to the date of the triumphal entry of Christ and he said it was exactly 483 years, which is 69 weeks. Now, it didn't work unless you used a different kind of week, a different kind of year than we do. If we're talking about 483 years, we have to know, well, was it a 360-day year or 365 and a quarter day year? We use a year that's 365 and a quarter days long with a leap year every four years. The Jews generally used a year that was 360 days, which is a few days shorter than our years. And therefore 483 years of the shorter years would be a shorter period of time than if we calculated using our years, considerably shorter actually. And so Anderson made calculations using a 360-day year from the first command of Artaxerxes to the date that Anderson believed was the date of the triumphal entry. And lo and behold, it worked out to exactly 483 years of his type of years that he chose to calculate by. Okay, so what dispensationalists do with his material is they say, "See, Jesus was crucified at the end of the 69th week, but the 70th week was postponed until the end of the world." Now, here's the problem. Anderson had a different year for the crucifixion than most scholars would accept. And so even the date of the ending of it is speculative. The date of the beginning of the calculations is speculative. And so are other views. Now, in my opinion, if you start with the second decree of Artaxerxes, it brings you up to probably the date of Jesus' baptism would be the end of the 69th week. And then Jesus began the 70th week right after the 69th. The 70th week began with the baptism of Jesus. And in the midst of the week, that is three and a half years later, he ended the sacrificial system with his own crucifixion. And that's what Daniel said would happen. So anyway, there are other views besides the dispensational view and other views besides my view and it's a very complicated thing. But no matter which view you take, there are variables that no one can be certain about. You cannot be certain which of those decrees begins the period. You cannot be certain which of the events in the life of Jesus end the period. You also can't really be sure if this is a 360-day year or 365 and a quarter day year. There are assumptions and people do that all the time. My position is, I don't know. I mean, I don't know which things Daniel assumed or the angel that was speaking to Daniel. All I know is that no matter which of those dates you start with or what point in the life of Jesus you end with, you end up very much within the range of the time that Jesus came, within a century before or after Christ. No one came along to fulfill the Messianic prophecies. There were lots of people who claimed to be the Messiah and they weren't and the Romans crucified them and they didn't come back and they didn't do the miracles that Jesus did. Jesus was a credible claimant to the Messianic expectations. And he rose from the dead and he did miracles, did things which verify who he was. And he came at the general time that Daniel said the Messiah would come. Did he come on the exact day and if so what part of his life fell on that day? I don't know that I can answer that with certainty and I don't feel like I need to. Why should I? I mean, it's just a matter of curiosity. One thing we can say is the whole period from the decree to the Messiah according to Daniel would be 490 years. The idea of postponing seven years till the end of the world is absolutely artificial, not a slight, not the slightest hint in Scripture that there's any break between the 69th and 70th week. That's 100% artificial. It's man-made and Sir Robert Anderson's book "The Coming Prince" seemed to support that man-made idea. But I'm not impressed with people who think they know when it starts and think they know when it ends and then they have to even if he says it ended with the triumphal entry of Christ, well, but Anderson doesn't even I don't even agree with him on the date he think that happened. So we're looking at something that cannot be nailed down to the satisfaction of everybody, nor needs to be. I mean, if we'd like to know the exact date, well, waste as much time as you'd like looking for it, but the truth is, what that prophecy proves is that Jesus is the Messiah. And you can do calculations by which the 69th week ends at his baptism and then in the middle of the 70th week, three and a half years later, he dies. And you can do other kinds of calculations starting with a different starting point, assuming a year of the ending point and doing a different kind of year and you can reach another conclusion. But you're still looking at the lifetime of Jesus. And so people do love to show, "Oh, it's down to the day," and I've heard the calculations on May 14th, 1948 in modern times when Israel became a nation. Oh man, I've heard these people make all these calculations from various numbers and statements in the Old Testament which do not apply, or at least to say they apply is entirely speculative. And I think listen, why don't we just decide not whether something can be made to fit some calculations after the fact. That is, we know when Israel became a nation in 1948. Before that time, nobody predicted that date, which means they had the same Bible we do, could make the same calculations that these people are making now, and they never came up with a prediction that May 14th, 1948 would be when Israel becomes a nation again. Not one person did. And yet we had people that did believe it was going to happen at some point and they had the same Bible and all the same numbers in the Bible that we have. It's easy once you have the answer to the problem to go back and reverse engineer the problem and say, "Okay, well, this let's start with this year and we'll multiply this one by seven and then we got this period of time here and we'll multiply that by another seven and take away this and add this." Well, who's deciding what to add and take away? Well, the person who knows what he's aiming at. He's aiming at May 14th, 1948 and he adds and takes away and multiplies whatever he wants to, randomly, different numbers in the Bible until he gets the result he wants. To me, that's unimpressive. Especially when there's nothing in the Bible that specifically mentioned that Israel would become a nation again in the end times. So people can impress you with a lot of mathematics. What you have to recognize they're doing in every case, they've got the end point that they want and they reverse engineer the mathematics and they can choose numbers at random, they can choose dates at random, any date in the Bible, any number in the Bible and multiply or divide or add or subtract in ways that the Bible does not encourage you to do, but they can do that and eventually they come up with the number they're looking for. And all I can say is I'm not impressed. Nor do I think that we need to have those exact dates predicted. What's the point? But I will say this, if the Bible's numbers and a correct use of them pointed, and the Bible's been with us for 2,000 years, if in those 2,000 years, if there were prophecies that predicted these numbers and these dates so you could come up with 1948, how is it that all these prophecy experts before 1948 never had a hint of it? They never came up with that date. Like I said, hindsight is 20/20. You start with what you know happened and then you can go looking to find the things that you say predicted it to happen that way. I think to me that's artificial and I'd rather be, I don't like to play around with the word of God. I have some reverence for the word of God. I've always had reverence for it. And when I find that people are lollygagging and messing around in order to use, twist the word of God to get some kind of impressive point they want to make, I think, "Whoa, I have more respect for the Bible than that." God says he's looking for those who and he'll honor those who tremble at his word. These people are not trembling at God's word, they're manipulating the word of God to get what they want from it. And I'll stand far from them. I don't want to partake of their rewards.
Brandon: Hey, brother Steve, how you doing? I know we don't have a lot more time left. I talked to you recently about the church that I was kind of forced to leave out of that. And I just need you to help me on something else if you can shed some light on this. I've been going to a different church recently and I'm just kind of finding I'm just like hitting a wall with churches, you know because I'm a teacher in some churches and I'm a servant of God and me and my family all are and I'm just trying to figure out like why do they want us like some churches wants us to stay full-time and they press and they press and I'm like I can't devote full-time to you. I got, you know, I go somewhere else and it's just like they hold you down so much that like I'm hitting walls with churches right now and I'm just kind of looking for some light to shed.
Steve Gregg: If it's true that you've got a gift of teaching, then you would be useful to many churches. And if the church that's forcing you out right now, if they have a glut of good teachers, if the people there are just thriving spiritually because the wonderful feeding the sheep are getting from the shepherds there, then they might just say, "Well, we appreciate your gift and we recognize it, but all of our speaking opportunities are pretty much filled with guys who also have those gifts and maybe God's going to call you to use yours somewhere else." But if their problem is that they would use you if not for the fact that you want to be open to visit and minister other places too and they can't own you, well, then that's a problem. Because if that is the case, if they're saying, "If you join our church and you're exclusively ours, then we'll find ways to use you here," I think, well, if you have need for me somewhere, why don't you just use me, I'm available without that artificial kind of commitment. What is it that they're using as an excuse to put a limit on you? Do they not recognize your teaching gift? Well, if so, then they you could see why they wouldn't want you to teach if they don't think you have the gift. If they say, "Well, you do have the gift but you can't use it here unless you have this kind of commitment that we require people to make," then that's a very strange thing to me. Well, it's not strange, it's just so different than the way I've come to think about things after reading the Scriptures. I was raised in ordinary churches, what we call institutional churches. I've been in them since I was a child. My ministry began within institutional churches and I speak in them, I speak in institutional churches a lot. So I understand the mentality of some of them. Fortunately, not all such churches have this attitude. I know some pastors who do not. For example, there are churches that whenever I come to town, they have me speak there. I don't have a commitment to those churches per se, I'm not a member of those churches, but they feel they can use a teacher when I'm in town and they're glad for it. If I lived in town and was going to a different church, they might feel differently. I don't know. Probably not though. I'll tell you this, if I was in charge of teaching a flock of a church, and there was a pastor or an elder or a teacher from some other church in town who I respected his ministry and he wanted to come speak for us, I'd let him do it. He wouldn't have to join our church. He's part of the body of Christ and so are we. It shouldn't matter which man-made organization somebody usually attends and they shouldn't even have to have commitment to one of these man-made our commitment is to Christ and to His body. That doesn't mean that we don't fellowship most of the time and serve most of the time in one particular congregation. I think often that's very wise because by doing so you can build relationships, you can establish trust, you can work long-term toward projects with them. I think it's a very positive thing to have a good fellowship you can be in regularly. But for them to say, "Yeah, now you have to sign on the dotted line, you belong to us now, you can't minister in another church down the street or across town because you're ours, not theirs," that is saying, "I'm of Paul, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Apollos," that is what Paul called carnality. He called it infantile. He called it babes in Christ in 1 Corinthians chapters two and three. Yet, I will say this, if they don't if you really are a gifted teacher—and I believe I heard you say that and that's good because we need more gifted teachers. Most churches need them very badly. Many pastors are not teachers. They don't even claim to be teachers. Some of them are preachers or evangelists or exhorters or something like that, but as far as teachers go, there's not a glut in our modern churches of people who are really responsible teachers. But there is a glut of churches that need them. So I would imagine that you could be of great use in a number of churches. But if they are institutionalized to the degree that they won't let you minister there unless you become a member exclusively of their church, they really need your teaching but they're probably not going to get it because they're asking you to make an unbiblical kind of a commitment and basically withhold your ministry from the rest of the body of Christ in town. If you are living in Phoenix, Arizona, you're part of the church of Jesus Christ in Phoenix, Arizona, which meets in many congregations in many different places. But you're part of the whole church. Therefore, if you are known or if your gift is known and respected, any of the churches in Phoenix should have no problem with you teaching there whether you join their little group or not. Of course, there's always other issues that are deeply ingrained problems because if you are gifted, gifted enough that they think it'll bless their congregation, but you also teach in other congregations, then you might draw people to those other congregations when you teach there, away from their own. And if a pastor says he doesn't care about that, good for him. But I think many of them do. I think many pastors do care whether people are drawn from their congregation to another one where they feel that they're getting fed more. So usually it's a very common thing for institutional churches to kind of lock it down. The people who teach for us, teach only for us. The people who come to our church and get blessed there, we want them to only come to our church and get blessed there. We're not very happy if they leave our church and go to another one. Why not? What if they're being fed in another one, maybe they feel their family's spiritual needs are being met in another church more than yours? Are you still upset for them pursuing that? Well, what it really is, I have to say, and I know this because I was a church leader once and I felt it too sometimes, when people would leave our church and go to another, I thought, "What's wrong with us? What are we, chopped liver? How come you feel you have to go there to be fed?" But I mean, it hurts your ego. I know it hurt my feelings when I was an elder in a church. I did most of the teaching there and some people, a new church came to town and some of our people went to go there instead. I thought, "Hey, what's wrong with what you're getting here?" But I mean, I didn't say that, but you feel that. "Well, I thought I was doing my best, I would have thought this would be good enough." So pastors are humans, they have hurt egos sometimes too. They also have corporate structures that pay them and so forth. And so there's lots of things that are a barrier to someone let's say like yourself. I'm going to take your word for it that you have a gift of teaching, that you would be a real benefit to many churches, but the very structures of the churches themselves and the attitudes that are fostered in those structures can deprive many in the church of a gift that God has given them, namely you. Now, again, I don't know you, I don't know if you're a teacher or not. I think you said you are, so I'm just going with that. You might have to start a home group to have a venue, or you might find a pastor who appreciates you and says, like when I came to Santa Cruz from Oregon, a pastor who knew me from when I lived in Santa Cruz before took me out to lunch and said, "Steve, I hear you're back in town in Santa Cruz, just want you to know our church would love to have you join us." I said, "Well, brother," and he's a friend of mine and a good pastor, I says, "You know, I just can't join a denomination. It's against my conviction." He said, "Brother, you're right. You don't belong to our denomination, you belong to the body of Christ, you're just welcome to preach here anytime you're available and we recognize you belong to the whole church." And I loved that. He's a wonderful man, one of my favorite pastors in Santa Cruz, obviously. Anyway, I'm out of time. More churches should be like that. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.