Joseph Spurgeon on Postmillennialism

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And then you can look at the enemies that have been put under the feet of Jesus, like the early persecutions,

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Judaism and Rome, nobody even remotely would have thought of or heard of Jefferson, Indiana or New York in the time of Christ or in the apostles, what

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Paul was doing. And yet here you and I are talking to people that are sitting in other podunk places about the good news of Jesus.

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If that isn't the victory of the gospel, then what is? Welcome once again to the

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Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. And we have a special guest today. We've had on the podcast before,

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Pastor Joseph Spurgeon. He is the host of the Patriarchy Podcast and the pastor at Sovereign King Church in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

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And he is going to talk to us today about post -millennialism. As many of you know, we are in a mini series on eschatology.

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We've done dispensational pre -millennialism. We've done, what did we do yesterday? Amillennialism.

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And now we're going to talk a little bit about post -millennialism, try to understand that. And I'll give some of the objections, at least

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I've heard to it and hear what Joseph has to say. And hopefully this will help you as you're speaking to Christians who have different perspectives.

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We'll also, Lord willing, get into a little bit of what this means practically, if it does mean something practically, because a lot of post -millennialists think this is, in my experience, at least the key to living the

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Christian life. Maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but that you need to have post -millennialism in order to do things in the social and governmental sphere.

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So we'll examine that and also maybe church Israel connection and that kind of thing.

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So with that, welcome back, Pastor Joseph Spurgeon. Thank you. Hey, good to be back on your show.

01:55

Yeah, it's good to be here. Yeah. Yeah. How are things going for you? Well, they're going pretty good, man.

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The Lord's blessed us at church and in our family and just a lot of good work to do.

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Yeah, I've seen you put out a lot of content lately on your podcast. I see you post it on Facebook.

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So I know that you're pretty busy. I mean, every pastor

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I know is pretty busy, but with all the kids you have and everything, it's a sacrifice of time to come on a podcast like this and talk about this issue.

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So we really appreciate it. And maybe we'll just start here since I think maybe being a little autobiographical is helpful for people.

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Where did you come from on your eschatology journey?

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Because most people seem to have been raised with something that they aren't anymore. I don't know if that's the case for you, but I know you were

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Baptist at one time. So I'm assuming you were probably dispensational pre -millennial. I would not drink

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Monster Energy drinks because they might be the mark of the beast. There you go. So you're like fundamentalist type.

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Yeah, I grew up in a Baptist home. My dad's a pastor.

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He's kind of John MacArthur type Baptist, but not as a stodgy or stuffy.

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So, but Calvinistic and very dispensational.

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And I grew up that way. We would watch Jack Van Impey. You know who that is? Yeah, I do.

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I just, I think he's a prosperity guy, but maybe not. I thought he was. Jack Van Impey was the dispensational guy.

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Like he might've been on TBM. I think, I don't, I just remember watching him.

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He was, I mean, he was all about the end times and that dude had like a, uh, uh, like the, just the dial a verse in his mind all the time.

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Like he was constantly able to just quote scripture left and right. Often to such a dazzling effect that you had no way to like, what do you say to actually write or not?

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So I remember like in 1999, for example, the year 2000 coming on and just thinking, this has got to be it.

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This is going to be the time. And he would talk about the European union and, you know, the rebuilding of the temple and had all these verses dealing with Russia.

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And every few years, you know, there would be a new, new something that means it's a rate upon us.

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And so he was constantly analyzing the news for signs of left behind stuff.

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So I've also read all those books was very much into all that. That put a bad taste in your mouth.

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Well, you know, I, I don't look back upon it like negatively, completely negatively. I mean,

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I grew up in a Christian home. I love, my dad loves Jesus and I love

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Jesus and I'm thankful, you know, uh, I think dispensationalism is wrong.

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And I kind of went through the cage stage. I would say that it was wrong and would talk about it a lot.

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That's like 20 some years ago to me. I don't quite think about it. It just doesn't take up a lot of space in my mind anymore.

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And I even went through a cage stage of eschatology, my current view. And even now

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I feel a little bit more settled and a little bit more settled in the sense of this is a difficult topic, eschatology.

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And I don't, I don't think that it's meaningless. I do think it has implications for how we live, but I also don't think it's the key.

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Like you brought that up earlier. Is this the key to how you live as a Christian? I don't,

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I don't think so. I mean, I think, and one since, yes, the, the hope of the future resurrection of Christ return, that is key that like that, but that's what we all share.

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But the, the specifics, how we get there. Not quite.

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I asked you about your, I guess, journey to just because I think a lot of people have gone through that.

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Most postmill guys, I will put it this way. The most. Enthusiastic postmill guys that I've met were former dispensationalists.

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The ones who were raised in it tend to be like more so, but the ones who made a conversion, as it were,

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I remember one guy told me this is because I, I've been thinking about these issues for, you know, at least like 17 years, probably.

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And one of the first guys who kind of got caged sage post mill friend of mine, he said, look,

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John, you gotta look, you gotta look at this as a worldview. This isn't just an eschatology flavor.

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This transforms everything. You think the way you approach every subject will be different once you, and he was a dispensationalist, but then he was, it was actually at John MacArthur's church.

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We were both attending at the time. Cause I was living in California and he's like, you know, you, you reject this stuff that MacArthur's teaching.

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It's going to, it's like a whole new world. So I know that's not obviously every postmill guy, but there is this stereotype.

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And so it sounds like you had that phase kind of. And yeah, I think every time you discover a truth, cause

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I believe this is to be true. I'm calling it truth. But every time you discover a new truth, you go through that phase where it unlocks everything because that is how truth works.

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It interacts. It's not there. There's very little isolated truths, if you will, that don't matter.

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And those that are that we don't fight about, right? Like it's the things that do interconnect.

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So I, you know, at, at times it can appear as if dispensationalism is a completely different religion at times than post -millennialism like our efforts, what we expect to happen, obviously how we view

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Israel and, and, you know, there are the hyper dispensationalist, the kind of the old school, very old school in which like, it, it, it does start to, you know, veer from what

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Christianity is. When you have a view that Jews can be saved apart from Christ or with bringing back the old

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Testament sacrifices, like, uh, that's, that's heresy. So in a memorial sense, right.

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That's how, I mean, I've never heard one say that there'll be actual sacrifices that are efficacious, but maybe there are some,

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I don't know. Yeah. But there's this, you know, I grew up in the, kind of the, the extreme version.

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My dad was not the extreme, but just surrounded by it. So, and so I've heard all those things.

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So you start to find out, wait, wait a second. Something's not right here. In fact, interestingly enough,

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I was running from God's called a ministry in my life and kind of running from God, kind of angry at God.

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And, um, God used a

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RUF minister who brought up the fact that, well, you know, that Israel in the middle East is not the exactly the

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Israel in the Bible is, you know, the God's chosen people is not the end, even though I'm running from God, like those were fighting words.

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Cause that was like an attack, like my background a little bit. And so I debated and I wanted to fight.

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And then that's where I, he mentioned something about John Calvin. And so I went and read Calvin's institutes and that's how it became a

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Calvinist. And that's really how it was like, Oh, wait a second. This guy actually knew what he was talking about.

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And he started making sense. He gave me, believe it or not, Gary DeMar's book, uh, end times madness.

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And this is before Gary DeMar. Gary DeMar's kind of mad, right? Now he joined that madness.

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He joined the madness. This was, you know, 20 some years ago before that was even on the table and it was helpful.

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And, um, and so I went through that and I kind of came, okay, I'm not dispensationalist.

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You know, I, I'm not pre -millennial. I don't know what I am. So I was in seminary and that's when, uh,

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I really started to study more and became convinced of the post -millennial position.

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So let's talk about that a little, cause I want to understand. And I, I, it sounds like Calvin himself was instrumental in this.

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Was Calvin himself a post -millennial guy or was he on millennial? What was he? This is going to be, this is, this is hotly debated.

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So, um, I think we, we need to define post -mill maybe a little bit because there's a spectrum to it as well.

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So there is the Puritan kind of view in which their view of post -millennial is that the millennial reign hasn't quite started yet.

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It's in the future that there is some golden age still to come in the future.

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And then there are the more like my, my self position, which is more akin to all millennialism, but has a different outlook on how that the, the church age will grow.

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So in other words, sometimes some people call it optimistic on millennialism and there's, there's very slight differences maybe between me and that.

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But, uh, when, in that case, what most modern post -millennialist are is that, and I think

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John Calvin was that, I think he, he had hope and looked forward to all the nations, um, repenting and coming into the kingdom.

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I, I, I think he believed that at the end, the Jews as a people would be engrafted back in, not through anything else other than the preaching of the gospel and the, and the, uh, the

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Holy spirit's work in salvation, the same way we experienced it. And so I, I think my position is

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Calvin's and, um, and I think it's Matthew Henry's and many in the church.

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So really the difference between my position and like a non -millennialist, maybe what we expect during this, this, this church age, like, so I'm more optimistic and, and, and some people might say, well, that's just a matter of your personality.

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Cause I'm also an optimistic type person, but I haven't always been, I think actually what's made me optimistic is being is, is the

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Bible and understanding God's word and having faith for it. So, uh, that puts me slightly different than the

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Puritans. I think they were still looking for something way in the future though. And one sense

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I am too. So there's not a whole lot of difference there either. So I don't know if that clarifies or confuses.

13:13

Well, no, I think it helps. Um, I, so we want to understand, and I think sometimes, you know, as the early church, especially, uh, was figuring doctrine out, they would do it in light of an objection, right?

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Usually a heresy. And I think that in the last few podcasts I've done on this subject, that's been a helpful way to progress the conversation.

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So maybe I'll just, uh, throw a few things at you that will help define it further that are objections that I hear today to post -millennialism.

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And, um, one of them is that there, there's a corruption of the gospel.

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So this is, it's an interesting thing because I hear some post -millennial guys say pre -millennial or dispensational, especially pre -millennialists are, uh, heretical.

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They'll just even shorthand to say the dispensational heresy, which I think is, um, just my opinion is that that is, uh, imprudent.

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You need to identify exactly what you're talking. If you're saying there's two different salvations, yes, you're talking about heresy, but most dispensationalists don't believe.

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So, you know, that's my, but with post -millennialism, I see the same kind of, uh, straw manning where, where guys, mostly pre -millennialists will say, well, you are fusing the gospel with the work of the church or the, uh, cultural mandate.

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You're saying that Christians need to go out there and take over government schools, arts, uh, all these institutional things.

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And then, uh, they're going to usher in this golden age. And that's, um, and sometimes this is fused with, and I actually have her personal guys fuse this, but maybe they're more careless when they do this, but saying that that's the gospel of the kingdom or fusing it with the gospel.

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And, and, and so it sounds like what is being said when I hear that is, Hey, you pre -millennialists you are millennialist guys.

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You're not number one, you're not doing kingdom work. And number two, you, you might even have the gospel wrong because.

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Uh, we're doing, uh, we're actually ushering in the gospel of the kingdom, whereas you guys are sitting on your hands.

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So maybe address that a little flesh that out. What's wrong with that straw, man? Yeah. Um, I think there's, so every straw man is able to, to take a little truth.

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And so, um, post -millennialist, uh, myself included,

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I think have a view of the gospel that, that, that is more than just personal salvation for an individual so that the good news is the news of Christ's reign over the earth and that he is restoring, um, our all of creation.

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And I think everybody can agree to that. The answer is when that is going to happen. But, um, our view is that the mission of the church is making disciples, which includes their personal salvation, but also their sanctification and that, that impacts all areas of life.

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And so often these debates, I think, um, are differences of emphasis on manners of justification versus sanctification versus.

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So, uh, we are not saved by any works where we're not justified by our works.

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We're justified by the finished work of Christ on the cross, but Jesus saves us.

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And then he, we're declared righteous by God's decree, but God's declaring us righteous.

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We receive that through faith, but then we work that out. We become what God declared us to be.

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And post -millennialism is the view of sanctification on a broader level than just the individual.

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It is on family units and on the, the national level or societal level.

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And that as Christ is reigning throughout history, he is putting his enemies under his feet, which includes bad theologies, bad ideologies, false teaching, the idols of the nations.

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And, um, as that happens, the gospel makes more inroads in individuals in the, and in their lives and how that's carried out.

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And that has an impact all around us. And so we might argue, and I've heard post -millennialists argue that dispensationalism and others can truncate the gospel because they make it to be, and this is probably a straw man, so forgive me, but they make it seem to be a fire insurance, if you will.

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It's a matter of getting down to hell, but there's not a matter of what we do now. And I think post -millennialism is, okay, what do we do now?

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And I think you look at the promises throughout scripture from the very beginning, like when

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Adam and Eve failed, that the promise given to the serpent was the, the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

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And I don't think that was merely limited to personal salvation or an individual salvation.

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I think that has to do with like defeating the works of the devil in, in this world as well.

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So we love the song, Joy to the World, and you know, the verse as far as the curse is found.

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And, and so I would argue that's a post -millennial Christmas song. We're all post -millennialists on Christmas.

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Let's explore this just a little bit, because this sort of goes into some of the things that I've critiqued in liberation theology, right?

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Because liberation theology, obviously from a leftward angle, so I'm not imposing any of that on you at all, but they will say that the gospel of the kingdom is this fully fleshed out social program that we need to be advocating.

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And there's an element of works in this, and they'll say, you're not being true to the gospel, or you have a half gospel or a partial gospel if you are not on board with the social program.

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And I have in my work said, Hey, look, this sounds a lot like the Galatian heresy. This sounds like you're saying you're not circumcised.

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You need to do something. And Paul's whole point, obviously in Galatians is that it's the work of Christ.

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That's the gospel. The good news is that Christ has done something. It is not that we can add to that, and maybe that's in the context of justification, but we can't justify ourselves.

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Obviously, the term gospel can be used for the gospels, these accounts of Jesus, right? There's different ways the term can be used, but Paul seems pretty rigid on, like, this is theologically, the gospel is this good news of what

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Christ has done. And I don't see a conflict. When Jesus talks about the gospel of the kingdom,

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I don't take it as, like, this is the gospel that is attached to the kingdom. I've never taken that as, like, the kingdom is the gospel, if you know what

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I mean. And I don't know if that's what you're saying. So maybe you could weigh in on, is there a law gospel distinction in post -millennialism?

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How do you grapple with— That's a good question, yes. Yeah, there has to be, because we don't believe that we are saved by law -keeping and justified by that.

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So the gospel can be spoken of in a broad sense, like you just said, what the gospels themselves are called the gospels, and they tell the whole story of Christ teaching and all that, right?

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Yes. And then there's the narrow sense in which we often talk, which is Christ died for our sins, and I have to believe,

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I must repent and believe and have faith. But I think the gospel also can be spoken more broadly as well as what is the results of Christ's work.

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And so when you say the gospel of the kingdom, I don't know if I would agree with it's attached to the kingdom, rather it's the good news of the kingdom.

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It's the good news that Jesus is king, and that has implications for everywhere.

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Like, the fact that he's king is good news because it means rebels like me can be forgiven of my sins by faith in him.

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It's also good news that he's king because he's placing his enemies under his feet. Like, one of the aspects of the gospel is that those who don't repent,

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God will destroy, and that's good news. It's good news, not necessarily for them, but for God's people that it's good, right?

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It's good that God's going to get rid of the wicked. I was just talking with a young man today at my church who's just reading some books.

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I think it was that he's reading the sword and the scimitar, and he's just very, he's struggling with anger.

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Anger, like, it seems like the wicked always seem to thrive. And I think one of the good news of the gospel is that that's not true, is that, yes, they seem to thrive, but, you know,

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Psalm 37, Psalm 73, they have their day coming. When the apostles preached the gospel, they were preaching that, basically, if you would read

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Acts 2, what was it? Like, this Jesus, you guys killed.

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And by the way, God made him king, and now he reigns over the whole universe. And they're cut to the heart because it's like, uh -oh, we just killed the king.

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We offended him. And what do we have to do? Repent and believe so that it's not that they have to do works.

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But now that they are saved, they're brought into his kingdom, and they begin living out their faith.

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And that's part of the work of the church, is what do we do now that we're saved?

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We're making disciples who obey all of God's commandments. I think the real problem with the kind of liberation theology and the liberation movement is they twist all that.

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It's also the problem of progressivism. So if you think about how liberalism or progressivism came about in our country's history, it really is a twisting of post -millennial hope that the

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Puritans and the church had in the 1800s. What happened was there was this great hope that the church, through its obedience to God, would bring about good social order and push back many of the problems.

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But then you have German higher criticism coming in, and suddenly it starts eating at the very root of what the truth of who

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Jesus is. And it takes away the historical truths of Christianity, and all they were left with was social improvement.

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All they're left with is that, and that became what the gospel was all about.

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You look at Methodists. Even liberal Methodists still do a lot of good things, like socially good.

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Not all the time, but I think we can say, I've given blood, for example, to Red Cross, and it's often done at a

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Methodist church. And you go and you donate, and they're really involved in that because they've held on to some kernel of some truth, but they've, in many cases, objected.

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And I'm talking about the liberal Methodists when I talk about Methodists here. But they've gotten rid of the truths that undergird it.

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So I'm not arguing to do that. I'm also not arguing to twist it. Our obedience and the way that this impacts the culture is through our being sanctified and through our obedience to God's law.

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I think that's different than liberation theology. No more, you can correct me. Well, I don't want to correct you.

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I think you're right. I've always seen a distinction. If you read Joe Boot, I think he's a post -millennial guy, and I've looked at what he said about the gospel of the kingdom and then what someone like Jim Wallace at Sojourner says.

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They're saying similar things, but they also diverge because the left will start saying things like,

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I think Jim Wallace has said this, Eric Mason says it's actually a woke church. He says, hey, we Christians can learn how to do the gospel or how to be gospel

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Christians, gospel centeredness. The gospel is so watered down that term.

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But they'll say, we can learn that from unbelievers. The anti -apartheid regime in South Africa can teach us the gospel,

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Eric Mason says, or the denazification program in Germany can teach us the gospel. And you're like, but there's no spirit of God in any of that.

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And that's not what you're saying at all. And I think that's a big difference. But one thing, and I would like to ask you this, and maybe this gets in the nature of the kingdom, because Jesus, I know,

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I think I just pulled up the reference, it's Luke 17, Luke 17, 21. He says that the kingdom of God is within the hearts of those who believe.

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And the nature of the kingdom becomes a big issue with all of this as well. What is the kingdom?

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Is it a spiritual, which amillennialists like to focus on that, I think a lot more, I get the sense, and that it's a spiritual kingdom that's here.

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And it's really among the church, it's the believers and the spirit of God in their hearts.

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That's what the kingdom is. And maybe with a view that it will one day manifest, but that's not for us to work toward, right?

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And the postmillennialists seem to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that they want to work towards this kingdom in the here and now, or they think maybe it is now, or it's impending, or maybe flesh that out.

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Yeah, so I do believe that the kingdom is ultimately spiritual.

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Like Jesus says, you can't look at it and say, here it is, there it is, here it is. Like it's not, we can't mistake it with the nations of this earth or even cultural progress so much.

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I see that as implications of the kingdom and almost necessary implications.

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But so I would agree that in one sense, it's in the heart, it's spiritual. I'm Westminster Confession, which says that the church is actually the kingdom of Christ, that the visible church is the visible manifestation of it.

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And so the fullness of this kingdom will not be manifested until Christ returns.

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But I know that there are some, and I've been in some circles that postmillennialists would disagree, and they would argue that the kingdom is not just the church, it's more expansive.

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And I think there's some truth to the fact that what they're trying to get at is that Christ reigns over more than just the church.

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So I'm not one kingdom. So somebody like Joe Boot is more one kingdom. I'm classical to kingdom.

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I'm fitting more with, I believe, the reformed understanding that Christ reigns over the whole world and particularly mediatorially over his church so that even the reign over all the nations is for the good of his church.

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So let me ask you this. Can you then, and I think I know the answer, but I want to hear you say it. Can you have an institution, let's say, that is part of the kingdom or reflecting the kingdom that doesn't have any

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Christians in it? So let me give you an example. And this is from the left more, but let's say a prison system.

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It's reformed now. There's policies. The policies that were supposedly, let's say, abusive and caused disparities are done away with and now we have good policies.

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Let's say it's more just. I don't know. This is a bad example, actually, now that I think about it, because if you're more theonomic, especially prisons aren't the best example to use.

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You don't want them anyway, right? But all right, let's use a different, let's say a banking system or something that's more just without usury or something.

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It conforms more to a biblical standard. Can you have a bank that's reflecting good, wise laws, but there's no

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Christians, there's no spirit of God in the employees who work it? How do you categorize that kind of a thing?

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Does that mean this is the kingdom, this is the gospel, or do you say, well, there's no spirit there, there can't be?

29:36

Yeah, I feel like this is almost tangentially related to can a nation be Christian or can a family be

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Christian and that kind of thing. Yeah, probably, probably. So this is one of the arguments. So again, because I believe the church is the kingdom in one sense, and I also think that the whole world is

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God's kingdom in another sense. And so it depends what sense you're meaning.

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If you're meaning in the sense of we're longing for or working for the growth of the kingdom when we pray, your kingdom come.

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I don't think that I would call that bank the kingdom of God. I would call it, it's under the reign of God.

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And if it's doing good things, well, hallelujah, praise God. So I probably should have phrased it this way. Where do you categorize

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Christian ethics? Can you have Christian ethics? Because you're going to have unbelievers do wise things and behave in ways that obviously it's not the good that pleases

30:31

God in a spiritual sense, but they're reflecting an instinct that God has given them to provide for their children or something like that.

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We're both appreciative of some of the good things Trump has done. For example, that we would say conform more to let a biblical standard than what

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Kamala Harris would have done. Where's the category for that in the post -millennial kind of kingdom framework is

30:54

Trump advancing the kingdom? Is it maybe, I don't know. I don't know if I could explain it better, but I know what you mean.

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And I feel like if you had interviewed another post -millennial on some of this, you might get completely different answers.

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I want your answer. But you want my answer is we don't actually advance the kingdom. God does.

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Christ does. He uses us. We're instruments in that. And we do that work. And in that sense, we can say we do advance the kingdom.

31:22

In my church's vision and mission, we say that we are a confessing church, a proclaiming church, and a constructing church.

31:32

That is, we're building the kingdom. And that includes through all the discipleship and all this stuff.

31:38

I think you can say that, but I would not say that Trump is advancing the kingdom. I could say that God is using

31:45

President Trump to advance his kingdom. And I think that's true. I think you can, and you should say that God used

31:54

Joe Biden to advance his kingdom. Like God, Jesus is reigning over every part of this world.

32:01

There's not a stray molecule anywhere that is outside of his control.

32:07

And he's doing it all to advance his kingdom and to advance his people and what's good for his people.

32:13

And so in that sense, you could say it. But in the sense of, I think what you're trying to get at is just people doing good things, does that in itself count as kingdom work?

32:23

And I don't think so. Yeah, and that's good to hear. Yeah. So it sounds like if you use the gospel more broadly, the way you're using it, you're not confusing justification here.

32:35

This is what I want to clarify for everyone. You're still saying, you know, it's all of Christ. There's no works. You can't participate.

32:41

You don't have a truncated gospel in the justification sense, at least, if it's faith in Jesus Christ and him alone.

32:51

So, but I think the issue that I'm trying to get at is like, if the fruit of the gospel are these good things, then they must stem from, or I want to phrase it the way that you would phrase it, the fruit of justification.

33:06

Maybe if the fruit of justification and the effect of the kingdom is all these good results and these results are things like law keeping, right?

33:17

This is where law enters the equation, but it's on the other end. It's not for salvation. It's the fruit of a salvation in people's hearts.

33:26

And that's part of the kingdom. That's what I hear you saying is that you have, that works are not the root of your salvation.

33:34

It's Christ's work, but then you have this fruit. And sometimes that will also be called part of the gospel. I'm a little uncomfortable with that, but okay, this is part of the good news because this is good fruit that's coming.

33:44

Um, and when something else that happens, that's good. If it's not driven by the spirit of God, and if it's not the fruit of the gospel or the church, then

33:55

I'm trying to figure out where to put that, where I put that. I still put that as fruit of the gospel in the sense of it's the fruit of Christ ring.

34:04

Christ is raining in heaven right now, putting all his enemies under his feet. And so when anything happens, this is the fruit of that.

34:13

Like the, uh, uh, Jesus, uh, obviously the, the eternal son of God reigned throughout all of time, but there's, there is a difference in his coming and that now the divinity is united with man.

34:30

That is, there's a, uh, in heaven right now, which is amazing to think about.

34:35

There is a human, fully human, also fully divine, but a human reigning over the whole universe.

34:43

Like he's sitting on a throne and he's putting his enemies under his feet. And so when things happen, uh, in, and, and the, um, there's progress even culturally or those things, those are all the results of God's work.

35:01

And I think he does it all for the good of his church. So I think I would also agree with you that when, when we are engaged in doing that work, which we should be, it's the fruit of what

35:14

God has done in us. So I just, I'm trying to say that, that Christ is the one doing all of this.

35:21

And I believe that the promise is that his glory will go from sea to sea.

35:28

Like it'll cover the earth, the gospel. That is the good news of Christ reign, which is that sinners can be set free from their sin.

35:36

And I believe that that means many, many, many, many, many people coming whole nations, even repenting.

35:43

And I believe that's all the promises of scripture. And that's what Jesus is working out now.

35:49

Okay. Gotcha. All right. So, um, good, obviously good things have been happening for all of human history, whether through instincts that God's given us or through direct roles that God has played through his spirit.

36:02

Um, now that we're the phase we're in, this is where I want to get into the eschatology directly. Are we, since good things have always been happening, has the kingdom then always been present?

36:13

Like what, what did Jesus bring that was different? And then what can we expect? I don't know if you want to put it, you don't want to put dates, date setting, but what, what are we, uh, in the, in what's the fullness of the kingdom look like?

36:27

What are we going to see? Yeah, that's a good question. So let's start with the first of good things have always been happening.

36:33

Yes. And I think in that sense, you can say that God has always been doing good and, and, and for the good of his people.

36:41

I think that's true from very beginning. Like, um, this is my covenant theology view is that, you know, when

36:50

God raised up Babylon to discipline his people, that was still for the good of his people and the good that happened there.

36:55

I think that continues. I think it continues in a renewed and expansive way because the people of God also expands.

37:03

And so that it's not limited to a one nation in the middle East, a group, one ethnic group, the good news that centers can be changed and set free, um, and save the same way our

37:18

Old Testament brothers and sisters were saved is now expanded and that's going out into all the nations.

37:24

So I think God's Christ is ruling to enable that to happen, to, to, uh, to make that happen.

37:32

And I think the promises then, and this is where the difference is, is that that truth of centers being set free will make progress in the hearts of men throughout the world.

37:44

And, um, that, in that sense, when

37:50

I'm talking about the kingdom and talking about the church, I'm talking about the spiritual kingdom is, uh, what

37:57

Christ talks about when he talks about, it's like a mustard seed that's planted smallest of seeds, and then it grows and expands until it fills the entire earth and the birds of the air take their nest in it.

38:09

I think he's referring to a little bit to the tree that, uh,

38:14

Nebuchadnezzar had a dream about and, uh, um, and the visions he had.

38:20

And, um, the point is that the

38:25

Christian religion will take over the earth. That's, that's a simple way to say it.

38:32

And that's what I think is happening and will happen. I think there's ebbs and flows through history, but that, that more and more people will come to know the

38:44

Lord. And as more and more people do that will also have cultural and societal effects, but those are the fruit of that.

38:54

So spreading or preaching, we'll say, so preaching the gospel of the kingdom, or I should just say the gospel.

38:59

So preaching the gospel, uh, is the declaration of, uh,

39:05

Christ's finished work and repentance and faith in him. And as that happens, people are saved and that's an expansion of the kingdom.

39:13

Um, and then it also, it's not what you're saying is that, uh, doing good works as a result of faith that takes a rejuvenation of the

39:22

Holy spirit, a renewal in your own heart is also a spread of the kingdom. Um, that's for, for Christian to ahead.

39:29

Well, I think it's a spread of the effects of the kingdom, maybe. Yeah. I don't want to say just doing a good work is like opening a bank is not necessarily an advancement of the kingdom.

39:40

It's, it's an advancement of, I'm trying to make helpful distinctions here.

39:49

Like they did some good things, I suppose, but they weren't, they were not the kingdom of Jesus made it pretty clear that they were not part of the kingdom, right?

39:56

But they bring blessings, uh, to like, uh, Abraham's promise in, in your seat, all the nations will be blessed.

40:04

And I think that blessing is salvific. Obviously, most importantly, that they're saved, but that salvation is lived out and then that brings blessings.

40:14

And so you can say all of that is part of the gospel, but then when you're talking about how we're saved and we talk about the gospel that way, then we're, we've got to be very specific that.

40:26

So, um, I'm trying to make a distinction. This would motivate post -millennialist. I think, uh, to this is what

40:33

I've always heard, right? The post you're, there's more of a motivation to be involved in civic renewal and political renewal and all these kinds of things.

40:41

Um, and I've heard different things from different people, whether it's through the institution of the church or it's through other institutions and Christians just living out there, but you know, either way, um, what, what about the other views, eschatological views?

40:56

What if there's a pre -millennialist or an amillennialist and they're out there and they're doing all these same things, like effectively they're spreading the gospel, they're, uh, running for office and spreading

41:06

Christian laws. And is there like that? Is there a problem?

41:12

Is there a distinction? It sounds like that's the same, like they're doing what post -millennialists want to do.

41:17

They're functioning in the same way. Would they have a different motivation, uh, or, or they just conceive of it differently?

41:24

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm certain they would conceive of what they're doing differently, but, uh, you know, praise God for that.

41:29

I think, I think it may be inconsistent with some of their views.

41:37

So when John MacArthur says, we don't bother to polish the brass on a sinking ship or we lose down here.

41:46

Right. Yep. I mean, that has implications. So what I'm saying is that the gospel will go forth.

41:53

People will be saved and that will transform their society. And that brings a lot of good.

41:58

I don't mean that it's going to be utopia. I don't believe that. I also don't think it's going to be a good that's different than what

42:05

God's law prescribes and, and, and the moral law and, uh, the natural law is a part of that.

42:13

But, uh, I don't think it's separate of that, but when, when I think we win,

42:18

I think there is the victory of the gospel throughout the world and that there's real victories here.

42:25

And so that empowers me to do the work because, uh, like,

42:30

I don't know about you, but I'm not very much encouraged to do fruitless work. Like, like if you told me, and I knew for certain, like,

42:39

Hey, I want you to go build this house. And by the way, we're going to burn it down the next day. I might not be tempted to put as much work into it.

42:46

But if, if you told me, you know, like, uh, that's an analogy, it breaks down.

42:52

That's actually psychological warfare too. We use those kinds of things to get to guys. Yeah. Yeah. We'll be like, go put this stack, these stones over here and I'll go put them over there and I'll go put them back.

43:02

And it drives me. I actually disciplined my sons that way. Sometimes they need, they get too rowdy.

43:10

It's like, we got some bricks for you to stack. But yeah, um, uh, sorry.

43:16

I totally derailed you. That was my fault. Totally my fault. It says our work is not done in vain in, in first Corinthians.

43:24

And you know, I'm, I'm willing to sacrifice, sacrifice my life.

43:31

I think it would, uh, um, enable me to do martyrdom. I think it enabled others to do martyrdom.

43:38

If I know that my sacrifice is not in vain. And, um, you could argue, well, yeah, it's not in vain because God's going to reward you personally.

43:48

And yeah, but I think it's beyond that. Like, I know that like, when Paul talks about the reason, you know, he's like,

43:54

I could go be with the Lord or I could stay here for your good. And I know it's better for me to stay here for your good. Like he had motivation beyond himself.

44:01

And so like, I'm motivated. I want to see my children and my grandchildren, my great grandchildren to, to have good.

44:07

And so I'm willing, like, and I think, you know, we're, we're in one of those ebbs in history and, you know,

44:14

I'm willing to work and, and suffer and put up with all the things around us because I know

44:20

God will use that faithfulness. I trust him with my work that sometime down the road, others will benefit and the, and the, and the gospel will go forth even more broadly, and there'll be more blessings to my children or great, great grandchildren or something.

44:38

But if you tell me we're just going to lose down here, there's no use polishing the brass on a sinking ship. The only thing we really need to do is just tell people that could be justified.

44:47

Then I might do that. And, but I wouldn't worry about the civil realm.

44:52

I wouldn't worry about these other realms. Right. Would you say that we're on an upward trajectory, even though we're in a, an ad, is there a group you don't know?

45:05

Okay. I have some, there's signs of some hope. I think the fact that men, young men in particular are becoming more conservative and more than that, more importantly than that, they're entering into the church.

45:17

They're becoming more religious. I think that's a good sign. Well, I meant more broadly, theologically speaking, is there just, in your mind, is there a reason to think

45:26

I've heard some post -mill guys say things like this, that, uh, from the ascension of Christ or from 70

45:32

AD, we haven't even gotten into that yet. We probably should, but there's a, an upward trajectory during the church age.

45:37

In other words, there's ebbs and flows, but the general trajectory is we're making progress toward the final, uh, state essentially.

45:46

Yeah. Yeah. I do believe that. Yes. Yes. All right. In fact, here's how a simple way to look at it. How many

45:52

Christians were there on good Friday? Oh, the first good Friday. Yeah.

45:58

Ever. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there, you had two, I guess it's come to the tomb. How many Christians are there now?

46:04

Yeah. Okay. All right. More of the way, more than two there. I mean, we could argue and try to nitpick and these people aren't

46:11

Christian. These aren't Christians, but man, the gospel has gone. Fourth into the entire world.

46:17

Almost like there, there are very few places where the people haven't heard the gospel and there are Christians on every planet.

46:23

I'm not every planet on every continent. Well, we're about to do a Mormon podcast here.

46:31

Every, every hospitable planet so far that we know about. Right. But I need to speak clean on, but they are there.

46:39

But the, uh, and Hey, I'm so post -millennial. That was the van. I was so far ahead of myself that there will be

46:44

Christians on every planet. I'm Mars. Yeah. You're ready for a first Baptist or no, sorry. You're you keep thinking

46:49

Spurgeon, your first Presbyterian than Mars. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, well, you know, go ahead.

46:56

Did you have something you want to say? No, I just think, and then you can look at the, the enemies that have been put under the feet of Jesus, like, uh, the early persecutions,

47:05

Judy, Judaism and Rome and, you know, just the, how the gospel progressed, like if, um, and if, if those say that things will only get worse.

47:19

Like there are some who say that culturally things will only get worse until Christ returns that the church will be so beaten and battered that like, it'd be more and more unbelieving rather than believing.

47:30

It's like, well, if that's what the Bible said, how come that didn't start right away? Like, how do you account for that?

47:37

Not happening then. How do you account for the fact that actually, no, we're sitting here. I don't know where you're sitting.

47:43

You're in New York, right? New York. Yeah. And I'm in like Jeffersonville, Indiana. Nobody even remotely would have thought of or heard of, of Jeffersonville, Indiana or New York in the time of Christ or in the apostles, what

47:57

Paul was doing. And yet here you and I are talking to people that are sitting in other podunk places and about the good news of Jesus.

48:06

If that isn't the victory of the gospel, then what is? Yeah, that's a good point. So there obviously has been progress on, on that side of things.

48:15

What do you do, uh, with, so we've been talking about, I think some of the objections and, and, uh, nature of the kingdom, nature of the gospel and this kind of thing.

48:25

But eschatology itself, like we have obviously apocalyptic literature.

48:31

Um, I'll let you kind of take this any direction you obviously want to take it, but what do you do with all the, the bold judgments, all the things you see in revelation that, that pre -millennials say precede the millennium.

48:46

And then I'll, I'll tag onto this. You can answer in any order. Is there an in -gathering of ethnic

48:53

Jewish people? Is there any relevance of, of Jewish people in the, um, uh, the kingdom of God or the millennium?

49:03

Yeah. So, I mean, that, that we can be here all day going through the Bible verses and, and, you know, looking at the, what the scriptures say.

49:11

I do not think of revelation as the book of revelation, for example, as being the primary book to deal with eschatology.

49:20

Everybody wants to go there. And in particular, it's, it's interesting enough, our positions, like you're talking post -millennial, amillennial, pre -millennial, they're all based off of like an interpretation of one chapter in scripture of, of revelation, uh, 19.

49:35

But, uh, I believe that my view is all the whole

49:40

Bible. Like I would start in Genesis and, and show all the promises of the, throughout the old

49:46

Testament of what Christ's coming kingdom would look like and what it accomplishes and what the expectations were.

49:52

For example, that it would be a great mountain and all the nations would come up to it, or the fact that, uh, there would be long life.

50:00

Like somebody, if somebody died in a, in, at a hundred years, that would be considered, uh, uh, you know, too young.

50:08

And which can't, in my opinion, can't be talking about eternity because nobody's going to die in eternity.

50:15

And so, um, has to be talking about something that happens in, in our day. And, but you can look at through the whole old

50:23

Testament. What does the Bible expect with the coming of Jesus? What does it expect about like how nations will come to Jesus?

50:31

Like kings will be nursing maids to Christ. Excuse me, the, um, the, there's just all these great prophecies that we could go through.

50:42

And then you get to the book of revelation, you've got to deal with it. But I think there's a whole lot of ways that people skip over the markers in the book of revelation.

50:54

So I think the book of revelation opens up with like, these are things that are about to happen and they're written to a specific people at a specific time with a promise that if they listen to it and obey it, there will be great blessing upon them.

51:09

And if it was something that was thousands of years in the future to them, 2000 years in the future, most of it, how could they obey it?

51:16

What revelation or relevance would it had in their own life? So my take on the book of revelation is that it is primarily written as John's version of the

51:28

Oliphant discourse. In other words, that it is primarily pointing to the destruction of Jerusalem and what would happen in that time and a passing of the old covenant completely from the scene and the new covenant.

51:45

So I take Ken Gentry has a great book on this called the divorce of, of what's it called?

51:50

The divorce of Israel. I think it might be what it's called. I can't remember the exact name. It's been a, it's two, two thick volumes.

51:56

But, um, I think it as warnings and encouragement to Christians who were being persecuted by Jews and the

52:06

Romans, and it's showing how God was dealing with their persecutors and also a passing away of the temple.

52:14

And also how, um, as God deals with his enemies, they have a great future hope.

52:21

And so I would take Genesis, not Genesis, sorry, Revelation 19. To describe where we're at now.

52:28

And so I don't know if you're all the way old guy went through that with you, but we would probably be in a lot of agreement on how to interpret that passage.

52:37

Yeah. We talked about a little bit. Yeah. So, um, the books by Ken Gentry are, you know, you're just your own beliefs.

52:45

Are they, do they, you go to like granular detail on some of these things in Revelation and have parallels that happened in 70

52:53

AD. So you could be like, well, this, this trumpet is this. Yes. He's he's, he's full.

52:59

I mean, it's a two, two volumes, like each volume is like that thick of commentary on the book of Revelation.

53:06

So yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. He has one also, um, um, uh, is it a

53:13

Philip Kaiser? Is that right? Is that his name? I think so. Yeah. Dr. Philip Kaiser.

53:19

I think that's his name. It's been a while since I've looked him up, has a thing called biblical biblical blueprints, and he has a commentary on the book of Revelation and his most helpful part is just to walk through the introduction to the book and show like the principles that John himself gives about what the book is to be about.

53:42

And so I'd very much encourage everybody to, to go and look at that.

53:48

But, uh, um, okay. Yeah. That's helpful. I think resources are good too, because we couldn't obviously do, it would take a series of podcasts to get into all that because, uh,

53:59

Dr. Fuller, who Russell Fuller was my ML guy. So he, he seemed to think that the bold judgments were very, um, and I want to use his words.

54:08

He, he, he didn't mean figurative in the sense that you can make them an origami, but he, he thought that we're in the millennium and that these things are ongoing and they're overlapping and they're just, but you're saying something different.

54:20

You're saying no, there's, um, it sounds like a more literal kind of understanding that it's figurative, but it's talking about something that's not just the broad sweep, uh, in a poetic or, uh,

54:32

I guess, uh, just, I don't know, a general form, but you're saying no, that there's, there's actual things happening in 70

54:39

AD that people are witnessing that revelation's talking about. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I mean,

54:45

I don't, again, it's, it's using imagery obviously to, it's using the apocalyptic literature.

54:52

It's actually using tons of old Testament illusions. Like if you're going to read the book revelation, you've got to understand the old

55:00

Testament because that's all it does is quote, it's probably the most old Testament book of the new

55:05

Testament. And it's quoting from different prophecies and things, which is very helpful to understand and know, you know, one of the things

55:14

I think, uh, there's a, uh, some kingdom parables that Jesus gives, which, uh, are very important.

55:22

Like, so Jesus, and I think helps us understand revelation and understand eschatology.

55:28

So when he talks about the kingdom, he talks about, it was like a man went and sent his servants to, to, to get the wages from his servants.

55:40

Like he sent one of his people and they were like, no, we're not doing it. And he sends another, no, we're not doing it. So he sends his son.

55:45

And what do they do? Kill him. They kill his son. And then in the middle of this parable, it's almost like Jesus breaks into like, and he's bringing what's about to happen now, real.

55:59

Cause then he says, well, what would the King do? And he says, he will burn down their city. Well, what, there's been no mention of a city before that in the parable, but like he'll burn and destroy their city and, and kill them.

56:11

And I think he's referring to 70 AD, but then he says, what happens after that? Well, he'll send his servants out into the highways and byways and they'll go and bring everybody in.

56:22

There'll be a great, just getting everybody. And then of course, there's also the guy sitting there at the feast and it was like, um, what do you got?

56:33

How'd you get in here? You're not wearing the right clothes. And so this guy somehow got in, but he gets cast out as well.

56:40

But there's this, I think their trajectory is the point of Jesus's parable is that he's talking about himself.

56:47

He's talking about the prophets that went to Israel to warn them and to call them in repentance and they wouldn't have it.

56:52

And finally God sent his son and they still would not have it. And so he destroyed their temple. He destroyed their city, burn it down.

57:00

And he sends the gospel far and wide to all people. And, um, I think that's kind of the point of the book of revelation as well.

57:09

So what does he do now? Is there an ingathering or what is a good question? So now is it over for the

57:15

Jews? I don't think that's the point of it either. So, no, I know, I know it's not. Yeah.

57:20

And that passage, right? Yes. But I think we got to look at other passages. I think you look at Romans 11.

57:26

And so I, I do believe that there will be an end gathering of the Jews. First of all, I think a Jew can be saved now.

57:31

So like they repent and believe, but for some reason in general speaking, God has judiciously hardened most of them, right?

57:40

They reject the gospel. I was in Israel right at the Western wall. And we walked through the whole old

57:46

Testament with some, with like 30 to 50 Jews, uh, Hasidic Jews, like at the

57:52

Western wall, we were not supposed to do it, but it was an amazing story. I can tell you sometime, but they, it was just like, they were blinded.

57:58

They were just blinders to what the scriptures were saying. And I think God has hardened them. Augustine would say part of that, the reason they, that is for an example to us of what could happen to us.

58:09

Also an example of, of, of that the scriptures are true. Yeah.

58:15

And that's why Augustine would argue that, you know, we ought not kick Jews out of our land because they can serve as a witness to us of God's judgment and justice.

58:25

But also, um, I think Augustine and others argued from apostle

58:31

Paul's teaching that God's not done yet. They are then harshly, partially hardened.

58:38

And, um, God hasn't forgotten his promises. Uh, his promises are far and expansive.

58:45

The Gentiles are brought in, but I think God still has a love for Jews in the sense that he loved their fathers, their actual fathers.

58:54

And I think that's what it says. They're beloved for their father's sake. Right? I don't know who he's, he can't be talking about Gentiles there.

59:01

So he has to be talking about that. And then he goes in Romans 11 and, and I think describes that, uh, after the fullness of the

59:11

Gentiles, I believe there'll be a, they'll be brought back. Like, it's like if they're being cast off as a lesson for us, how much more than they're being brought back?

59:20

It's, it's like life from the dead, what he says. And, and, uh,

59:26

I think that's good news. And I think that's what the Westminster teaches us to pray for in the larger catechism on the

59:34

Lord's prayer that tells us to pray for the calling of the Jews. And, um, that was the position of the church.

59:42

As far as I know, uh, all throughout his church history, this kind of modern where that was preterist thing.

59:50

I've not seen that in church history. I've not seen a preterist view. Uh, furthermore, there's just not any evidence for it.

59:59

I've had guys on, I had Andrea scar on my podcast and I like him. Good guy. We we've been in a pod, we've been on a conference together, all of us.

01:00:06

And yet he didn't have any evidence for his preterist view other than to assert it. Like what evidence was that there was some kind of engrafting of Jews before the temple was destroyed.

01:00:19

Like, I don't see it. I mean, I know there were the, the Pentecost was a lot of Jews got saved then, but Romans is written after Pentecost.

01:00:27

It was persecution of the church up until 70 AD. Right. So yeah, there were some

01:00:35

Jews that escaped in 70 AD. That's another thing. I'm sorry to go on this rant, but like, there's this whole myth that the

01:00:43

Jews like ceased to exist at 70 AD. I know that's ridiculous.

01:00:48

They were in communities outside of Jerusalem. We know primarily about 70

01:00:54

AD because of the writing of a Jew himself, Josephus. Right. We have the,

01:01:00

I mean, not we, but there is the existence of the Talmud or the, and all the silly

01:01:09

Jewish writings that come after. Furthermore, there was the Simon revolt that comes later.

01:01:16

And the next destruction of Jerusalem, and I've got this book on the history of Jerusalem I'm reading through.

01:01:24

And there was even after that second destruction after Constantine became king and a couple more

01:01:32

Kings, there was one, I can't remember the exact name. We call him the apostate might've been Julian the apostate. He tried to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

01:01:40

And I didn't know that until recently. And the Jews were all excited about that. I didn't know that either. Yes. So they were trying to rebuild it.

01:01:48

And then he ended up getting killed. And then the next King was still Christian. It was like, nope, that ain't happening. But the next emperor was

01:01:55

Christian, but Jews have existed and it makes sense to me why they still do.

01:02:06

And I know they still rebel against God. Yeah, Paul, he was preaching in where, when he went places, outside of Jerusalem, I'm saying.

01:02:19

And I'm covenant in my theology. So I believe that the church is

01:02:24

Israel, or actually the more precise that Jesus is Israel and the church as it is in Christ is

01:02:32

Israel. And so is the old Testament saints. That's how we all are. But I also think that God made specific promises, specific people like Abraham.

01:02:42

And I don't think Abraham would have thought that it meant, well, in the future, all my actual descendants are going to be destroyed.

01:02:50

I don't think that's what, so I think God will keep his promises even to Abraham and which includes all of his seed, his spiritual, the

01:02:59

Gentiles, but also I think, and this is my postmortem hope that all the nations come, that the last is going to be the

01:03:06

Jews. And maybe that's why God allowed Israel to be reconstituted as a nation.

01:03:13

Maybe not. I don't want to make a big deal about that. I don't think that has a big eschatological function like some people do, but I wouldn't dismiss it either.

01:03:23

That's interesting. I'll give you, since we've been going about an hour, I'll give you the last word on this question. You saw the

01:03:28

Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson exchange and Cruz trying to appeal to Genesis 12, 3 to say there's an obligation

01:03:36

Americans have in their government to fund and support the nation state of Israel, the modern state.

01:03:45

And what's your reaction to that? Because this is an actual practical political thing that people are debating and it affects everyone and there, there's been an outcry that this is a, um, you know, this,

01:03:55

I guess, well, you can, I'll take it. You know what happened. So you take it wherever you want. Yeah.

01:04:04

Well, there's a sense in which we can certainly say that Israel in the Middle East is not Israel. It's not the biblical

01:04:09

Israel. It's, it's been, it's been broken off from the branch. The Jews are broken off as a people in one sense.

01:04:16

They individual Jews can be grafted back in through faith. And one day

01:04:22

I believe the whole bunch will be grafted back in still through faith in Christ, but they're not

01:04:27

Israel in that sense. And I don't think that's. So when the promise is for Abraham and his seed,

01:04:33

I think it's really talking about Christ and those who would curse Christ. So I think Ted Cruz is out the lunch using that verse for why we have to, we have to do whatever

01:04:42

Jews want or whatever Israel in the Middle East says. Like, I think

01:04:47

Tucker Carlson did a good job of like exposing that. Like, and I don't really, quite frankly,

01:04:54

I don't believe Ted Cruz really honestly believes that. I think it's just, I think it's, he gets paid moral justification.

01:05:02

Yes. And I think, but I, so I think, but I'm also not one, my position on Israel in the

01:05:09

Middle East is more nuanced. Like I'm America first. And if Israel existing in the

01:05:14

Middle East benefits America, then I'm for it and, and want us to do what we need to do.

01:05:20

And even beyond that, like, you know what I, I appreciate that we don't have right now. We don't have a

01:05:26

Muslim empire. And there's no, we do. I'm just kidding. Yeah. But we don't have a Muslim empire, like getting ready to sweep armies across the, and you know, one of the reasons we don't, and we won't because Israel exists.

01:05:41

Yeah. Yeah. And so it makes sense to me like American first, yes, means care for our domestic people, but we have international interests that also benefit our people.

01:05:53

And we've just, it takes wisdom and I'm a somewhat pragmatic on some of that.

01:05:59

And I, I trust our president, this president to actually make the wise decisions about he could show me wrong.

01:06:08

I don't want to be in forever wars and I don't want our nation. So leaders waving

01:06:13

Israeli flags as if their allegiances to Israel, but I also,

01:06:18

I also don't have this principled or like disgusted, like, well, they have no right to exist.

01:06:24

Like, or like I, yeah. Like I don't cheer Iran sending bombs to them.

01:06:30

Like that doesn't make me cheer even more than I cheer Israel bombing Iran. Yeah. That's, I mean,

01:06:36

I think we're in a very similar place on this. I, so yeah. And I think you made a great point and I wish

01:06:44

I would have articulated it better on my podcast yesterday, because historically if you understand

01:06:50

Islam, I mean, actual Islam, like not the liberal kind, but the, the real you know, imperialistic kind, they're not interested in kind of staying put in their own country.

01:07:03

And they actually do want to have a global domination. That's just the nature of the religion.

01:07:10

And for centuries, this has been held back first and the crusades were part of this effort, obviously.

01:07:16

But then the Ottoman empire was basically technologically

01:07:23

Europe advanced faster. And so they were not able to gain a foothold like they had before.

01:07:29

And then great Britain owns significant portions of the middle East and uses them as economic.

01:07:35

I mean, and that's who Israel got it from, right? Is great Britain. So it's like, there's always been this countermeasure, this counterweight since the crusades against Islam there to keep them contained, to keep them from doing that kind of thing.

01:07:49

And and now it really is Israel that and obviously some secular governments elements in some of these middle

01:07:55

Eastern governments, I suppose. But yeah, it's yeah, I can see that.

01:08:01

I can see that strategic bulwark, if you will. And anyway, yeah, people are free to disagree, disagree with that.

01:08:10

And I'm not trying to argue that again, my position is not the Jews are

01:08:16

God's chosen people. We have to do every single thing they right, right. But I do think

01:08:21

God will keep his promises. All of them. I think that's what Paul is trying to get that right. You're seeing this hardening right now happening.

01:08:28

You Gentiles don't get proud. God's keeping his promises. For one, his promises included you and that his church, which is

01:08:37

Israel. So I'm not making a distinction between Jews and the church. But for some reason, the people of Israel, the

01:08:47

Jews were well, they were cast out. We know the reason they rejected Christ. But at the same time, he's saying, you who are part of the church, that can happen to you like you could easily resist

01:09:01

God. I mean, and so as the gospel goes forth and it went to the West and Western civilization is great.

01:09:09

I mean, what are we doing? We're in many cases where some of the nations are in the process of doing the same thing

01:09:15

Israel did rejecting Christ, and they'll be cast out to. And so let's not be proud about it.

01:09:22

But I also think God will keep his promises and his promises is that they'll be saved as well.

01:09:29

And I'm thankful for that. I pray for that. I think we're supposed to pray for it. And we can work towards it, right?

01:09:36

Send missionaries. They need the gospel. They don't just need our vitriol.

01:09:44

I feel like people, maybe it's just I'm getting old, dude, but I've been Jew peeled for so long, it just doesn't take up much space in my head.

01:09:56

I get it. They've done a lot of wicked stuff. There's Jews that are doing a whole lot of crazy stuff.

01:10:06

We all know George Soros and others that have done wicked stuff.

01:10:11

Yeah. But they do it because they're able to, because they're also enabled by all the wicked white people as well, right?

01:10:22

Unless you believe in Jewish superiority over white people, then—

01:10:28

Well, I'm told by a growing number of people online that Jews are—not only do they not exist, they don't have a connection to the ancient

01:10:37

Israelites, but they are actually European, which would make them, I would think, high -achieving

01:10:43

European peoples, in which case I don't see why the people are having a problem with people who complain about it, you know?

01:10:51

That's interesting. Anyways, we're getting way off. We're getting off topic. I'm sorry. I know. I know. But it's good banter because if you're in the

01:11:00

X world especially, you see these crazy things all the time. That was helpful, I think, in understanding more of the post -millennial perspective.

01:11:08

I know I learned from you more because I have not studied this deeply. I've not read a book on post -millennialism, even though I have some on my shelf that I need to.

01:11:17

I've just had a lot of friends who have made that conversion, and if you—maybe conversion is the wrong word, but they've adopted those views.

01:11:27

So I think it's worthy of understanding, and it's something to take seriously.

01:11:33

I think all these eschatological positions are—and hopefully the audience understands that—that I'm trying to treat every view with reverence because I think there's smart, good, and godly men who hold each of these views.

01:11:44

I don't look at post -millennialism and say—even though I go to a church that's pre -millennial.

01:11:49

It's probably like your dad. It's like John MacArthur, dispensational, which I'm now realizing is not really—it's definitely leaky.

01:11:57

I'm seeing that more and more because it—anyway, the dispensations at Darby and stuff, I was like, we never talk about this.

01:12:04

We actually think more covenantal, but anyway. That's kind of my background, and I'm used to that, but I don't look at you and say,

01:12:15

Joseph Spurgeon's way out to lunch. He's a heretic because he's post -mill or whatever. I think you're grappling with the same things, trying to understand what is hard, apocalyptic literature.

01:12:25

So thank you for helping us understand better. Appreciate it. And I think God's working. Everybody has a caricature of dispensationalism, too, in their mind, and it still exists in many places, for sure.

01:12:39

The character does exist for a reason. But MacArthur and others, they've moved quite a bit.

01:12:47

There's the progressive dispensational guys that they're even being like, no, we don't have to support everything

01:12:54

Israel does. We don't have to do that. I even saw Michael Brown, who's like messianic

01:13:00

Jew, say that. Were you allowed to talk about him? Yeah. He just said, yeah, none of this means we have to support everything

01:13:08

Israel does. Now, he may say that and then turn around and do that, but it's good to see there's progress being made there.

01:13:17

Yeah, I think so, too, and I think it's a unique situation that brought about that kind of thing.

01:13:25

It's just mostly in the 80s. You do have Zionism, and a way to justify it was look at these crazy stories coming out of the

01:13:33

Middle East of the Jews destroying countries bigger than them. And I have to admit, and I said this with Dr.

01:13:38

Fuller on the program yesterday, that, man, there's a resonation

01:13:45

I have when I hear the stories because they are miraculous sounding. And you have to sort of almost suppress a view that obviously

01:13:55

God's involved because his providence is everywhere. But you have to sort of cool that view of thinking that God has a special relationship with modern

01:14:06

Israel because it's just natural, I think, when you see their military conquest.

01:14:12

I'm sure you are familiar with some of that history. And it's fun to, especially as guys who like military history, it's just fun to read about.

01:14:20

So anyway, I'm now waxing long, but I want people to check out your stuff, Patriarchy Podcast, iTunes,

01:14:27

YouTube, where podcasts are. And then you can check out Dr. Is it

01:14:33

Dr. Or is this Pastor? I'm just Pastor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but your last name is

01:14:38

Spurgeon, which I think is like honorary PhD. I guess I get honorary doctor because of that. Right.

01:14:44

It's the Sovereign King Church of Jeffersonville. Check it out. God bless. Thanks, Joseph. Thank you.