The Narrow Path 10/01/2026

Announcer: This is the best of the Narrow Path Radio broadcast. The following is prerecorded. Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio program hosted by Steve Gregg. Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we've put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, the Narrow Path has a website you can go to: www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now please enjoy this special collection of calls with Steve Gregg and the Narrow Path.
Steve Gregg: Our first caller today is Alec calling from Salinas, California. Alec, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Guest (Male): Good morning, Steve.
Guest (Male): I if I could, I just want to read three quick verses and then I have a couple of questions. The first one is Ezekiel 18:20. It says, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father. Neither shall the Father bear the iniquity of the son. And then the second one is Deuteronomy 24:16. The father shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin. And then finally Exodus 11:5, it says, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. From the firstborn of the Pharaoh that sitteth upon the throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill. So my question is, First of all, do you see a contradiction in those three verses? And do you think that is something a just God would do?
Steve Gregg: Well, I do think that is something that a just God did because I believe God is just. As far as the contradiction, I don't because in Deuteronomy 24, this is not making a statement about all events in history that innocent people will never die for their father's sins. Actually, many people died in every war that their fathers started and many times children have died in wars, and that's not just biblical wars, just throughout history. If it was a prediction that there would never be a case where a child died because of his father's sins, then that would certainly be a false prediction.
Steve Gregg: But what Deuteronomy is doing is giving legislation about how the Jews were, how Israel was supposed to legislate penalties for criminals. And God was forbidding them to execute the whole families of the children of criminals just because a man was a criminal, you couldn't kill his whole family for that. And in some societies in the ancient world they did that kind of thing. God said, No, you can't do that. You can only kill the guilty party. And likewise in Ezekiel, he's talking about the judgment that's coming on Jerusalem with the Babylonian invasion. And he's saying that the Jews were saying, Well, our fathers have sinned and now we're suffering these consequences. And God says, No.
Steve Gregg: People are suffering consequences for their own sins. You're not suffering the consequence of your father's sins. The person who sins is going to suffer the consequences of it here. And he's talking specifically about the judgment that God was bringing on Jerusalem in that case. Actually, those who weren't sinning against God fled to Egypt and were not destroyed in that. So it was a prediction about this particular event. But neither of these statements are general statements that you'll never find a child dying for his father's sins.
Steve Gregg: Actually, to tell you the truth, every aborted child often, well, not everyone, but a great number of aborted children die because of their parents' sins. The children are innocent enough. Likewise, the children in Egypt who died if they were infants or if they were young, they certainly were not dying for their own sins because they hadn't committed any. Although many of the firstborn probably were not infants and they may have been adults. You know, when a child dies in a general sweeping disaster, the child dies innocent before God. And as I understand it, you know, everybody dies, whether they're innocent or not. We're all going to die. The best of people are going to die and the worst of people are going to die. It's universal. Everyone's going to die.
Steve Gregg: The question is what is God going to do about people after they die? As far as I'm concerned, as I understand the scriptures, children when they die die on good terms with God. I believe that there's an age of accountability when a child dies before they've reached that age of accountability that they die on good terms with God. So any truly innocent party who dies in a general calamity, you know, I believe dies on good terms with God if they're really innocent. And then you know, their eternity is really what matters a lot more than how long any of us live.
Steve Gregg: I mean, if somebody doesn't believe in eternity, then of course they wouldn't be sympathetic toward this answer. But the Bible clearly teaches there is an eternal destiny for every person. And that being so, whatever ends up being our case in eternity is far more important than the few days we live on this Earth. Now, in the case of the children dying in Egypt, this was a case of a general judgment on a nation, a partial judgment, which took only the firstborn in that case. In other cases, where God sent fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, of course that took out everybody, men, women and children and many innocents died in that case. Same thing with the flood in Noah's day.
Steve Gregg: There are many situations in the world, tsunamis and earthquakes and wars and terrorist attacks and things like that, where innocent people die, not because they've necessarily sinned, but because there's a bunch of people died in one location and they happen to be among them. Now, the words in Deuteronomy are not talking about that kind of thing. It's talking about how the judges of Israel are supposed to administrate punishments to criminals. And it's made very clear that they are not supposed to punish the families of the criminals just because of the criminal's crimes.
Guest (Male): But aren't the first two verses showing God's character? Isn't shouldn't there be a like a consistency, you know, if God is telling Israel, this is how I want you to conduct yourself because that is the way I conduct myself, I mean, isn't there a contradiction there?
Steve Gregg: Not exactly, because there are some, it's like, you know, if if there's a bank being robbed or a crime being committed in progress in our town, if I pull out a gun and shoot the criminal, I'll probably go to jail because I'm not authorized to do that. But if somebody who's authorized to enforce the law shows up and it ends up being a gunfight and he kills the criminal, there'll be no prosecution against him for that because he's not me. I'm an ordinary citizen and that person is an authorized government official, you know, a law enforcement official. God is the judge of the universe.
Steve Gregg: And frankly, he decides how everyone will die and when they'll die. And a lot of people die due to no fault of their own. I mean, there are babies who die at birth or shortly after birth. There are good people who die, missionaries who catch Ebola because they're trying to, you know, help people in a foreign country or people who are innocently, you know, driving on the freeway and a drunk driver hits them and kills them. This thing these kind of things happen all the time. This is the way the world is. Now, we could say that in every case when someone dies, God could have prevented it because he's sovereign. He can do what he wants. Or we could say, well, God has declared that everyone who has ever sinned is going to die.
Steve Gregg: And this being so, the real issue is not when or how we die, but on what terms with God we die. And as I said, God has the right to take out a whole society if he wants to, he's God. But he's not inconsistent in telling us not to do that. Now, if he does tell someone to do that, like he told Israel to do that to the Canaanites, God's authorized to do that as well. One thing that we need to take into consideration is we don't have God's authority or his prerogatives. He does desire for us to have his character. He wants us to love even our enemies and he loves his enemies.
Steve Gregg: And when he wipes out a society, it's not because he doesn't love people. It may seem like it, but of course at the judgment is when we'll see what his love looks like. When people die, it doesn't mean God was against them, children who die, for example, like the firstborn of Egypt, if some of them were babies. God wasn't against those babies. It was a punishment on the parents. But likewise, David lost a baby through his own adultery. You know, God took the baby, but the baby is not lost. The baby's with the Lord, I believe. So, to say that God can do certain things in the administration of justice in the universe, or or even since he has the authority to decide when I will die or when anyone else will die, because everyone's going to die sometime, the only question is when and that's God's prerogative.
Steve Gregg: Is not the same thing as saying, therefore I have the right to decide when someone's going to die, because I don't. I'm not God. God is in a position of governance in a universe that is not paralleled by anyone else's position.
Guest (Male): I'm not a parent, but I've heard it said that there is nothing more painful than than losing a child. And I can just imagine people in Egypt, you know, losing a child for something they had absolutely no say in, you know.
Steve Gregg: Well, actually they did have a say in it because they could put blood on their doorpost as God said to do, and then the the angel would not strike their home. There actually was given a warning to them that if they would do a certain thing that God commanded. And many people did it and were spared, that they would that they would be spared. And there were even Egyptians, not only Israelites who did that, who were afraid of what might happen and they followed God's instructions and they were spared.
Steve Gregg: So, nobody nobody lost a child in that particular instance except people who just refused to do what God said. In which case they had even been warned what would happen if they didn't, but I guess they just took their chances. And taking your chances that God's going to not fulfill his threats is not a very wise thing to do.
Guest (Male): Well, thanks for taking my call, Steve.
Steve Gregg: All right, Alec, it's hard hard on our emotions to think about these subjects. But, you know, the world is full of things that are very hard on our emotions and we just have to kind of look at them as much as possible rationally and say, well, what's really going on here? What's the you know, what principles does God operate upon? And I I've looked at all these things a great deal and I personally don't think there's anything there that reflects negatively on the character of God. Only if God would send people to hell and torture them forever when they had no opportunity to do to go anywhere else. That would that would reflect very negatively.
Steve Gregg: But that people die. See, I had a wife who died when she was 25 years old. I didn't expect that to happen. She was a good person. It was through no fault of her own. It was a careless driver that hit her and she was killed instantly. And, you know, that was something that I, you know, I didn't see that coming. But when people ask me if I was angry at God for for that, I thought, why in the world would I be angry at God? You know, when I married her, I knew she was going to die. I didn't know she'd die at age 25, but I know I was marrying a mortal human being who would die someday. And that it wouldn't be happy for me when she died.
Steve Gregg: Whether she died at age 25 or age 85 or 95, it wouldn't it wouldn't be happy. It's the fate of all people. They all die. And God, I feel, has every right to decide when I will die, when my children or my wife will die. Certainly, I will be sorry when they die if they die before I do. And I was very sorry when my wife died. But I didn't ever think that God needed to explain himself as if somehow my family was the one that was supposed to be immune from what all people experience, namely death. Nor that we have any, you know, claim on ourselves dictating how God's going to let us die or when.
Steve Gregg: The real issue is, do we die prepared to meet God? If we're prepared to meet God, Paul said, to die is gain. It's it's not a crisis for the person dying, only for the survivors. As you said, it is very hard for people to lose a family member. Alex, I appreciate your call very much and thank you for talking to us today.
Steve Gregg: All right, let's talk to Rebecca.
Guest (Female): Hi, great to talk to you again. My question today is why do you think God made the universe so big and do you think there could be life on other planets?
Steve Gregg: Well, I mean, there could be life on other planets. We don't know what God may or may not have done in that respect. If it was proven that there was life on other planets, it would not have any negative impact on the Christian faith. On the other hand, you know, the evidence that there is life on other planets is still I think, nebulous. We haven't really gotten any signals from life on other planets, although the SETI project has been endeavoring to search the skies for any kind of radio transmissions from other galaxies or other solar systems and has gotten nothing for many decades.
Steve Gregg: Of course, there are sightings of things that people think might be from other planetary, but of course what they really are is not really known. They may be the products of intelligent life somewhere else in the universe or they may be something else that we don't know about, that's not been made known to the public. So I don't I can't really argue whether there's likely to be life on other planets. I can say that if it turned out that there was, it would not contradict anything that the Bible says that I know of, and therefore it would not have a negative impact on our faith in the Bible.
Steve Gregg: Why did God make the universe so big? Well, I'm not sure how big it needed to be for his purposes. I guess some people think, why is the earth so small? They say, how can you think that God's focus of activity is on such a small little particle out in the huge universe as the Earth is, you know, compared to the universe, we're smaller than a grain of sand. And therefore, you know, to think that Earth is the center of God's activity and relations with his creatures, it seems arrogant on the part of many people who look at the Christian view about that.
Steve Gregg: Yet I would say, well, how small do you want the universe to be in order for the Earth to be comparatively large? You could make the Earth a million times larger than it is, it would still be a speck in the universe. I assume the Earth is the size that it needed to be in order for God's purpose to be fulfilled. Why he filled space with other planets and other stars and and systems like that is not something he's revealed to us. I don't know the answer to that. Size is not what determines the importance of a thing, of course. I'd rather have a large growth on my arm than a small malignant growth in my brain.
Steve Gregg: The size of the thing isn't what matters. It's the importance of its location, it's what's going on there. And so, to say the Earth is small compared to the rest of the universe, doesn't tell us one thing about its importance. Man is small compared to a mountain, but a man is far more important than a mountain in the grand scheme of things. At least in terms of the progress of human history. The size of the Earth in comparison to the large universe doesn't have any bearing on Christian claims about God's focus upon the Earth, at least as near as I can tell.
Guest (Female): Okay, thank you.
Steve Gregg: Okay, Rebecca, thanks for your call. God bless you.
Steve Gregg: All right, we're going to talk to Ken from Diamond Bar, California. Ken, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Guest (Male): Yes, hello. I have a biblical genealogy question. It's on Genesis chapter 5 and 11, Adam to Abraham. Now, these two chapters seem to be cause a lot of emotion.
Steve Gregg: Really?
Guest (Male): They are very precise and they give extra detail and no indication of gaps and it's deeply concerned with numbers and ages. However, the ancient Hebrews also foremost seemed concerned with projecting perfection, fullness with their numbering and supplying a non-breaking link from Adam to the flood. So, my question, is the Genesis genealogy account, is it supposed to be historical or can we just view it as presenting a complete linkage pattern with perhaps the word son meaning descendant?
Steve Gregg: Yeah. Well, it's uh it has been taken both ways. And you mentioned it's an emotional subject. I'm not sure who would find it an emotional issue to to dispute whether it's a whether any generations are left out or not. I personally don't think any generations are left out and it looks to me as if it's meant to be a complete genealogy. But I'm very much aware of the fact that begat uh some people say means not just simply to become the father but to become the the ancestor of somebody.
Steve Gregg: And so if it says at such and such an age, so and so became the ancestor of someone else, but he did so by begetting the grandfather of that person or something and and there thus in doing so, you know, became the ancestor. I I can see that people could argue that, but it doesn't seem very natural to me. It doesn't seem like a natural way of understanding it. On the other hand, I can't see why I would get emotional if somebody had a different view than I had on it.
Guest (Male): Right. Okay. I guess it's the chapters where someone wants to age the earth or age how long ago Adam was.
Steve Gregg: I I realize that I realize that. That's that's that's the whole reason for the argument is to put the the the creation of Adam further back than the 6,000 years that the genealogies would suggest. But again, that's that's even something I'm not sure why anyone would get emotional about. Why would I care if Adam was created 6,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago? I mean, I I have an opinion, but but if someone differed from my opinion, I can't imagine what would be at stake.
Guest (Male): All right. Okay. So there's no reason for those two chapters to really to be controversial.
Steve Gregg: Well, I mean, controversial. I I I would say I would say that the passages seem pretty clear. But if somebody says, you know, I'm I'm seeing a possibility of taking it a slightly different way. And if they're doing it honestly, even if I think they're making a mistake, I can just say, well, okay, you can see it that way if you want to. It's it's not an I don't see why it has to be a big controversy.
Guest (Male): Right. Okay.
Steve Gregg: Yeah.
Guest (Male): Okay. And and something very related. I'll be quick that I look at this any one else on the line. Now, like this is just something that occurred to me. Okay, you have the 70 weeks of Daniel. Now, seven is the numeric symbol of perfection. 10 is the numeric symbol of fullness. Why can't you, why can't that be explained as really a prophecy of 69 weeks with the one extra week added on just to reach that so-called magical 7 and 10?
Steve Gregg: Oh, in other words, that the the prophecy really is fulfilled in 483 years with the coming of Christ the first time.
Guest (Male): Correct. Correct. That would take that.
Steve Gregg: And because that and because that comes so close to 490 that it's just rounded up to make it 70 because that's a nice round number. Just like we might uh well, some people believe for example, that in the book of judges, where every judge is said to have ruled for 40 years and then died, except for Gideon who ruled for 80 years and then died. Some people say, well, isn't that coincidental that 12 different judges would all, you know, come to power and die in after they, you know, judged Israel for 40 years and not 41 or 39 or any number of that. And then of course, Saul reigned for 40 years and died and then David reigned for 40 years and died and Solomon reigned for 40 days. So it it at 40 years and died. So it does, you know, it almost begins to look like a round number, like meaning a generation.
Steve Gregg: And there are people who suggest that to be the case. Uh again, I don't have the uh I don't have enough knowledge. Uh I don't know if any of us do to know that this was not a literal number. They could have it could have been literal in every case. It seems very coincidental unless of course it's providential. If God wanted them all to be 40 years, then it would be 40 years. But there are people who take some of these things as round numbers. And uh so the same kind of person might might understand the 70 weeks simply to be rounding it up.