Sunday School: Distinctives Series. Postmillennialism (Part 2)

Welcome back to the Shepherd's Church podcast. Just like our Lord's Day sermon, we hope that this Sunday School message blesses you and strengthens you in your faith. Begin with prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this morning.

Thank you for all of your kindnesses and your blessings to us. Lord, help us as we study your word, as we study passages that either are hiding in plain sight or maybe have been neglected. Lord, help us to have eyes to see what they say and faith to believe them.

In Jesus' name, amen. Last week, we ended by talking about how God designed the world. And if you'll remember, we talked about that God designed the world with a particular aim in mind. And he called that very good.

So what was that aim? It was that man would be fruitful and that he would multiply, that he would rule over the earth, that he would subdue the earth, and he would bring the earth under the dominion of Yahweh.

Now, we talked about, which is not a thought that I've really heard a lot in Christian circles, but I think it's an important one, if Adam had not sinned, then what would have happened? Well, he and Eve with perfect bodies would have started having babies pretty much immediately.

There would have been no pain in childbearing, so there'd been no hesitation. They would have had lots of babies. And then their babies would have had babies. And before you know it, Eden would have been as densely populated as Manhattan.

Then they would have had to spread out and extend the boundaries of the Garden of Eden to make new zip codes, new regions, new areas, until the entire world was cultivated into a garden paradise that was filled with people.

So the vision that God called very good in Eden is an acorn, but in that acorn is the entire potential for a hundred-year-old oak tree. And all of that is what God called very good. God didn't just call the start very good.

He called that plan, that vision, that telos of the world very good. So the question that we had to ask ourself last week is will God stop short of that very good vision? Will he command Adam and Eve to be fruitful, multiply, and to subdue the world, to bring the world under dominion by filling it full of worshipers?

Will he stop short of that vision before the end comes? And I don't believe that he will. I don't believe that God commands anything in an arbitrary way. I don't think that God commands us to do something with no expectation that it will be accomplished.

God is not flippant, God is not arbitrary. So what we learned last week is that through Jesus, who Paul calls the true and better Adam, everything that Adam was supposed to do will come in. So if Adam was supposed to fill the world with worshipers, Jesus is the true and better Adam is gonna do it.

If Adam was supposed to make the world into a garden space, Jesus, the true and better Adam, is going to do it. Any questions on that point? That to me, by the way, was the passage that convinced me of post-millennialism, Genesis 128.

That is when I started seeing the purpose for which God was gonna work in the world. All right, very good. Oftentimes, one of the things that keeps us from believing that Jesus is going to fill the world with worshipers, and I mean fill it, I don't mean 2 .5 billion, we're done and it's over.

I mean, fill the world with worshipers. I mean, make the world into a garden space again. And really the reason that so many have trouble believing this is because it really strikes at the heart of our faith.

We tend as humans to live by sight and not by faith. But the Bible calls us to do the opposite, to live by faith and not by sight, to believe what the word of God says. Job 42 .2 says, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Genesis 128 was a purpose of the Lord that will not be thwarted because he can do all things. Just because it's hard for us to believe, it's hard for us to see, doesn't mean that it's hard for God. 20 centuries have come and gone so far in the church, and every one of them, he has grown his kingdom.

Why would he stop now? All right, God will accomplish this. This is hiding right in plain sight. A lot of the verses I'm gonna quote to you, you've read a hundred times, but I'm gonna press us to believe them.

1 Corinthians 15 .25, Jesus will fill the world full of worshipers, okay? For in Adam, all die. So also in Christ, all will be made alive. Now you may say, well, that's just all of the elect.

Okay, sure.

But the point that Paul is making is that the entire world fell in Adam. So if you follow the parallelism here, if all of the world fell in Adam, I think what Paul is saying is all of the world will come back in Christ.

Yes, it means all the elect for sure, but the end of both of those are being equated. In Adam, all died, the whole world. In Christ, the whole world will come back. And we'll look at more passages that deal with that.

Any questions on that? Wonderful.

All right.

The redemption that God accomplishes. So we've talked about what God's purpose was for the world now. We've defined that he's gonna fill the world full of people. How's he gonna do it? He's gonna do that through redemption.

Genesis 3 .15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your seed and her seed. I shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. So this is the Proto-Evangelion.

This is the first gospel. In this, God is promising that through Christ, everything that was broken is gonna be restored. That's all I wanted to pull out of that passage. All right. Now, let's go to Genesis 12 .1 -3.

What kind of redemption is God going to bring? He's going to bring a total global redemption. Genesis 12 .1 -3 is a promise to Abraham that Paul later says is a promise to Christ. And this is what Jesus is gonna do.

Look at what it says. God's speaking to Abram. Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land of Israel. To the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation.

And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

This is a powerful passage because God is promising to Abraham that through Abraham's offspring, there will come a time when the entire world's families, every family on earth comes under the blessing of God.

That's what it says. That's just the plain reading of it. All the families on earth will be blessed. What does it mean to be biblically blessed? Is it material? Is it emotional? Is it vocational? What is biblical blessing?

Yeah, that's even a consequence of his blessing. So that's downstream of his blessing. What happens first before God blesses? It's the point. It's the initial act of blessing that opens up the conduit of blessing, entering into relationship.

So that the quintessential blessing of the Bible is number six, 24 through 26, that he will make his face shine upon us. He will bring us into relationship with him. That's the great benediction that we often share here.

So if the quintessential blessing of the Bible is being brought into the presence of God so that you can see the face of God, then the entire world coming under the blessings of God through the seed of Abraham is nothing short of the entire world coming to faith.

God is not promising to bless all of the pagans with good cars and fancy houses. That's not the blessings he's talking about. He's not talking about some sort of amorphous blessing. He's talking about the blessing of knowing them and being their God and them being his people.

So Genesis 12, one through three is nothing short of all the families on the earth coming into relationship with God. At some point, it hasn't happened yet. Question we have to ask ourself is, will God stop short of his promise?

It hasn't happened yet, okay. Well, in dispensationalism, the earth ends before it happens. In amillennialism, the earth ends before it happens. In many forms of postmillennialism, the earth ends before this happens.

I'm only pressing us to say, if God promised it, will he not accomplish it? Will he not do this before he ends the world? I don't think there's any promise that God doesn't accomplish. That's the very reason why we can have faith in the promises of God, because when he promises something, he will accomplish it.

Now, maybe I'm just making too much of Genesis 12. That's a promise to Abraham. And like Andy Stanley says, we should unhitch ourself from the Old Testament because it's not relevant to us. It doesn't matter, right?

It's a very extreme opinion. Disqualifying in ministry, even. But look at what Galatians 3 .16 says. Now, the promises. Paul says that these were promises made by God. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.

He doesn't say, and to his seeds, as referring to many, i .e. the Jews, but rather to one, and to your seed. And Paul says, the seed of Abraham is Christ. So when you look at Genesis 12, and God says, in you, in your seed, all the families of the earth will be blessed, Paul says that seed is Christ.

So Abraham is being promised by God that through Jesus, all the families of the earth will be blessed. That's being promised as early as Genesis 12, one through three. Does that make sense? All right, praise the Lord.

I've done a really good job teaching this so far,.

Over the years.

Yes, sir, yeah.

General universalism says that all people will be saved ipso facto, whether they believe or not. What I'm arguing is that the final generation, just before Jesus returns, will be entirely one to Christ so that they will have a profession of faith in Jesus, that they will be elect, that the whole world be filled with elect Christians in the normal way that God elects people.

So this is not all the Buddhists, because they did good works, are gonna be saved, and all the Hindus and Shintos and Islam and atheists and everybody, that's universalism, that everybody just so will be saved.

I'm saying that this promise especially promises that the whole world will be filled with Christians in the normal way that God elects Christians. So B .B. Warfield calls this an eschatological universalism.

That's what B .B. Warfield terms this view. I think the term universalism causes knee-jerk reactions, so sometimes it's not helpful. Just remember that this is the end for which God is building. This is not every generation, everyone will be saved.

That's not what this means. Yes, sir? Right? Right, we're talking about a mustard seed.

Exactly.

We're talking about a mustard seed that grows a little bit every generation until it fills the whole garden. We're talking about leaven that eventually leavens the entire lump. I mean, that promise itself is very specific.

If you at home, if you've done sourdough or whatever bread that you're making, you put the leaven in it and it doesn't stop short. It doesn't leaven half the lump. It leavens it all. So the kingdom that Jesus is building is one that's gonna be entirely leavened and it'll happen little by little until it's finished.

So any more questions on that? This is good. We're moving really quick. It's probably, I'm kind of proud of myself right now. We don't normally move this fast. You ever watch in the day, you might not be old enough, Adam, but George W. Bush, whenever he would say something intelligent, he would shake his head.

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel right now.

Okay.

All right, let's keep going. So his redemption is going to continue growing until it's filled the whole world. Well, look at what these passages say about his universal dominion. All of these things are saying the same things, but we, I think, have read past them a little bit.

Psalm 72, eight. May he have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.

What does that mean?

Other than he's going to have dominion over the entire earth. It can mean nothing but that. What is dominion? Dominion is not the same thing as ownership. What's the difference?

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's exactly right. The difference is ownership means that you possess it. Dominion means that it now looks like your vision. It looks like you. It bears your values. So the world that we are talking about is going to eventually bear the values of Christ, which means that all of the stuff that we're going through right now in society with, just think about the last five years, COVID and Epstein and just, we can keep going on and on and on, the world economic, all of it.

Biden. Which, yeah, nevermind. Anyway, all of that, that is out of alignment with Jesus's vision will come under alignment before it's over. That means abortion will be abolished. That means that peace will be on earth.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

Yeah, so Isaiah, I always get confused on the reference and I apologize. It's either 65 or 62 or 61 or 64, it's somewhere in the 60s. But it says in those days, I think it's 65. Yeah, in those days, the one who dies of 100 will be called cursed.

So we can either look at that as metaphorical or we can look at that as in Jesus's kingdom, at some point, long life is gonna come back. I tend to think, this is my Post Mill fan fiction sort of view.

I tend to think that the long lives of Enoch and Jared and Methuselah and all of that could come back before Jesus returns. I'm not saying that it must, but if everything that was broken is gonna be redeemed in route to eternal state, well, that would be one thing that could come back before we get to heaven and earth coming fully back together again.

So I think that technologies that Christians invent will heal diseases. I think that technologies Christians invent will make deserts bloom with actual soil that can produce crops. I think we haven't even yet seen what the earth's population quotient is because when the Sahara Desert is a garden, if the whole world's gonna be made a garden again, then we can hold a whole lot more people than 8 billion.

It's pretty hopeful vision if it's true. I think it is because God promised it. Yeah, so I think so. I mean, so the more we press into the future vision of it, I think the more humble we should be. So I think it's much more clear that the world will be filled with Christians, but Jesus does say through Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 that he will reign until he has put all of his enemies under his feet, and then he will return to deal with the final enemy, which is death.

So if a hurricane is an enemy of Christ, Christ is the Lord of creation, right? Christ is the author of creation. He holds creation together by his own being. So if a hurricane is an enemy of Christ, then he will put it under his feet before he returns.

If earthquakes are enemies of Christ, he will put them under his feet before he returns. I'm only saying what the scriptures say at this point. I know it's hard to believe, but we either believe that Jesus does redeem the world or we believe he stops short.

I'd rather have a Pollyanna view that he's going to redeem everything that's broken, and then when he returns, like Corinthians says, he puts the final enemy under his feet, which is death. He gives you and I new bodies again where we can never die.

Long life might come back, but death still remains until Jesus returns. You're either going to die at 100 or you're going to die at 200 or whatever happens at that point. You're still going to die. Death is defeated personally, incarnationally by Jesus when he returns, which is what 1 Corinthians 15, 25 says.

Do we colonize Mars? That's a question. I have no idea. I don't think so. I think the earth is the center of God's creation story and redemption. Some people think that.

Yeah.

I mean, I personally don't think so. I think the earth is God's footstool, which means that the earth is where his dominion is. I don't think that interplanetary, I don't think Elon Musk is right on that.

Yeah, I agree, right?

Probably.

Actually, yeah. That's true.

All right, well, yeah, we're in deep, weird territory. And actually, I don't think that we colonize any other planets. I think that there's too much in the Bible that talks about the earth is where God's dominion is.

And Adam was commanded to have dominion on the earth, not in the cosmos.

Moving on.

I think the earth will also eventually be filled with peace. I think that there will be no more war before Jesus returns. Now, how long is that gonna last? I have no idea. But let's look at a few passages.

Zechariah 9 .10, this is a prophecy about Jesus. This is actually the prophecy right after he rides into the city on a donkey. That's Zechariah 9 .9. So Zechariah 9 .10 is the very next verse. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations, and his rule shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.

There you have the dominion again. So there, in this passage, his dominion says that it starts in Judea, which is exactly what happened when Jesus rode into the city, died on the cross, resurrected from the dead, ascended to heaven.

But it doesn't stop in Judea. This says that his dominion will be applied to peace being cultivated in all the nations. So from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, he will bring peace. So right now, while we see that the military industrial complex is still churning up wars, well, I would encourage you not to have your rapture backpack because if he does what he says he's going to do, he'll bring peace to the world.

The fact that we still have all these wars and rumors of wars means that we're still a ways away. That should be confidence to you. He's gonna set up an unconquerable kingdom. I love this passage, Daniel 2 .35.

To him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

What can this mean other than that all the peoples, all the nations, and all the languages are gonna serve Christ? You remember in Daniel, the prophecy was a little pebble topples that statue and the little pebble grows into a mountain that fills the entire world.

We're in that period right now where the pebble is growing into a mountain that will eventually fill the entire world. And when it does, it will be that all nations, all peoples, and all languages serve him.

What I also think is interesting about this, if you're a part of the globo homo group, this does not actually envision a world filled with globalism where we have a single nation. It tells us that redemption is going to happen according to people groups, tribes, and nations.

So we're not looking for a redemption where everyone has been flattened out into the same language, same country, same government. No, it's still a nation filled with governments and languages that Jesus is gonna redeem.

He's gonna redeem a kaleidoscope of peoples before it's over, does that make sense? His government is gonna increase until it knows no end. Isaiah nine, six through seven, or verse nine, excuse me. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

So the question I would ask is, if something increases until it can't increase anymore, what does it look like, total? If his government starts and it increases, and it increases until it can't increase anymore, you have total, global, perfect government.

That's what's gonna happen. By the way, this verse comes right after and unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given, and it does not say that, oh wait, by the way, verse six applies to his earthly incarnation and verse seven applies to heaven.

Not what it says. Both of them apply to what he's going to do upon the earth. Matthew 6, 10, his great prayer. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Why would Jesus pray that his kingdom would come on the entire earth and his will be done on the entire earth if he had no intention of actually doing it?

Why would he pray that? If anybody prays perfect prayers, it's Christ. 1 Corinthians 15, 25, he must reign until he's put all of his enemies under his feet. What we're talking about is a world, whenever Jesus returns, that everyone is under his lordship.

Pretty different vision than what we're probably used to hearing. Have any of you ever heard anything like this before?

Yeah, what difference does this make.

As we're thinking about this view of his kingdom, which we're trying to back up with scripture, but what difference does this make for us?

Yeah, it's so true because I've grown up.

In the church my whole life and mostly in dispensational type churches and what we don't realize is just how influential our eschatology is upon the way that we live. The side comments of the world's getting worse and I can't believe all these things are happening, the pessimism that pervades so much of Christianity today is based on a false assumption that Christ won't actually do what he said he's going to do.

And because of that, I think we have a tendency to hide. We have a tendency to play things close to the chest. I don't know if you've ever played in high school sports or whatever and you go up against a team that is like a juggernaut who you know is going to annihilate you and your team's not very good.

There's a demoralizing fact when you go into halftime and you're down by 40 in whatever sport you're playing that you come out and you're kind of defeated. You don't put the effort into it because you know what's the point, they're going to win.

That's not what Jesus has told us. We're in the exact opposite. The blows that the enemy has made hurt, but we know that he's going down in the fifth. We know that the match has already been determined.

We know that our Lord has already purchased the victory. So yeah, he might throw some blows, but he's going down. So I'm going to stand up and I'm going to take it and I'm going to keep fighting and I'm going to keep pushing forward because I know he's going down.

I know the end of the story. It really invigorates us.

Sort of out of that windmill of the day.

That's partaking more of life.

Right, I think it's the very reason that we can have hope in this life. Like when, for instance, our church right now has gone through some really interesting struggles with health in the congregation with Michael Paul and Don and even Butch.

Shannon has had some things going on with her. And there's a temptation when those things happen for us to despair. But if we're in a kingdom that Christ is building, that he's advancing, we know that these present struggles aren't even worth comparing to the glory that's going to be revealed on the day of Christ.

And we know that these things are accomplishing good for us. So we press on, we press forward because we know that God is using all these things to mature us and strengthen us and make us perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

And we should have great joy because of that, yeah. Psalm 22, his kingdom is going to be total. Psalm 22 is an interesting passage because the beginning of it is, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

This is exactly what Jesus declared on the cross as he's dying. And I've said this before in sermons, but Jesus is not in that moment saying that the Trinity was ripped apart and that somehow Jesus lost his access to the Father because that is not, that couldn't even happen with a triune God.

What Jesus is doing when he says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He's quoting Psalm 22. And on the cross, he's telling his contemporaries who are standing around the cross, mocking him and yelling at him.

He's telling them, this passage is about me and this passage is about you. In Psalm 22, it says that they surround me, they give me sour vinegar to drink, not one of my bones is broken. You read Psalm 22 and it's Jesus from the cross.

David, who wrote it, doesn't have a moment in his life that looks like this. This was David by the Spirit of God writing Jesus' crucifixion scene. This is how that passage ends. So if Jesus is saying all of Psalm 22 is about me, this is how it ends.

All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. And all of the families of the nations will worship before you for the kingdom is the Lord's and he rules over the nations. In verse 26 or 25, it talks about his resurrection.

So in light of Jesus' resurrection, all the ends of the earth are gonna turn to the Lord. All the nations are gonna come under his rule. That's how powerful his resurrection is. Isaiah 2, two through four.

Now it will come about in the last days. Remember Hebrews 1 says that we're already in the last days because the last days came when Christ came. So remember that. Now it will come that in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of all the mountains and it will be raised above the hills and all the nations will stream to it.

And many peoples will come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us concerning his ways and that we may walk in his paths for the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

And he will judge between the nations and will render decisions for many peoples and they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation and never again will they learn war.

Revelation 22 sort of pictures this vision that the church, the new Jerusalem is where the nation stream into and the church is the one who gives the tree of life to the nations for their healing. So what you have here again is all the nations of earth will come under his kingdom.

We've already said Daniel 2 .35. How are we doing on time? We have two minutes. What's that? Oh, thank you.

Let's see.

Daniel 7 .14, we haven't talked about this one. And to him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

As Belushi pointed out a second ago, this happens during the Roman Empire. It just so happens, coincidentally, there's no way that God could have planned this, that Jesus comes during the Roman Empire and he just so happens to get a kingdom that will never end and his dominion will never be thwarted.

Daniel says it explicitly but it can't be that it just, that it happened on purpose. Obviously I'm being sarcastic. Habakkuk 2 .14, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the water covers the sea.

Whole world's gonna come under his glory. Mark 1 .15, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe. It started when Jesus came and it will continue until the entire world is under his rule.

Let's see, I'm trying to move a little bit quickly because I think we have a good handle on this but I do want you to see how many verses there are that talk like this. Matthew 28 .18, the Great Commission.

We skip past this verse maybe sometimes but it's important. Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. So we're talking about Jesus filling the entire world with Christians, every nation obeying him, no more war, we're talking about all of that.

How could that possibly be accomplished? Well, Jesus is the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth. He's the only one who can accomplish these promises. The whole point of the Bible is to show us that we can't do it and that Christ can.

And the promises that God is making are ratcheted up so tremendously that it is infinitely true that only Christ can do this. If that's the case, then the church should have great confidence that we stand in the shadow of a glorious and wonderful Christ.

Our labor is not in vain when we labor for the Lord. Jeremiah 31 .34, this is talking about Jesus' kingdom. No longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each to his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me.

John 3 .16, a passage that we might not have realized how important it is. For God so loved the world. It doesn't say that for God so loved the elect. For God so loved the world that he gave his son. He gave his son to redeem the entire world.

That's what this is saying. And he will not stop until it is finished. How do I know that? The same author in 1 John 2 .2 says, he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

His death was for the winning, the propitiation, the atonement of the entire world. And he will continue applying his salvation until he is one at all, until he has conquered it all. Genesis 49 .10, this is a wonderful promise.

The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. This passage is universally described as a prophecy of the coming Christ who came from the tribe of Judah and to him will be given the obedience of the nations.

Let's end with Philippians 2 .10 -11. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father, the glory of God the Father.

We've been taught this passage from people who don't believe that Jesus will win the entire world. So they have to tell you that the bowing down that will occur here is that some will bow down in worship and some will bow down because they're made to bow down, but they'll bow down begrudgingly.

That's not what the passage says. It says that every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. And we also see in the New Testament that when you confess Jesus Christ is Lord, that's what salvation is.

Amen. So Philippians 2 .10 -11 is not an obligatory bowing down. It is what the earth is going to look like when Jesus has had his way with it. Any questions before we close? We did it all. We got through all of this.

And now you have this verses as well.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for your kingdom and thank you that your kingdom is a triumphant, glorious kingdom that wins, that conquers, that will subdue as Adam should have done. You will subdue until there's nothing left to subdue.

Your government will extend until there's nothing left for it to rule over. Your peace will continue to pervade this earth until there is no more war. And Lord, you will win the nations. You will make them obedient to you.

The nations will remember you and turn to you once more because of your resurrection and ascension. And Lord, we pray that as we find our place in that world, Lord, that we would not be a generation that is left on the sidelines because we had too little faith.

But Lord, seeing that this is what you are doing, that we would have great faith and that we would get involved in spreading your kingdom and announcing your kingdom and heralding your kingdom and building in your kingdom.

And Lord, I pray that we would do that to the glory and praise of God. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. So next week...