Are Christianity & the West Doomed?

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So, we were really excited. I knew who you were.

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I had heard about you when Luke and I went up to Canada.

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But you have to understand our sheer joy when we got to know you more and got to understand your theological convictions.

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We were spitting images of one another theologically. So I saw you had your book.

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I think it had just come out, Mission to God. So I grabbed that. I remember that Luke and I go back to the hotel room that night.

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He's in his bed. I'm in my bed and just watching TV or something. I'm just reading through these chapters and I remember that I think

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I maybe even stood up and jumped up and I said, Luke, we're going to get this book for every person in our church and we have to do a study through this book.

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This book is absolutely incredible. It's our manifesto. Because it was so much of what we were trying to say, had been teaching on and trying to communicate all in one nice textbook.

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So it's interesting, as I've gotten to know you more and more and seen your teaching and your conflict on the news and different discussions,

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I've just really been encouraged by what you're saying and specifically what you're doing. So that's kind of what

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I'd love to hear you talk about is what's your vision? You have the Ezra Institute.

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You have this new blessing now where it's just blowing up. It's getting bigger. You have this vision to really train people and equip them.

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Our basic position is that we're going to win the world. It's not necessarily going to be us in this generation, but we're planting seeds, right?

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And so you're biting off a big chunk because that's the message.

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He's going to win everything. Media, arts, sciences, government, law, family, everything ultimately is coming under the feet of Jesus.

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But we're a long way from that. So just talk about that in terms of vision.

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Because it's discouraging in some sense because, my goodness, I feel like you look at moments in history where you see the church was advancing, conquering, just great things.

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And now we've kind of slipped into this current that seems wild and uncontrolled.

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Yeah. So just talk about that. Well, first of all,

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I ought to say that you guys are just as big an encouragement to me as I am to you.

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Because as you're probably well aware, people with these convictions in evangelicalism today aren't growing on trees.

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And so finding like -minded people of the same generation who are committed to a vision for the

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Lordship of Christ, it was a huge encouragement to me to meet you guys, to learn about your ministry, to see what you were doing.

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And there's areas where you are pushing things forward, pushing ahead, pushing the envelope in media and so forth, where the

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Institute, my Institute has a lot to learn from what you guys are doing. So the feeling's mutual on that point.

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We're really, really grateful for what you guys are doing. I think in terms of where we're at, one of the encouraging things that I'm seeing, and I don't know what your guys' experience is with this, but I'm actually finding the younger generation, like the

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Gen Xers and the Millennials, are much more receptive to this message of cultural engagement in the

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Lordship of Christ than the older generation. So I find the big battle is often with the established church leadership of the older sort of 50 plus, 55 plus crowd.

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The old guard. The old guard, exactly. Whereas the younger generation are realizing that there is a serious problem with the retreatist, pietistic, escapist faith that they grew up with that appears to have no immediate relevance to their life in the world.

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And so I think one of the, I totally agree with you that we are a long way from where we even have been in the

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West in the past. Right. That's discouraging. Which is discouraging. And at the same time, you see these pockets of hope and encouragement with the younger generation.

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And with respect to where we're at, I think there's two things that are important to remember. Number one is there's no question in my mind that what's happening in the

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West is a mark of God's judgment. That it is, you know, people often say, you know, well, what's going on with marriage and sexuality and so forth is a harbinger of judgment.

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No, it's not the harbinger of judgment. It is the judgment. We're actually in the midst of it. But actually we easily forget that God's judgment is something to be welcomed.

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I mean, this is something that David prays will happen in the Psalms. That, you know, when the scripture says pray for governments and those in authority, it doesn't necessarily mean we pray for God's blessing on them.

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Right. So when God is judging something, it should be welcomed by Christians because he's sweeping something aside to replace it with something else.

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And often what is being replaced with is that is the is this is the hour of opportunity. So the

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Church of Christ in the West is under the judgment of God. As I understand it, that's clear.

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And but what God always does is preserves for himself a remnant of people, you know, because it's true.

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Sometimes you do feel like Elijah, don't you? Right. We're the only ones, you know, but actually no,

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God has preserved for himself a remnant and he is going to he's going to do something in the years ahead.

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And as you've said, it may not be my generation, but I'm plowing in hope. I mean, that's what the farmer has to do year in, year out.

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If we're going to see the harvest, we have to plow in hope and it's a hope that doesn't disappoint.

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So I'm actually not I'm not discouraged by what

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I see because I see the younger generation beginning to grapple with these things. Of course, one issue is some of the younger generation have recognized, well, there's this this radically disengaged pietistic pie in the sky when you die.

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Christianity is inadequate. And so they've turned to a sort of social justice, neo -Marxist sort of sort of liberal.

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They've turned in that direction because they think, well, at least this is world engaging. And in part, you have to have sympathy for them because they haven't been modeled or offered something robustly scriptural.

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Yeah. To put in its place that everyone's telling them. One of the comments under one of our recent videos about, of all things, abortion, condemning abortion, a person who is professing believers said,

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I love your ministry so much, but I really wish you'd stop talking about these things because you as soon as you mix

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Christianity and politics, it's just politics. I looked at I didn't respond to it.

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I just thought that's the problem. And that aims at exactly, I think what you're saying is that there's people that feel like, well, this this isn't relevant.

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This has no meaning to my life, no meaning to the world because we're being taught, have been taught for a long time that Christianity has no place in the public square.

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Well, how it is the mind boggles with respect to this notion that the

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Christian faith doesn't have political implications. Um, when, um, if you look at Acts chapter 17, when you turn to Acts 17, what most people focus on, of course, is

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Paul's, uh, discussion with the Athenian court. But early in Acts chapter 17, in those first seven or eight verses, it's very important to notice the accusation that's made against the apostles that they are proclaiming another

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King, Jesus. That is the charge. And the charge is true, right?

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The charge is true. And the, when, when the apostle

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Peter gets up in Acts chapter four, verse 12, what many, what goes unnoticed for many people, here's one of the things that Augustus Caesar said, published, published one of the published claims of Augustus Caesar was there is salvation in no one else.

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For there is no other name under heaven given to men by which you must be saved in the name Caesar Augustus.

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Now, anybody familiar with scripture that sounds incredibly like the apostle

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Peter in Acts chapter four, verse 12, for there, for there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which you must be saved in the name of Jesus.

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That was the evangel. And so the, the, the

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Roman world knew full well, the Greco -Roman world knew full well that there were, there were radical political implications to the claim of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, the kingship of Jesus Christ, and that that would mean the end of the

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Roman order as they knew it, that, that Caesar as Lord, as Kurios, the emperor cult, that this was a threat to the emperor cult.

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People think that, you know, Christians were persecuted in the early church because, you know, they love Jesus.

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No, they, the Romans were perfectly happy to people, for people to worship any

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God they wanted, so long as they recognize the absolute sovereignty of Caesar with finality, because in the end, in the ancient world and the pagan world, in the classical world, salvation was by politics.

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It wasn't by grace. So here you have the connecting point between, the only connecting point between the divine and the human, the source of all true sovereignty, absolute sovereignty, reside in one man alone, the man, the

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God -man, Jesus Christ. So the idea that this gospel could have, could not have political implications, just as it has educational implications and familial implications and vocational implications, is simply absurd.

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And the, and the, and when the, we easily forget that when the, when the, when the apostles and the early

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Christians were prepared to die for the faith, that was a form of, wasn't just a narrow religious, oh,

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I'm dying for my doctrines, in the sense of, like reformational, like, yeah, in the sense of, you know,

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I'm, I'm, I'm dying simply for a, for a doctrinal idea. It was revolutionary also in the political sense.

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In that sense, it was the ultimate act of revolution, or at least of, maybe revolution is not quite the right word, but it was, it was the ultimate act of loyalty to Christ, because they were ready to die for the confession,

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Jesus Christ is Lord. We'll be good citizens, we'll pay our taxes, but we will not deny or surrender the

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Lordship of Jesus Christ. Now that people have a romantic view of martyrdom, right? I don't want to be martyred,

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I don't want my children to be martyred. If I have to, for the sake of Christ, I pray

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God gives me the grace to do it. But let's get rid of this ridiculous romantic notion that it's somehow a romantic thing to be martyred.

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It isn't. So when they took that step, the impact, the impact of that on history was incredible, because, um, suddenly there was seen a, a, a group of people who were ready to, to stand in the face of tremendous political pressure for the

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Lordship of Jesus. And that's why in the fourth century, eventually emperors themselves are wanting to reign under the authority and Lordship of Christ.

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The emperors couldn't even get that kind of authority from their own people. That brings us to the imperial gospel. Yes. Which I love that show with Sam talking about that.

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That was mind -blowing to me. I think the way you described it was, you said the gospel is designed in such a way that it eliminates all rivals.

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Right. And I was just like, oh, yeah. So we're, we're, we're in the process, or Zach is trying to tie

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Star Wars into that somehow. Without making us look like the dark side. Yeah. I love that discussion.

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Just thinking about the gospel in that, in that light. Well, I think God shows covenant faithfulness to his people.

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Scripture says righteousness exalts a nation. So there you have the active providence of God in history, that the rise and fall of nations is not random.

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It's not utterly inexplicable. Yeah. There is, you know, here we are in, in Phoenix and the wealth and power of the

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United States, in my view, has fundamentally been about its commitment to the person of Christ as a culture.

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And, but as we surrender it, the West is beginning to go into a period of steep decline.

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Right. And, and, and God will, if necessary, raise up China or an

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African nation or a South American nation or an Eastern European nation, even Russia. If, if the

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Lordship of Christ is confessed and professed in those nations, God will bless those nations as a result.

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And actually the founders of the United States believed that. That's right. Puritans believed it. Said it explicitly. Oliver Cromwell believed it.

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William Wilberforce believed it. William Booth believed it. William Carey believed it. These people believed in God's active providence in history, his covenantal blessings and cursings.

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And I think that, that, um, that is why we've got every reason to be hopeful right now. Yeah. Yeah. So some people don't understand that, right?

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They don't understand the concept of covenant and how God blesses and curses, not just individuals for their sake, but that nations are accountable before him.

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Right. And we all have a collective responsibility to one another out of love for God, love for neighbor.

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And so maybe just say, can you just say a few words about the concept and importance of covenant as it pertains to the national sins that we're facing right now, like abortion, you know, gay marriage, all those things.

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And then how that, how we lose that, how it goes downhill. And then how do we turn the tide and keep it?

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If there is a way, obviously God is sovereign. He's providential over the rise and fall of nations, but what's our responsibility to keep it once we get it back?

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I think the, the, the, the doctrine of the covenant is not well understood by modern evangelicalism, generally speaking.

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And actually I often find, I don't know whether you guys find this, but I often find that, um, in general, evangelicals don't actually believe that God covenantally judges nations.

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No, so individualistic. Um, they, they just think that, um, well, you, you may or may not come under God's blessing to obey certain promises personally.

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Even the idea of, of corporate judgment on the church, most Christians don't really believe in today.

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And that's a profound weakness. Um, let me give you a, you know, a couple of illustrations.

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I mean, when we think about what generally the more theologically literate will say, well, look, you know, God only entered into covenant with Israel.

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Okay. And they'll say that, that, that, that, um, that covenant, some will say that covenant is still active.

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You know, the dispensationalists and the premillennialists, some will say that, um, it's passed, it's gone.

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And that's no longer the case. Uh, and, uh, and they will say, well,

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God doesn't enter into national covenants anymore. Therefore, this whole idea of covenantal blessing and cursing on nations is not true.

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Um, but that would make a nonsense of, um, what we see throughout the older Testament with respect to the pagan nations around Israel.

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That's right. And the Canaanites were driven out of the land explicitly for their rebellion against God.

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That's the reason we're told in scripture that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt for 400 years because the sins of the

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Canaanites had not yet reached full measure. And then he warns Israel, God warns Israel, that if you commit the same things, the land's going to spew you out.

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If you do the same things, if you defile the land by your disobedience and sin, you will lose the land as well.

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So I think the whole idea of land grant actually is very, very interesting in scripture. You know, the first land grant in the Bible is

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Eden and it's forfeited because of sin. And the second land grant is the land grant offered to Abraham and his descendants, which is again forfeited,

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I believe because of sin and rebellion. And Jesus finally excommunicates Israel from that covenant.

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He says, your house is left to you desolate. And he predicts the destruction of the temple.

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And then, um, but there's a, there's a third land grant in the Bible and it's there in Romans four, which is the whole cosmos.

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We don't inherit a strip of land in Palestine. We inherit, the meek shall inherit the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

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So this actually, this whole idea of a land grant in scripture, look at the way, uh,

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God deals with, um, uh, Nineveh with the Assyrian empire.

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Look at the way God deals with Babylon, you know, his, his kind of God's commonwealth, actually.

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I mean, in the end, Daniel and his friends end up in God's transitional commonwealth, which is there to protect the, the, the

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Hebrews, the people of God. Um, yes, they're taken into captivity, but in the end that Babylonian captivity is actually for the advancement of the gospel, the beginnings of the internationalizing of the promise, right?

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So you have God's, uh, um, uh, working out his promises, the conversion of, um, of, uh,

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Nebuchadnezzar, um, the conversion of Cyrus or Darius, maybe they are the same person. Um, so you see, and you can't read the

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Psalms without seeing this, uh, broadly international issue of covenant, right?

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And that's for the whole earth. And in fact, um, um, in the, in, in Isaiah, I forget the chapter now off the top of my head.

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Um, the scripture talks about the nations having violated the everlasting covenant. That's right.

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Right. So this is not, yes, there is a particular focus with the, with the, um, covenant with Israel, but that does not mean that God doesn't deal covenantally with nations.

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This is why we don't take seriously marriage oaths anymore. There's a covenant, right? And if you swear before God to, to, uh, to be faithful to, to one spouse, people don't actually think that there's any covenantal judgment if you just flagrantly violate that.

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And when Britain in our, um, in our history, there was the solemn league and covenant in the, uh, 15th century,

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I think it was, um, where parliament, uh, actually swore, took an oath to serve

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Christ. Our own queen took the coronation oath, swore to uphold the law and gospel of Christ.

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Do we really believe that God, the King of the universe does not take those things seriously?

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That oath goes all the way back to the coronation oath of King Solomon. That's, that's the, that's the, the nature of the continuity of it.

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And even presidents didn't need to put their hands on it. And presidents put it exactly here in the United States, hand on the blessings and curses.

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Now, God takes that, he takes oaths seriously. That's why the

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Bible throughout scripture makes oaths of central significance and importance.

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Fulfill your oaths. That's everywhere in scripture. So, um, when a church commits itself to, uh, faithfulness to God and, and, uh, a creedal statement and a confessional statement and, and a minister then takes the oath to uphold that and then doesn't, do we really believe that God does not bring that individual and then that denomination if it departs from its oath into judgment?

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Wow. Of course he does. Right. And the same is true with nations. If you want to, why do we, if, if we don't take covenant seriously, why would we in a court of law require people to place their hand on a

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Bible and swear to tell the truth? When we come to the Lord's table, Paul says, don't come to the

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Lord's table in an unworthy manner, covenantally. If you do, you might get sick or die. So the idea that, that, that, that these things shouldn't be taken seriously anymore is a big part of our problem.

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Right. So I have, I have a plan to take that solemn oath or the solemn league oath you're talking about and to rewrite it and have it as like a web, a webpage.

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So it's a public thing and encourage people to read it and take that oath publicly to uphold the things in there.

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We've talked about it. We just haven't done it, but that is on my list of things I want to do. That's great. Yeah. Well, you know, you've, you've mentioned before and I think it's powerful and I think it goes missed at times and not just embraced.

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I don't think, I don't think all of us miss things at times, but just the, just the fact that in our current circumstances as the influence of gospel witness in the church wanes in the culture or downright abandons culture, that's where you see the trend towards death, cultural demise.

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And so as Christians have backed away from culture, really particularly in this last generation on a slope, just as quickly as possible, as we walked away from culture, that is where you see this dramatic shift.

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We're not in a good way. No. I mean, just in my own particular nation, we're not in a good way. The debt we have is, it's, we're not getting out of that where it's just, it's just only climbing and getting worse because we're spending money like drunken sailors on a weekend trip.

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And the moral crisis, of course, the collapse of the family. And it's just amazing to me, like the unbelievers know what to go for.

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Like they know what to go for. And it's, it's powerful. It's just such a potent thought to think that Christians that say, well, that's political.

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This is Christian. We're going to stay out of that, that the unbelievers know, they know what it means to have

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Christian influence in the culture. Like they know, know your message has political implications. They do.

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If you, that's why we have shows like hand, the handmaid's handmaid's is a handmade tail. That's why the handmade tail, because they know now, of course, that's a perverse notion that they're spinning in that television series, which is so loved by Planned Parenthood supporters.

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I mean, they come dressed. Do you know what I'm talking about? I know of it. I watched it. They come dressed in the, uh, in the outfits, the women wearing this, the whole idea is, is basically this, uh, this, this like Baptist ish cult, like basically takes over the world and subjugates all the women into concubines.

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And it's just, it's just such as perverse notion. It's so stupid. Unbelievers are stupid sometimes.

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Um, so at any rate, but it's amazing.

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People love that show. And when we're outside of Planned Parenthood locally here and they show up in the, in the garb from the

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TV show, they're saying something to us. They're saying your message here, fighting against abortion and for your

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Christianity and your Jesus, it means it's perverse. It means it means this

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I'm going to, we're going to be subjugated like this. Now they're completely wrong. It's patently false, fallacious, but they know

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Christianity has moral, political, social implications. It's amazing. The unbelievers embrace that and go, no, no, we know what it means.

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Yeah. And that's why they want, we don't want you on power, but the Christians are going, no, no, no, no. Well, that's basically why if you look in North Korea or you go to the

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Islamic world, even in parts of India where you've persecution of Christians and anti -conversion laws, they're there because they understand the implications of conversion to Jesus Christ in the culture.

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They understand it better than Christians do. You know, we, we've just, we've been dulled into this ridiculous notion that we, that we have some sort of neutral secular culture and we just need to, you know, ask to be free to practice our faith quietly and privately.

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That's not going to happen because people know, the non -believer knows the implications of an embrace, true embrace of the

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Lordship of Jesus Christ. Nobody cares about liberal Christianity and the people who don't, nobody's bothered about any of that.

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They're only bothered with people who actually believe it. They're seen as a threat to people who actually believe in them because they know what the implications are.

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And when you look at, I mean, here's the easiest way to look at this whole issue culturally anyway.

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I was saying yesterday that culture is the public manifestation of the worship of the people.

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It's religion externalised. So if people turn to Christ and they start worshipping the living God, it has dramatic implications on the culture.

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Now, clearly in scripture, few Christians would be willing to deny that God blesses because it's the message everywhere, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

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They should be satisfied. Jesus makes plain what the blessing that comes upon those who seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.

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Idolatry though, everywhere in scripture, you know, to worship other gods always brings

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God's curse. That's inescapable, right? To worship the creature rather than the creator.

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In Romans 1, Paul makes clear the results of idolatry in a culture. It's demise, it's collapse.

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So if people worship the living God, of course that culture is going to be blessed.

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Of course it is. And the idea that a Christian who now in their home, well, I'm a Christian in my home.

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I'm doing family devotions with my family, but I'm a magistrate. And as I walk out the front door, I'm no longer a

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Christian. I'm no longer subject to this same standard of justice and What could be more foolish than that?

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The scriptures are the book for the believer, right?

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In every sphere of life, not for the church, simply for the church institution, for the believer in every sphere of life.

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So as we walk out armed with the word of God, which is the sword of the spirit, we are diffusing, that's what it means in the end to be salt and light.

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We're the fragrance of life or of death, one or the other, to those who are depending on people's receptiveness to the message we have concerning the righteousness.

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What could being the fragrance of death mean other than rebellion against God brings its own consequences?

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It is almost mind -boggling that Christians do not join the dots here. And the non -believer, and you've given a great illustration of it, they thoroughly understand the implication.

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You don't even have to be talking about a so -called controversial political issue to have people's backs up when you talk about Jesus Christ and his kingship and his lordship, because they already are working out the implications of that in their own life.

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Yeah, in their own life. Exactly. Yeah, I know what that means for me to bow the knee to Jesus.

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Right. Yeah. Wow. That's a powerful thought, man. So when you look at the history of like England, Canada, United States, where we're at now, you have markers in history, moments where you did see as nation covenanted with God, you saw this upswing of blessing, peace, righteousness.

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It's fallen worlds. There's always moments that collapses and there's hurt and sin and all that.

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But you do see even this trend towards, as Christianity advanced from the early centuries and it starts to go really global and cultures are being transformed, you now see the advance in the sciences and education and technology.

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You see that all going up, right? And then our countries, of course, are pointing straight to Jesus, putting their hands on Bibles under the section of the curses.

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God bless our nation or curse our nation. So now we're on this downward trend of disobedience and rebellion.

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Okay, so what now? What's judgment on a nation culminate in?

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What do you think that that looks like and is there reason to believe that there's a way to reverse that?

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Or would you think that we're in a place where we just need an awful correction, right? I mean, obviously, we don't have the mind of God.

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We're not prophets. But are we in a place where it looks like we're in the need of a really sharp correction and collapse?

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Or are we in a place where we can actually really expect, no, we can recover this.

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What do you think? It's actually really quite difficult to say.

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Yeah, it is. I'm thinking through those implications myself. I'm often caught, to be absolutely honest with you, in two minds on on that particular question.

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Are we so far gone that it's going to need, that it's going to take a major crisis and a major decadent falling off, which we're already in the midst of?

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Or has the devil overplayed his hand a little bit here and do what he often does, which is go too far?

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And has he, with this, for example, with the denial of creational chromosomes as being able to define the difference between male and female?

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I mean, I look at it this way. If you execute the young in the womb and the generation that kills its young will be killed by its young.

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So if you execute the young in the womb and you execute the elderly and you seek to destroy the family, which, by the way, was from a

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Marxist idea. Karl Marx said the key to the earthly family, the holy family, he said, is the earthly family.

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To destroy the former, you have to get rid of the latter. So he understood the implications. He knew the connection between the triune

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God and his self -revelation, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the nature of marriage as reflecting something about the nature and character of God.

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I mean, you think about it in the Bible, God is both father and husband to Israel because he is both father and son.

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Right? I mean, this is how we can use the imagery in scripture of sometimes God being the bride depicting himself as a groom to Israel and also the father of Israel because he is both father and son.

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Right. And so you have this familial imagery. The Bible begins with a wedding. Israel's relationship with God is depicted as a marriage.

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Christ's ministry starts at a public ministry, begins at a wedding at Cana. His relationship to his church is depicted as a groom -bride relationship.

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And history ends with the marriage supper of the Lamb. So Marx recognized to destroy the holy family, you have to get rid of the earthly family.

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And cultural Marxism today is trying to do the same thing. But what we're creating with the destruction of the family, destruction of the young, the destruction of the elderly, we're creating, we have created a culture of death.

33:55

Demography -wise, the demographers who are looking at population issues, they're already saying, oh yeah, we're in deep trouble.

34:03

The West is in deep trouble, purely into, well, if you create a culture of death, you've written your own death warrant.

34:09

I mean, the West is already saying, you know, in the end, you want to promote this, you want to promote that, fine.

34:14

You won't be here two generations from now, but we will be. Mm -hmm. So we're going to be the ones who are still around.

34:22

And actually, this is the Islamic attitude in Europe now. They'll say, we're going to win this without firing a single bullet, because you won't be here, and we will, just by breeding you out.

34:30

Right? And they're right. And they're right. Yeah. So even there, a false religion that's aping

34:38

Christianity, and the power of Islam, its strength is that it's a copycat, right?

34:47

The degree to which it apes the Christian faith is the degree to which it has any cultural strength. But we have the real message.

34:54

Yeah. But we've not been preaching it. We've not been teaching the kingdom of God. And so, some days,

35:02

I think, this collapse is going to happen quicker than we think, and there's going to be an opportunity in the next 25 years for a major, if a remnant will be faithful, for a major turnaround, a recognition that this culture of death is doomed.

35:21

On other days, I think, you know what? Every time I think a new piece of insane legislation, a new piece of insane ideology being pumped into the schools, that people are now they'll draw the line, and they don't.

35:34

On those days, I think, maybe the West, as we know it, is done.

35:43

And there will be a sort of, as we've happened with the Roman Empire, a sort of hollowing out from within that taxation and debt and the destruction of the middle classes and moral decadence will internally destroy us rather than an outside enemy.

36:05

So it is, as you say, without God's eye view. I think, at the moment, favor the notion that over the next 50 years, it's going to start to become very obvious that we really are in a post -secular age.

36:27

And that the choice is now between paganism, as in pagan spirituality, Islam, or Christianity.

36:36

Which is the subject of the second cornerstone. Right. Yeah, I dealt with Islam in Gospel Witness.

36:44

And in the Christian faith, when truly represented in the marketplace of ideas, always wins.

36:53

Yeah. Because it's true. Yeah. So it may take several generations.

37:03

But I'm optimistic that as the consistency of a worldview of death plays itself out, that if a faithful people in the church will consistently live out a culture of life, the darkness can't overcome it.