End Times Made Easy

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In Matthew 16, Jesus chastised the Pharisees who could interpret the appearance of the sky but failed to interpret the signs of the time in which they lived.

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Who are the Pharisees of our day? This strong hold of sort of whiteness and white identity and pristineness is really part of what keeps us from making progress.

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We need to do better. The Church, rich in theological scholarship, has lingered in academic sanctuaries and ivory towers, failing to translate its lofty doctrines into a tangible and practical cultural apologetic.

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At the Worldview Youth Academy, we bridge this critical gap. Here, theological depth is not an end in itself but a means to engage with contemporary cultural issues for the glory of God and the expansion of his kingdom.

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Our mission is to cultivate thinkers who can articulate and apply Christian truths within contemporary societal challenges.

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So embrace this call to worship God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your mind.

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We will do better as this next generation tears down the idols of our modern culture and works to build a brighter future toward Christendom 2 .0.

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Is he hung up on me? Yes! What? What?

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What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Right. Don't go into the world and make homies.

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Right. Disciples. Yeah. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke,

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Pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him,

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Proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

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That's Acts 28, 30 through 31. What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Apologia Radio, End Times Made Easy.

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Excited about this episode. It's just you and I today. Very excited about this episode, important stuff. This is

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And so we're going to jump into the episode today. Wanted to talk today about eschatology and the reason why is not only, as you all know, is this something near and dear to my heart and something that I think is vitally important to get right.

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There's something that's Pastor James used to say many, many years ago, and that was theology matters because it does.

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What we think about God, what we teach about God, what we say about God matters a lot.

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It transforms everything. And I have said, not only does theology matter, but eschatology matters.

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And that is, eschatology is, it comes from two words, eschatos, logos, and we're talking about the study of last things.

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It matters a great deal because your view, your perspective of the future is going to be transformative in terms of your own personal life, how you view the future, how you work and labor for the kingdom of God in this world, or you don't, how you view your children, your grandchildren, the investments you put in them.

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Eschatology matters a lot. And just give you one punch on that, just so you can think, what does it mean by that? You know, there's been a number of times, you can bring quotes here ad infinitum, ad nauseam of Christian leaders talking about the world in such a way that it is just this throwaway that we lose down here.

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That is something that Dr. John MacArthur, whom I love and genuinely respect, probably responsible for my true conversion to Christ, Dr.

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MacArthur is, bringing me the truth about the gospel. So I love the man, and he is just a giant of the faith, better man, better pastor than I'll ever be.

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And I genuinely mean that. But he has a perspective that we lose down here.

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The church loses down here. And you have people who have said things like, why bother polishing brass on a sinking ship?

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Like why rearrange furniture in a burning house? Like what's the point? Because the church loses down here.

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The kingdom of God is, you know, it's not something that's going to be victorious in this stage of church history.

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We need the second coming to come back. We need the rapture to happen. We need all that stuff to take place. And other than that, we're just going to get beat down as the church.

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And you know, if you think that way, you'll live that way. If you think that way, you'll plan that way.

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If you think that way, you'll build that way. I mean, if we truly believe that the ultimate thing, the ultimate thing, is to escape from this physical world, this sin -cursed world, to get to this better, higher spiritual story out there, like if that's really the goal, if the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is something that really has to do with going there, out there, then we'll live like that's true.

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And by the way, welcome to Gnosticism. Gnostics believed in a portrait of the world like that.

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Like this is this sin -cursed world that's been sullied by sin. God would never sully himself with a physical cosmos.

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And so the incarnation taking on flesh is not something that took place. The Gnostics would decry that, like how could you even say that God would sully himself with physical form and physical flesh, you know?

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And so they had this higher spiritual story out there, that that was really what you wanted to attain to, get out there. And so if we think like that, if we think that this world's just a throwaway, the best thing to do is just to leave behind our underwear and shoes and get taken out of this place, then again, we'll live like that's true.

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That will affect how we live in the world as the church. It affects how we view cultural decay and darkness in the world around us.

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I mean, honestly, if you tell the team, I guarantee you we are going to lose this game, then they'll probably play like that's true, right?

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Like if we say there's no way we're winning this game, it's impossible to win, we are destined to fail in this game, then the team's going to play like that's true.

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But you know, if we believe what scripture teaches about the future, and I hope to give you some examples of that today, if we agree with what scripture says about the kingdom of God really being something that God brings to this world to bless this world, this life, this world, then it's going to change how we actually face darkness and decay in the world.

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If we believe that we are the salt and we are the light, and we believe that it's the meek who shall inherit the earth, if we believe that Christ is ruling and reigning now, and that the earth will be covered with the knowledge of God like the waters cover the sea, then we're going to approach things in a very different manner.

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So eschatology matters. And I want to just say as a caveat, this is important. I recognize completely that even right now listening to this program, there are brothers and sisters in Christ that are solid believers in Jesus, solid, godly brothers and sisters in Christ who don't agree on the issue of eschatology.

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And what I'm going to say to that is that that's okay. We can have unity in the midst of diversity on this issue.

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We can hash these things out and have rigorous debates on them lovingly and with unity. But what's really cool about this question of eschatology, and I truly delight in this, what's great about this question of eschatology is that what you do have in the midst of diversity in eschatological positions, whether it's a dispensational pre -mill, a historic pre -mill, amill, or post -mill, what you do have even in the midst of those differences is you have this unity of the faith in terms of the future.

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And that is that Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead. There will be a full and final resurrection of the dead, that there is going to be a final judgment and a complete and total restoration of all things.

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And we're unified on that. And so while some of this discussion is important, it impacts a lot, it impacts how we read the

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Bible even, these become lenses through which we read the Bible, traditions that will actually cause us to miss things that are right there in the text.

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While it's vitally important, the great thing is that the Christian church is unified, has been unified throughout her history on the issue of the end, ultimately, and that there is going to be a doing away finally of death and that there will be total and complete victory in one way or another at the end.

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But it's getting to that place that is the part of dispute amongst

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Christians, right? We agree, we're unified on the essential element of the end, the second coming, final judgment resurrection, we're unified there, and the church always has been.

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But it's getting to that point that is the portion of dispute. This is where the debate takes place.

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And I want to say that this is a vitally important subject. It's important, but it shouldn't divide us as Christians.

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I'll give you one good example. I have a great, great friend, a man that I truly honor and respect so much.

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His name is Pastor Brian Gunter, and he's a pastor of a church in Louisiana.

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And we've worked together closely. We've served Christ together on mission together closely.

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Bill of Equal Protection in Louisiana, the historic bill in Louisiana that not only went to hearing for abolition, but it made it past the hearing onto the floor.

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First time in the history of Roe versus Wade that that took place. So it was historic. Everybody was talking about it.

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MSNBC, CNN, ABC, it was all over the news. We had major political players contacting us privately, trying to get us to kill the bill and not do it because they were terrified of it.

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But that was me working alongside Pastor Brian Gunter and just a handful of other Christians and pastors.

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I mean, literally a handful to get that bill into place. Well, Pastor Brian and I, we are so, so, so close in practical application of so much of the kingdom of God and so many of the important parts and elements of the gospel.

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We are so close. But also at the moment, because I think he's becoming a post -millennialist. If you're watching this,

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Brian, it's coming. But at the moment, he is more of a classical premillennialist.

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But at the same time, he acknowledges so much of what is core to post -millennialism.

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He's like, well, that's just true. But the point I'm making there is, look, he's classical premillennial,

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I'm post -millennial, and we still love Jesus and serve God together. And in tremendous ways, and I respect and honor him as a brother.

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So my point in saying that is, you're going to hear me saying today, maybe some things that bother you are ruffle feathers in terms of if I say,

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I think this isn't true or this contradicts the text. I don't want you to see that as me saying as a minister of the gospel and as a fellow believer, that somehow

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I think that you are less or that there's something high and better and mighty about post -millennialism or that I'm looking down at you.

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There are far better men of God than me that hold to different eschatological positions.

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That doesn't mean that they're right because they're a better man of God. The question is, what does the text say?

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Now, this is also an important subject to talk about right now in particular, because we've come into this place in waves.

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It happens over and over and over again. And what I mean by the waves is that there's been moments even in my own short life,

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I'm 46 years old, in my life where I've witnessed these cycles where there's an intensity of conflict in the world.

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Maybe there's wars breaking out in the Middle East. There's all these different social woes and collapses, financial collapses.

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You can even bring us back. And I was just reminded of this today by Dr. James White. We were having lunch together here at the studio.

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I was just reminded of Y2K. And boy, do I remember that, man. I remember at that time,

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I was a hardcore dispensation pre -millennialist, and I was reading all the books on Y2K. I remember I was newly married, and my wife and I were doing some minor preparations just in case things fell apart with Y2K.

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And there's all this talk about the turn of the century and Christ's return. I was heavy into Hal Lindsey at the time and Tim LaHaye and all those guys.

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Eschatology and end times and rapture was something I talked about every single day. But my point is that I've seen this cycle, and you have as well,

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I'm sure, where things get super intense in the world. There's a lot of trouble, a lot of difficulty, maybe some disease, maybe some famine, maybe some wars.

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And everybody always thinks that that's their moment. This is my moment where I'm going to witness the rapture and the end.

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And I want to just say, you can do a short study of church history and see that we've been here again and again and again and again and again.

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It is not new to think that this is the moment, here's where it's all going to end.

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That's happened over and over and over again in history without question. 19th century was filled with that.

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You look at the genesis of a number of American -born cults that are now global.

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You can talk about, of course, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, Mormonism with Joseph Smith, Jr.

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You could talk about the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Some of these cults were born in the 19th century because there was this fervor at the time of end times.

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And of course, you have the Schofield Reference Bible. You've got all the things with Darby and the introduction of this really new, this eschatological novum, this perspective of a seven -year tribulation and rapture.

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That's new in church history. And that's 19th century stuff. And so we've been here before.

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And now what do you see right now? You're probably seeing it now. You look at the decay all around us with gender bending, with the destruction of the human family, and the profanation of marriage in our culture.

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You look at the collapse of our financial system, this insane debt, the funny money we have, the immorality all around us.

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You look at the fact that we've been invaded in the United States of America over the last couple of years.

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You look at just the moral decay all around us and even the danger all around us.

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I mean, boy, we could talk for days about the difficulties we're having in this country.

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I just was talking to my wife the other day about the sad, sad stories, the tragic, evil things that have happened with the girl we talked about recently,

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Jocelyn in Texas, this 12 -year -old girl that was going to a convenience store. And then she gets kidnapped by a number of illegal immigrants.

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And they terrorize this girl and abuse this girl and sexually assaulted this girl for two hours.

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And I'm sorry to say this, but I mean, this is the kind of thing that people see and go, we must be at the end. And then they strangled her and threw her into water.

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And that's not the only story coming out right now. There's a number of examples of just a suburban mom, five kids going out for her normal jog around her neighborhood and her being sexually assaulted and murdered just going out for her jog.

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You look at things like this that are happening, the gang violence, the evil, the destruction, the burning of cities.

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And people see this and they say, this must be the end. Or you look at the conflict right now between the

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United States of America and Russia. And you look at what's going on over in Israel right now. And you got the issue with Iran and China and North Korea.

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And everybody sort of looks at that and says, well, that must mean that we're on the verge of World War III.

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And it's the time of the end. And this is where it all goes away. And this is where Jesus is going to return. And I want to say, look, just pull this up on the screen.

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I didn't even pull any particular video, but just as an example, if you look at my screen right now, I just put rapture imminent.

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Why did I correct that? Spelled it wrong. But you can just, I mean, this will take, you can go down a rabbit hole for days with this one.

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And rapture is imminent. Is the rapture near? An urgent message for believers. The hour is late.

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Rapture imminent. Rapture imminent. I can tarry no longer. I'm at the door. It's imminent. Do you sense it? Rapture is imminent.

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Jesus is coming. This is for you. Rapture is imminent. Let's see here. Oh, there's us.

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And hold fast. Jesus is coming. Rapture imminent. Dream. The rapture is near.

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Jesus' return is imminent. And we are extremely close. Visions of imminent rapture. Invasion of the

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USA. I mean, we can go, look, just this, you can go down a rabbit hole truly. And just, it's never ending.

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And what I want to say to that is, as you look at these videos here, these are like, you know, like, you know, 42 minutes ago, a month ago, a week ago, eight days ago.

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Some of these videos. Same thing was happening 20 years ago. Same thing was happening 10 years ago.

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Imminent. Any moment. It's happening any second now. And you would see the same thing happening with like 88 reasons

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Jesus is returning in 1988. That was a best -selling book. A best -selling book.

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88 reasons Jesus is returning in 1988. And then fail. Faceplant. No, you're wrong. And we just keep going through this cycle.

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And now you've even got many, many preachers, pastors, even good pastors who are really taking advantage of the opportunity to say, hey, look, all of this chaos happening around us, it means that this is it.

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Like this, this may be the thing that leads to the Gog and Magog situation and all that stuff.

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And really what ends up happening is newspaper exegesis. Something you've heard us say a lot.

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And what that means is that we are taking the news of our current circumstances and what's happening all around us.

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And we're reading the Bible through our newspapers. Well, this stuff is happening around us. Let me go running to the

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Bible to see if I can find some way to fit this into the Bible's story. And I want to say that's not how we're supposed to be living as Christians or reading the

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Bible by taking our current circumstances and simply just like smacking that down on top of the text and seeing if I can read that through that lens.

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No, the Bible has a redemptive story and an eschatology that predates you and I and our circumstances.

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Now that story is behind us and it's fixed. It's objective, right? God put that down.

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He gave that revelation and it's a coherent revelation. It's a coherent story because it's one author and it's

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God and he's the perfect author and he's the perfect storyteller.

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And so what we should be doing is going to the story itself saying, what does that say?

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Irrespective of my circumstances and what's happening around me, I don't want to read this stuff into there.

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I want to say, what does this say? And I'll just say briefly and then get right into this, that my own personal journey in the area of eschatology when

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I was raised in the Christian church and so I really had no knowledge at all. And so the first Bible study that I went to was actually watching a movie at a youth group and that movie was some old, terribly done

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Christian film on the rapture. And so that was my first Bible study. It was on End Times.

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It was on the rapture. And so that's what I thought was true. I didn't know to question it. I didn't know to say, you know, what if Christians taught historically on this?

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And is this consistent? Is this a new view? I didn't know any of that. I just saw like, hey, I'm a professing Christian now.

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This is a Christian church. They're telling me that this is the skinny on this. This is what's happening. I got to believe this. And so when

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I went to Bible college, Bible college I went to was dispensational premillennial and studied all that.

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I was a fiend when it came to eschatology. You can ask my wife. And we were young and dating and then married.

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It's like, that's what I love to talk about. And for me, the transformation occurred because I started reading things in scripture that seemed to really contradict what

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I thought about the future. And it started to really challenge me that I'm reading things that are just not making sense with what

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I believe. And so I'll skip a lot of the points of the story, but I decided to go ahead and read the book of Revelation.

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Maybe not the best choice in terms of trying to get to the answer of this, but I did. I read the book of Revelation. I committed to read it once a day, every day for 30 days.

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And I remember by day four, I'm reading through and I closed it. And I thought to myself, something's not jiving.

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Like this is not making sense with what I believe because some of the stuff that's said in here is not being spoken to me.

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It's being spoken to them. And it seems like he's talking to them. And I started really saying,

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Lord, I'm just going to commit to letting the text speak and not reading what I was taught into this. And so I started reading the great tribulation passages and started saying, wait a second, like he's talking to them and he's making promises to them and he's guaranteeing them.

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And before you all die, all these things. And so I'm going, oh man, I'm really struggling here.

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It looks like this stuff is something that should have already happened or Jesus is a false prophet because these are pretty straightforward, direct prophecies to them.

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And thankfully, as I began to study this more and more, I realized that what I was seeing is something that Christians have seen from the very beginning.

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I mean, you can see Christians saying these things throughout church history.

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And I started to discover the perspective that I had believed was the eschatological novum, the new thing in history.

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And it wasn't something in church history that you found Christians teaching or talking about. I actually believed this new view.

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And so it was refreshing to finally just go to the text and say, what does it actually say?

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And it began to be very transformative in my life. And much of what you see seen through Apologia Church and Apologia Studios, there's a root that grows that tree.

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So if there's any fruit coming from Apologia Church in terms of cultural engagement and evangelism and those sorts of things, there's some theological things inside of us that grew this and produced the fruit.

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And one of those things that's inside of us as a church is our teaching on the end and eschatology and the kingdom of Christ and the authority of Christ in the world and the victory of the

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Messiah in the world. And so much of what we do in terms of our labor and our work and our ministry comes from this core theological perspective of the victory of the

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Messiah in history. And so it matters and it matters a lot. And so I'm just going to take you on a smattering today of verses on end times and talk about end times made easy today.

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But I want to just show you in terms of consequences. And I know, look, I want to just say to be fair, we've got to be fair here.

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I want to be just with my brothers and sisters. I don't want to malign people. I don't want to paint a portrait of Christians that is not in fact true.

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I want to say at the outset of playing this video, at the outset, okay, that this is like falling off a cliff the other direction in terms of like how eschatology matters and bad eschatology leads to some weird things.

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This is falling off the cliff. There are solid Christians who disagree with me on eschatology who do not fall off the cliff like this.

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So I want to say that ahead of time. I am not putting dispensational premillennial brothers and sisters into the same room as this guy.

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All right. I know there's a difference, but I do want to say eschatology matters. It matters a lot and people can get weird and I could play videos for days on this.

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Okay. I'm sure most of you already know that even if you're dispensational premillennial or you disagree with my perspective on eschatology,

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I think, you know, like, yeah, there's some weird stuff out there. But here is the third eagle of the apocalypse.

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The title of the video, if you want to see the whole thing, is the Antichrist Arrives Gangnam Style. All right, here we go.

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This is wild, guys, and I think we can all laugh at this. All right. Listen, don't defend yourself right now.

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I'm not challenging you. We can all laugh at this. And now I put this up on my page and people are like, this is like a spoof, right?

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This is not real. And the answer is no. This dude is definitely real. And so just get yourselves ready.

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So now let's look at the other big viral hit of the summer on YouTube, and that is Call Me Maybe. And there are four very significant phrases in this song.

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The first one is, hey, I just met you. This is crazy, but here's my number.

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Call me maybe. Let's look at those four phrases separately, and see how

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God is revealing to us the name of the Antichrist. Hey, I just met you.

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Now the I in this case refers to the Antichrist. And just meeting you means that he is revealing himself.

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This is the Antichrist's entrance into the end times. And this is crazy.

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That's the seven years of Tribulation. Remember back in Daniel chapter number 4,

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King Nebuchadnezzar goes crazy or insane for seven times.

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He lives among the beasts and eats grass. The beasts that he lives among are the two beasts of the

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Revelation, the Antichrist and the False Prophet. Those are the seven years of insanity, and this is when the

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Antichrist is going to reveal himself during those seven years. But here's my number, and of course,

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I think it should be obvious to you what the Antichrist's number is. His number is 666, and he is not talking here about a telephone number.

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He is talking here about his number of the beast which he is going to give to every one of us.

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That's what he means when he says, here's my number. And the last phrase is really the most interesting.

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So, call me maybe. Now, he is not saying call me on the telephone.

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What the Antichrist is saying here is, my name is maybe. Call me maybe.

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Now, what's interesting is that Nostradamus also called the Antichrist Mabus.

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Is there a connection between Mabus and maybe? So, these two words for the

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Antichrist... Okay. Wild stuff, right? Wild stuff.

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And again, I know this is falling off the cliff into some weird stuff, but it just does demonstrate that eschatology matters, because what would help this man is a biblical eschatology, and probably a lot of other things could be used to help this man as well.

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And yeah, he definitely needs a lot of help. But that's, I think, just an opportunity to point out that eschatology does matter.

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Things can get really weird. And so, we have to try to conform ourselves to Scripture and let

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Scripture tell the story. And so, to start, I want to just do this. We could do a number of ways. You could start in the Old Testament, which

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I think is vitally, vitally, vitally, vitally important to do. I think a lot of where people fall off a cliff into weird cuckoo lands of end time stuff is not only do they just proof text from the

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Bibles, they get in some crazy texts or God is speaking an apocalyptic language, and they go to that and they proof text from there, and they try to read their current circumstances into that.

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And so, people just sort of like run around the Bible proof texting, irrespective of the context and all of that.

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And so, they fail in that way. But I think many times Christians today will fail in the area of eschatology and having a proper biblically ordered eschatology, a meaningful, coherent biblical eschatology, because they don't understand the

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Old Testament. They spend the majority of their time in a New Testament, which isn't bad. I mean, it's all the

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Word of God, but they don't really, when they're reading something quoted in the New Testament, they don't go back to the

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Old Testament to see, okay, well, why is that being quoted? And what's the context? When Peter is quoting from Joel 2 at Pentecost, and he quotes

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Joel 2, how many of you have actually gone back to read Joel 2 to see where was he quoting from?

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Why was he quoting that? How does that make any sense with where Peter was in time then?

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Why does that matter then? And who was being spoken to? And what are those threats being made in Joel 2?

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What are those threats? Who are they for? Because you'll see people today quoting from Joel 2 as though it applied to us, but Peter's quoting it then and says, this is that which was spoken of by Joel the prophet, and he quotes from Joel.

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And so I think the problem is we're not actually allowing the revelation of God and God's redemptive story and his eschatology that he's laid out for us, we're not letting it actually speak in full.

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We're proof texting random verses and saying like, oh, here's the man of sin, and there's going to be wars and rumors of wars and famines and pestilence and plagues, and then we're reading our current circumstances and going, that's speaking to us.

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When in reality, we should be saying, no, let's go back and say like, what was the story that was anticipated to be fulfilled in Jesus' day?

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And why is everybody freaking out? Because Jesus has now come, the Messiah has come, and there's all this talk about the kingdom of God throughout the gospels, and that's what

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Paul is left with in Acts 28, 30 -31, is he's proclaiming the kingdom of God.

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What is all of that? Why is that meaningful to them? Why was it such a big deal? And why does it matter so much to call

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Jesus king of kings and lord of lords? There's a story here. And so I think one of the ways we'll do this, because again, you could start in the

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Old Testament and just let that run, but I want to just show you the inspired apostle sort of summarizing eschatology in a short passage.

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So I think this is one of the best ways to do this, because if our eschatology doesn't fit what

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Paul summarizes in 1 Corinthians 15, then I think we have a problem. And there's a way to tell if your eschatology fits.

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I mean, you could basically take what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, I've said this often, and just write it down, get a white sheet of paper and timeline it and say, does my eschatology fit into this?

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Yes or no? And I think that will do a lot to help us to see where do we need correction in our eschatology?

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So in 1 Corinthians 15, famous passage, I love 1 Corinthians 15. It starts off in verse 1, it says,

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Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word

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I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

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And then he, of course, mentions all the people that Jesus appeared to, and then finally to him. Now, that's how he starts this discussion of the good news.

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And it's a beautiful, you guys all know the amazing portion of the passage where he talks about how he appeared to all of these multiple eyewitnesses.

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He's essentially saying, look, if you don't believe me, Jesus is raised from the dead, go ask these people. Some of them are still alive today. I love that in terms of the historicity of the

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Christian faith and the witnesses, the eyewitness evidence and testimony. But as he goes on, he talks about the resurrection of the dead.

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Some people are denying that the dead will be raised. And so he confronts that false teaching, and then he gets to verse 20, and here it is, in terms of timeline summary.

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But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. The firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

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For as in Adam all die, and that's consistent with Paul's teaching in Romans 5, he says, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

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But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, then it is coming those who belong to Messiah.

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Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God, the father, after destroying every rule and authority, every authority and power for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

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The last enemy to be destroyed is death. So there's the summary. And what do we need to get from that?

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According to Paul, what he sees is that Jesus has been raised and he's the firstfruits and we will be raised when he returns.

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Now, what he says is that he is going to destroy every rule, authority, and power. And he says he's going to put all of his enemies under his feet.

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And what's he doing there? He's quoting from Psalm 110 .1. If you didn't know this, you've heard me say it a lot.

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For those of you guys that have been with us for many, many years, you've heard me say this a lot, that it's been said that Psalm 110 .1

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is God's favorite Bible verse because it's the one that's most quoted from or alluded to in the

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New Testament. So it's God's favorite Bible verse. We say that often. It appears to be because it's used the most in the

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New Testament revelation. So that's Paul quoting from Psalm 110 .1 saying that he must reign until all of his enemies are placed as a footstool for his feet.

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And then, well, what's interesting here is he says that he must reign. So for Paul in the first century after the resurrection and ascension of the

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Messiah, he is seated on his throne now and he is reigning now.

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And that's critical in this discussion of eschatology. You may not understand, I think, how important that is in this discussion of eschatology because there are eschatological positions and beliefs of Christians who will say, well, yeah, the

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New Testament says that Christ brought that kingdom, but it's now and not yet. And what they mean by that is now, but not really.

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What they mean is that we're actually anticipating that Jesus is really going to bring the kingdom later.

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You see, that kingdom, that rule and reign that the Old Testament describes in vivid detail as conquering, victorious, the blessings of justice and righteousness in the world, all of that.

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People will say, clearly God says it's going to happen with Christ's kingdom. And so that really comes later.

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That's not really happening now. So they'll say it's now and not yet. And like I've said often, you just heard me say it.

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What that means really practically for them is now, but not really. He's not really reigning and ruling now.

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But Paul says here that he must reign. He's reigning now. So he puts

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Jesus on the Messianic throne, the Davidic throne. He has Jesus reigning as the

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Messianic king in the first century when he penned this. When he wrote this, he has

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Jesus reigning then. And what he says is that he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

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So for Paul, Jesus is reigning now on the Davidic throne, and he must continue to reign like this until all of his enemies are a footstool for his feet.

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So again, timeline it. Reign all enemies under the foot of the Messiah. And then this is what

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Paul says. The last enemy, after all enemies are under his feet, the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

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Now, again, you just take Paul's summary here of Christian eschatology. He has

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Jesus raised. He has Jesus reigning. And all things are put under his feet.

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Every enemy is going to be defeated and put under his feet as he's reigning. And then finally, the last enemy will be death.

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So in terms of this discussion of post -millennialism, amillennialism, pre -millennialism, one of the important verses in this or sections is the inspired apostle summary of eschatology right here.

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And he doesn't have Jesus coming later to reign. He doesn't have this, we lose down here perspective.

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He says that he's reigning now, and he must reign until all enemies under his feet as a footstool for his feet.

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And then finally, when all those enemies are under his feet, then the final enemy death will be defeated.

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That's what the apostle Paul says. And what's, I think, powerful about that, the simplicity of that, is that that is essentially the summary of the old

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Testament prophecies of the kingdom of God. You got to get that. And in just a short burst,

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Paul summarizes that Old Testament story of the victory of the messianic king in this world.

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And so much of eschatology is really wrapped up in your view of the kingdom of God.

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Did the Messiah, Jesus, actually bring the rule of God into the world?

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Is that what the New Testament authors taught? Is that what Jesus taught? Because if it's true that he did, then those promises of the messianic kingdom from the

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Old Testament, they're a current thing, right? There's so many prophecies of what the world was going to look like in this world through the

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Messiah's reign. Those things are happening now. There's so much more that is coming in terms of the blessings of those promises and prophecies.

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Those all enemies are not under his feet yet. And so it's not like, my friend says, it's not like the kingdom of God is taught in to be like the 82nd airborne falling out of the sky and just sort of obliterating everything.

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The Old Testament and the New Testament talk about the kingdom of God as something that is small to large growth, whether it's

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Daniel's prophecies of the four kingdoms, and then the Messiah's kingdom arrives like a stone cut out of a mountain, something small, then it rolls and it fills the entire earth and it's a mountain that covers the earth.

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Or whether it is Jesus talking about the rule of God as a mustard seed that becomes a large tree or talking about it as leaven and a lump of dough, the scriptures are clear.

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It is something that is progressive in history. It is something that grows. Another example, let's just do this as we jump into the

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Old Testament, is Isaiah 9. This is a favorite verse, I think, for all of us on a number of levels.

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It's the verse that's always on all our Christmas cards, right? It's also the verse that talks about the blessings of the

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Messiah's reign in the world. To that verse, it's Isaiah 9, my favorite Old Testament prophet,

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Isaiah. Isaiah 9, verse 6, you know it, but I'll read it.

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For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called

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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

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Now, this is beautiful because here you have a monotheistic Jew who believes that there's only one

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God, saying that there's someone coming who is a child and a son, so it's a human, and yet this child and son, this human, is

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Yahweh? I mean, this is like 700 years before Jesus, written by a

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Jew who believes there's only one God, and he is giving revelation that there is a child and a son, a human being who is coming, who is

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El Gabor. He is the Mighty God. That's an exclusive title of Yahweh. There's only one

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God, and yet the son and child is God? That's who's coming as Messiah?

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And it says, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. Okay, so there's that reign, there's that rule, there's the governance of this

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Messianic King. Now, here it is again. In verse 7 of Isaiah 9, it says, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

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There's another example. You could take Daniel's examples, you could take Christ's examples of the small to large growth, but what

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Isaiah is saying here is when the God -man rules, there is going to be an increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

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And so that's clearly progress in history. The rule of Messiah is going to be something that increases in governance and peace, there will be no end.

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It just grows and grows and grows. And here it is again. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the

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Lord of Hosts will do this. Take that for the days that you feel like it's all terrible and we're all going to lose down here.

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It's the zeal of the Lord of Hosts that will do this. God's going to do this. It's on God to do this, not us. He will accomplish his purposes.

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But there's more promises there. This is the throne of David. This is the rule of the Messiah. He will establish it with justice and righteousness, and there will be progress with it in history.

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And that makes perfect sense, again, with Paul's summary in 1 Corinthians 15.

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Paul's summary, he must reign until all of his enemies are under his feet as a footstool for his feet. And then finally, death is put under his feet.

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The death that Adam brought in. And so again, the Old Testament promises really are emphasized in terms of the future.

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They're emphasized through this teaching of the rule of the Messiah, the

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King, the rule of God in history. And what you have, and again, this is a standalone episode.

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We can't do this comprehensively, but we have in the Old Testament is you have from the beginning of the

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Torah to the end of the Tanakh, to all of the revelation of God, Psalms, prophets, the law, all of that.

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What you have is this consistent theme that God is going to redeem what has been put into slavery.

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God is going to restore all these things, but he's going to do it through this Messianic figure, and he's going to do it through this

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Messiah's reign and rule in the world. So that's why when Jesus comes in proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, everybody's freaking out over it.

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The kingdom has finally arrived. The rule of the Messiah that God promised where there was going to be salvation in the world.

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The nations were going to come to God. The knowledge of God was going to cover the earth like the waters cover the sea.

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He was going to have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth. That's arrived now, salvation, the nations and justice and righteousness filling the earth.

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That's good news. That's good news of the rule of the Messiah. And the reason they were so excited about it is because they had their

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Old Testament. They had God's revelation in history of what was going to happen when the Messiah came into the world. And so starting in Genesis, you see the promises just start to get dropped and then they grow and then they expand and there's more beautiful displays of what this is going to look like.

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And so, of course, you can start even in terms of the victory of the Messiah in Genesis chapter three with the crushing of the head of the serpent and the wounding of the heel of the

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Messiah. You have that portrayal of the Messiah's victory over Satan and what

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Satan brought into the world. And then the story moves forward and you get into the story of Abraham and the promise to Abraham is what?

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That he's going to have a limited number of descendants? That there was only going to be a minority of descendants in terms of earth's history of Abraham?

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No, the promise to Abraham was that Abraham, you're going to have descendants as numerous as the stars. That's a heck of a lot of stars.

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And Abraham, you're going to have descendants. It'll be like the sand on the seashore. That's a lot of sand.

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It's a lot of sand. Like I've said, if you've heard me talking about this before, for me, the beach is my place.

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That's my place of just peace. If I want to rest and relax and just have everything refocused on God and be able to get into a place where I can come alive again after maybe difficult fights or whatever in the world, for me, that's just taking in God's glory at a beach is amazing.

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And then sitting on the sand. You dip your finger in the sand and look at your fingertip. It's so hard to count how many grains of sand that are right there on just a fingertip after dipping it in.

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And God says, well, this is how it's going to be with your descendants, Abraham. It's going to be like the sand on the seashore. It's going to be like that.

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That's a lot of descendants. Well, that's in Genesis. The story is beginning and it does not sound like defeat to me.

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It does not sound like Christians are going to be the minorities in history. It sounds like the descendants of Abraham, which, by the way, if you are of those who have faith in Jesus, you are the true child of Abraham.

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That's what that promise means and refers to. It's through Christ. And we are descendants of Abraham's heirs, according to the promises through faith in Jesus.

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And so that's a heck of a lot of descendants. It's a whole lot of transformation. But then you get again to Genesis again, 4910.

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It says that there's one who's coming. Some translations say Shiloh, and it says unto him shall be the obedience of the nations.

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All right. So there's the promises, crushing the head of the serpent, descendants like the stars in the sand. And this one who is coming is going to have the obedience of the nations.

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That didn't sound like defeat to me. It sounds like a victorious king, a victorious rule, a victorious reign in the world.

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And if you have any question as to whether that was the goal of the great commission and the gospel, then just simply look at the apostle

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Paul. How does he interpret it? In Romans chapter one, in Romans chapter one, as he opens up with this lengthy opening in his letter in Romans chapter one, he says in verse five, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.

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What's he doing there? He's essentially quoting from Genesis 4910, to him, Shiloh shall be the obedience of the nations.

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And Paul's saying, as he opens up his systematic explanation of the good news, he says in verse five, he's just started it, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.

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That's Genesis 4910. That's what Paul thought he was in the midst of, that the nations were going to come into the obedience of the

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Messiah, because that was the story, right? That was the story is that this is what was going to happen through the reign of the

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Messiah. So I've always liked to point this out because I think it's compelling. That's chapter one.

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That's the start of the letter of the book of Romans. And as you move to the last chapter of Romans, sorry, newish

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Bible here, guys, beautiful Bible, newish one. As you move to the last chapter of Romans, that's how he ends it.

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Same way. He says in verse 25 of 16, he says, now to him who was able to strengthen you, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all the nations, according to the, listen to the word here, command of the eternal

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God to bring about the obedience of faith to the nations. This is a command of God, a command of God, a command of God to bring about the obedience of faith to whom all the nations, what is that?

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Genesis 49, 10, at least there's more than that, but at least that. And so again,

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Paul's summary in first Corinthians 15 is, is just a bullet point of what the

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Old Testament taught about the Messiah's kingdom. Now we could do this for days. We really could.

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You have Daniel 7, 13 through 14. He says, he's looking at the night visions.

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He sees one like the son of man, Jesus' title for himself in the gospels. And he came up to the ancient of days.

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The son of man comes up to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And then it says there without question that this son of man is presented before the ancient of days and to him is given what?

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Kingdom, glory, and dominion. All the peoples, tribes, nations, everyone's going to come to serve him, worship him.

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And his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. Now, I can't help, and I hope you can't help, but see the ascension of Jesus there.

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In Matthew 28, 18 through 20, Jesus says all authority in heaven and on earth that day, that day he said on earth has been given to me.

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Jesus believed he already had it. He wasn't waiting to get some authority. He wasn't waiting for a crown.

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He wasn't waiting ultimately there to reign in some future thousand year literal millennial kingdom.

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In my mind, Jesus said, then before he ascends all the authority in heaven and earth is mine.

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So where did we ever get the idea that we're waiting to see it or waiting for it to really happen? Jesus said he already had it.

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Why do we think that Jesus needs to come to establish this Davidic throne here on earth? When Jesus said he already had all the authority, right?

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He has it today. Now he had it then. And someone says, well, but it doesn't look like it. Um, that's because the kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven is within you.

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It's not like an earthly kind of kingdom. It's not like the kingdoms we are typically accustomed to see here. And that's what makes it so glorious.

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It's more mighty and more powerful than an earthly kingdom. And yet it's within you. It's not like you see normally in earthly kingdoms, but Jesus claimed he already had that authority in heaven and on earth.

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And so he says on that basis, because I have all authority in heaven and earth, he says, therefore, go, therefore get the nations, baptize them in the name of the father and of the son of the

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Holy spirit and teach them to observe all that have commanded you, teach them to obey me. And then

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Jesus ascends Daniel 7, 13 through 14. He is that son of man who comes up to the ancient of days, and he has a kingdom which will never be destroyed.

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That's a central theme for throughout the old Testament. And it is in the new Testament picked up and just affirmed.

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It's just affirmed. And so you have passages which we've already done, like Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, progress in history, justice and righteousness in the earth.

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You have promises, beautiful promises. This portrayal in Isaiah 2 is glorious where the nations are going to stream up to God's mountain.

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They're going to be drawn up to God's mountain. And it says as these nations stream up to God's mountain, that the law, the

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Torah is going to go forth from the people of God. So the law of God's going to be a constituent element of blessing to the world through the kingdom of God.

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But it's as the nations come up to God, he's going to bring the nations. You have passages like Isaiah chapter 42.

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I wanted you to see that one today too. And this is just one of my very favorite. And I think that there's two passages that ultimately convinced pastor

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James in terms of an eschatology of victory. And I think of course, Psalm 110 .1

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and beyond. But then Isaiah 42 was a big one for pastor James as well, because I don't think it could be clearer.

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And I think it was challenging for him to say, wow, that's progress in history. And that is unavoidable.

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Isaiah chapter 42 says, behold, my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights.

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I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations.

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That's why the gospel of the kingdom is good news of the kingdom. He will bring forth justice to the nations.

01:00:06

He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make a herd in the street. A bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.

01:00:12

He will faithfully bring forth justice. And here it is. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law.

01:00:26

That's powerful. Now that's also progress. He's not going to grow faint or weary until he's done this, until it's accomplished.

01:00:34

And he will faithfully bring forth justice. The coastlands wait for his law. That's why it's good news of a kingdom, right?

01:00:41

It's powerful. And it matches, it matches everything you see in our

01:00:47

New Testament in terms of the understanding of messianic kingdom. And so we could do this a lot more.

01:00:52

You can go into the passages in the Psalm, Psalms. Psalm 110 is a key one.

01:00:58

You can do Psalm 72. You could look at the Passion Psalm, Psalm 22, where the families return to worship

01:01:05

Yahweh. You could look at Psalm 36. It's the, it's not the evil who inherit the earth.

01:01:11

It is the meek who inherit the earth there. We can do a whole discussion on that and how

01:01:17

Jesus does that in the Sermon on the Mount. Essentially quoting from Psalm 36.

01:01:23

Sorry, I didn't sleep last night. Twins. Psalm 36 is what I recall it being. Pretty sure that's right.

01:01:30

I'll check that in a moment here. But the expectation was salvation, filling the earth, the nations coming to God, justice and righteousness in the world.

01:01:42

And there's so many other passages, so many other passages, but I would just hang there for a little bit in terms of that's the story of the

01:01:48

Old Testament. It's picked up by Paul there. An aspired apostle says, this is what God's going to do. But what

01:01:56

Paul says is we're there right now, that he's reigning on that Davidic throne, the

01:02:01

Messianic throne today. And he must reign to all of his enemies are places of footstool for his feet.

01:02:07

And then the final enemy is death. So death will be defeated after every other enemy is defeated. All enemies, then death.

01:02:14

All enemies, then death. That's where Paul says that we're going. Now, the question then comes down to just this simple question, and we're not going to expand in great detail on this today, but I just want to put this before us in terms of we already know this.

01:02:32

We're already supposed to believe this as Christians. The challenge comes down to, do

01:02:38

I really believe what I say I believe about this? And we could do this a lot through the

01:02:43

New Testament. But the question is, did the New Testament authors through inspiration believe that Jesus was the

01:02:50

Messianic King and that he had actually brought that kingdom? And you could do this a number of ways.

01:02:56

You could look at Matthew chapter three, John the Baptist comes in the first words out of his mouth, I repent for the kingdom of heaven.

01:03:01

That's the kingdom of God is at hand. Then you move into Jesus, the temptation.

01:03:08

Satan is offering Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. Why is Satan offering Jesus that?

01:03:13

Because that's what the Messianic King came to get. And what Satan does as a temptation, as a trial for Jesus is,

01:03:20

I know what you came for, Jesus. Here's all the kingdoms of the world. They're supposed to be yours, and I'll give them to you if you just worship me.

01:03:30

So think about what that means in terms of general human temptation, right?

01:03:36

You can avoid all the pain. You can avoid all the bloodshed. You can avoid all the whipping, all the scourging.

01:03:42

You can avoid the crown of thorns. You can avoid death and this brutal death. You can avoid all of that.

01:03:48

You just bow down and worship me, and I'll give you the world that you came for. And Jesus, of course, shows that he is the perfect humanity and the perfect Israel, the true and perfect Israel.

01:04:00

You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him only shall you serve. Amen. And then as soon as Jesus comes out of that trial in Matthew chapter four, it says that he's proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

01:04:14

That's what he's teaching. And what I've often challenged us on is, do we even know what that means?

01:04:23

Like if you were to ask the average evangelical on the street today, what is the gospel of the kingdom?

01:04:29

Could they even answer it? Could they answer it? Because that's what Jesus was proclaiming. So clearly he's proclaiming the good news of the kingdom to people who understood why it was good news.

01:04:40

Now, why did they understand why it was good news? It's because they had their Bibles. They knew what the messianic promises were.

01:04:47

They were eagerly anticipating their fulfillment. Now Jesus comes, we're looking back at that fulfillment today, but that's why it was a big deal to them to say, what the kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven has arrived in you.

01:05:01

And Jesus is proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. Now, again, you can go to Matthew 28, 18 through 20. Jesus already says he has all authority in heaven and on earth and on earth, not just in heaven today.

01:05:10

But then you see, and I started the program today with Acts 28. Just a simple verse,

01:05:18

Paul's still alive. He hasn't been executed yet. Acts ends sort of abruptly, like he's there uninhibited.

01:05:24

He's able to preach with boldness. And he says, he's proclaiming the kingdom. He's proclaiming the rule of God.

01:05:32

He's proclaiming the messianic kingdom. He's saying, what about it?

01:05:38

You know what his teaching is on Christ. You know what his teaching is on Christ. He's ruling and reigning now.

01:05:45

That is what Jesus is doing. He's reigning today. He is the ruling and reigning king. And that's how you have him finishing in Acts 28, is that he's proclaiming the kingdom to them as a present reality.

01:05:58

If you have any question as to whether he thought it was a present reality, just read him in 1 Corinthians 15.

01:06:03

He is reigning now, putting the enemies under his feet. So he did teach and believe that the kingdom of God was a present reality.

01:06:12

And he was really ruling and reigning now. So you have those examples in scripture.

01:06:18

Then you have, of course, the Lord Jesus in Matthew 12. This is a key one. It was a key one for me to really challenge me and my eschatology, because I was,

01:06:27

I think like many Christians, I would say, yeah, he's king of kings and Lord of lords today.

01:06:33

And yeah, he's the king today, but like, not really. Like he's coming later to be that real king. And, you know,

01:06:40

I believed in the now and not really. That's where I was. And in Matthew 12, there's a key passage here that really messed me up.

01:06:50

And I hope it messes many of you up. In Matthew 12, 25, they're of course, accusing

01:06:58

Jesus of casting out demons because he's working with Satan. Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

01:07:11

And if Satan casts out Satan, he's divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?

01:07:20

Therefore, they will be your judges. But here it is. If it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

01:07:38

Let that sit for just a minute. Meditate on that. Because I know you've probably, like me, read it a million times.

01:07:43

You know that verse. Like you were sort of in your head, just saying it with me. And you didn't even have your

01:07:49

Bible open because we know it well. But Jesus challenges them on the convoluted thinking.

01:07:57

And then he says, if it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

01:08:06

If, then. So let's ask the if question.

01:08:12

Did Jesus cast out demons by the spirit of God? Yes or no?

01:08:19

Yes. So a positive, an affirmative there. Jesus says, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

01:08:30

So according to Jesus, the evidence that the rule of God had broken into history was the fact that he was casting out demons by the spirit of God.

01:08:39

And so Jesus did believe that he had brought the kingdom, that it was a present reality.

01:08:46

Paul taught that Jesus was reigning now, and puts that Psalm 110 passage as a current reality.

01:08:53

And then there's more though. There's so much more. And the simplicity of like texts like this, that we all know, we all understand.

01:09:00

In Revelation 19, 16. We all know these.

01:09:07

We're familiar with them. It says on his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written.

01:09:14

Apparently, Jesus has a tattoo on his thigh. People are going to hate me for that. But it's written on him.

01:09:22

Just joking. It says, king of kings and Lord of lords.

01:09:29

And we say that often about Jesus today as Christians. And you've heard me say a million times,

01:09:34

I'm worried that it's nothing more than a pithy slogan for us as the church. Because we'll say it, but not act like it.

01:09:41

We say it, and we look like we don't really believe it. In terms of when we have a prophetic voice or an opportunity for a prophetic voice, to those in like power, like the government, legislatures, we act like, well, they're not necessarily under obligation to obey

01:09:57

Jesus. Whereas scripture in Psalm 2 says they are. And it's like a basic fundamental confession of Christians.

01:10:05

No, Jesus is king of the kings of the earth today. Now, he's Lord over all lords today.

01:10:12

Now, and I always say, look, why don't we as a church, why don't we act like that's true? Why are we so afraid to be bold and truthful about who actually is in charge here?

01:10:22

But this is revelation. Now, I would argue, and it doesn't really matter if you disagree on this in terms of the point

01:10:28

I'm making here. I would argue that revelation was penned by the apostle

01:10:33

John before the destruction of Jerusalem. I think there's excellent internal and external evidence to teach that, to believe that strong, strong evidence, internal and external.

01:10:44

I can't go into it all right now, but that's my perspective. I think that that can be demonstrated from the text, again, internally and externally.

01:10:52

I think that history shows some cool story here in terms of the apostle

01:10:58

John surviving, being the only surviving apostle that was able to witness the destruction of Jerusalem and die of old age.

01:11:05

The rest were just martyred. But Nero captured John, boiled him in a pot of oil, according to church history.

01:11:13

John didn't die. Nero was very superstitious, freaked out. So he sends John into exile to a place called

01:11:18

Patmos. That's where he writes revelation. Again, I argue that it happened before 70 AD. Many would actually,

01:11:26

I think on very, very bad evidence, a single line with ambiguous Greek in it, argue that revelation was written later during Domitian's reign.

01:11:34

Somewhere around late 90s of the first century. But all that to say, it doesn't really matter in terms of the dating of revelation.

01:11:42

The point is, whether it was pre -destruction of Jerusalem or post -destruction of Jerusalem, he has

01:11:50

Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords today. That's the

01:11:56

Messianic King. And one more scripture, and again, we're not giving a lot, just some to think about today in terms of end times made easy.

01:12:07

Revelation 1 .5, one of my very favorite. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth, the ruler of kings on earth.

01:12:23

Whichever way you take the dating revelation, that's first century. And it says that Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth today.

01:12:31

And so, and we could do a lot more. We probably will very soon. Questions arise about the tribulation, the great tribulation.

01:12:38

I've done an entire series on this where I've unpacked it verse by verse. I can't remember how long I took on it, but I believe that it was about a year and a half that I spent on the great tribulation in Matthew 23, 24.

01:12:54

I think it was a year and a half. And so I went verse by verse through the great tribulation, the Olivet Discourse.

01:13:00

You can go and look that up yourself. I won't repeat it all. Here, but I think maybe I'll do a summary show to talk about that.

01:13:07

My point is, and end times made easy. I think it centers around the issue of the kingdom of God. Is Jesus ruling and reigning now, today, as Paul says?

01:13:17

And if he is, then those kingdom promises from old and new testament are a current reality.

01:13:24

They are promises of God and they will happen. And if you believe those promises from the old and new testament about the victory of Messiah in history, you will have a very different perspective of the future in terms of the victory of Messiah in history.

01:13:38

You will view even moments of difficulty and challenge in your time in history as something that's going to be put ultimately under the feet of Jesus, right?

01:13:49

Post -millennialism does not teach that there's going to be a utopia all along the way to total victory.

01:13:54

It actually teaches the opposite, that as Christ puts his enemies under his feet, there's going to be challenges.

01:14:01

There's going to be difficulties. There's going to be growth. There's going to be sanctification in our personal lives and in the life of the church.

01:14:09

And so, but what we know is that those promises, God says he's going to do them. And Christ is ruling and reigning now.

01:14:16

He's not waiting to reign. We're not waiting for him to bring the kingdom. He brought the kingdom. It has arrived. It has arrived.

01:14:21

And he is reigning now. All the enemies are going under his feet. And so it changes your perspective.

01:14:28

It doesn't mean, again, that there's not going to be difficulty and trouble in the world. It just means that you know your place in it.

01:14:34

And more importantly, you know what Christ is going to do with it. And so it also gives you,

01:14:39

I think, a bit more of fearlessness of the future, because you're like, well, this all is terrible.

01:14:46

This kind of sucks right now. But I know the end of the story and I know who's reigning now. And I know what

01:14:51

God is accomplishing right now are his purposes to bring this entire world into subjection to Jesus before he finally defeats our worst enemy, death.

01:14:59

And that's where we're going. And how does he do it? He does it through his bride. It is through the church. He does it through the gospel.

01:15:05

That's how God transforms the world. So we should be like Paul in Acts 28. Preach it boldly. Proclaim that kingdom.

01:15:12

Proclaim his rule, his authority, his lordship. Proclaim the salvation that comes only through him. And hopefully we'll get like a moment like Paul.

01:15:21

We're doing it without hindrance. And so there you go, guys. There's a special episode on End Times for today.

01:15:27

I know we'd love to do a ton more, but I hope this has been a blessing for you all.

01:15:33

And I'm grateful for the opportunity to do this today. Wanted to highlight for everybody a couple of things.

01:15:39

There is a lot going on right now with end abortion now. And I got to tell you, we need your help.

01:15:45

We really, really need your help, guys. There are ballot measures happening across the country right now.

01:15:50

These are devastating. They are devastating. This is not hyperbole. When I say this,

01:15:56

I've said it repeatedly because I hope the church wakes up to this, that we are about to face the bloodiest and most brutal time of this

01:16:04

Holocaust we've seen yet. These ballot measures are legalizing abortion in the state's constitutions from fertilization until nine months.

01:16:12

And so it's not getting better in some places. It's getting far worse. Don't let the pro -life establishment delude you into thinking we have any one single abortion -free state.

01:16:23

We do not have a single one. Abortion is legal for mothers in every state.

01:16:30

Some states have abortion mills. We're still legal there as well. But it is legal as a gift on a silver platter presented by the pro -life establishment.

01:16:37

It is legal for mothers across the nation in every state to take the lives of their children themselves through DIY abortions and to do it with impunity and immunity that has been written to the pro -life establishment's laws, that all these things in terms of criminalization don't apply to the mother herself.

01:16:55

And so that's the way it is right now. But the good news is, the good news is, is that end abortion now.

01:17:02

Apology at church. Our work and the work alongside faithful Christians and pastors from other churches and organizations across the country.

01:17:09

We are all working together to get bills of abolition and equal protection into states across the country, and we are getting quite a few.

01:17:16

This next session is going to be big. It's going to be tough. It's going to be hard. We're talking about a number of states, whether it's

01:17:22

Arizona, Texas, North Dakota, Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia.

01:17:28

We have a lot of states, and I'm not even naming all of them right now. With legislators ready to go, ready to put those bills in, waiting for the legislature to open so they can put the bill in to abolish it.

01:17:39

And with that, I got to tell you, we are a smallish church in the desert.

01:17:45

And the work that God is doing through end abortion now, we are so honored to be a part of. But it takes a lot of hands and feet.

01:17:53

It takes a lot of... We need a lot of help. We need a lot of help. And we need money.

01:17:59

Brothers and sisters, it's not easy to do this.

01:18:05

It's not cheap to do this. And we're just a small ministry. And I got to say, I'll give all glory to God for this.

01:18:11

God is doing more damage to the issue of abortion and the establishment, and to bringing the establishment of justice for the pre -born through ministries like ours and other ministries like ours with almost no budget, pennies on the dollar compared to the massive multi -million dollar budgets of these pro -life organizations.

01:18:28

He's doing more damage through churches and Christians like us than those pro -life organizations have ever done.

01:18:35

And I mean that in terms of re -establishing the justice that is pleasing to God. But we do need financial help.

01:18:42

So if you would go to endabortionnow .com. Please help. We need your financial help. Of course, we need you to pray. Of course, we want you to get the free training and free resources so you can go save lives at the abortion mills.

01:18:52

But guys, we do need financial help. I... Oh, I'm so glad I remembered this. I am going to be in Cincinnati next week on September 26th.

01:19:05

I'm going to be in Cincinnati. Please pray for me. I have a meeting at noon with legislators from both states,

01:19:12

Kentucky and Ohio. Private meeting. Be in prayer. It's going to be Jason Storms, myself, and these legislators, because we have legislators committed to putting these bills into both states.

01:19:21

So we're bringing everyone together. Just pray that we can bless them and encourage them, help them, educate them, prepare them, and that they would also go with a bit of boldness because they've got each other from each state legislators.

01:19:32

So meeting with them. But I'm also going to be having a meeting again with pastors and leaders from both states,

01:19:38

Ohio and Kentucky at... I'm going to go ahead and give you the address here because I do not want you to miss it.

01:19:46

So this is going to be a 26th,

01:19:52

Thursday, 5 .30 p .m. I believe I got that right.

01:19:59

And it is Christ the King Church, Cincinnati, Ohio. Christ the

01:20:06

King Church, Cincinnati, Ohio. And 5 .30, I believe we're going to have some dinner before.

01:20:12

This is not going to be like the last time I showed up where we're doing more teaching and instruction. This is going to be a very intimate, hopefully, face -to -face round table discussion to talk about how we can work together as churches as these legislators put these bills in to establish justice in both

01:20:29

Ohio and in Kentucky. So this would be less preaching and teaching and more of us all talking together of how we can work as the church pastors and leaders to help actually bring justice for the pre -born as those bills go in.

01:20:42

So 5 .30, I believe dinner starts. Six o 'clock, we start the discussion together. I'm going to be there

01:20:48

Thursday, 26th of September. That's next week.

01:20:53

Cincinnati, Ohio at Christ the King Church. You do need to sign up for it, though.

01:21:00

You got to reserve your spot. And so what I'm going to do is we're going to put into the description of this episode the link where you can actually sign up to be there.

01:21:10

We do need you to sign up because we got to know who's coming. And we also are going to try to do dinner for everybody.

01:21:16

And so I need to know that you're showing up. And so please don't come without trying to RSVP first.

01:21:23

We really need to have your help with that. And so pray for that. Also, final words here. If you would, go to our sponsors.

01:21:32

And help out the work of Apologia Church through getting some great stuff from our sponsors.

01:21:39

One of my very favorite things, Ion Layer, IONlayer .com. Look up, as you've heard me say lots of times, look up the benefits of NAD, the health benefits of NAD.

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01:22:08

Ion Layer blesses us. So that we can continue the mission and the work that we're doing. Go to Apologia Studios store and buy some stuff.

01:22:16

And that's really all I'm going to do for today because I don't have everything in front of me and I don't want to butcher it. And so thank you guys for listening.

01:22:22

Please share this episode. Let everyone know about Apologia Radio. Sign up for all access. And we'll catch you next week right here on Apologia Radio.