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What happens to them?

They're punished?

I mean, they're punished?

They're throwing in the lake fire, yeah.

OK, so in the lake of fire, I'm just asking

because I'm trying to get it straight.

When they get put into the lake of fire,

what happens after the lake of fire?

They perish in the lake of fire?

We're not told anything about the lake of fire.

I mean, anything about, it does say in Revelation 22,

I think it is, it says the lake, or 21.

The lake of fire is the second death, it says.

So maybe they die there.

OK, I'm going to go over what you said, but I'm saying,

we don't die.

We don't die.

I don't know the name of it that we die twice,

and you're saying they don't die at all.

We don't, we don't, like, the part that God breathed

when he breathed his breath into us, that part doesn't die.

It's eternal, it's the, it's what makes us like God.

Of course, it's a romantic conversation.

I'm just saying, I'm just saying,

if we don't have scripture to tell us so,

then we'll just have to, I guess we can guess,

we can speculate, and that's what you're doing.

I could speculate that way too, if I want to.

But I mean, I was listening to what you said,

and then the Holy Spirit just told me, hey,

yeah, when they say you'll be,

when you get through until the lake of fire,

and that's forever, it's always been that way.

You know, it's kind of some religions

and some other places, they don't,

they don't consider hell and all this stuff like that.

But Jesus, Jesus spoke of hell.

So, if I would, can I ask you a question?

I just, I mean, yeah, Jesus spoke of Dehanna, you're right.

Now, but he didn't say those things about it, you're saying,

but the thing is that, okay, so God made hell,

and you're saying he made it to torment people forever

and ever and ever, would he like to be relieved,

but he just can't relieve them?

No, it's, it's, it's, it's, if I tell you,

and I'm a man of my word,

that these are the consequences for your actions.

But he didn't say that.

You have a fair chance.

I gave you a fair chance to do what you need to do.

You choose not to do it,

and it happens every day in our life.

It happens every day in our life.

When, when God said these are the consequences for sin,

He said, death is the God's consequence for sin.

If you eat that fruit, you'll die.

The wages of sin is death.

The soul that sins shall die.

This is, the lake of fire is the second death.

So, so you're, you're saying God said

that the consequence of sin is eternal conscious torment.

I'm not seeing any threat like that stated in the Bible,

but I do hear something else taught regularly.

Now, I'm not, I'm not saying I know, you know,

everything about what happens in the lake of fire.

I'm saying I know less about it

than I thought I did when I thought like you.

Because when I thought like you,

I was just repeating what I thought.

And someone had told him, that's why I thought it,

but, but I'm saying now,

when I went looking for, you know, scriptural support,

I found that much of what I had thought

didn't have a, a biblical basis.

But I have a question for you.

Now, so God made hell, right?

And He made hell to so that He could torment people

forever and ever.

I mean, it's,

he tells us here, jail is the form of hell.

So yeah, I would say that.

But jail is jail tormenting people forever and ever.

No, you can hear life and you perish.

You can perish in jail.

Yeah, you can.

Right, exactly.

So, so you're saying that God made

an exceptional kind of situation

because He wanted people to suffer forever and ever.

He didn't want them to escape by death, right?

You know, I mean, this is what I mean.

I mean, you have a choice whether you want to go

to heaven or hell.

Yes, hell is God has a choice.

God has a choice of what hell will be for you.

You see, God has a choice.

He could say, okay,

these people died in rebellion against me.

They certainly don't deserve to,

to go be with me and have, okay?

But now I have a choice.

I God have a choice about what I'm going to do to people

who insult me and who reject me.

I can, I can, I can snuff them

or I can give them more chances to repent

or I can just kind of just torture them forever

and give them no chances to repent or snuff.

Now, you're suggesting that God who had that choice

because no one takes choices from God, he's, he's sovereign.

He had that choice.

So he chose the, you know, make them suffer forever and ever

of the options that were available time.

I'm saying, I'm saying this, Steve,

and I'm, we're not talking.

And I'm, we're just talking.

When you leave here, your grace is over.

When you, when you, when you,

no, we're not talking about my grace.

We're not talking about, we're talking about God's grace.

See, no, I'm saying, yeah, when you leave here, it's over.

When you make your decisions.

How do you know?

You've made your, you've made your decision here

is the grace of, we see you grace from Jesus.

After judgment day, the grace is up.

You get jealous for everything you've done.

If you did your pen, if you didn't do it,

if you didn't do whatever.

Okay, so, so when, when your grace is over,

God reverts to his real self, right?

I mean, while we're alive, God pretends to be gracious,

but when, when we die, God takes off the mask and says,

I really hate you and despise you.

And, and death is too good for you.

I'm going to torture you forever and ever, right?

There's no crazy, that's what you see it.

That's like signing a contract and saying,

well, I was, I didn't mean to sign it

because I was thinking about some mess

when I signed a contract.

This is the contract.

The contract is, where's that written in the contract?

Where is that written in the contract?

The torment forever and ever is the penalty.

Where's the contract?

You just say, ever and ever.

I gotta go back, I know my phone.

I usually research it on my phone.

I will put it up.

I will put it up, but I, I can't do it

which you want to phone, but what I'm saying is,

but what I'm saying is this.

This is the grace period.

After the grace period, everybody goes eternally

to either hell or heaven.

We're going to, if you did good,

you're going to go with God for eternity.

Okay, bro, I appreciate your, your opinion.

And certainly, I will tell you this,

you are no doubt in the majority.

I mean, there's a lot of people who disagree with you,

but probably the majority agree with you.

So, if being in the majority is what we're looking for,

you're safe, you're there.

I'd rather be scriptural.

And if I'm going to say that God is the kind of God

who, although he's made of grace,

and he's abundant in grace while we're alive,

as soon as we're dead, suddenly he changes completely.

It's like he doesn't have any grace left.

You know, I don't think God ever changes, tell you the truth,

but let's just say he doesn't have any grace left.

So, he just wants you to be tortured forever,

and ever, and ever.

Now, some people think that I don't,

I mean, because frankly, if I were to say that about God,

I'd have to have scripture saying it,

because without scripture, I might be slandering God,

because after all, that does describe him

as something different than what, say, Jesus is like.

And what Jesus said, God is like.

Remember, Jesus said to his disciples,

you need to love your enemies, do good to those

who persecute you, bless those who curse you.

So you'll be like your father in heaven.

Okay, so Jesus said, God loves his enemies.

He does good to those who persecute him.

He blesses those who curse him.

Now, certainly there's punishment.

I mean, a good parent will always be ready

to punish a child who needs it,

but that doesn't mean the child has no love

for the child anymore.

In fact, the Bible says you punish your child

because you love them.

The Bible says whoever spares the rod hates his son.

So, I mean, and we're told that God is like that too.

We're told to receive the discipline of Lord

because he's like a father,

and who the father loves, he chasens.

But again, we don't have anything in the Bible

that tells us that God changes after we die.

And the moment before we died,

his love and his grace were desperately hoping

that we would turn to him so that we could be saved.

But as soon as we die, God, you know,

he turns around and says, no way, I don't want you to say it.

I want to torture you.

See, if God wanted to,

he could snuff everyone out after they're dead,

or after they could suffer for a while

and then he could suffer.

I mean, I don't know what God's gonna do.

But he certainly has better options

than to be the kind of person

that if any human did that to another person,

we'd say they were a monster.

And God would say they're a monster.

God doesn't allow us to behave that way

because that's not the way he is.

That's what Jesus said.

So, you know, I think that needs to be thought.

I'm not unwilling to believe

an eternal conscious torment

if that's what I can find in the Bible.

Just so you know, I used to think

that I did find that in the Bible,

but when I went really looking for it,

I found there's like four or five verses

in the Bible that might be taken that way.

And there's a whole bunch of other verses

that seem to be taken in a different way.

So, the question is, well, what is the solution?

Well, one thing we have to do.

I mean, whenever there's like two sides

to the aisle or three sides to the aisle,

as in a case like this,

the thing that's the typebreaker

has got to be which view is consistent

with the character of God,

the way Jesus Christ and the Bible describes him.

And then, you know, to me,

there's some other options

for the size eternal conscious torment

that the Bible seems to present evidence for.

And two out of the three views

are really consistent with everything Jesus said

about God and his character.

One of them does not seem to be.

So, that's why I'm asking you where you get the information

because I don't think you're getting it from the Bible,

although you may think you are

because I thought I was too back before I looked into it.

Thanks for your call, brother.

Michael from Englewood, California,

welcome to the narrow path.

Thanks for calling.

Thanks, these things.

I wanted to say the first color almost seemed like

he was putting emphasis on God breathing into Adam.

But I was like, if God wanted to,

he could also take his spirit out of it.

Who else?

Yeah, you know, like he did the saw.

But earlier this week, I was speaking to a FDA

and he was talking about Hebrews four.

And he was about to say, yes.

But mainly that it's in him.

Yes.

Some say Jesus, sorry,

some translations say Jesus and some say Joshua.

He wouldn't baptize in the name of Joshua

to lie with some of the translations say Joshua or Jesus.

Well, because he's talking about Joshua,

he's talking here.

In the previous verse, he's pointing out

that in the days of David,

a long time after Joshua's time,

David was still exhorting people to come into God's rest

and the writer of Hebrews quote to Psalm 95,

where David says that today,

if you will hear his voice, don't harden your hearts,

because he had said those who did harden their hearts,

they wouldn't enter his rest.

Now, Moses and Joshua both spoke

of the entrance into into Canaan as entering into rest

because the Israelites had been wandering for 40 years,

not resting.

And they were going to come into the land

and settle down and rest there.

And so the Bible in the Old Testament

talks about the entrance into Canaan as entering into rest.

Now, since David, in Psalm 95,

talks about, he's talking to a generation long afterwards

after Israel had settled into that.

And he's saying you still need to enter into the rest.

What the writer is saying is there must be a different rest,

besides entering in the Canaan,

because if Joshua, who brought them into Canaan,

had given them the rest that is ultimate,

then why would David afterwards

speak of the need for people to enter the rest?

So he is referring to Joshua there.

And the name Jesus and Joshua are the same name.

In Greek Yeshua is the name.

In English we say Jesus, in Hebrew they say Joshua,

but it's the same name.

So the question here, you're right, King James says,

if Jesus had given them rest.

And no doubt the same is true.

If Jesus had given them rest, he would not

have been after it had spoken of another day

because they'd already have it.

But he's talking about the entering into rest

in the days of Joshua when Israel

came into the promised land and rested there.

And so the author is saying, well,

if the rest that they received under Joshua

had been ultimate, well that happened a long time

before David's time.

Why would David be talking then to his generation

and say, hey, make sure you don't neglect

to enter into his rest.

And do you see why SDA would use that argument?

No.

Okay.

No, I mean, they, what they like is verse nine

where it says in the Greek,

there remains therefore a keeping of Sabbath

to the people of God.

Now the SDA, and for those who don't know,

we're talking about substance, the Adventist belief

that it's saying we should be keeping the Sabbath,

namely the Saturday Sabbath.

It's just like the Jews did because it says

there remains for us a keeping of the Sabbath

for the people of God.

But he goes on to explain what it means.

In the next verse, he says,

for he who is entered into God's rest

has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his.

Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest.

Let's say when fall at the same example of disobedience.

Now they're saying, the seventh day of this,

say entering that rest is keeping the Sabbath on Saturday.

The writer of Hebrews is saying,

no, there's a different kind of rest

that comes from the finished work.

You know, the Jews had to stop working one day a week.

And we have come to the end of our works

as a means of trying to earn our way with God.

So we rest in Christ.

We rest in the finished work of Christ.

That's a spiritual rest.

We have, which is a Sabbath for us.

You see the Sabbath in the Old Testament

like so many of the rituals that pass over

and the sacrifices.

They were all types and shadows of spiritual things.

And he's saying, you know, that's a Sabbath for us.

We keep a Sabbath too, but it's the spiritual Sabbath.

We've reached the end of our own works.

So we're now resting in what Christ has done.

It's not really very different than Paul talking about,

in 1 Corinthians 5, 7, he says,

Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us.

And he says, therefore, let's keep the feast,

not with the bread or the,

we're not with the leaven of malice and wickedness,

but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

So he's saying, the Jews kept a Passover

and a weak, long feast of unleavened bread.

Christ is our Passover,

and we keep a feast of unleavened bread,

not in the sense of literally keeping the ritual

the Jews kept, but that which he foreshadowed,

which is a life unleavened.

We live our whole life as unleavened bread.

We don't have the leaven of malice and wickedness in us.

We live a life of sincerity and truth.

That's keeping the feast pulses.

So in other words, the Jews kept feasts.

These are rituals, Sabbath was one of them.

And so they were types and shadows of spiritual things

introduced by Christ.

We keep a Sabbath of a sort,

as we keep the spiritual Sabbath,

that Christ's energy is not the weekly ritual Sabbath.

Likewise, we keep a Passover and unleavened bread.

We recognize Christ is our Passover,

and the way we keep the unleavened bread feast

is by living a life of sincerity and truth, he's it.

So in other words, to say we keep a feast

or we have a Sabbath or we have an unleavened bread

or Passover, he's talking about,

we have the spiritual counterparts of those things.

Those things were the type and the shadow

of what we do now,

and our unleavened bread is spiritual.

Our Sabbath is spiritual.

Our circumcision is spiritual.

Our sacrifices are spiritual.

Our inheritance is spiritual.

So I mean, all the things that were physical

and ritual in the Old Testament to the Jews

are now spiritual in Christ, that's what he's saying.

So, but I don't see how a seventh day of this

would get more or less mileage

after seeing, by choosing to see Joshua

as Joshua in verse eight and not Jesus.

To my mind, the statement in verse eight

would have the same legitimacy,

whether it's Jesus or Joshua, he's talking about,

but I think in the context when he's talking about entering

the Promised Land, he's thinking of Joshua.

He's saying Joshua didn't give them the ultimate rest.

So there must be another rest, namely spiritual one,

like the spiritual Sabbath he's talking about.

Okay, I need to take a break, I appreciate your call.

We have another half hour coming up, so don't go away.

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And we've got a switchboard almost full

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Welcome back to the narrow path radio broadcast.

We have another half hour ahead of us to take your calls

if you have questions about the Bible of the Christian faith,

or you disagree with the host.

You know, if you disagree with the host,

there's a good chance you'll get a longer segment

of our program because I do go longer

on those kind of calls usually,

unless there's not much to say about them.

If you'd like to be on the programs,

the number to call is 844-484-5737.

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57-37.

Our next caller is Ty from Central Indiana.

Hi Ty, welcome to the narrow path.

Thanks for calling.

Oh, well Steve, thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure.

Okay, my question is, what are your thoughts

on the doctorate of entire sanctification

as to provide the Wesleyan wholeness movement?

That's all the known as the work of grapes

or second blessing in top air consecration.

I don't know if you're sure with it.

And it's called, it's also called a perfect love.

Yeah, they have a number of ways,

it's usually called entire sanctification.

The doctrine is also called eradicationism,

though they don't use that term as often.

But yeah, the Wesleyan John and Charles introduced

a doctrine of wholeness, which interpreted wholeness

as the actual eradication of the sin nature.

And this is accomplished, they felt,

in a single moment of a second work of grace.

When you're converted, that's the first work of grace

that you're saved through.

But then you're still kind of in bondage to sin

until you have this entire sanctification

where the sin nature is defeated, eradicated, whatever.

And that it's something that, you know,

could happen, I suppose could happen right after you're saved

or it might be something delayed,

a little bit like the way that Pentecostals

talk about the baptism of the spirit.

And by the way, I talk about it that way too.

I think the baptism of the spirit is something

additional to conversion,

but it's, although it could happen at the same time,

two things can happen simultaneously,

or it could happen, you know, subsequently,

if somebody for some reason didn't get baptized

in the spirit when they're born again.

Wesley's had probably a very similar idea,

but the word entire sanctification was used.

Now I've got a lot of sympathy with Wesley.

I'm a great fan of John Wesley.

And probably my theology is very close to Wesley

and theology in many respects.

Not particularly in this respect,

I do not see the Bible teaching sanctification

as an instantaneous result of the second work of grace.

Frankly, I would love to believe it.

I mean, if there's any doctrine that I would accept

because I'd want to, it would be this one

because I would love to have, you know,

all my sin removed from me and never sin again.

Really, it's pretty much what we're talking about.

And I think any true devoted Christian

would love for that to be true,

but what we really find is that life is a warfare

that the flesh lust against the spirit

and the spirit against the flesh

and these two are contrary to another

so that you don't do what you want.

Now, the flesh there, I think,

the West Ends would consider to be the sinful nature.

So I guess they would feel that Paul is describing a struggle

that exists prior to each entire sanctification.

I can't speak for Wesley in this

because I have to say the Wesley in doctrine,

I did not get from reading Wesley himself

but Wesley in theologians.

So I can't really, I'm not an expert on this,

but as I would understand it,

once a person has had this second work of grace,

this entire sanctification, they just don't sin anymore.

It's not in them to do it, you know?

And like I said, who wouldn't want that to be true?

I certainly would, but I don't, you know,

I don't find anybody in the Bible

to describe just having this second work of grace.

I don't find, you know, any of the apostles claiming

that they have become sinless.

And so that being so, I just,

I don't have a scriptural basis for it.

Now, what I do believe is that we are to be sanctified

and I do believe that that's the result

of a lifelong battle.

Paul says we wrestle against flesh

and not against flesh and blood,

but against principalities, powers and rules

of darkness at this age and spiritual wickedness

and high places so that, you know, we really don't,

we don't have a peaceful walk about it.

This is a war zone for us.

And we are fighting against, you know,

the desires of the flesh that are against God.

We're fighting against spiritual powers.

And, you know, Paul and, you know,

Paul said he'd fought the good warfare at the end of his life.

He didn't indicate that he had come to a point

prior to the end of his life, you know,

like years earlier where he'd gotten over

and wasn't fighting any war about it anymore.

I think that, I think the struggles are lifelong,

but I do believe that if we are focused on Christ,

as which, to my mind, is normal Christian.

It's not, that's not exceptional Christian.

It's just normal Christian.

You focus your, on Christ for everything.

The, the focus on Christ draws you

into his own likeness.

You become changed.

That's what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, 18,

that as we behold, as in the glass, the glory of the Lord,

we are transformed from glory to glory

into that same image even as by the spirit of the Lord.

So I do believe the Holy Spirit changes us

so that we are less desire to sin

and less inclined to sin and less foolish about it.

And much more like Jesus was,

that is, you know, so absorbed with God,

that sin kind of sounds tottery and less attractive.

Not that we, not that we're beyond temptation,

or even beyond spalling's temptation,

but we become more and more holy in general

in our patterns and in our inner man

as we draw closer to God through life.

What I find is that many Christians probably

don't have this idea.

They feel like, well, I'm never going to be perfect.

So why bother?

Why bother trying to be perfect?

I'm just going to go to heaven when I die.

So I guess I can compromise in many ways

in this life because I'm going to save by grace

and I'm, you know, it'd be silly

to try to be perfect because that's impossible.

That's like a married couple saying,

it's impossible to have a perfect marriage.

So why try to improve it?

You know, why try to make it better?

Yeah.

Many, a lot of times they'll use versions like Matthew 5,

where Jesus said, be perfect.

First Peter, be holy, for I am holy.

Hebrews 6, it says to go on under perfection.

It's all opposed to holiness.

Okay.

Well, that's for the use of word perfection differently

than I, I would expect that Wesley knew this.

Some people who aren't, maybe don't read the Bible

or know much about the Greek wouldn't know this.

The word perfection can mean a number of things

and it is used various ways, the same Greek word in the Bible.

Sometimes it means maturity.

For example, Hebrews 6, let us go on to perfection

in the context.

He's just complained that they were babes

and they were not mature

and that they were drinking only milk

and couldn't eat solid food.

And he says, let's go on to maturity.

Is clearly what he means.

You know, let's grow up and the word perfection

is an ordinary word in the Greek for maturity

and it means not there.

Now when it also means completeness

and when Jesus said in Matthew 5, you know,

be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.

Well, I believe that means perfect without exception

in terms of your love because that's what he's concluding.

He's, that's the last line of a paragraph

where he's saying, you need to love your enemies.

Do good to those who persecuted you.

If you only love your friends,

you're no better than a publican.

But if you love your enemies, you're like your father

and you know, be perfect that is complete in your love

as your father is.

And this is confirmed if you look at the parallel

in Luke chapter six

because the parallel section in Luke six

is verses 34 through 36.

Look, it says, and if you lend to those from whom

you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you?

Even sinners lend to sinners to receive back as much.

But love your enemies.

Do good, lend, hoping for nothing in return.

And your reward will be great.

You'll be the sons of the highest

or he is kind to the unthankful and evil.

Therefore, be merciful just as your father

also is merciful.

This is the same teaching found at the end of Matthew 5.

But instead of saying, be perfect

to your father, he says, be merciful

as your father's merciless.

Which means don't just be merciful to people

who are merciful to you.

Be merciful to people who aren't.

Your father is merciful to the unkind

to the unthankful and the evil.

Be like him.

Be, you know, love everybody.

Be as universal in your love, even toward your enemies,

as God is.

And that's what perfect means.

I mean, it's very clear because Jesus

taught it using different terminology in chapter six,

but it's the same teaching.

And at the end of the same instructions.

So the idea is be perfect to your father

and have it as perfect.

Really means be comprehensive in your love.

Be complete in your love.

Not just dissing out a little bit to some friends

and not to others.

Be like your father's love universally

is what that perfect means.

Now, when Peter said, in first Peter chapter one,

be holy as he who's called you as holy.

So be holy in all manner of behavior.

I agree.

First of all, we are holy, which means set apart by God.

All Christians are holy.

That's why the Bible calls all of us saints.

The word saint in the Greek means holy once.

So everyone who's a Christian has been set apart from God.

We're a holy priesthood.

We're set apart for God.

So Peter says, since you're set apart from God, act like it.

As you're, you know, he who's called you as holy.

So you be holy in your behavior.

So I mean, that's reasonable enough.

I mean, it's like Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 6,

you're not your own.

You've been bought with a price.

Therefore, glorify God in your body.

You know, so, okay, God has set you apart.

He's purchased you.

You're not your own.

It's not appropriate for you to do anything except please him.

Therefore, glorify him.

Therefore, be holy in your behavior.

It's a command and obligation.

And that's what we will be if we walk in the spirit.

Because if Paul said if you walk in the spirit,

you will not fulfill the lust of flesh.

So again, walking is a process.

It's not a crisis.

It's not a second work.

It's an ongoing work.

Walking is consisting of steps.

As our whole Christian life is a walk.

It's a walk in faith, a walk in holiness,

a walk in love, a walk in the spirit.

You know, walk, walk, walk.

These are the metaphors for living.

And that's that's it.

You know, we should walk in holiness.

But that requires individual steps.

Not just, you know, a sudden blast that blows

that blows us out of the area of warfare with flesh

into some land where, you know, holiness just comes naturally.

I would say holiness is objective.

God has set us apart for himself.

He set us all apart for himself.

And we are therefore all holy,

because that's what holy means.

It means set apart for God.

But Peter's saying, therefore act like it.

And that's what I believe we should do.

And we can.

A lot of time.

A lot of times John VIII of John chapter eight, verse 11,

where Jesus commands the woman to go and send no more,

as well as the first Thessalonians,

when Paul references, I pray that God will sanctify you only.

Those are very key proof texts that's often leveraged.

Oh, I did in addition with the Greek word teleos,

which you mentioned, which is translated perfection.

Those two verses combined with teleos

are used to develop this doctrine.

How would you reconcile those two proof texts?

Oh, well, he's basically saying,

this is the way the Christian is supposed to want.

Do not keep sending, okay?

I take that as an instruction to me too,

even though that story of the woman in John VIII

is not found in the older manuscripts,

so I still think it's a true story.

And, you know, I think that's a good instruction

to give him, but don't send anymore.

And, you know, it says in 1 John 2, 1,

my little children, I write these things to you,

so you don't send.

But they says, but if any of you do send,

we haven't had to go to the Father,

Jesus Christ, the righteous.

So he said, not sending is your assignment.

I'm writing to you so you will not send.

And in Thessalonians, when Paul says,

you know, the God will sanctify you, holy, body spirit

and body soul spirit or whatever,

here's spirit soul and body, he says.

He says, yeah, this is what God's gonna do.

He's, what's it mean in 1 Thessalonians for God to do that?

Well, it's what he does when we are taking seriously

what Paul has said in the verses before that.

What did he say in the verses before that?

Well, he made it very clear, we have an assignment.

And if we do that assignment, God will sanctify us,

holy, while we're doing it.

Here's how it reads.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, beginning at verse 16,

rejoice always, pray without ceasing.

In everything, give thanks for this is the will of God

in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies,

test all things, hold fast, what is good,

abstain from every form of evil.

Now, may the God of peace and self sanctify you completely,

that your whole spirit soul and body be preserved,

lame lists of the coming of Lord Jesus.

Okay, so what do you have to do?

Well, you're going to always rejoice,

pray without ceasing, give thanks in everything,

don't quench the spirit, test all things,

hold fast, what's good, abstain from every form of evil.

That's not something you do one time.

That's what you do as a habit.

All these things are habits, pray without ceasing,

abstain from evil, but that's not a one-time thing.

And the result of it is, I believe,

now may the God of peace and self sanctify you completely.

Now, not instantaneously, probably.

At least there's nothing in the Bible

that tells us it's instantaneously.

See, I'm all of these verses,

they're favorite verses of mine.

They describe the assignment.

We're supposed to live a holy life.

We're supposed to not sin.

We're supposed to love everybody.

We're supposed to do, we're supposed to be like Jesus.

What I don't see is a promise that,

if you pray and fast enough,

you're going to get suddenly boom,

a second work of grace is going to make that

all happen for you.

I think that these are giving instructions to Christians

how to live so that sanctification is the result.

And from glory to glory,

into the image of Christ is a process

worked by the Holy Spirit, Paul said.

So that's what I think.

I would never claim that I have obtained

entire sanctification, but at my age,

after walking with God for 60 some of years,

I'd have to say sin holds much less allure to me

than when I was a younger man.

There's still temptation.

I can still do bad things,

but it's not as natural for me to do bad things

because my nature is being transformed.

And I think that's true of every Christian.

I'm not making some kind of both.

I think this is just normal, normal Christian maturing.

You become more and more like Jesus

less and less interested in what the world has to say

or what the flesh is trying to demand.

So it's not just boom, a second work of grace

and now you've got no sinful nature.

I think it's a gradual transformation.

And it is, in fact, God sanctifying you holy,

both body, spirit, and soul, you know, kind of things.

So spirit soul, body.

So this is a problem as we walk in this way,

God is sanctifying us, that is making us holy.

Now we're once and for all sanctified at conversion.

When we're converted, we belong to God.

We've been set apart for God.

But our, like Peter says, be holy in your behavior.

Those habits, I think, happen gradually.

And like I said, I'd love it.

I'd love it if there's some, you know,

you could flip a switch and suddenly

you have no more sinful nature.

That'd be wonderful.

But you know, John Wesley wrote a letter to Charles

and said he didn't think he had experienced it himself.

He taught it.

He taught that it was a right thing.

But he claimed he hadn't received it himself

and he wasn't sure if he'd met anyone

in the whole Methodist movement who had.

Now I've met people in the Methodist movement

who do say they haven't sinned for seven years or whatever

because since they were sanctified.

Wesley himself didn't claim to have had it.

And he said he's not sure he'd met anyone who had.

So I mean, why did he teach it then?

Because he thought it was biblical.

But he thought it was biblical because he

was understanding these things as, you know,

some instantaneous, but what we don't find.

I mean, that's just the element of it.

We don't find it.

It's scripture, the instantaneous element.

We do find the call to holiness, the obligation

to quit sinning, you know, the promise

that we will become like Christ.

What we don't find anywhere is anything

that says that happens instantaneously

with some second work of grace.

And since God does command holiness,

do you believe at any point that it is possible to attain

to a spiritual point of sinless perfection?

Moment by moment.

Yes, I mean, you know, I don't think, like I have to say,

I'm not aware of any sin I'm committing right now.

OK, and I'm not sure of any sin I've committed today.

Maybe God knows of some I don't.

But generally speaking, as a Christian,

as a mature Christian, you just don't live in sin.

You live in holiness.

Now, I can't say I haven't sinned in the past week.

I don't know.

But I don't know of any sin.

And I'm mindful of that.

I'm self-introspective.

I'm sensitive to the Holy Spirit's conviction.

But I honestly don't know of any sin I've committed

in recent times, but I could sin tomorrow.

You know, I could sin badly tomorrow.

I don't think anyone gets to the point where sinning

is not something that they have to be aware of.

But it is something that you become stronger about, you know,

I think.

So anyway, that's my understanding.

OK, thank you very much for taking my call.

Appreciate your information.

All right, bro.

Appreciate your call.

Good talking to you.

Let's talk to Ron and Cleveland, Ohio.

Ron, welcome.

Hi, Steve.

Thanks for your ministry.

My wife and I have been attending a church for several months

now.

And it seems like we're sending a concentration

or an emphasis on becoming members of the local church.

And we're wondering if there's any biblical basis

for any Christian to become the drawing

as member of local church that they're attending.

You know, I have, when I've gone to churches that

have membership, I've been in a lot of churches that

don't have written membership down.

But when I've gone to churches that do,

and I go there for a while, they begin

to ask, when are you going to become a member?

And you know, I wonder why would that be important?

The answers are never good.

First of all, there's nothing like what we call the local church

today in the Bible.

Because in the Bible, every Christian in your town

was part of the church in your town.

You're in Cleveland, Ohio.

Every Christian in Cleveland was part of the church in Cleveland.

You didn't join it.

The Holy Spirit inserted you into it.

When you're born again, the Holy Spirit

makes you part of this church.

And in every city or location where there's

a footprint of that universal church,

all people who are born again are in it.

Now, what happened after the Reformation

and denominationalism began?

Now, in your town in Cleveland, Ohio,

there's probably 1,000 churches literally

and probably several hundred denominations.

And they don't see each other as one church.

I mean, maybe theoretically, but they don't act like it.

They are loyal to their denominations.

They're not loyal to the whole body of Christ in town.

In other words, for example, suppose one of the churches

in your town was having some financial struggles.

And there's a very huge mega church.

There's got a lot of money, but they don't help them.

Because they're not part of their association.

They're not part of their denomination.

So I notice they got more loyalty to their denomination

than they have to the local Christians

of a different denomination.

This idea of joining and being loyal to one group,

as opposed to the whole body of Christ,

is new.

There's no concept of it in the New Testament.

I would just say if a church is trying to pressure you

to become a member, I'd ask, what does it mean to be a member?

Can I be a member of this church

and a member of all the other churches in town too?

They would probably say no,

because the way they understand membership

is you're being loyal to that group.

Well, why is that important?

I asked the pastor once when he was trying to get me

to join his church.

I was attending all the time, but he wanted me to come

and remember I said, you know, why should I do that?

I mean, I'm here.

I worship you guys, you know, I'm certainly in your midst.

But I also belong to God and his body.

And if someone wants me to go to another church

and teach there, I'll do it, or even just,

I could go to another one of worship there if I want to.

Well, he said, well, then if you don't have membership,

how does a pastor know who he can count on?

I said, give me a break.

You know who you can count on in this church

and it isn't the people on your membership roles.

Every church I know has twice the number of people

on their membership roles

as they have people who actually attend the church.

That means you can be on the membership roles

and there's still a 50% chance

you don't even attend that church.

And if you do, you might not be some of the pastor can lean on.

But the pastor certainly knows who he can

because there are people who God puts on their heart

to approach the pastor and say,

I'm available to do this for you.

I'm here to serve.

This is my gifting.

This is my offering to God, you know, I'm here for you.

And every pastor knows who it is in the church

that he can count on to help him out

with whatever the ministry of that local congregation is.

And it does not necessarily have anything to do

with who's on the membership roles.

So why have membership roles?

Well, maybe for one of two reasons.

One is to control people, you know,

if they're members, then I guess you can require things

of them that they wouldn't do otherwise,

in which case it's kind of a legalistic thing,

not somebody whose heart God has moved to volunteer,

or if the membership roles are big,

that's an official thing you can show to the denominations.

They say, I've got a big church now,

which means next time a maybe slightly bigger church

comes up available, maybe you can assign me the pastor

to be that one, a little bigger salary,

more prestige in the movement, you know,

it's like David numbering the people, you know,

why do you have to do that?

Why do the pastors have to know the number of names

of the people that are attending their church?

Every church I've been in, I've been available to them.

I've never been a member, but I've been available

to serve if the pastor wanted me to,

and sometimes they did have me do so,

and it had nothing to do with membership.

So, you know, you got to wonder,

where did this idea of membership come from?

Certainly not the Bible.

The Bible says that when we are born again,

the Holy Spirit places us in the body of Christ.

Now the body of Christ is not the congregation

you're going to, the body of Christ is the global family

of God, and there's people in all the churches

in your town who are part of that global family of God.

So, if I'm loyal to God and his family,

then that's not going to be just a one little group.

However, if God is leading me to be regular and loyal,

or let's just say, a servant of a particular group

of people, I'll be there.

I'll be there and I'll serve.

And, you know, and that's better than have my name

on the membership roles.

If my name's on the membership role,

but I'm not available to serve, what good did that do?

You know, I think membership is more of an ego trip sometimes,

or a controlling thing.

And, I just don't, and the Bible doesn't talk about it,

because it doesn't talk about organizations like we have today

called local churches that exist in competition

with other local churches in the same town.

That's just, this is carnalty.

Paul said, I'm a Paulist, I'm a safest ex-carnalty

and I'm a surety.

So, you know, I'm loyal to God,

and I'll serve in a church.

I'm out of time, even listening to the Narrow Path

Radio broadcast, our website, thenarrowpath.com.

Thanks for joining.