Puritans, Law, Justification, and Beards

Apologia Studios

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Take an amazing journey to a place that will blow your mind and move your heart, so you will never be the same again.

00:17

What's up y 'all? Welcome to the Gospel Heard Around the World's Apologia Radio. So check it out.

00:26

Matthew 6, the Lord Jesus teaches us how to pray. It's amazing to think about praying that prayer over and over and over again.

00:46

And to think about in our lives as Christians, do we really understand what we're reading there?

00:51

That Jesus tells us to pray that God's name be holied throughout the world.

00:58

That his kingdom come and that his will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

01:08

And I always ask the question, just how rigorous do we think the commitment is to God's will in heaven?

01:16

So Apologia Radio guys, that's the bear over there. What's up bear? Yo, yo. How you doing dude?

01:22

Good. Right on, right on. Great. And Jerry, what's up man? What's up man? Glad to be here.

01:27

Have we officially decided on your name? I say the dude, that's what I'm going with. You think the dude? It works.

01:33

I don't know man. Working on it. What are you, still working on a name for yourself? Working on it. I don't know dude. It's happening.

01:38

See, you just called him dude. You really tie this show together dude. I know man. It works well.

01:46

That's the big Lebowski. You got some beverage in there? Hey man, there's a beverage here.

01:51

There's a beverage here man. Alright, so that's Luke the bear. That's Jerry, my man.

01:57

Hey, did we ever tell everyone how you and I met? We met when you were a little 16 year old pipsqueak. Yeah, you were a pipsqueak too.

02:03

I was 18 years old wearing a CK shirt and it said Christ is King. Yes. At least I had a normal t -shirt on.

02:09

That's true. You were with Dr. White at the Mormon temple in 1996. Doing evangelism in the Mormon temple.

02:15

That's where we first met. Bumped into each other. Did some evangelism to a guy. We parted ways.

02:22

It was 2001. I was at Starbucks reading The Case for Christ. And you came in and saw me reading.

02:29

And you just came up to me and very enthusiastically said, Are you a Christian? I'm like, yeah. Who are you?

02:35

I don't know. Yeah. I am a Christian. Yeah, so we started hanging out together. Nice book. Yeah, yeah.

02:42

It was funny because we were hanging out. It was probably like a month or two later.

02:48

We were at Applebee's. And we were talking together. And I said, yeah. Remember this one time

02:54

I was at the Mormon temple. Like one of the first times I was ever there. Like I tag teamed with some guy. And he had the stupidest t -shirt I'd ever seen.

03:00

And like the CK, like Christ is King. And you got all red. And you started like sinking into your seat.

03:05

And I'm like, wait. Was that you? Hey, Jamin. Classic. You bring me up here? Thanks, man.

03:10

I won't tell the story of how we first met, Jerry. Anyway.

03:19

All right. So, hey, guys. Exciting show for you guys. But before we get to it, just two things. We have, listen.

03:25

Dr. Kenneth Talbot from Whitfield Theological Seminary. The president of Whitfield Theological Seminary.

03:32

One of my favorite people in the whole world. Who has one of the most delicious beards known to man. I mean, have you ever seen like the

03:38

Highlander? You ever watch Highlander? Yeah. You ever see that? Do you ever watch that? Or is that before your time? I was homeschooled in my basement.

03:44

That's before your time. I'm still waiting to catch up on that. Are you going to watch Highlander, man? They probably have it on Netflix. That just makes me think of Charles. Basically, the

03:50

Scottish Highlander. Like he kills people with these powers. And as he cuts their heads off, like he gets their powers.

03:57

Their special powers. And so he grows more and more like just awesome as the show goes along.

04:05

And Dr. T is like that. Like he has just collected all the beard awesomeness from everybody around him.

04:12

All the years of being around like Rush Dooney and all the guys. He's collected all of their awesome.

04:18

And it's just flowing out of his face. You can see it. I don't know if anyone knows this, but Rush Dooney, he completely looks like Count Dooku.

04:26

He does. From episode two. I have noticed. Like spot on. Someone did a split comparison.

04:32

I've never been able to see that. Unsee that ever. No. You can't unsee it. Once you see it, it's done. It's a done deal.

04:38

Okay. So I want to update you guys on what's happening this month now at Apologia Church in Tempe, Arizona.

04:45

We meet at Arizona Community Church. February 19th and 20th is the God, Governments, and Culture Conference.

04:52

And 19th to 20th, Thursday night, Friday night, at the end of the conference, is going to be a debate between J .D.

04:58

Hall and Joel McDermott from the American Vision on the Law of God. And two days.

05:03

We've got Joel McDermott, me, Si Ten Bruggenkate, Marcus Pittman, Ivy Connerly, John Crawford.

05:09

It's going to be awesome. We have people right now coming in from all over the country. Washington, Texas, Florida, New York, South Carolina that I know.

05:18

I mean, just people are coming in from across the nation. Get your tickets because if it's true the way conferences work, we are going to be really packed out or sold out.

05:28

If the numbers keep going the way that they are. So we just want to make sure that everyone gets tickets. So if you want to get tickets, you've got to go to GGC.

05:35

That stands for God, Governments, and Culture. GGCConference .org. All right,

05:41

Luke the Bear, we've got some comments on our appy. Our nappy appy. You guys can get the app of Apologia Church.

05:48

Get all the sermons, lectures, the actual evangelism outreach, and all the

05:53

Apologia Radio episodes on the app for free. Just go to Google Play or the

06:00

Apple Store and search for Apologia Church and you'll get the app and get all the content.

06:05

Luke? Yeah, and these are from the iTunes Store. I've never looked. Well, I can't look. Maybe you can look at the

06:11

Google Play Store and see if there's comments on there. Oh, there actually are. Oh. Well, I've read some of these, so I'm going to try to not repeat them because it's been a while.

06:20

Okay. Okay, then. Well, fine. This one says, Fabulous Teaching by Mr.

06:26

Anthony Sutton. I recently left a non -denominational church, may have heard of it, that completely blasphemed the

06:34

Reformed faith. A buddy of mine introduced me to these podcasts, and somebody is calling me right in the middle of me reading this.

06:42

Is it ringing right now? Yep. Oh, I won't show the number. I'm going to blur it out. Nice. Yep, so I'll have to continue that.

06:50

Do you got anything? You can't pull it up again? No, well, my phone's ringing, so I can't. Can't you ignore it?

06:56

Just ignore it. I did. It's still on. Okay, here we go. I got one. Here we go. Revolutionary by Nathan Johnson.

07:03

Oh, by the way, 4 .8 out of 5 stars on the Google Play. What? 4 .8. That's the average right now.

07:12

Love this app. Love you guys, especially Luke the Bear, because his music is better. That's right.

07:17

Amen. You watch your mouth. Sorry, Ninja. Love your approach to preaching and teaching.

07:26

I listen daily to your sermons and radio program. You have completely changed our views on apologetics and times of biblical living.

07:31

Thank you, guys. Keep it up. Thanks, Nathan. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Nate Dog. John Wilkinson.

07:39

Not a joke, Pastor. Apology or radio is like a punch in the presuppositional gut. These guys are spot on with their theology.

07:45

Throw away your fanny pack and learn from the Ninja, the Bear, and the lovely girl. We know John. Huh?

07:51

This is John John. Oh! Really? Isn't that him? No, that's not his face. Oh. No, that's a different dude.

07:59

Jacob. My bad. I don't want to get this wrong. I'm sorry. Ibanez? Ibanez?

08:05

Ibanez? I don't know. Ibanez? I don't know. It's awesome. Jacob, what's up, dude? Thank you. Love you guys. I never leave comments or rate anything.

08:12

Ever. But wanted to let Apology at Church Slash Radio know how much they have impacted me in my life and how much they have challenged my views and ultimately changed my view of the text.

08:23

Love them. Thank God the app is finally up again. I've been waiting a long time to download it. Steve Nunez.

08:30

Theological awesomeness! Exclamation points. Nice. Keeps going. Thanks so much for making my dream of a sports talk radio theology show a reality.

08:40

You are welcome, sir. I thank you. Awesome app. Love the radio program. I met

08:45

Jeff Durbin at their Converge. Oh, this is Andrew Middleton. I met Jeff Durbin at the Converge Church planting conference last year.

08:51

I was deeply moved by the abortion mill ministry. I've been listening to Apology at Radio ever since. Thanks for the awesome show.

08:57

Love the app. Looking forward to shredding through all the delicious Bible speak on there. I love our fans. They're so awesome, dude.

09:04

Keep up the good work. Sports analysis? Love these guys. Jake Emmett.

09:09

Thanks for spreading the true word of Jesus and in a hard -hitting fashion. God bless. And let's get one from Janet right here.

09:18

Janet T. Last one. There's many more, but we don't have time for this. Okay. Luke the Bear, the Joy the Girl, and Jeff the Ninja.

09:24

You guys need to stop it, by the way. That's old school. Now it's done. By the way, I saw what you tried to do, jerk face.

09:32

If you get signed pictures from us and there's a question mark by my name. You caught it? Yeah, I caught it.

09:37

I didn't tell you what I did. Yeah, I haven't mailed them out yet either, so don't think that I'm not going to fix that.

09:42

So the little competition thing we had, right? Yeah. So for the giving and then the raffle, you know, for the whole thing.

09:49

Well, people won, like, books and pictures and everything, right? So Luke gives me at church, before church, he gives me the stack of pictures to sign, and Joy and Luke have already signed them, right?

09:56

And so I was like, Joy the Girl. A couple of them, she was like, Joy, your mom. Like, you know, Luke the Bear. And so I signed me and the

10:03

Ninja, and I put over by Bear. When he put Bear, I put a question mark behind every bear that was on there.

10:09

So it's like, Luke the Bear? Kind of like, I am Ron Burgundy? That's not a question.

10:15

I'm Ron Burgundy? That's not a question, no. So people know. All right. Hey, let me finish this comment, so Mr. Anthony Sutton, my apologies.

10:22

Wait, did I miss? Okay, I don't think I finished reading her. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, real fast. Sorry, Janet. Sorry, Janet.

10:28

Here we go. I was led to Apology Radio through a friend who recommended I listen to a Mormon episode you three did.

10:34

My first thought was how funny you all were. Thank you. I love how biblically sound y 'all are. Love the precept apologetics, theonomic episodes, and just simply your preaching of truth that is done with love and boldness.

10:44

It has been really convicting and encouraging to me. Would love it if you did an all meal versus post meal episode.

10:50

Woo. The consistent Christian worldview is so refreshing. Keep it up. P .S. The music is awesome. Quick thing,

10:56

Janet. If you go to redemptionradio .podbean .com, and soon it'll be on our app, redemptionradio .podbean

11:02

.com, there is a little debate discussion between an amillennialist and a historic premillennialist and myself, a little round table.

11:10

It's up there. It's two episodes. It's with vocab Malone and the godfather, Bob. Yeah. He's the amill representative, although I think

11:17

I'm getting him closer and closer. The Bob father. I was just about to say that. Every time we meet, he gets closer.

11:22

Quickly. Okay. So Anthony Sutton said, a buddy of mine introduced me to these podcasts, and I've been watching your guys' videos as well.

11:31

Thank you for everything. It's all been great material that I can go in and further study. You're welcome. And thank you,

11:36

Mr. Anthony Sutton. All right, y 'all. Get ready. Dr. Kenneth Talbot, Whitfield Theological Seminary.

11:42

You're going to love this episode, guys. We're going to talk about the law of God, the gospel, Puritans. It's going to be epic. Stay with us.

11:51

A Poetry Radio will be right back. Daniel 2, 44.

12:00

And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.

12:08

It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.

12:15

Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, a great

12:23

God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.

12:30

All right, y 'all. J -Man, you want to pull this up a little more in the background? So I can't tell you guys how much

12:37

I love Dr. Kenneth Talbot. I spent lots of time speaking with the man.

12:44

He is a wonderful man of God, someone that I highly commend to you guys. If you are looking to do seminary, if you're looking to do a

12:52

Bible college education, you need to contact Whitfield Seminary. It's Whitfield .edu.

12:59

Whitfield .edu. You can go to either the college, Bible college, or the seminary. Dr.

13:05

T is just a blessing. He's a gift to me personally on my own walk with Christ, and I'm looking forward to actually spending some time with him myself when

13:13

I get down to Florida for the Herald Society conference. Let's go ahead and bring him in. Dr. Talbot, thanks for joining us today, brother.

13:19

Glad to be here. Thank you. All right. So, did you hear what I said about your beard,

13:25

Dr. T? Yeah. There were so many things going on at one time, I was just sitting here waiting for the rapture.

13:33

Your beard is just—it's a model for all of us, Dr. T. All right.

13:42

So, Dr. T, there's Luke's on today and Jerry. Yeah, I just want to comment on your beard real quick, man. Every single time

13:48

I see your Facebook picture, I just visualize you with ZZ Top just jamming out with him. But, you know, they keep telling me

13:55

Billy Gibbons is going to retire, and I'm thinking maybe I get a shot at the lead guitar. Nice.

14:00

There you go. All right. So, Dr. Talbot, we talked this week a bunch, you and I did, and I wanted to talk to you today to bring you in just to help us to get a firm foundation and understanding about the law of God.

14:20

And at the same time, I wanted to talk about as we proclaim the gospel to the world around us, if people's hearts are transformed, like what are we aiming at?

14:29

And I wanted to also get just—you just give us some insight and understanding and some teaching regarding the

14:35

Puritans. You're a big fan of the Puritans. Let's just start there real fast. You're a big fan of the Puritans. You talk about the

14:42

Puritan—what do you call it? The Puritan Reformation Project or something like that? What do you call it? Puritan Revitalization Project.

14:48

Revitalization Project. Talk to me about that. Put that—because I know that you're passionate about that. Tell us about that. Oh, it's just really looking at reinstituting the very principles that undergirded our nation when

15:01

America was founded. There are so many Puritans that come to this country for their freedom to exercise that religious views and practices to put into work the principles of the

15:13

Word of God within our society. And that's something that exactly is why we are where we are today and all of the confusion and the problems and the downward spiral that we're going through is we have left the

15:27

Word of God completely. We've ignored it. We've become more of a humanistic nation, and the principles upon which this nation was once founded, the moral principles that was carried over into this nation by the people who came here has been totally left behind.

15:44

And I would just like to see our nation reclaim those principles of the

15:50

Puritans that was such a blessing and brought forth this nation with many blessings from God.

15:58

Well, Dr. Talbot, when you talk about the blessings of really the grace that God poured out upon those people, those believers, and also the nation around them, the culture that they actually produced, what do you think are some, some of the, what are the network of things that are floating around Puritan beliefs?

16:17

Like what brought, do you think, the blessing upon our nation and the people around them?

16:24

What were they thinking? What were they saying? What were some of the foundational beliefs of the

16:29

Puritans that brought what we see? Well, fundamentally, you have two principles.

16:35

There are covenanted people, which means they believe both in the fact that there is a law that God has given to man, a law that man is to implement and to use as a standard of righteousness, of how we judge and direct our nation in the way that we personally go and as a nation that we should head for.

17:01

We know that the law, because of the fallen to sin, cannot bring redemption.

17:07

It's impossible. It actually condemns us because it demands personal and entire, exact, perpetual obedience to it.

17:15

And that just did not happen. We can talk about that. But in particular, the other side is God has, through his grace, redeemed us in Jesus Christ.

17:24

And so our goal is to honor and glorify God. That is ultimately the

17:31

Puritan desire, is God's glory, God's honor, by doing the things that God demands of us, both in the keeping of his word as the whole law of God, revealed to us, and in particular, as it is summed up in those commandments that he has given to us, commandments that originally were written on the very constitutional nature of man.

17:55

And they are still there, and they are still demanding obedience. It cannot be met, apart from Christ, which we can talk about as well.

18:02

But that's what the Puritans came here for. They were seeking how to glorify God according to the teaching of the

18:09

Holy Scripture. Everything centered around the demands that God put forth in the

18:16

Scripture for them to live out their lives. Okay. When you think about the society that they built, what would have identified them as a people?

18:31

If you were to walk into a Puritan community of the day in the early America, what would have identified them as a people, do you think, in a sense?

18:41

I mean, give me the whole picture. Could you talk about the Puritan Revitalization Project? And that's a

18:46

Gospel -centered project where we're talking about people coming to Christ and knowing God. But what does it look like to have a society that is based upon, obviously, the

18:55

Scriptures, but we think about the Puritans and hope and all the things that they believed in. What does it look like if you were to walk into one of those societies?

19:02

Well, I think the society itself will be a society being implemented on the principles of the

19:08

Ten Commandments as they apply into every sphere of their life. And within that structure, that society, what you're going to see is a society that is built on the concept of God's justice.

19:23

The implementation of the law is the only way to bring true justice within any society.

19:30

And it's a society that is law -keeping, in a sense, not for redemption, but in the fact that those are the moral standards that God has given to us by which we live.

19:42

And so they govern themselves that way. They are a self -governing people. They see man as being responsible to be self -governing in his life.

19:53

And as a result of being self -governing through the principles that God has given us in His Word and the law that He has given to us, they implement that daily in each and everything that they do.

20:05

It affects the totality of every area of their life. It doesn't matter whether it's economics, it's educational, it's social, it has an effect upon everything.

20:16

And in everything, what they seek is the glory of God. That's the ultimate perspective in all of this.

20:23

How does God demand us to honor and glorify Him? And that's what they sought to do all continuously in their life.

20:33

Okay, Dr. T, hang on to that real fast. Hang on to that. Be right back, guys. Stay with us more with Dr. Kenneth Talbot, Whitfield Theological Seminary.

20:40

Get them at whitfield .edu. Right back. Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, that's the

21:15

Apostle Paul, Romans chapter 1, verses 5 through 6. It's really interesting to think about a

21:21

Jewish rabbi who knows the content of the Scriptures and the story. God has a plan for history.

21:27

History is going somewhere. It's not chaos. It's not cyclical like the pagan religions.

21:33

History actually is going somewhere. It has a climax. And the Apostle Paul knows the story. The king was coming, and that king would bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

21:44

The knowledge of God is going to cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. Genesis 49 .10, to Him shall be the obedience of the nations, the peoples.

21:54

And so think about this. The story is God gets the world, redemption to the ends of the earth, salvation because of this

22:03

Messiah, and it's all the nations bringing them to the obedience of faith or the obedience that comes from faith.

22:09

Paul bookends his systematic explanation of the gospel, Romans chapters 1 and 16, with the same thing.

22:17

It's a bookend to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations. Luke? Yeah, okay.

22:25

So I have a question regarding the Puritans. One of my favorite

22:30

Christian hip -hop artists, Propaganda, Jeff knows him. We met him. Super talented guy.

22:37

He's on Humble Beast. He's reformed. He's an African -American brother. He has a song.

22:42

I actually was talking to a couple people a couple weeks ago about this. So he has a track called Precious Puritans, and basically the point of the song is he's talking about how he doesn't like hearing other brothers quote the

22:55

Puritans because of their connection to slavery. Honestly, this is the first time

23:00

I've ever even heard this, and I was just kind of like, oh, that's interesting. So Dr. Talbot, I was going to ask you, is there a legitimate connection between the

23:09

Puritans and slavery, or if he has a legitimate complaint, what would it be, and how would we respond to that?

23:19

There clearly were... You're living in a time period back then where slavery was being practiced.

23:26

I mean, it's never gone away. Yeah. You've had slavery throughout history. It's a misnomer to think that you don't.

23:33

I mean, original... A lot of the slavery was tribes going in and conquering other tribes, and they gave them a choice.

23:40

You can either die, or we'll take you in and sell you. And they were involved in the slavery.

23:46

Many of the Puritans had gotten out, who had gotten saved, got out of it. Is it wrong?

23:53

Of course it is. Do you like being a slave? I mean, we're slaves today to the system they've created in America. Yes. Nobody's free here.

24:00

We're all under a bondage. And that's something that we do, and we seek for forgiveness.

24:08

Where are those things where we transgress? Are there cases? The South made an argument for the act of slavery.

24:17

If you read R .L. Dabney, his book dealing with the whole question of slavery and defense of the

24:22

South, his question was, can a person really be owned? No. What do we actually own in slavery?

24:30

Because Israel was allowed to take in slaves. You can't get beyond that point. They can make slaves of anybody except for their own people.

24:37

Even if that, that would be an indentured servitude among them, and they can only be slaves for so many years, and then they had to be set free within Israel.

24:46

But slavery as a whole, it is unfortunately one of those things that Christianity has been intertwined throughout its history.

24:57

You have to understand these are the things that Christianity looks and seeks to do is to throw off all of these things in the way that the world approaches so many of the way that they practice things.

25:11

I have a church, and our church is intercultural. They understand these things, and they realize on a regular basis that slavery doesn't end.

25:23

It's going on today in the world. It has not ended. It continues to go on, and we have got to break that yoke of bondage that people are putting other people into.

25:35

It's wrong. There's no question about it. But it was not that long, that being among the

25:41

Puritans, it's a very costly thing to own slaves. And even in America, probably at most 6 % of the people in the

25:52

South, for example, own slaves. It just could not, you can't afford to have slaves if you're a poor person.

26:01

I mean, you have basically poverty, and then you have plantation owners. Even some of those being Northern absentee landlords who still own slaves.

26:11

And so, you know, the question is, what do we do about it? Well, we correct the problem. I don't like being a slave today.

26:18

I don't want to continue to being a slave to this system that the government has put us in, and I don't think anybody will like that concept.

26:24

Stay with us, guys. Dr. T, hang on the line. Be right back, guys. You know,

26:34

Luke, you were asking your question about the Puritans and slavery. It's interesting, if you look through the history of even the conflict between the

26:43

North and the South, you had people on both sides, the North and the South, that confessed readily to the fact that they had inherited a moral mess.

26:55

In the South, there were actually, I think in the 1830s, more anti -slave societies in the

27:03

South than there were even in the North. And if you look at some of the preaching from the 19th century, dude,

27:08

I mean, I have a book full of it. It's actually pretty compelling. Both the North and South confessing to this, we've inherited this moral mess.

27:14

I mean, even people pointing to the fact that everywhere Christianity has gone in the world, it has abolished slavery.

27:21

And one of the things that makes the Civil War such a tragedy, to my mind, is that you had people confessing on the

27:27

South side saying, this is a moral mess. We don't want it. We want it done. We want it over with. But we can't just end it like this and throw these people out and we have to do it over time and let's not shed blood over it.

27:38

And if you think about how slavery was ultimately ended, it was not ended on atheistic principles or secularist principles.

27:46

It was ended on Christian principles. The Christian worldview, once again, does away with slavery. But Dr. Talbot brings something up that I think is really important.

27:53

Dr. T, maybe you can maybe talk about this for another moment here. I think it's important. Slavery is essentially the ownership of somebody's production.

28:01

And that's what slavery is. And that can go on a lot of different ways. It can come out into really disturbing, dark ways like sex trafficking.

28:08

It can go into the immoral, disturbing display of slavery that happened in the

28:14

South or even in the North. And, you know, the kidnapping of another human being and enslaving them.

28:21

The law of God says that person who does that is supposed to be put to death. If you kidnap another human being and enslave them, that's the death penalty.

28:29

But we have slavery today. Slavery is the ownership of somebody's production. If you think about United States of America, we've abandoned the law of God.

28:37

We live in a non -Puritan -esque society. We've abandoned the principles of the word of God.

28:42

And so we are all in a place today where we are slaves. Think about it.

28:48

Slavery is the ownership of another's production. Who owns your production primarily in this nation?

28:54

We've abandoned God's law. We've said not God's law, but man's law. And so now enter tyranny.

29:00

When you get a check, who's the first person that takes the cream off the top?

29:07

The feds. Obama. Now watch this. You worked for that.

29:13

Amen? It was your labor. It's your money. But someone took the money before you did, and there's the taxes.

29:20

Or you get a bill at the end of the year. Watch this. Slavery is the ownership of production. So, in America, who owns your production?

29:28

You didn't build that. Someone else did. Dr. T, maybe you could talk about that for a moment. Well, let me do two things.

29:35

One, addressing the abolitionist societies. I believe if I remember correctly in my

29:41

American History studies, there was about 127 registered abolitionist societies. 86 or 87 of them were in the

29:50

South. The South came very close, three or four times, to literally abolishing slavery within the

29:59

South. Had probably it spread to other states, it would have died, because with the

30:05

Industrial Revolution coming, the cost. Originally, you could buy 120 slaves for a barrel of rum.

30:13

Wow. At the end of the time of the bringing of slaves in, because there was a time the Constitution had a cutoff time.

30:20

In the early 1800s, I think it was like 1806. And by then, one slave was 126 barrels of rum.

30:30

It's a very expensive thing. You can't bring in slaves and mistreat them and do things to them.

30:35

And there were mistreatments. A lot of it at the hands of people that had been given oversight to them, unbeknownst to the landlord.

30:45

There were laws, actually, in the South that also prohibited, because these people were still seen as in the image of God.

30:52

And in spite of all the mistakes that they made and the fact that these things should have been done away with, nevertheless, within that whole structure of society, there was a desire to have this completely gone out of the society, completely removed.

31:09

And it was on its way out. It was being removed. The Industrial Revolution was just absolutely tearing it up.

31:17

Remember the purpose of the slaves being sent from the North to the South, twofold. A, it was not the type of environment in which they were used to living, very hard on them in the wintertime, because that's not what they were brought out of from Africa.

31:32

But also remember the fact that it was the unions that wanted slavery out of the

31:37

North, because you can't have a union structure and try to negotiate for higher wages when you've got slave labor.

31:46

That's an impossibility. Let me give you the second thing, and I love the fact that this was mentioned.

31:53

Taxes. Ask yourself a question today. What do you really own that's tangible?

32:03

If you don't pay your tax, what will they take from you?

32:10

They'll take your house, your car. They'll take things out of your house.

32:16

They'll take the clothes off. Well, they'll usually leave the clothes on your back because they don't want your news. Hopefully. They'll take everything else.

32:22

What do you really own? You know what you own? My beard. The equity of things. The cash of value.

32:28

For example, in every state, you buy a car. You don't really own the car.

32:35

The title is sent from the dealer to the capital. A picture is made of it, and then they issue basically what they call an equity title.

32:45

What it says is you own the value of the car, but the automobile itself you don't own, which is why they can force you into getting insurance.

32:56

That's why they can take your car at will and impound it and not be guilty of theft.

33:02

You've got to think about slavery comes in a lot of forms. We are all slaves to this system that has been perverted from its original intent of how this nation was supposed to work.

33:15

We have got to abolish all forms of slavery in our society, but it's around the world.

33:22

It hasn't quit. That's the whole point. People are still being sold into slavery out of Africa, and you have the sex trade, as it was mentioned.

33:33

These things are an indictment against humanity.

33:39

Dr. Talbot, just to jump in real quickly in regards to slavery and some of the applications of it.

33:45

The story happened about a year ago. It was the Boston Hospital where the mom had checked the daughter in.

33:51

Are you familiar with the story I'm talking about? I'm not sure I am. No, it was all over the blaze, and Glenn Beck had covered it a lot, but it had to do with the doctors disagreed with the treatment of the mom, how the mom wanted to treat the child, and so basically they took the child, and she lost custody of it, and they took her into foster care, and the mom still can't get her daughter back.

34:13

But it's more a big argument that comes about that, like what is actually your property when it comes to your children?

34:21

Because it's one thing when you think about owning a car and having a title is not that big of a deal, but when the applicability comes to, for example, your own children, something happens with whether or not you want your child vaccinated or how you want your child to be treated versus how the state thinks that, and they think they know better than you, and therefore they take your child to protect the child from you.

34:43

I mean, that would be another example of that, right? To a great extent, the state believes they own your children.

34:50

Probably the nexus to that would be the fact that you get a license to get married from the state, and in getting a license from the state, you're in a three -party contract.

35:05

That's why when you go to court in a divorce situation, for example, it's the state who gets to tell you how you're going to divide up the home, and who's getting the children in the end.

35:18

We have entered into illicit contracts in which we have given over ourselves.

35:26

We have had such prosperity, and we have been sold a bill of goods that, you know, what you need to do is enjoy your prosperity, get out, don't worry about these things.

35:38

We will take care of you from cradle to grave. But what we don't realize is we have sold our liberty in order to have some kind of a security that we can go on, and as long as we have certain tangible products that we can have in our hands, makes our life, we feel better, we are constantly being fed these things.

36:04

We are not watching what's happening within our nation. There just is so many forms of this that goes on.

36:12

It is unbelievable. And we've seen it in the battles that have gone on. Battles with Christian schools, battles with home schools, battles over whether children should take those shots when they're young.

36:26

When you're dealing with those kind of things, we dealt with those kind of things. Originally, we were a part of the underground homeschooling movement here in Florida years ago when my children were small.

36:37

And, you know, it was one of those things that we weren't willing to let the state tell us how we're going to educate our children.

36:45

They don't own the child. Praise God. The child has the sign. Now, I'm Presbyterian, so you

36:52

Baptist guys, step back for a minute. Has the sign of Christ on it.

36:58

That child's claimed for Christ. Belongs to his kingdom, his church. He has the right of that child.

37:05

Not the state. And, you see, we've given up so much legally.

37:12

Our churches have become incorporated. You can't imagine how in the world and why would we go and ask the state to ask them for the right to exist, to create a fictional body, a fictional person, and allowing it to act in its proper person, of which only the state can put to death, and the state can replace any of its board or members at will if they think their laws on the statutes of governing profit and non -profit corporations are not being kept.

37:51

It is amazing to me how we have surrendered ourselves. And so, you know, on a regular basis,

38:00

I ask the men of my church, how's the slavery going? And they kind of laugh.

38:06

And I said, I'm out for freedom. How about you guys? And they're all saying the same thing. We want to be free.

38:12

We want to be free men. And you know what, Dr. T? That brings us to, I think, the essential part of this broadcast.

38:19

We have plenty more time to talk about it. I want to bring us to the... Okay, two points here.

38:25

Number one, I want us to talk about two things. First, the gospel, how it is the gospel that brings the transformation here.

38:35

And then the second thing is, is you're talking about, I want freedom. But in reality, the freedom that we're seeking only comes from hearts that have been transformed.

38:44

And it only comes in a society that is governed by true justice and God's law.

38:50

You said at the beginning of the broadcast that God's law is true justice. And we talk about promoting freedom in a society, freedom from slavery, freedom from all the woes that we have today.

39:02

It's only going to come when we have a society that's governed by God's law. And so that'll bring up a lot of questions, but let's bring up the first point there.

39:10

First, the gospel. Talk to us about how this transformation occurs via the gospel. Well, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the grace of God being extended to the preaching of the word externally, the inner calling of the

39:29

Holy Spirit of men unto God. As it relates to society, what we have to understand is if the hearts of men are not changed, they are certainly not going to live by the standard that God has given them to live by.

39:46

They hate his law. Scripture says they're enemies of God. And it takes the grace of God to transform us in that we now have a desire to seek the glory of God by the implementation of the things that God tells us we must live within our society and structure it in such a way that brings honor to him.

40:12

But what is the standard? What is the rule that God has given for that? The rule that he's given to us is those commandments.

40:20

You know, this is the whole principle behind the historic, reformed, and puritan faith. The whole concept is that in the beginning,

40:28

God gave to Adam law. The law is a rule.

40:33

That's what laws are. We're always governed by law. It's a question of whose laws do you want to be governed by?

40:41

Do you want to be governed by laws made up of men? It's pretty pretentious to think that men can come up with better laws than God.

40:48

Or do you want to live by the law standard that God has given us to live by? We can institute within our society.

40:54

That law in the beginning was also given as a covenant of works, or as the

41:00

U .S. Mister Divines wrote in the larger catechism, a covenant of life. Stay with us, guys. Be right back.

41:06

Dr. Talbot, hang on. We're back.

41:37

Here we go. So, Dr. Talbot, you were talking to us about the law of God in a society, and you were relating that to the gospel and hearts being transformed.

41:48

And you brought us to the garden, and you talked about how God had given man law and that we've always been under law.

41:57

It's a question of which law are we going to be under, God's law or man's law? Fill that in some more,

42:02

Dr. T. Well, we were talking about it. We have the law which is given, and of course, this is a probationary period for Adam.

42:09

He's not trying to be saved. He hasn't sinned at this point in time. But the test is on the basis of an obedience, of keeping the estate wherein he has been given by God, both he and Eve before the

42:24

Lord. It's also a covenant of works because in it, you have both the promise of life and the threat of death for the breach of it.

42:34

And so you have within that concept Adam being really stationed as the federal head of the whole human race.

42:41

We see that in Romans chapter 5, verses 12, for example, says, Therefore, just as though one man sent enter the world and death through sin, the stuff spread to all men because all sinned.

42:53

And in Romans 5, 19, for as one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous.

43:01

So you get the first and the second Adam concept in our doctrine. The case being the fact that God has given a man a standard to begin with.

43:10

He fails in the garden. As a result of his failing to keep the estate wherein

43:16

God hath put him, man breaks the covenant.

43:22

But that does not do away with the standard requirement that is given.

43:29

That covenant of works still mandates all men to perfect obedience unto

43:37

God. Problem is, in Adam we have all sinned, and as a result of that original sin, we are incapable of pleasing

43:47

God. Therefore, man, being at enmity with God in his law, seeks to supplant

43:55

God's law with his own law. Why? Because it reflects the very nature of the fall.

44:02

Adam wanted to determine for himself what is right and what is wrong.

44:07

Why? Because the promise of the serpent was, hey, do you not know that the day you eat thereof, you shall be

44:13

God determining for yourself good and evil, just like God did. And so you have that concept of the law that's given to us.

44:24

That same law later is continued as a perfect rule of righteousness, and it's then delivered by God at Mount Sinai in the

44:34

Ten Commandments. You have those two tables, the first four containing our duty to God, and the other six our duty to man.

44:42

In doing that, you have what was written on the constitutional nature of man, and we see that because, for example, some people would say, well, is it really written on the constitutional nature?

44:53

Two things, Romans chapter 1 and chapter 2 clearly set forth the concept that man has created the image of God as a thinking, reasoning, and being.

45:02

He has an innate knowledge of God in his original creation. And secondly,

45:07

Romans chapter 2, 14 through 15, tells us there is a work or doing of the law that are on the heart of the constitutional nature of man.

45:16

So yeah, man is bound to do and obey what

45:24

God has commanded in those commandments. As we see them thus given in the writing, he lays out all ten of those commandments, much of which could be argued by implication that we see those principles alive and at work in Adam in the beginning, from the very beginning.

45:45

Those principles are there. So you have God giving to us this law, a law that we can't escape from.

45:52

We have breached it clearly. That law is used in many ways, one of them for the sinner, for those who are not in Christ, to show them there is no way to escape their plight from the condemnation that that law brings.

46:08

It is a standard of righteousness that we cannot obtain, and if we're supposed to do it, it is still bound upon us in Adam.

46:17

But that's where we look to Christ. The positive side of this is

46:22

Christ can free us not from the moral duty that we have in the law.

46:29

He frees us from the curse and the bondage that it's created in which through him then we are able, in his righteousness, because he is our propitiation, he is our atonement, he is our substitute.

46:46

He restores our relationship with God and pardons our sins and gives us, through that transformation of the heart, now in Christ, through the work of the

47:00

Holy Spirit, that duty and responsibility to fulfill and keep what

47:06

Adam could not keep, but through Jesus Christ, we are able to keep.

47:13

Well, Dr. T, how about this? Impressed upon you by somebody,

47:20

I hear what you say. Okay, so the thing is, Dr. T, what you don't understand is that we're in the new covenant now, and God's old covenant standards, his law given, they don't apply today.

47:35

We're under the law of Christ, which is a much different thing. And so we can't apply what

47:40

God had said in the Old Testament to people today, and certainly not to pagans. We can't ask pagans to live like that.

47:48

And so what do you say to that objection, Dr. T? Because that's something that comes up often in our culture currently.

47:55

People say, well, the law of God doesn't apply today. And you certainly don't want the civil magistrate of your day applying the law of God.

48:02

I mean, for goodness sakes, that would be tyrannical. It's always tyrannical, isn't it?

48:09

I mean, everybody expresses it in the most absurd ways, and probably it is a terror to many people to think that, you know, we are under somebody's law.

48:21

It doesn't make any difference. But the answer to it is the law begins in the garden. Israel has not come into existence.

48:30

The first covenant is the covenant in the garden. The second covenant is the covenant of God's grace.

48:38

You see that in the proto -evangelium of Genesis 315, which is the precursor of the evangel, the gospel, the good news.

48:46

Those people in the Old Testament were saved. You have to remember, you have to distinguish between the fact that a church exists prior to the establishment of the nation of Israel.

48:56

And to that nation, that church is and runs in a corollary fashion.

49:04

They are united together, yet there is both church and state.

49:10

It is not peculiar to the fact that the church has no existence apart from that, nor that the law of God was already given.

49:18

The law of God even precedes the other laws that he gives that we commonly call as it's divided down in threefold view.

49:27

In the way that we've looked at it, God gives us first on Mount Sinai the Ten Commandments, and then he gives to Israel laws dealing with ceremonies that prefigure

49:36

Christ, and then he gives us what we call ceremonial laws, and then he gives us judicial laws, the structure of the implementation within Israel of how to civilly govern ourselves.

49:50

That's something very important for us to understand. We have one Bible. The Bible is moving after the fall of Adam from Genesis 315 on.

50:02

It is moving in one covenant under two administrations. It is a church that has two ways to administer the principles that God gives, in particular to the nation of Israel through its ceremonial practices and things that is given to it.

50:17

But that has not transformed the church as to be something else.

50:22

It's the same church. It's the Church of Abraham. As a matter of fact, that's why we're identified with the Abrahamic covenant.

50:28

That's right. It precedes the mosaic aspects of both ceremonial and civil aspects of Israel.

50:36

We're in one covenant. But the law given to Adam, the law written on our heart, the law is the standard of righteousness by which men judge, you know, what the

50:47

Scripture says, by the knowledge of the law we understand sin.

50:53

So there is this innate morality that God has given to us, that constitutional nature of the law that is there.

51:00

We are bound to that. We are bound to perfect ourselves to it. You can't do it, though.

51:06

That's what the Scripture teaches us over and over again. Man is incapable of doing that because he's already in transgression with God.

51:13

He's already a transgressor. He's at enmity with God. So he's got to be delivered apart from that.

51:22

But the deliverance is no difference from Genesis 315 on forward, except in the outward practices you have ceremonies that are precursors to foreshadow, copy and shadow

51:36

Christ coming. And then as they're looking forward to that promised

51:41

Messiah, and that freedom that he is going to bring to them from the bondage of sin, to us looking back to the

51:50

Christ who came and freed us through his death on the cross.

51:56

But remember, you've got to keep those distinguishing structures there, the Church and the

52:02

State of Israel. You have Moses, head of the State, you have Aaron, head of the Church. You have different jurisdictions.

52:08

You have different jurisdictions that are involved there. That's why Paul says not all of Israel is

52:14

Israel. Not all of Israel was saved, but everybody was in Israel. And yes, it had that kind of identification.

52:21

If you're born in Israel, you follow the outward workings. Well, that was the law of Israel in its civil society.

52:27

You followed that. You followed its practices. But that doesn't mean you were transformed in your heart.

52:34

We go back and say all men are unequivocally bound to this.

52:40

It has been this way from the beginning. Nowhere is that standard that God has given us.

52:47

This is a moral governor of the universe who has given us a moral standard from the beginning that we are to live by.

52:56

Man does not even obey it. As a result of the transgression, we all find ourselves at enmity with God.

53:04

We need a forensic restoration. The word forensic means legal. We need a legal restoration to God.

53:11

That legal restoration comes in the surety of Christ. He restores us, legalizes the

53:17

Father. And in restoring us, he gives us, through the power of the Spirit, the ability now to keep

53:24

God's law and implement it. Hang on, that's a very important point, guys. Right back, ApologyRadio .com.

53:34

So Jeremy was saying, Jerry was saying that's what people think in their mind, that beginning clip from Star Wars when you talk about the law of God and society.

53:50

Right. All right, Dr. Talbot, you want to finish the thought we had when we left the last segment there?

53:57

Yeah, well, let me go back and reframe just what I was saying in reinforcing. The fact that this law stands as something that condemns us because we cannot in our own ability perform what is required of us.

54:13

Paul says in Romans chapter 3, beginning at verse 9, What then are we better than Apes, comparing the two

54:19

Gentile issues? Not at all, for we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks. They are all under sin, as it is written.

54:27

There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God.

54:36

They have all, Jew and Gentile, Jew and the Greek, all turned aside. They have all together become unprofitable.

54:42

There is none who does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open tomb, but their tongue they have practiced deceit.

54:51

Poisonous asp is in their lips. Its mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

54:58

Destruction and misery are in their way. In the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

55:04

Pretty good depiction not only of man's depravity, but the state of our nation in this generation.

55:13

Then he goes on to say in verse 19, Now we know that whatever the law says, talking about that moral law, it says to those who are under it, under its curse, under its bondage, that every mouth may be stopped, the world may become guilty before God.

55:29

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified at its sight. You cannot be saved by the deeds of trying to keep the law of God.

55:40

By the law comes what? The knowledge of sin. In order to have kept it,

55:46

Adam would have had to have done that in the garden. He did not. We cannot.

55:53

That's the frame of that. Okay. It doesn't, in redemption, remove, though, the moral law.

56:00

The moral law forever binds all people, whether they're justified or not in Christ, because the law's given, and our duty and responsibility is the fact that God is the authority who has given it to us, and he's given it to us as a standard of righteousness.

56:17

You know, the Apostle Paul kind of addresses this in Romans 13, beginning at verse 8, where he says,

56:23

Oh, no one anything except to love one another? And you always hear people say, Oh, there you go. Now that's what we should be doing under grace.

56:30

Just loving. Forget this small thing. Listen to what he says. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law.

56:37

But the commandment says in here, we know what law he's talking about. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder.

56:44

Now, this is the second table he's dealing with. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness.

56:49

You shall not covet. And if there is any other commandment, all are summed up in this thing, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

56:55

Love, and here's the key. We who have the love of Christ, we who have been filled, the love we have, love isn't this

57:05

Hollywood touchy -feely thing. Love is an action. And here he defines what true biblical love is.

57:12

This is how you love your wife, your neighbor, and your enemy. Love does no harm to a neighbor.

57:21

Therefore, when you keep the law of God, when you love by keeping

57:27

God's law, you fulfill the requirement of the law. But you cannot do that apart from Christ.

57:34

Look, we're not talking about political salvation. Right. Yeah, good point. It's not a political salvation.

57:41

By the way, we're not going to implement God's law in our society. If the totality of society is humanistic and anti -Christ to the core, that's not going to happen.

57:51

The people won't accept it. They'll want man's laws. They'll want laws that are governing to their world and life desires.

58:00

Their whole world life views are anything but righteousness and glorifying the

58:07

God who is creator and redeemer. We're not looking for a political scheme of salvation.

58:13

We don't have one. We don't have a judicial scheme of salvation except the judicial work that Christ does in dying for our sins.

58:23

But when our hearts are transferred through the power of the

58:29

Spirit and we have become, as the scripture says, born again, we have had a transformation.

58:40

We now have the mind of Christ. We now have the desire to do the will of the Father, just as Jesus Christ came, also did the will of the

58:49

Father. We will want justice, but we know there is only one just system of law ever been given to man by which we must govern our lives.

59:01

That law is the Ten Commandments, the law that was written on the hearts of all men.

59:08

And let's move throughout that, though. Let me ask you this question, Dr. T.

59:15

Does God hold other nations responsible for obedience to his laws?

59:24

Does he judge other nations for their perpetrating injustice in their society?

59:30

Does he judge other nations for not obeying his law? Do we have precedence in the scriptures to say, yes, in fact, he does?

59:41

Yeah, absolutely. The moral principles of the law, they're expressed in all the details of the civil law given to Israel.

59:49

But as the Westminster divine said, look, while those sundry judicial laws that are particular to all the details of the civil, you know, for example, don't muzzle the ox.

01:00:00

Well, we don't do that anymore. You know, there was a principle behind that. The principle was, is the laborers worthy of his hire.

01:00:09

That was the very principle of what was being given as an illustration to Israel and the implementation of those laws.

01:00:14

But there's that moral underpinning principle. In those moral principles that undergird that, those are binding upon men and nations.

01:00:25

Everyone is bound to the principles of God's law.

01:00:31

You can't escape from that. For example, and a good example of the very use of that civil structure, talking about, you know, the nation has perished.

01:00:42

Therefore, does God require nations to have a law? Remember that the whole construct of that was for us to understand how

01:00:53

God wants us to implement that law within our society. I mean, what other law would we implement?

01:01:02

Man's law? The pretentiousness of saying that men can come up with a better justice system of law than God is almost unbelievable.

01:01:11

Anybody would even say that. And it's, I think, disturbing to me, Dr. T, I think mostly, to see believers who love

01:01:18

Jesus like us willing to live under the laws of men that are oppressive, that do not do justice for neighbor.

01:01:29

If we have just the two great commandments, love God, love neighbor, that's what God calls us to, then we have the very basis of all of the law of God because the law of God is built upon those two great commandments.

01:01:40

It's about love for God. It's about love for neighbor. Be right back, guys, more with Dr. Kenneth Talbot. Hook up with him at Whitfield .edu.

01:01:58

Verse 19, Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

01:02:09

Every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. When someone says to me today, the law of God does not apply outside of the church.

01:02:19

You don't hold people accountable to it. I say, well, then you can't preach the gospel because what are you calling people to repent of?

01:02:27

There's no call to repentance in faith. You can't ask pagans to live like Christians. Then why are you preaching the gospel to call people to come into the authority of Christ and repent of their sin?

01:02:36

Think about that. Fundamentally, the problem with that, you can't ask pagans to live under the law of God.

01:02:42

Well, then why are you calling them to repent? Why do we have men like Ray Comfort saying, have you ever loyed? Have you ever committed adultery?

01:02:49

Have you ever coveted in your heart? Have you ever stolen anything irrespective of its value? Have you ever looked with lust?

01:02:55

I love the emphasis he puts. But the point is that would damage our ability to proclaim the gospel if we don't call people to repentance for the violation of God's law.

01:03:04

The next thing is, and by the way, what are we calling people to do? Come under the obedience of Christ. I mean, it's faith, faith alone, faith in Christ alone.

01:03:10

It's his work alone. But let's not deny the fact that we're coming to Christ as Lord. He has all authority.

01:03:16

The next thing is when someone says God doesn't hold other nations or civil magistrates or what have you accountable to his law,

01:03:23

I'd say, ever hear of Nineveh? You ever hear of that place, Nineveh? You ever hear of a place called

01:03:29

Sodom and Gomorrah? I mean, think about this in the scriptures. We have two examples here.

01:03:35

The one thing, what do we know Sodom and Gomorrah from? What would the word we get sodomy from? We know what was going on there. They wanted to know the men that came into the town, the angels.

01:03:44

They wanted to rape them. It was a gang rape situation. But Jude 1 verse 7, it says in a similar way,

01:03:53

Sodom and Gomorrah and their surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

01:04:02

And interestingly, you know, the word there in the King James was how they went after strange flesh.

01:04:10

And that was Sodom and Gomorrah, God holding them accountable to his law. But you look again at Ezekiel 16, 49.

01:04:19

Interesting, it talks about Sodom and it says, Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.

01:04:31

Yeah, and I can't remember the exact passage, but it's in the Old Testament. And you probably know it. It's a story and it's a king.

01:04:37

And I guess they're excavating from somewhere and they find a parchment of the law.

01:04:43

And he asked that the law is read to him. Do you know what I'm referring to? And the king hears the law and it's read to him.

01:04:49

And immediately he's convicted and he rends his clothes and he commands the whole society to put on sackcloth and ashes and spend time in mourning because he realizes the applicability of God's law and how they violated it.

01:05:03

Dr. T, let's talk about that. The law of God as actually binding upon people, whether or not they're, quote, part of the church.

01:05:11

Yeah, well, I mean, that's implied from the very fact of what you have in the Garden. The man created that law of God, the constitutional nature of that law, structure within him, the works of the law, or the doing of the law within him.

01:05:25

You know, let me say something just to step back for a minute. You were talking about law and grace. Let's remember that the opposite of law is not grace.

01:05:35

It's lawlessness. Yes. Yes. In Galatians 3 .21,

01:05:41

Paul says, Is the law then against the promise of God? He's talking about the promise given to Abraham and to his seed, which is

01:05:48

Christ, not seed as in many, but as in the promises to Christ. Is the law against the promises of God, the promises of grace and redemption?

01:05:59

Certainly not, he says. For if there had been a law which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.

01:06:06

That doesn't dispel the law. The grace puts us within that covenant that God has given to us, we who are the elect in Christ, and we are no longer under the moral law of God as a covenant, but it is still

01:06:26

God's standard of righteousness for all men. And why would it not be nations?

01:06:33

Because nations are only made up of men. You know, the thing that we forget, there's only three societies that God has created biblically, and it starts with the family.

01:06:43

We know where that starts. And then there is government, and there is the church.

01:06:49

You see those three societies in the Old Testament, you see the three societies in the New Testament. That's right.

01:06:56

Where does the state get its people from? The government, from the family. Where does the church get its people from?

01:07:04

It gets it from the family. What's the principle? Dr. T, hang on to that. I want to hear this and I want to miss it.

01:07:10

Be right back, guys. ApologiaRadio .com. Now look at what he says here, verse four.

01:08:27

I like what Dr. T said a moment ago.

01:08:33

It's the opposite of laws, not grace, but lawlessness. Very, very good. We so distorted it and misunderstood how we're justified through faith as a gift of God's grace through the redemption that's in Christ.

01:08:47

It's all Christ. It's none of us. We can pay nothing for it. We can add, contribute nothing.

01:08:53

We have the righteousness of Christ through faith. To people, not to be able to make the distinction between that truth and the goodness of God's law, the righteousness of His law, the fact that God's law was supposed to be their wisdom on the side of the people.

01:09:11

People should look at the law of God and say, wow, wow. Look at this law.

01:09:17

We talk about freedom. We talk about peace. We talk about justice in a society. Law of God.

01:09:23

And I like what Dr. T, you said a moment ago. What arrogance, what pride to say that we can come up with a more righteous set of statutes and rules in a society than the creator of the universe?

01:09:35

And Dr. T, you were finishing the last segment with a conversation about the three spheres of government or societies that God has set up.

01:09:45

Family, the state, the church. You talked about something Calvin said about this.

01:09:50

What were you going to say? Well, Calvin told Precisionist this in the structure of it. Since the state, although I think sometimes they do clone people,

01:09:59

I'm not sure because all the bureaucrats always look alike and talk alike. There's an argument there somewhere that maybe they are cloning people.

01:10:05

I don't know. You never know with those people. But the truth is the state can't reproduce and the church can't reproduce.

01:10:12

Where do the church and the state get their people from? They get them from the family.

01:10:20

Christian piety, says Calvin. And by that, he means Christian who lives according to the law word of God.

01:10:28

He takes that law word into society, whether it's the church or whether it's government, and he implements those principles of justice, of a truth.

01:10:40

Listen, the law of God, as you said, reflects the very nature, the wisdom of God, but this was

01:10:47

God's standard of righteousness. He's to implement those things into the society.

01:10:53

He applies the principles of the law of God to every area of life.

01:11:00

Not saying that you're saved by them, but they are a standard that measures our sanctification, our progression in righteousness before God.

01:11:11

Remember, we have sanctification as declarative and progressive. And so there is that progress that we are to do, but we carry it into every area.

01:11:20

It is our duty to go and make disciples of the nations.

01:11:26

That really is the word. They are nations. It's ethnos. Of all the tribes, kindred people. When those people become followers of Christ, when they've been transformed by the

01:11:37

Spirit, when they've accepted the gospel, and they have put their whole life and heart into the trust of Christ, for him alone for the redemption, these people now have a different relationship with God.

01:11:51

Now they want to honor God by doing what they could not do. The law before kills them.

01:11:58

Now the law is a standard by which they are free from the fear of condemnation.

01:12:05

But it is a principle by which it shows them how they ought to live, how they ought to glorify

01:12:12

God, in everything that they do. And we forget about that very nature of that whole thing.

01:12:19

This always begins with the home and with the man who's the head of the house.

01:12:24

He has this duty and responsibility to train his family, and the family, as they grow and go out into society, they take the moral principles of God's standard of righteousness and apply them to everything they do.

01:12:39

That's where true justice will come from. When God's law is honored and implemented in a society, again, it's not a political scheme, okay?

01:12:50

It's not a judicial scheme. We're not coming in and saying, okay, we're going to force you to do this or we'll shoot you.

01:12:56

Not at all. We're coming to say, we preach the gospel that you would repent of your sins, and when men are transformed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, those men want what is just and right in every area of their life.

01:13:14

That includes civil society. And will God judge? Listen, the scripture says, the nation that turns its back upon God will be cast into hell.

01:13:22

That's right. God will judge every nation. When the righteous rule, the scripture says, the people rejoice, but when the wicked are in charge, the people mourn.

01:13:33

Yes. Why? Because they implement their law, and it's an unjust law. That's right. You can't have a worse unjust law than we have in our own society today in America, but it was not that way in the beginning.

01:13:44

Yeah. And if you consider, I think, a very important thing here, when we think about our mandate as Christians, what we should be concerned about, when we think about, look, we're going to preach the gospel, we're going to call people to repentance and faith and to Christ, to come be united to him by faith, to be saved, to be forgiven, to be reconciled to God, to be given eternal life.

01:14:08

I want to think about the other aspect here. In God's word, we're thinking Old Testament. He revealed himself.

01:14:14

He spoke a lot about injustice in society. He spoke a lot about the poor and the orphan.

01:14:22

He spoke a lot about the unrighteous acts, the wicked acts that were being done in societies, both in his people,

01:14:33

Israel, and also in the societies around. And I find it just fundamentally, it's an awing moment for me to think about the fact that here we are in the new covenant now.

01:14:43

It's supposed to be better, brighter, bigger than what we had before. Christ has accomplished redemption. And all of a sudden now,

01:14:49

God is no longer concerned what happens in a society. He judged societies before, based upon their abandonment of his law.

01:14:58

And in the new covenant now, with Jesus having all authority in heaven and on earth, telling us to pray that God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven, that God is no longer concerned what happens in society.

01:15:13

You see, that's the whole point. With dispensational thinking, they think that when the civil structure of Israel ends, there's this disjunction that takes place.

01:15:25

And there, there's this new church. No, the old church doesn't end. The church existed before Israel existed.

01:15:32

The church continues afterwards. And now we're in an expansionist theology, not a replacement theology.

01:15:39

We are not civil Israel being replaced. We are the church continuing from under the old administration, now under the new in Christ.

01:15:48

And we're to take the gospel where? To the nation. What purpose? To spread the kingdom of Jesus Christ that all men will be brought in under the authority of Christ's word, learn to live by those standards that God has given them to live by, in order that they might bring their societies under that word as well.

01:16:12

This is the post -millennial hope of the Puritans. This is their great hope. The hope is we are working toward the day in which the word of God will, through its preaching, through the conversion of people, not everyone will be converted, but it will be a great revival and reformation that will spread among the nations.

01:16:35

The people will cry out for God's law, God's standard of righteousness to govern and to rule them.

01:16:43

Amen. Yeah, post -millennial hope. All right. Hey, real fast, I want to say one thing, guys, and give it over to Jerry.

01:16:50

This is in the first letter of Paul to Timothy. I want you to think with me through what's being said here.

01:16:56

Verse eight, chapter one, verse eight. Now, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane.

01:17:14

Watch this. For those who strike their fathers and mothers. Now, what was the Old Testament law concerning justice for striking your mother and father?

01:17:23

This is a death penalty. Okay, I didn't know. For murderers. Death. Death penalty.

01:17:30

Sexually immoral. You think about adultery, what would have been the penalty? Death. Death would have been the penalty for homosexual acts.

01:17:37

There you go. So, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers. What's the consequence in God's law for kidnapping and enslaving somebody?

01:17:47

What's that? Death. Death penalty. Liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine.

01:17:53

Watch this. Watch this. In accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed

01:18:01

God with which I have been entrusted. He takes all of the laws, like this little snapshot here of the laws, says the law is good, and he starts describing how it's for the lawless and describes what would have been death penalty issues under the law.

01:18:18

Watch this. And he says, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed

01:18:24

God. There's no contradiction between a desire for just and righteous statutes against the lawless in a society and the gospel.

01:18:35

Paul says, in accordance with the gospel of the blessed God with which

01:18:40

I have been entrusted. Think about that. So, is Paul saying, well, all that doesn't matter anymore.

01:18:46

All that God doesn't care about anymore. The law is not good. It's oppressive.

01:18:52

And these things don't count anymore. What's he saying? In accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed

01:19:00

God. Hey, Dr. T, unless you want to say something to what I just said, Jerry has a question for you.

01:19:06

Go right ahead. Okay. All right. So, Dr. Talbot, one of our big fans over in Seattle, Washington, her name is

01:19:12

Ashley, and she shot me this question just because I mentioned to her that you were going to be on today.

01:19:18

And so she has the question about, essentially, let me see if I can find it here, that basically wondering with the applicability of the advancements of God's law in society and the post -millennial worldview, do you think we're ever going to get to a point where,

01:19:37

I'll just paraphrase her question. She says, Will, would we ever get to a point as a church where most of the world is converted and the governments are desiring to submit to God's law, but we have different ideas of what that looks like?

01:19:50

And the examples she paraphrased basically saying that, look at the different Christian churches today. Essentially, we believe in the essentials, justification by faith, the

01:19:59

Trinity, but at the same time, there's a lot of disagreements and non -essential issues.

01:20:05

Do you think that's a possibility with looking at that? Quick answer, Dr. T. We have two minutes. Yes. That's exactly what

01:20:11

I believe the Great Puritan Hope was. It was looking for the time when every...

01:20:17

Here again, to bring it back, governments are made up of men. Right. If men are converted, men want to live by God's standard of righteousness.

01:20:28

They want to live by the Word of God. They want to implement it into every area of their life.

01:20:34

It may not be the conversion of all men. I mean, we don't know, but the Scripture doesn't ever set that out in its basic premise that it's going to be everybody converted.

01:20:43

But I do believe that it will be the majority of the people. I believe it will be among the nations of the earth.

01:20:49

I believe there will be a time when we will see the Church of Jesus Christ victorious here on this earth because of He who rules and reigns now on this earth.

01:21:02

And then will come the end. Amen. And I think what we're...

01:21:08

And we're wrapping up here. I think that the beautiful thing, Jerry, if I could fill in for Ashley there. The beautiful thing about having an objective standard, even with fallible people surrounding it, is you have fallible people around an infallible standard.

01:21:21

It's not arbitrary. Everybody looks to this light because in His light we see light.

01:21:26

So when you have an infallible standard outside of yourself, you can come together around that standard.

01:21:32

Even when there's disagreement present, you can finalize the disagreement around that standard. Dr. Talbot, I love you, brother.

01:21:40

I love you too, my friend. It's going to be diversity, but it's okay.

01:21:45

It's allowed. Amen. I love your beard too. The bear. Peace out. The dude, I guess. The dude. The ninja.