The Narrow Path 09/18/2026

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. Live so that you can call in if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith. I'd be glad to hear from you. You can call in, ask, and we'll talk about your questions. If you have a difference of opinion from the host and want to talk about that, we welcome that as well. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. If you're a man and living in Southern California or going to be tomorrow morning in Southern California, I teach a Bible study for men once a month on Saturday, the third Saturday of the month. That's tomorrow, and it's in Temecula at 8:00 in the morning. If you're up and around and want to join us for that, feel free to do so. You can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, look under announcements, and you'll find the time and address and things like that. Also, of course, there's a Michigan trip coming up the first week of October. Lots of places in Michigan I'll be speaking. If you're in Michigan and want to join us or want to find out if we're going to be near you, go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and again, look under the tab that says announcements. You'll find all the information there. That's all I need to say about that. So let's talk to Clint in Walla Walla, Washington. Clint, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Clint: Thanks, Steve. I really appreciate your ministry. It's corrected me in a lot of things. I have a theory about the sons of God in Genesis 6. I've presented this to others and I understand it's a secondary issue. But on your radio program yesterday, you made a statement that threw a wrench in my theory, so I thought I'd give you the theory real quick and then you could tell me your input accordingly. It had to do with how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. You were saying it could have been days or weeks, and I would think it would be at least 100 years, maybe longer. The reason I say that is Genesis chapter 2, verse 9, where God instructs Adam to name all the living creatures and the livestock and the birds of the sky and everything. I would think that that process would take more than just a couple days or weeks. Then the second part of the theory is you made mention to it yesterday, did Adam and Eve have children prior to partaking and eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? I would think, obviously in chapter 1, God blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply. But the reason I would also say they might have had children prior was in chapter 3, verse 16, where he says to the woman, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall deliver children." For there to be a multiplier or an increase, it seems like she would have had to have that experience prior to that increase. If they did, could these children be the sons of God referenced in chapter 6 of Genesis?
Steve Gregg: Well, it's an interesting theory. I don't think it'll work with the chronological information we have. However, I understand if they had children before they fell, those children would not be fallen, presumably, and therefore might be called the sons of God. Although people later in history are called sons of God, like Israel is called that in Hosea chapter 1, and Christians are called that in the New Testament, and we actually live after the fall. So one would not have to live before the fall in order to qualify for that expression, for that label. But here's the thing. The statement that God would increase the pain in childbirth that Eve would have does not mean—it depends increase over what benchmark. Is it the benchmark of what she had experienced before in childbirth, or what she otherwise would have experienced in childbirth if she had not sinned? I personally don't see that the wording itself favors one over the other. Now there may be other things that do. But to say, "I will increase your pain or sorrow in childbirth," over what measure? It may mean that she had had childbirth and it's going to be worse from now on, or it's simply it's going to be increased over what it would have been had you not done this. You've basically earned yourself more pain in childbirth than you would have otherwise had. I personally go for the second for the simple reason that I don't believe they were very long in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 5, it says in verse 3, "Adam lived 130 years and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, named him Seth. After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were 800 years and he begot sons and daughters." So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died. So the total number of years that Adam lived was 930 years. 130 years into that time, he had Seth. But before that, he had Cain and Abel. Now presumably, in that 130 years, Cain and Abel could have been born. But they were born after the fall. So we don't really have any record of children born before the fall. That would be an interesting dilemma for Paul's reasoning that when Adam sinned, the whole human race fell, because they were still in Adam. In any case, I think the Bible, since it is silent on the question of any children before Cain and Abel, there's not any real reason for us to assume there were any. As far as naming the animals goes, I don't think it would take 100 years for anyone to name the major groups of animals. I think probably the animal world has differentiated through variation over the thousands of years since this time, and so there's probably more varieties of animals now than there were then. He may even have only named the major groups as opposed to all the what we would call species. For example, within the rabbit group, there are many species today, but there may have only been one species of rabbit, or maybe there were many and he called them all rabbits. We don't know much about that. So that's your theory. My instincts and the way I understand the passages of scripture would be different than that. But I can't say you're necessarily wrong. I can't prove you absolutely wrong, nor would I have any specific desire to do so.
Clint: Okay. Yeah, I just like I said, it was something that I'd sort of come up with and then you'd made that statement. I guess the other thing that I thought why they might have had children prior is in chapter 4 where Cain was concerned about his well-being and if anybody finds him and kills him. And if at that time all there was was Adam and Eve and possibly Seth, who else would he be concerned that might kill him if they found him? I thought that might be another reason for that other children would have already been born and be on the earth as well.
Steve Gregg: Right, but that's not a problem from my point of view either because we are told there in Genesis 5 that Seth was born when Adam and Eve were 130 years old. Now in chapter 4, it says that when Seth was born, Eve said God has given me another male child to replace Abel, whom Cain slew. So it sounds like the slaying of Abel by Cain was fairly recent at the time that Seth was born. If not very recent, it would seem that Seth would be the first male child born since that time, since Eve saw this as God giving her another male to replace the one that was lost. So in other words, I think Cain and Abel were well over 100 years old themselves when Cain killed Abel. Lots of other children would have been born in the meantime since Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply. I believe they did. But I believe that Cain and Abel are represented as the first children they had after the fall. There are none mentioned before. And then it would be about 130 years before Seth was born, but there were other children born in between, and those are the ones who were probably the ones that Cain was afraid to run into and from whom he chose a wife. Anyway, it's an interesting theory. Thanks for joining us. Let's talk to Carolyn in Seattle, Washington next. Carolyn, welcome.
Carolyn: Hi, thank you. I want to talk to you about my thoughts on dispensationalism. Unless, of course, you think it's teaching a different gospel because we are judged harshly on what we know versus what we don't know or what we're ignorant of. Would it be wise not to inform or push info on those, speaking of my family members in particular, that have resisted adamantly facts I have presented disputing dispensationalism?
Steve Gregg: Well, that's an interesting question, and to tell you the truth, it would apply equally to simply preaching the gospel to people who might otherwise not hear it. It is true that someone who hears the truth and rejects it is more responsible than someone who's never heard the truth and therefore has never rejected it but never accepted it either. They've never heard of it. The Bible makes it very clear that God treats ignorance with greater mercy than someone who knowingly and rebelliously rejects the truth. Now as I say, some would say, "Well, then it's probably a good idea not to go preach the gospel in other nations because if they never hear the gospel, they will be innocent and they'll go to heaven." But if they hear the gospel and reject it, which most people do, then we've condemned them by giving them the truth. Well, I don't think that's correct. First of all, we don't know that they would be saved without hearing the gospel. I mean, there are certainly some people who no doubt are seeking God before they hear the gospel, people like Cornelius in the Bible and like Lydia in the Bible. She was a worshiper of God too, and she had not heard the gospel, but she listened to Paul and she then came to Christ. Now there were other people who were Jewish religious people who heard the gospel and rejected it, the Pharisees, for example. Now they are responsible. But on the other hand, we could say, "Well, if Lydia had never heard the gospel or Cornelius, since they were seeking God anyway, maybe God would have had mercy on them in their ignorance." Well, maybe he would have. But they would never have had the joy or the privilege of fulfilling the purpose God made them for. The same is true for every one listening right now. God made us each for a purpose. And until we follow Christ, we are not doing that purpose. We don't know that purpose because that purpose is to bring glory to God, to advance the kingdom of God, to know the deliverance from the power of the devil and sin in our lives, and to experience the foretaste of the kingdom of God. That's what God made us for and to become agents of the kingdom to help others learn. Now nobody who's never heard the gospel can do any of those things. We might argue that, well, some who have never heard the gospel, God might show mercy to because of their ignorance and because they were kind of seeking God the best they knew how. Well, if they were seeking God the best they knew how, then they would want to know the gospel, and you're depriving them and God of what he wants if you don't preach it. Now what about Christians like your family who are—they've—you've told them things that are contrary to dispensationalism, but they still—they're still believing in dispensationalism? Are you bringing condemnation on them? No, I don't think so. You're giving them the chance to improve their understanding of scripture and of the purposes of God. Now you mentioned that dispensationalism might be regarded as a different gospel, and therefore, if they don't reject it, they are receiving a different gospel. Well, the way I see it, I'm not going to call dispensationalism another gospel. I think dispensationalism is an alteration and a corruption of the gospel which is not without harm. But on the other hand, God's not going to judge us by how well we understood theological things like that. He's going to judge us on the basis of how well we humbly and truly we served God and our fellow men in love, in the love of Christ. So I mean, many people who are dispensationalists are doing that. Their understanding of what God's up to is, I believe, mistaken. But we may all be somewhat mistaken about things that God's up to, some more than others. But I don't think God's going to send a Christian to hell because they believed what they truly believed the Bible teaches, what they'd always been taught the Bible teaches, and what they—it's the best they can see it. They don't know how to see it any other way. Now what if you teach them a better way to see it? Well, if they see a better way, they'll be glad for it if they're true Christians. But they may not be convinced by what you say. And that's not necessarily your fault or theirs. For someone to be convinced of something, they have to somehow be disabused of the mistakes they're already making and see the virtues and the superiority of what you're saying. Lots of people may not see that even though they love God, or they may not see it right away. I myself, of course, never was taught anything except dispensationalism, but I began over years to reject dispensationalism because I studied the Bible on my own and realized that it's not taught there. And so—but when I was a dispensationalist, if I had died or if Jesus had come at that time, I have no doubt that I was on good terms with God because I loved Christ and I followed him. He's my Lord. And that's what determines whether a person's on good terms with God or not, not whether they're making mistakes in the realm of theology, but whether their heart is surrendered to God and they're fully devoted to following Christ in recognition of his lordship. That's what differentiates between someone who's saved and someone who's not. Now your family members, I don't know them. Since they are strong dispensationalists, I assume that they are evangelical Christians. Now not everybody who goes to an evangelical church is necessarily born again, and even not even everyone who becomes very conversant in the theology of that church is necessarily born again. But I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to follow God, they're trying to understand the Bible. Somebody got to them first that had a wrong understanding and they've been convinced of it. If they cannot be disabused of that, that doesn't mean they're going to go to hell. But I think that if we say, "But they'll be responsible," yeah, maybe responsible if they recognize the truth in what you're saying and reject it. Well, then they're doing a bad thing. They are rejecting what they think to be true. But my suspicion is that when they reject what you're saying, they don't know what you're saying is true. Now if they do and they reject it, then there will be consequences for that. But I doubt that it'll be salvific. I doubt that they'll lose salvation for being wrong about a thing like that. I think a person can be entirely wrong on their eschatology and be completely right in their heart with God. And that's what God's looking at, in my opinion. So I mean, keep talking to them if they'll allow it. If they don't want you to talk to them about it anymore, I don't think you have to. But I wouldn't be worried about their souls too much unless you see in them something that's very concerning, like they're nominally believers, they say they believe in Christianity but they don't follow Christ. That'd be a much greater concern to me than whether they're dispensational or not.
Carolyn: You're saying sort of leave sleeping dogs lie, don't rock the boat because they don't listen at all, just keep my mouth shut.
Steve Gregg: No, I'm not saying don't rock the boat. As long as they'll let you share with them, share with them. What I'm saying, the only thing I'm saying to do different is don't be overly concerned that they're lost or something just because they don't see what you're saying. Use your own discretion as to whether to continue talking to them about it. Some people, they just get sick of it and they'll shut you off because they just figure you're the person with the strange doctrines that they're trying to ignore. Or if they respect your opinions at all, maybe they'll listen at some point and eventually come around. But that's really between them and God. We cannot make someone, let's put it this way, we can't make an unbeliever believe in God. We can't make them. That's between them and God. They're going to have to work that out and God's going to have to get to them. Likewise, when somebody has wrong theology, we can't make them change their view about their theology. We can tell them what's wrong with their view. But for them to be persuaded of it is between them and God, and they may genuinely not see the strength of your arguments and they may feel that rejecting your arguments is the way to be most loyal to God. Now if God works on their heart to change their openness to it, then maybe things will begin to—maybe they'll want to hear more about it. Anyway, you're in a position lots of people are in, and that is you've got loved ones who don't see it your way. But I'll tell you this, some very good Christians can be dispensational and have been throughout history. So I wouldn't be worried about their souls just on that basis. Maybe on other bases, if you see other reasons to believe their commitment to Christ is sketchy, that might be an issue. But if they're solidly following Christ but they're just wrong about something like that, I would not be concerned that they're in trouble with God or anything like that. Anne from Weymouth, Massachusetts. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Anne: Hi Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I've prepared my thoughts so I think I can do this in less than two minutes and listen off-air. I disagree with the preterist view that Nero is the Beast and the sixth king, and that the eighth is a reference to all the many remaining Roman emperors. I'd like to read two scriptures then condense them to get right to the point, if I may. Revelation 17:10 and 11: "And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast, and the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven." And now condensed: "There are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is. The beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven." There's only seven kings, but one gets in twice. The beast is the one that was and is not, so he's not the one that is in and he's not even the one who comes in for a short time. He's one of the first five and will reign again after the seventh. And then just the last. Also Julius Caesar died many years before the Roman Empire existed. He was never a Roman emperor, he was a leader over the Roman Republic. Augustus was the first Roman emperor, which preteristically speaking would make Galba the sixth king. Thank you Steve very much and I'll listen off-air.
Steve Gregg: All right, well, thank you for sharing. Yeah, I honestly don't have any investment in that question. I do believe that the mark of the beast 666 is a cryptic reference to Nero. There are scholars who, although Augustus might have formed the empire, still view Julius Caesar as the proto-emperor. After all, the seven heads in Revelation 17:10 are not said to be seven emperors, but seven kings. Now that's a very uncommitted expression, kings. Sometimes a prince is a king, sometimes a petty ruler is a king, perhaps an emperor is sometimes called a king. Obviously, it speaks of a ruler, a ruler of a certain kind. And so to suggest that Julius Caesar wasn't technically an emperor, that may be technically correct, but he did rule in a similar manner as the emperors. And so some people—there are Roman historians, not people who are preterists per se, but Roman historians who do count Julius to be the first proto-emperor. Now I'm no expert at Roman history and I don't have any stake in this particular question. And you did read the verses and you kind of restated what's in them, so I'm not going to have any problem with you on that. You say you don't agree with the preterists about this, well, not all preterists believe everything quite alike. I'm a preterist and I do believe Nero was the emperor at the time that Revelation was written. But I don't take the Beast specifically in a preterist way. I believe the Beast represents—I take it more in an idealist way. The idealist view is that the Beast is the sum of all anti-Christ, anti-Christian governments throughout history. That's my understanding. Now I do believe that the head that was reigning of the Beast at the time that John wrote was Nero. That's my belief. And I think the number 666 suggests that. Now I could be wrong, certainly on Revelation anyone could be wrong, it's very cryptic and very symbolic. And so I'm not going to tell anyone that they have to be wrong. But the thing is, you didn't mention any alternative opinion as to who the number 666 refers to. You probably have an opinion but we didn't get to that. But I consider 666 to be the number of Nero and I don't know of any other persons in the first century when this was written who would fit the description of the Beast like Nero would or even come close, whose name could be reduced to the gematria of 666. So—and by the way, John did assume that his readers knew who it was or could know who it was. He says, "He that has wisdom, let him calculate the number of the Beast, it's the number of a man's name. Here's his number." He expected the wisest people in the churches in the churches in Turkey that he's writing to in the first century to be able to be familiar with the person he's talking about and to be able to calculate from the number what the man's name was. So we might differ on that. That's fine. To my mind, having a different view on Revelation is one of the least consequential things that Christians can differ about. So thank you for sharing with us. Now we're taking a break. You're listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We are listener supported. If you want to help us out, you can do that from the website or you can write to us, the address is there too. Thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming up. I'm going to take a 30-second break and we'll be right back. Don't go away. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you'd like to be on the program, I'll give the number out but our lines are full, so don't call immediately. Call in a few minutes, maybe a line will have opened up. The number is 844-484-5737. Take that number down, you can use it any day of the week, Monday through Friday at this time. Get through to us, 844-484-5737. All right, our next caller is Jean from Seattle, Washington. Hi Jean, welcome to The Narrow Path.
Jean: Hi there, Steve. Thank you for this show and ministry. Really appreciate it. Okay, my mom and I, she's a strong believer, a real blessing in my life, I love her, though we do get into energetic discussions about things. And one of the things probably close to 20 years we have been energetically discussing hovers on 1 John 1:9. I have listened to your teachings on this, which have been helpful, so I've been able to talk about the Gnostics and so forth. But it's also connected in her mind to the Lord's Prayer, where Jesus specifically in that indicates "forgive us of our sins as we forgive the sins of others." And I think for my mom this 1 John issue, it's her belief that Jesus lived under the Old Covenant, is what she would say. And even though she would say, "Well, of course his words are of the utmost importance," I think there's a little thread in there of like, but it's really Paul who's delivering the New Covenant. And then this 1 John 1:9 has kind of become for her like a litmus test whenever she enters a new community of believers, in other words, how the view they hold on that means she either remains included or leaves. So that's kind of two things. What do you think?
Steve Gregg: Let me ask you, was she a fan of the ministry of Bob George?
Jean: Yes. In our discussions over 20 years, she brings him up all the time and in fact she's got a little booklet by Bob George that's about 20 pages long.
Steve Gregg: They go together, I think. All right, for those who don't know, the question is about 1 John 1:9, which says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now Bob George taught that once you've become a Christian, you never have to confess your sins, never have to—love is never having to say you're sorry. You don't have to repent anymore because Christ has forgiven all your sins, past, present, and future, and it's almost an insult to him that you don't understand his grace well enough to think that you need to repent or confess when you've sinned again. Now of course that viewpoint is called hyper-grace. And for those who don't know how this works, he believed that John is writing his letter to Gnostics. And so he's saying that they need to confess their sins because they are not Christians. And so suggesting pretty much that this is not instruction to Christians that we need to confess our sins because Christians by definition have already done so. And the idea that you have to do so ever again seems like too much to ask of them and almost an insult to the grace of God. Now part of that of course is a hyper-dispensationalistic viewpoint. The dispensationalist believes that when Jesus taught, he wasn't teaching for this dispensation. He was teaching for the Jewish dispensation which has come to an end, and that Paul was probably the first of the apostles to fully understand that, and that there's a new dispensation of grace so that the teachings of Jesus are not really for us. They're for the Jews if they had received him, but they rejected him, and now those teachings and their applicability have been postponed until the future millennial age. That's the hyper-dispensational view. And honestly, it is quite wrong because for us to say that we're not supposed to follow what Jesus said means that we're not supposed to be Christians. Christians are disciples. It says that in Acts 11:26, says the disciples, meaning Christ's disciples, were first called Christians in Antioch. So Christian is another word for a disciple of Jesus. There's not two different things, those who are disciples of Jesus and those who are Christians, they're just interchangeable terms for the same people. And before Acts 11, the disciples are often mentioned. And Jesus spoke often of discipleship and one place that he said it was in Acts 8:31 where he said, "If you continue in my words, then you are my disciples indeed." So his disciples were required to continue in his teaching in what he said. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, he said, "Anyone who hears these sayings of mine and does them is like a wise man who builds his house on a rock, he's going to survive the judgment and the storms. But the man who hears my sayings and does not do them is like a fool who builds his house on sand." So Jesus makes it very clear we're supposed to obey him. Now if someone says, "Well, that was just until the coming of the Holy Spirit, just until that dispensation came to an end," so he's giving a temporary teaching about that. But no, when he gave the Great Commission, this is after he rose from the dead and just before he ascended in Matthew 28 verses 18 through 20, he says, "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations." And among the things he said to do is, "Teach them to observe all things I have commanded you." Now this is not applying to prior to Pentecost, this is talking to them when they go out to disciple the nations after Pentecost, after the gospel has come, after the New Covenant is in force. He says, "Go and make disciples of all these nations and teach them to obey me, teach them to do everything I commanded you." Paul himself, who is sometimes accused of teaching something different than Jesus, certainly did not do so and he warned us against anyone who would. In 1 Timothy 6 verse 3, Paul said, "If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the teaching which is according to godliness, that person is proud, knowing nothing, is obsessed with disputes, etc., etc." So he says if anyone teaches something different than what Jesus taught, now this is one of Paul's latest letters, this is 30 or 40 years into the gospel era. Paul, who allegedly teaches a different gospel than what Jesus taught, he says, "No, anyone who doesn't agree with what Jesus said and teaches different than that, that person's proud and doesn't know what they're talking about." So I mean, I'm not saying this about your mom, she's just believing somebody who said it, but Paul would have said this about these teachers who say that. Now what about 1 John chapter 1? Is it so that John's writing to Gnostics and to non-Christians that they need to confess their sins? You gotta take it in the context. In chapter 1 verse 6 through 10, which includes the verse in question, John says, "This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you, that God is light, in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us," present tense, "from all sin. If we say that we have no sin," then of course we're not walking in the light, we're not confessing the truth, we're trying to conceal it. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins," which is walking in the light, it is being transparent, it is not trying to conceal, "if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Now it's interesting that God will cleanse us from all unrighteousness in verse 9. In verse 7, isn't that the same as the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin? Sounds like the same promise. Now in verse 9, it's if we confess our sins, he cleanses us. In verse 7, he says if we're walking in the light, his blood cleanses. Now walking in the light is what Christians do and what Christians are told to do. This is Christian walking we're talking about. And he says to the same people in chapter 2 verse 1, "My little children, these things I write to you that you may not sin." Okay, so he's got Christians in mind because he doesn't expect them to be sinning. He says, "But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous." So he's saying we Christians, we're not supposed to sin and I'm writing to you so you won't. I wouldn't write to non-Christians that they can't sin or shouldn't sin because what else could they do? But in any case, I see nothing of Bob George's teaching in this, nor did the church, of course, for the first 2,000 years. This is a new, I would call it heretical teaching called hyper-grace.
Jean: And any quick comment Steve on Lord's Prayer and Jesus's indication as we forgive our sins as we forgive the sins of others? That's in the same vein?
Steve Gregg: Well, Jesus said that we're supposed to teach people to do everything he commanded. He commanded his disciples, "When you pray, pray like this." And so when I pray, I do pray like that because I want to be obedient to Jesus. He's what we call the Lord, and Jesus said, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don't do what I say?" We're supposed to do what he says, obviously. And if we don't, he's wondering why we're not. Now he said, "When you pray, pray like this," among other things he said include in your prayer, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Now interestingly, he not only told us to pray like that, when he finished teaching us how to pray there in Matthew 6, he said, "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will forgive you yours. And if you don't, he won't." And Jesus taught this a number of places. He taught this in Matthew 18, he spoke of a servant who was forgiven a great debt by his king. But when out and would not forgive a fellow servant, and so the king put him—gave him over to torturers until he should pay what he owed. Now certainly the servant who was forgiven represents a Christian who has received forgiveness, and he's punished if he doesn't forgive his fellow servant who owes him something. In Mark chapter 11, Jesus said, "When you stand praying, forgive so that your heavenly father may forgive your trespasses." Now if we say, "But that all changed when the New Covenant came, when the Spirit came at Pentecost," well, apparently Paul didn't know that because Paul, who lived after Pentecost a long time after Pentecost, said anyone who teaches us not to do what Jesus said, they don't know what they're talking about and they're proud. So the real question is, are we loyal to Jesus or not? Did Jesus teach things that aren't what he wants people to do? Why would he teach them? Why would he want, let's say, a Jew to do it, but he wouldn't want everybody else to do it? That's the question. I just don't understand the thinking of these people, except that it's kind of a consequence of a certain kind of dispensational outlook about things that God doesn't always operate the same way with everybody. Excellent, terrific Steve. I so appreciate it. Thank you.
Steve Gregg: All right, brother. Good talking to you. Take care. Thanks for joining us today on the program. All right, we're going to talk next to Chuck from Longwood, Florida. Hi Chuck, welcome.
Chuck: Hey, thank you. Gregg, I wanted to see if you can shed some light on John 8:44. Jesus is in confrontation with the Jewish leaders and he made this statement, "You are of your father the devil." Kind of a harsh statement. I was just wondering if you can give some sort of clarification on that.
Steve Gregg: Sure. Yeah, he said you are of your father the devil because you want to do your father's will. He said they were saying we are Abraham's children. And he said, "If you were Abraham's children, you would have done the works of Abraham, you would have acted like Abraham, because you will imitate the one who is your spiritual father." And then they said, "Well, God is our father." And he said, "No, if you were of God, if God was your father, you'd love me. God loves me and so you'd be like him, you'd love me too. But you're of your father the devil. He's a murderer and that's what you want to do to me. You have the same intentions your father does, the devil." Now there are people who have argued with low understanding of scripture, it seems to me, that Jesus is saying that the Jews literally are descended from Satan. And there is a doctrine out there taught by some teachers called the serpent seed doctrine. And they actually teach—and this has been around for almost 100 years with the so-called Latter Rain Movement, people like William Branham and stuff taught it. But the serpent seed doctrine is that the sin that Eve committed was having physical relations with the serpent, and that Cain was the product of those relations, so that Cain was a literal child of the devil. And that they—and then they go on and say the Jews themselves are the descendants of Cain. Now this disagrees with virtually everything in the Bible. First of all, the Bible says that Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bore Cain. So the language could hardly be more direct in tying the conception of Cain to Adam, not the serpent. Now where do they get that? Well, in 1 John chapter 3, it says, "In this we know the children of God and the children of the devil." And he talks about people who hate are not children of God, they're like Cain who was of the wicked one and slew his brother. In other words, Cain was a child like the quintessential child of the devil. And anyone who hates his brother is also a child of the devil. Now this proves that unless every person who hates happens to be descended physically from Cain, which seems highly unlikely since almost anyone could hate, therefore, being a child of the devil has nothing to do with your biological ancestry. Just like being a child of God, which we are said to be, has nothing to do with our biological ancestry. God did not biologically father any of us as he did Christ. We are—to say we're children of God speaks of the spiritual affinity we have with God, just as we are children of Abraham, the Bible says, because of we have affinity with him and we have the same faith as Abraham. These are spiritual connections we have, not biological connections. Likewise, those who are children of the devil, as Jesus pointed out, they're not biologically descended from Satan nor from Cain. It's interesting too because it's obvious that Abraham was not a child of the devil, but many people who teach the serpent seed doctrine say the Jews are not really descended from Abraham at all. And Jesus pointed it out, he said, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham, but you're of your father the devil." So he's saying they're not descended from Abraham, they think. But two verses earlier, I think it's verse 37, I'm not looking at it right now, he says, "I know you are Abraham's descendants." Okay, so you are. They were descended from Abraham, but they're not literal children of Abraham in the sense that matters because they don't have the faith of Abraham. They were physically descended from Abraham, Jesus said that. And if Abraham—if they were, and if they were children biologically from the devil, then Abraham must have been, which throws a wrench in everything the Bible teaches. The Bible does not teach that the devil has any biological children. And certainly Jesus was not affirming it and John was not affirming it in 1 John 3 where he said that Cain was of the wicked one. He's not talking about biologically, he's talking about spiritually he's on the side of Satan, not on the side of God. And children of God are the ones who are on the side of God. That's what those verses are talking about. Chuck, thank you. Let's see here. We're going to talk next to Henry in Los Angeles, California. Henry, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Henry: Hi, Steve. Sorry about that. My name is Henry, I have my friend here, Reuben, with me and we're part of a young adults ministry I co-lead at our church. Two of our friends actually, David and Viviana Martinez, are huge fans, longtime listeners. We've been debating on this topic recently with Halloween coming up, we're trying to navigate the boundaries of Christian liberty. Some Christians love the horror genre of movies and Halloween-related horror events at amusement parks and things like that. They're doing it for the adrenaline and the entertainment aspect of it and they don't see any of the spiritual harm in it. Others feel it opens a door to the demonic and negative spiritual consequences and connotations of dwelling on darkness and not letting the devil have a foot in the door. Is it acceptable for Christians to have differing stances on this, similar to Romans 14 where Paul lists some guidelines and rules and addresses discrepancies and arguments between Christians, or is the horror genre something Christians should actively avoid altogether?
Steve Gregg: Well, I'm a little bit prejudiced because I hate horror movies, and I've never liked artificially scaring myself. I've never seen why that would be a good thing. I mean, we're told not to fear, but on the other hand, there are people who think differently than I do. I'm not sure how they do, but I know they do, where being afraid momentarily in a movie doesn't make them permanently afraid of anything. I—to me, if I see terrifying murders and things like that in movies, I'm thinking about them afterwards. It kind of makes me think about them afterwards. I just don't like to expose myself to that kind of stuff. But that's not because I'm too spiritual. It's probably just because I'm too weak. And anyone who is weak is vulnerable to being affected and influenced by things maybe more than someone who isn't. It's sort of like television. I have a television in my home now, but I didn't for 40 years when my kids were in high school, we didn't have a TV. And not because I was too spiritual, but because I was too weak. I knew I'd watch it too much. And so it's not a matter of spiritual superiority. If somebody's really spiritually superior, they can be exposed to almost anything that's thrown in front of them and it won't have a negative impact on them. Like even Joseph in Egypt when Potiphar's wife came on to him, he managed to escape that. He was strong. However, I don't know why a Christian, if they're the kind of person who struggles with those kind of things, would deliberately put those things before their eyes. I always wonder about people who like dark themes and dark movies and things like that. I just—you know, I don't know if I'm going to say it's satanic, it might just appeal to a darker side of our human nature. Certainly Halloween does have overlap with the occult, which is demonic. Witches, I believe, view Halloween as their high Sabbath of witchiness and so forth. So obviously Halloween does have connections, but they're not the original connections. Originally Halloween was a Christian holiday, a Catholic one, and it was All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Day Eve. And it certainly therefore is ambiguous. It can be a spiritually positive thing or a spiritually negative thing depending on the positivity or negativity of the—of what's in the heart of the person and how it affects their spirit. I've never been attracted to Halloween as a—except when I was a little kid, I was attracted to going and getting candy door to door, but as far as having Halloween parties and stuff like that, never had the slightest interest in them. But there are Christians who do and they, you know, I would say that Christians who do would not dress up like witches and devils and evil things. There are certainly evil things and if you go to a Halloween store and see the costume stuff, a lot of them are very evil, very dark. I don't know if they're satanic, a lot of them are very satanic and some of them are very violent-looking things. I just don't know why a Christian who's got a redeemed mind would have a taste for any of that. But there are costumes and there are parties that are quite harmless, that are not demonic and not sinful. And I believe there's liberty. When I was younger, I was a lot more legalistic than I am now, partly because I hadn't adopted very well a motto that I learned later from A.W. Tozer. He says there are things that some people's conscience allow them to do and yours won't let you do. He says you need to adopt the slogan, "Others may, but I cannot." And that's a good slogan. There are things that I cannot do. I would not do. I would—first of all, I wouldn't enjoy them. Secondly, they are morally or spiritually ambiguous things and I'd rather stay away from that kind of thing. But others may, and others may be stronger. We all live in a world full of corrupt things that we see and encounter in the workplace or just on the street or in the news even. And we have to be strong enough that we live exposed to those kinds of things and are uncompromised by them. But the things a person goes to for entertainment, I mean, usually when people are going for entertainment, they're kind of letting their guard down, I would think, and kind of allowing themselves to be—experience whatever's being put before them for the full entertainment experience. And I wouldn't be able to do that in a Halloween thing. I just don't have any interest in Halloween. But then I don't celebrate very many holidays anyway. So I won't judge others. Now if I find that Christians are celebrating Halloween and they also are fairly compromised in their life in general, then I might just figure that their love of Halloween is of a piece with their general spiritual position, which isn't maybe very good. But if somebody is walking a holy life, loves God, and for some reason has an—enjoys some of these movie franchises that have scary themes, all I know is they're different than me and that's between them and God. Because I can't judge what's in their heart. The Bible does not say that you will be judged by what you are exposed to, or what you even expose yourself to. Paul, for example, said—he suggested you shouldn't go to the idol temples for the feasts. But this was not because he said God will judge you if you go there, but because you might succumb to something there. He did not indicate that exposure to those things itself compromises you. But knowing human nature, exposure to those things may have a tendency to do so. And a person who's very conscientious about their spiritual purity will want to be very careful about the kinds of things that they expose themselves to. But we may give advice to people, especially if we see they have spiritual problems in these areas, but if they're not doing something that the Bible absolutely forbids—and by the way, the Bible does not forbid celebrating Halloween—then I'm not going to be legalistic about it. They may, even if I don't want to. And maybe they'll be convicted about it if it turns out that they are sinning. I'm sorry to have to break it off. We're out of time. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Check it out, lots of resources, all free. Thanks for joining us. Let's talk again Monday.