Christian Nationalism, Amillennialism, and the Kingdom of Christ (Special Episode)

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Welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. Welcome to this special edition of the

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Rural Church Podcast. I'm your co -host, Allen Nelson. This week I sit down with Jonathan Murdock, and we talk about this new controversy, as it were, of Christian nationalism.

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We talk about the Amillennial perspective here and why we ought to recover

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Amillennialism in Baptist circles, or all of Christianity, really.

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But we try to be charitable and give you a helpful conversation here. I understand it's kind of long, but hopefully this will just be the first of more conversations.

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And you give us an opportunity to explain why we think our position is the right one and why we feel the need to lovingly push back on our brothers and sisters who hold contrary positions here when it comes to this.

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So we hope you're blessed, and here we go. Welcome to a conversation between myself, Allen Nelson, pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church, and my friend and co -laborer in the

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Lord, Jonathan Murdock, pastor of Trinity Church in Port Arthur, Texas.

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Jonathan, why don't you mention a couple of things about yourself real quick? Yeah, I'm Jonathan Murdock, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, as Brother Allen said.

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I've been here for five years. We're a bilingual congregation. We're a particular

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Baptist church here in Southeast Texas, deep Southeast Texas.

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And Allen and I and Perryville and then, by the word,

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Baptists in Azle, we're laboring together for the efforts of missions. And we're here today to have a conversation of just about something that's been on our heart, and we've been talking back and forth with one another and felt like we wanted to address some issues.

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Yeah, and this will go out on a couple of platforms. So I'll mention for your YouTube channel,

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I'm pastored here about seven years, almost seven years, and both you and I, I think the foundation, we're like -minded in many ways.

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And even you and I were talking before the show that, you know, there are things that Christians may not 100 % see eye to eye on, and that's okay.

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But honestly, you know, the vitriol and the back and forth and the blasting one another right now.

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And look, let's be honest. Our camp is, you know, well, we may be on an island, brother, but we're kind of like the all -millennial camp here.

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And what I'm saying, though, is all camps are guilty of it. And so, you know, it's not our desire to lob bombs or whatever, but we do want to have a brotherly discussion and even brotherly pushback of blind spots and areas that we see that we both believe need to be addressed.

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And so we're going to start out talking about sort of why is all this coming to a head?

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What do you see, Jonathan, as some of the causes of the

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Twitter wars right now, the conversations going on, you know, Stephen Wolf's book,

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Christian Nationalism? Why is all this coming into conversation? Why is this all coming to a head right now?

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Yeah, I think I think, you know, for me personally, and we're all going to have, you know, in our minds, different reasons, different angles that we're seeing this.

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But for me, what I'm seeing is, number one, we have a recovering in our generation, in our generations of the

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Puritan doctrines and, you know, a heavily influence of those doctrines and not their piety.

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And so I think there's some of that that's involved here. You know, I think and we'll get to that later, those definitions.

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But I think I think there's some of that involved here. And I think, you know, just for me, a couple of things.

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One, that you have this influence from, you know,

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Doug Wilson, Moscow, and the heavy influence that they have of post -millennialism.

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And the reality is they say so many good things about biblical manhood, womanhood, very attractive things.

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However, I see so many dangers, you know, me personally, and I warn the guys in my church, because there's an activism that can get you sucked in.

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And I think young men are very susceptible to that, that we got to do something.

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Yes, I know that, but we got to do something, got to do something. And they think that's the best way to carry that out.

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Another thing is COVID.

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You know, I think COVID made us deal with our points of view in the government, their reach, their rule.

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How they how how what is the extent of the government's rule? Can they tell us to meet or not meet?

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And and we saw a division really there, you know, even even in our own circles.

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Some guys are saying the government has the right to tell us not to meet, and some of them saying not doesn't have the right to tell us.

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You know, and I would add that I'm not post -millennial, so obviously

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I have some issues with post -millennialism. It's typically been a Presbyterian position, but, you know, apologia has helped mainstream that into the

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Baptist world. I've I've personally met Jeff Durbin. He probably doesn't remember you. I've personally met Jeff Durbin a couple of times.

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I've got nothing that I would say negative about Pastor Jeff.

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I'm so grateful for him. I'm grateful for I'm grateful in many ways for apology's influence.

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Dr. White has preached in our church. I love Dr. White, and I'm grateful for him.

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I know by his own admission, he is also post -mill.

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I just think that so, so, so you have the the

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Moscow situation, which, OK, that's their own thing. Then you have, you know, the

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Baptist, the popular popularizing of post -millennialism in in the

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Baptist world. And and then, as you say, I'm so grateful.

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That there's this reaction against covid and the lock, you know, like,

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I'm great. I'm grateful that it's not just like me and you having to be like, don't you guys see that that was wrong?

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That was an it's not right. Yeah. Like, so, like, praise God for that. And I'm so grateful.

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In fact, I'll say this. I feel like I welcome them more into my circle than sometimes they let me in their circle.

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Does that make sense? I think another thing I want to I want to add there with Moscow and Apologia is they put out so many videos.

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Yeah. Their media arm is for both of them is massive.

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And I think so many guys watch videos and that has become the means of understanding and learning.

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And I think there's a danger there. Yeah, I think I'll say this. I think it's a both.

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And so, like, I think someone asked, why are so many pastors doing podcasts?

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Well, can can there be some wrong in that? Yes. But it's kind of like asking, how come so many

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Puritans wrote pamphlets? Because that's what they had. Because that's what they had. That's what they had to do.

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And so and so I would not want I would not want the stoppage, as it were, of media.

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I think it's I think it's a net good. I think it's so helpful. So. So that's why

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I agree. It's good. But but I think you're right in the sense that you and I have talked about a person one time.

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It's like they got all their arguments, not from reading, like watching videos.

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And it was a very well -known apologist. And it's like this guy's doing conferences and stuff.

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Yeah. And I remember the day that I'm riding the car with him saying, you never studied this.

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Yeah. You know, and the argument was studying is watching videos. Yeah. I don't.

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So I'm not I'm not saying we should never watch videos. I'm saying it's just a problem when that's all we do.

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And I think those people that put out those videos, especially apology. And I'm sure I'm sure

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Moscow as well. I'm sure they would agree on that. Like, you know, all those guys read those guys read.

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Yeah, they read. That's why their videos are so good, because they they read. So anyway, but anyway, the point is,

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I'm not I'm not trying to lob bombs here. Yeah, I am trying to give brotherly pushback on the differences.

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All we're saying the discussions on the table because of that. Yeah. Yeah. And in a way, in a way, it's good that we're having this discussion.

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Yeah, sure. Right. And I would say in that we don't have a popular arm in the reformed

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Baptist camp. That's that has a media arm like that, that's pushing for the almost all male position.

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The best one is probably is probably Sam Waldron. And but and that's, you know, and that's no offense against Dr.

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Waldron, you know. No, no. If you listen to their podcast, all the young men aren't listening to it. Yeah, their media presence is not like the is not like the others, you know.

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So this is this is probably going to offend some people. But another one is Tom Hicks. Tom Hicks is doing some really good stuff with the two kingdom doctrine and opposing theonomy and just making some historical arguments and putting out some stuff.

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And he's close to me here. We've become friends over text messaging and stuff. But once again, his content is very good.

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But a lot of people just aren't aren't giving attention to it, you know. Yeah. Well, we have to we have to.

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And so. So. So let me give you now. So why are we having this conversation? This kind of leads in to another thing.

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We have to push back against the effeminacy of our culture. And that is even if you're listening to this and you're like, you know, the heart hardcore postmill or whatever, like, let us push back on that without you taking it as we don't think you're a

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Christian or something like that's absurd. You know, we're taking a doctrinal position. Yeah.

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And we're convinced from the scriptures of our doctrinal position. And we understand that you are, too.

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We just disagree. Yeah. And we need. And honestly, I think you I think we've agreed on this, like, even with the

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Aquinas stuff and all that, like, I wish we could. This is not very bad to say, but I wish we could convene a council, you know, but we need to be able to work out some of these things in a more charitable place than social media.

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But anyway, so I was going to say, like, the effeminacy of our culture, the transgenderism,

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LGBTQ, wokeness, all of that. Like, we feel so often like we're on the defensive.

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And so what you have is you have these postmill guys and these theonomist guys that are rising up and saying, no, no, no, no, we're going to take physical dominion.

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And so it's very, very popular. And I'm so and I am grateful that they're not like, we're just going to lay down and let this happen.

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Well, you know, praise God, because they shouldn't, because Christ is King. But I think there is a perspective that is minimized, especially on social media.

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And that is, you know, the all millennial, you know, two kingdom perspective. And so that's what we're talking about.

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Anyway, that's why we're here. So the popular. Let me give you another aspect of that.

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I was just thinking about whenever we were going through the COVID crisis thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and our church was meeting and we were given a warning from the mayor of Port Arthur saying that he was going to close us down and send police and everything.

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And and so we're meeting in the parking lot as police cars are lined up in our parking lot watching us, you know, and in the back of my truck,

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I have a street preaching speaker telling my people, hey, if they close us down, we're going to Walmart parking lot because it's open.

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Like we're going to finish our service over there because it's open. Right. So. It was constantly

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I'm having to restrain these young men in my church from blasting all this over social media.

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Yeah. You know, like, hey, look at this stance we're taking. And I'm like, guys, it's enough that we're just meeting as a church.

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And I think that's another issue is that. Part of this post -Mileno reconstructionism gives way to radicalism in society of, you know, making this revolution.

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And and I can remember having a conversation when John MacArthur and those guys decided not to meet.

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A couple of guys wanted to go on and blast John MacArthur on Twitter and call him a coward.

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I'm like, look, look at the last 50 years of his ministry. He's not a coward. Yeah. And so I think one of those issues that I'm struggling with in here is if you're not an activist and you're not.

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And one thing I hope we'll get to is in the confession. It says. It's lawful for someone to hold a public office.

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But that's not a demand of the scriptures. Yeah. And and so I think this idea of activism, if you're not going and running for mayor, if you're not putting up the guy running for mayor, then you're not being involving culture or confronting culture rightly.

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I just think that's wrong. Well, I think and that probably leads us to our next point. But like, I want to just say this.

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Like. In some of this, I do have some points. I think I have some meaningful points.

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Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But I also have some questions, you know, and I just I think sometimes when these questions are asked or they're just kind of dismissed, you know, and you're maybe made fun of even.

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But but probably a good place to jump now to some definitions, because I think that's what gets lost in this discussion.

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What do we mean? For example, you may not agree with this.

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This is where me and you may differ a little bit. But but given the right definition,

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I'm not opposed to Christian nationalism. You know, if it's given my definition, which which

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I would say a government, for example, let's just jump in and define Christian nationalism.

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If I were going to give a healthy definition, I would say a government that acknowledges

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Christ as king, that that is host to Ten Commandments, but but does not coerce.

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Coerce people or even have the power or even the stated goal.

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To win people into the kingdom. Yeah, because that's not the government's job.

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Like, so a lot of people are like, well, they should outlaw satanic temples. Well, if you're going to do that, you should outlaw the

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Roman Catholic Church. Right. And I believe that's coercion. But go ahead, brother. How are you defining

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Christian nationalism? Or or. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Let me let me give you let me support your argument there for saying

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I read a post today of a guy that was involved in a court case and he did something during COVID that I don't think he should have done.

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Well, it was the thing in Moscow. Right. So we might differ on this. We haven't talked about this. They went and sung hymns in front of the courthouse.

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I don't understand why someone would go sing hymns in front of the courthouse. I mean,

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I just I don't understand why. But he was wrongfully arrested.

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Yeah. Right. I mean, I do believe that. Right. But I'm reading through this post that he makes today and I'm like, under a theocracy, if you just change his sin to breaking the

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Sabbath. Then he's he it's the same issue.

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Like you can make the same argument by saying if we're if we're saying that you have to participate in Sabbath worship in a theocracy, that this is governed by the state.

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You know, if that's what we're saying, Christian nationalism is I'm way out. You know, if it's coercion, like you say,

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I'm as far out as you can be. Yeah. I was joking with you before the podcast, but I mean, like, you're a

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Texan. You can't get more patriotic. I'm from Gonzales from that.

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I mean, like, I'm on top of that. Come and take it. That's I mean, like, so I pastor a church of multicultural and multiethnicity.

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Right. We have people from 10 different countries here in our church and they come in my office and they're like, come and take it.

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Like, what are you trying to say here? What political statement you think? I'm like, that's my hometown. Like, I grew up where that happened.

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And so I'm patriotic. I mean, I am. And Alan, you and I have talked about this.

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I probably just have less concern about government issues than I probably should. I probably should care more.

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And maybe it was my time in Mexico that caused me to think, well, the government's just terrible and there's no hope for it.

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So why even bother? Right. Yeah. I probably shouldn't have that idea.

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Right. And I should probably take more of an effort. However, when

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I'm saying Christian, if we say Christian national number one, I don't like the term. And I hope

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I can explain like this. I think whatever we put Christian to. We must be cautious because if we're saying that that's redeemed in Christ, then nothing but people can fit there.

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Right. If if we're saying that whatever this is Christian and some people would say, yeah, what about Christian schools?

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I'm actually having this fight in my son's school right now is my son goes to a classical school.

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That's part of the whatever the classical group is. And there's some theology there that that I'm not

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OK with. And. And because it's interdenominational, they have some issues with different theological positions taught there.

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And I just made the recommendation, why don't you just not teach theology in the school and leave that to the church and the parents?

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And so I can understand the idea of not calling a school Christian. Because of the difficulty there.

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Right. I mean, I understand that. But if we're going to say if I'm going to say

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Christian nationalist. I would agree with your definition. If we agree that the nation doesn't have the responsibility to acknowledge

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Christ as. As Lord, well. The.

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Yeah, I do. Obviously, I do think nations will be held accountable. Governments, leaders will be held accountable because they have a calling by God.

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Yeah. We're not acknowledging Christ as Lord. But the idea of the adjective when we use

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Christian as an adjective. It's only as good as our doctrine of regeneration.

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And so, in my opinion, this is why. And I love my Presbyterian brothers.

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You know, look, when they throw us in the jail cell, they're not going to ask our view on baptism. Right. But I would say it makes sense.

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It makes sense in a Presbyterian system because their definition of Christian.

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And I don't mean offenses, but it's not directly connected to. Redemption.

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Regeneration is where I was going. But yeah, so it makes sense how you can begin to apply the adjective

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Christian to a thing like a nation. But this really gets us into.

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I mean, not that we've exhausted that, but it really kind of gets us into our thinking about the kingdom.

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And this is why I think, for example, I think two kingdom theology is the most biblical because it allows me to be a patriot.

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And to pursue further in the kingdom of Christ without trying to marry those two things.

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Sure. There's a beautiful passage in Colossians. The first three first four verses where Paul says, since you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above and not things on the earth.

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Right. And he says, for you have died speaking to the things of the world and your life is hid with Christ and God.

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And so he gets this clear picture of you're here, but you're dead to the world.

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And you're seeking the things that are above. Right. So I'm pursuing the things above.

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And then he comes back later in the same chapter and says, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as for working for the

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Lord. So he's acknowledging you're dead to this world, and yet you still live here.

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And I think that's my point in saying, I agree with your definition. If we're saying a nation isn't obligated to put in their constitution, we acknowledge

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Jesus Christ as Lord. Right. I'm OK with a nation saying we submit to God.

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We submit ourselves to even one another in this country.

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Right. And I'm thinking about it in the terms of, let's say, Chick -fil -A. If a Christian starts a business, does he have to put

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John 3 16 on the back? No. Right. Yeah, I don't think so.

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He can have a business where he sells chicken sandwiches and just sells chicken sandwiches. Yeah.

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Shout out to Madewell Electric. Yeah. And so I'm not saying

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I'm saying that from my perspective, these people are going to be held accountable because they should submit to Jesus and wicked men can't and won't.

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And they're going to give an account for that. Right. I mean, yeah, I think that and I do think that governments will give an account.

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Like, I do think governments should I do think that they should before God.

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You know, I think it's it's wrong for them not to acknowledge the one true God, you know, and I think they will be held accountable for that.

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But what but what I'm trying to what I'm trying to stay away from is the idea of, like, the big and I guess this is where we're going to define kingdoms, but yeah, probably cultural

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Christianity. Like, the idea here is, you know, we're okay with building cultural

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Christianity. And I'm like, well, no, I'm not. Because, you know, like if if if you saying, you know, a government acknowledging

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Jesus Christ as Lord creates a cultural Christianity, and that's a good thing.

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I'm like, no. And something else, too. Again, it's only as good as Christianity is connected to regeneration.

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So what? So what if you elect a Christian government? The next election cycle, you may not have a

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Christian government because it's only and you might have pretended. You know what I'm saying?

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So it's only Dr. Regeneration. And if you're trying to build, if your goal is to build cultural

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Christianity, like I'm out, like if that's an inevitable result of preaching the gospel at times.

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Okay, that's so be it. You know, you have the four seeds, you know, or the four soils,

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I should say. Right, right. Okay, understood. But if you're like, no, I want to build cultural Christianity, right?

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Yeah, I don't want to build that. Now, some people hear that saying, oh, you'd rather live in pagan land.

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You'd rather live under Joseph Stalin. You'd rather live in North Korea. No.

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Like, how could you be so uncharitable? Of course, I'd rather not live in those areas. And I'm grateful for the residual blessings that I've experienced because I have lived basically my entire life.

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You haven't, but I have lived my entire life in the Bible Belt. You know, you've experienced living life in Mexico.

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I've only experienced living life in Arkansas and then a year in Kentucky. Well, I'm grateful for the residual blessings that I've experienced.

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But my county has 10 ,000 people, and you've been here before. If 2 ,000 people are in church on Sunday, that would surprise me.

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Sure. Well, let's just say there's 2 ,000. And let's suppose, let's give them all the benefit of the doubt.

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Those 2 ,000 people that are regularly attending church, they're all 100 % believers.

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Right. Okay. So, I think 2 ,000 is too high, and I think 100 % believers is too high, but let's give all of that.

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Right. You're talking about where I live today in the heart of the Bible Belt. 80 % of the people are unconverted.

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Now, I'm grateful. Again, I cannot communicate enough. I'm grateful to God for where I live and the blessings

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I've experienced because of living in the Bible Belt. But these people, by and large, are bound for hell.

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They need Christ. And if the government came in today and said, we're restoring the

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Ten Commandments, all those things, that's not going to help these people. They need the gospel.

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Absolutely. And that's where we get to two kingdoms. Like, we have the kingdom of this world, society.

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And I know this is offensive, but I believe it. Society is inherently evil.

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Society is built on the heart of man. You know, I don't want to sound like the guy quoting all the philosophers, but even

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Plato realized it. And even Plato said, there is no justice in this world.

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Justice lies in the mortality of the soul. Justice lies in eternity. And the reason is because,

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I mean, you look at the story of Abraham and Lot. One of Lot's problems was that he was always setting his tent in a city.

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And when you gather big groups of people, more sin happens because there's more people.

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I'll take it back further than that. I was listening to a sermon the other day, and Brother brought out a great point in Genesis chapter 4.

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You have the lineage of Cain. And what are they doing? They're building culture.

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They have all these things. And the wickedness just grows and grows. But then you have Seth. And what does it say?

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It says, at that time, the people began to call upon the name of God.

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So you have the sons of Cain building culture. You have the sons of Seth calling upon the name of the

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Lord. And then you have, now we get in this, but however you want to take it, I think it's a viable interpretation that perhaps what's going on in Genesis 6 is those calling upon the name of the

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Lord begin to marry themselves with those who are so concerned about, right?

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So, again, I 100 % believe America exists today because of the

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Reformation. Absolutely. Going back to my position and me being a patriot because I'm from Gonzales, my name's

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Murdoch, and my family moved here because we were Covenanters. So my family came to build that Christian society.

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You know what I mean? Like, that's where I come from. The thing is, well, one, most of the time

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Baptists have been on the short end of the stick, right? Tom Nettles told me one day, you know, when he did the

30:48

Zoom meeting for us, we've always been separatists. Yeah. We have been.

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Well, and the other thing, too, is it's like, I don't know, it's like trying it time and time and time again, and it's never worked.

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It's never worked. And I understand. Here's the thing. People want to say, and I have some dear brothers, dear friends that want to say, well, you know, that's what we were, cultural

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Christianity. You know, that's what we had. And things were good in America. Well, I look back and I say, praise

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God. A lot of things were good in America. I wish I could go back in time in many ways, you know.

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However, I'm not trying to break Ecclesiastes there. But the point is, we need to think about some things.

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Even in the midst of cultural Christianity, they allowed slavery to continue on for however many years, however it is from, you know, if you want to say 1776, you're not official to 1865 or whatever.

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That's a long time. Another thing is cultural Christianity could not stop the onslaught of what we're facing today.

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Now, people say, no, no, that wasn't cultural Christianity. That's liberalism. Okay. What allowed liberalism to flourish?

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Cultural Christianity. Yeah. Cultural Christianity. Like, whatever you want to say, something else was brought in. Nominalism. That's right.

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Whatever you want to say was brought in, you have to say it was brought in to a system that was unable to defend against it.

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Why? Because we divorced the definition of Christian from regeneration.

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So it's my position, I'd rather live in a place that's culturally

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Christian than basically anywhere else in the world. For me, raising my family, all that, praise

32:47

God. Let's get this straight when you say that. I'd rather live there, not because of a biblical conviction, but because of comforts.

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Yeah. It's easier to raise my children. You can raise your children. You can preach at your church.

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You can do all these things. That's why we would say I'd rather live in a culture of cultural Christianity because of comforts.

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And I'll even go further. I do think there are blessings. Sure. But if you say, is that what you want to build?

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No. No. It's not what I want to build. Because to build that is to only set up again for collapse.

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By the way, I'm reading a book right now. It's very good. What's his name? Maybe Joseph Tracy.

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But it's the 1800s account, maybe mid or late 1800s account of the

33:50

Great Awakening. So the guy's going back and writing about the Great Awakening. Joseph Tracy, I think is his name.

33:55

Banner of Truth puts it out. Very good. Okay. But where did the Great Awakening happen?

34:02

It happened in the midst of, of course, it wasn't America yet, but it was the

34:07

American colonies. Well, it did happen in Great Britain as well. But the point is that there were people within the midst of cultural

34:17

Christianity, lots of people that were unconverted. And so what

34:24

I'm saying is my goal right now is revival.

34:30

Not as a goal, like if we don't get revival. The means of revival, not revivalism, but the means of revival are the weapons that I think the church should be employing.

34:46

What I mean is like preaching of the gospel, prayer, fasting, the gathering of the saints.

34:58

Like these are the weapons. And if we continue to try to marry the church, the kingdom.

35:09

Okay. Did we ever define two kingdoms? I was just in here thinking as you're saying that.

35:15

So two kingdoms. We have this present kingdom, which we live and we have the kingdom of Christ.

35:22

Both of them existing in the life of the Christian right now.

35:28

And when you talk about weapons, that's one of the things that I think needs to be pointed out. The difference between a two kingdom

35:36

Baptist and a Baptist post -millennial is that we're using different weapons.

35:45

And some of the people are referring to this as pietism, and I don't understand it. But I don't understand why we're getting tagged by that.

35:53

But by saying our weapons. So if I look at Psalm 2,

36:00

I've set my king on Zion's hill. Jesus Christ is sitting and reigning and ruling.

36:06

And he is breaking the nations into pieces right now with the rod of iron.

36:12

He's using his church to do that. And the gospel is the means by which he's breaking the nations into pieces.

36:21

So, as you said, we're using the weapons of the gospel, and that is the dominance of his kingdom.

36:27

And that's the extent of the dominance of his kingdom. Okay, let me read you this

36:33

Calvin quote. Okay. This is from his Institutes. Now, obviously, you need some context, but I'm just going to read the quote.

36:41

Tell me what you think. In short, since the church is the kingdom of Christ, and he reigns only by his word, can there be any doubt as to the falsehood of those statements by which the kingdom of Christ is represented without his scepter?

37:04

In other words, without his sacred word. Now, listen, I know. You're going to find

37:11

Calvin wonky on this, and I understand he's going to try to marry the church and the state.

37:18

I get that. And that's what Presbyterians—that's in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

37:23

It is. Until 1950, the magistrate had rule even over theology.

37:31

But Calvin's statement, as I read there, and I understand it's maybe out of context from his entire theology, but his statement right there, as is, is right.

37:43

The church is the kingdom, and the way that Christ rules his kingdom is by his word.

37:54

That's right. Not by the sword of the spirit. Not by the sword of the state. The kingdom of Christ must—it will be whether people acknowledge it or not, but it must be seen as distinct from the governments of this world.

38:16

Absolutely. And that's our point. And you and I have talked about this so many times.

38:22

The church is nothing more than the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is nothing more than the church.

38:29

So I know that some people hear that, and they're like, how can you say that? How can you limit the kingdom?

38:35

Whoa, whoa, whoa. The kingdom of God, even if we look at the Lord's Supper, the ordinance, says this is the blood of my covenant.

38:46

Right? So we're celebrating what he accomplished by his blood.

38:52

It is the people of God and people of God alone. And I love how

38:59

Ephesians—or Hebrews says it in chapter 2, in setting all things under his feet, he left nothing outside of his control.

39:07

And he says in the end of verse 8, you may not see it now, but you see him who for a little while was made lower than angels.

39:15

So we look outside the window and we say, how can he be reigning?

39:20

I remember when I first came to the doctrine of Amillennialism, that was my problem. I'm looking outside the window saying, how can he be reigning?

39:28

Look at this disaster. And Hebrews says, you may not see it now, but you see Christ. And the same thing

39:33

Paul says in Colossians. Since you've been raised with him, set your mind on things, and then you've died to the world.

39:40

And then he says in verse 4 there, so that when Christ, who is your hope, returns, appears in glory, you'll appear with him in glory.

39:49

And so our hope—I remember reading A Puritan's Hope by Ian Murray.

39:55

And I'm a huge Ian Murray fan. I've read almost all of his books. My oldest son's named after Ian Murray because he's such a dear brother.

40:05

But he gets A Puritan's Hope wrong. So he lays out in this book

40:10

A Puritan's Hope of this utopian society here on the earth.

40:16

And I remember I kept reading it and thinking, these revivals are great, but they faded. And look where we've come to now.

40:24

And I didn't see any scriptural basis for this. And saying, no, no, the hope isn't here and now.

40:31

Our hope is on Christ. And his eternal reign and our reign with him.

40:37

And that's what carries us through this life. Yeah. I laid out, you know, and maybe it's another definition, really.

40:46

I laid out, you know, four points of amillennialism. My brother in the

40:52

Lord, good friend, Dr. Jeffrey Johnson, has a book called The Five Points of Amillennialism.

40:58

I didn't really go off that. But just in my sermon, I had four points from Revelation 20. Right. And that is, number one,

41:05

Christ is reigning now. So this is the amillennial position. Number one, Revelation 20, one through six, we take as happening right now.

41:14

So Christ is reigning now. Secondly, Satan is limited now.

41:21

Now, the text says he's bound. Bound. And I don't mind saying that, but I use the word limited just to define what

41:30

I mean by bound. Because by bound, it's obvious. Look at what happened in the

41:37

Tennessee shooting. Terrible. Wicked. Satanically influenced.

41:44

I'll say clearly, the movements we have today of abortion and LGBTQ, satanically influenced.

41:54

No doubt. No doubt. But he cannot, Satan cannot stop the furtherance of the kingdom, the furtherance of the gospel.

42:05

Matthew 12, Jesus says, a strong man, you can't go plunder his house unless he's first bound.

42:11

Same word. Same word as in Revelation 20. Christ has bound the strong man.

42:18

Revelation 12, they've conquered him by the blood of the lamb. He's, amen, he's pillaging right in his face.

42:29

He is pillaging the nations. In my, well, let me give you, let me give you a third point.

42:36

The saints are ruling now. Amen. So, however one takes the first resurrection, actually, actually, so some homilies will take it as regeneration and some take it as, you know, when you die, you go to be with Christ.

42:49

But I actually think because of Ephesians, it's possible we can take those things together. What I mean is, in Ephesians 2,

42:57

Paul connects our regeneration with our being seated with Christ. Right. He says he's raised us up and seated us with him in the heavenly places.

43:05

And before that, he says that Christ is the head.

43:12

At the end of one, yeah. Yeah, at the end of one. In Ephesians one, yeah. And the same power that's at work in him is at work in us.

43:17

And he says he's the head and we're the body. Yeah. So we are the extension of the reign of Christ here on the earth, the church is.

43:27

Yeah, that's right. And so this is happening now. Not the government. The church is the extension of the reign of Christ.

43:33

That's right. And that's my last point there. The kingdom is advancing now.

43:40

Yes. And so you take these together, and I think that it honestly,

43:48

I think it gives the most optimistic view. It says that the church in North Korea, for example, or China, or pick anywhere.

43:59

Even America. America is militant, both militant and triumphant.

44:09

Exactly. And I want to make that point emphatically, because we're being accused of being pessimist.

44:16

We believe that the gates of hell are not prevailing now.

44:23

And we believe that gates are not an offensive weapon, but a defensive weapon.

44:29

So the one who's on the offense is the church. And we believe the offense that we're on is the conquering of the world with the gospel.

44:41

Yeah. Let's use a baseball analogy, but one baseball analogy

44:47

I'd use is this. The church is batting, and we've been batting for 2 ,000 years.

44:54

Now, every now and then, we get a strike called, and over the course of 2 ,000 years, maybe there's been an out that has been made, but we haven't been stopped batting, and we're going to keep batting, and we're going to keep scoring runs.

45:09

Right. Another baseball analogy I have is this. Base is loaded, ninth inning, the score is tied, it's bottom of the ninth, and here comes the church up to bat.

45:23

In the first pitch, the baseball hits the church right in the face, and spitting blood and teeth and knocked unconscious maybe for a little bit.

45:34

You think, well, oh, I guess you lost. Well, no, no, no. If you understand the rules, you just scored.

45:42

You just advanced. What I'm saying is to say that the suffering church is triumphant, is pessimistic, would be like saying the crucifixion is pessimistic.

45:55

Exactly. Now, Peter might say that. He died.

46:01

Yeah, but guess what? Mary says, where are they living? They stole his body. Yeah, but what I'm saying is

46:06

Peter says that. Peter tries to accuse Jesus of pessimism, and what does

46:11

Jesus say to Peter? Get behind me, Satan. Yeah, get behind me. You don't understand.

46:17

I think about it in the book of Revelation. All these missional guys want to say,

46:23

I want to be like the first church, and we read these letters that Christ wrote to these churches, and you read them, and it's like, bro, things aren't going very well.

46:34

You read what Paul writes to the Corinthians, and it's like, brother, that's bad.

46:40

Who wants to pastor that church? Some wicked days going on there, and so you have these seven churches or these letters written to, and it gives maybe what some would call a pessimistic view, and John's kind of like, oh, man, and then

46:56

Jesus says, but come up here, and he brings him up, and he shows him what's really going on, and all the saints worshiping at the throne of grace, and he says, it's not, you're not failing.

47:10

You're not losing the battle. We're going to the throne of grace, and you said this the other day in your sermon.

47:19

Every time we meet, we are plundering the house of Satan. Yeah, yeah, and that's why

47:25

I think another point about Revelation 20, why I think the all -millennial position is the most biblical, is that letter was written to encourage the churches.

47:36

In suffering. That's right, in persecution, so you look at Revelation 20, and you don't have the early church saying, man, it's going to be really encouraging to some people one day when they read this.

47:48

They're like, no, we're reigning now, and so some people say, let cooler heads prevail or whatever, but John says, it's okay to lose your head.

48:01

Why? Because lose your head for Christ. Why? Because you're already resurrected with Christ in a spiritual sense, but when you lose your head, your soul, there's no purgatory.

48:15

There's no holding cell. There's no soul sleep. You're with him. You win. You win.

48:20

My favorite part in all the book of Revelation, and I think a lot of this discussion and the work hasn't been done to look at it, but every section of Revelation is like a scene and a play, and what we see is the church in the midst of destruction, suffering, and being beaten and battered by Babylon and by the horses and all this.

48:44

My favorite scene is chapter 19, when all of a sudden, it's opened up that the whole time the church is in the midst of this suffering, he's seated on the white horse, gathering the church to himself, ready for his return and judgment, and so the whole time that we're suffering and fighting this battle in the world against Apollyon and against all his demons,

49:14

Jesus Christ is seated and reigning and using the church to reign, even though the world doesn't see it.

49:24

And that's where I think some of my post -millennial brothers try to equate the word nations with the word governments.

49:35

Right. Does it make sense? Yeah. Let me ask you this. We didn't talk about this before, so I hope

49:40

I'm not opening something I shouldn't, but we don't care, right? So you remember when you first came to the doctrines of grace and you realized all doesn't mean all?

49:55

Yeah, yeah. Do you see some of the post -millennials using nation in the same sense that the

50:01

Armenian uses pos? Yes, I think that because, and here's my argument, because I see people,

50:08

I saw Dr. Strand ask for some biblical proof texts, you know, that our mission is

50:16

Christian nationalism or whatever. And he was doing it very fair, you know, and his tweet was today, which was today,

50:22

April 25th. Oh, eight months till Christmas. Okay. So you can go look that up. But one,

50:29

I saw some replies, several replies that said Matthew 28, you know, the

50:34

Great Commission, because in the Great Commission, Jesus does say, make disciples of all nations.

50:43

Right. So two ways that's misread in my opinion, one, for nations to equal governments, two, for all nations to mean that every single individual or even the vast majority.

51:00

Okay. Because I don't, I want to be fair. I want to be charitable. And honestly, if I've misrepresented, you know,

51:06

I don't, we hadn't really talked about our pre -mill brothers, but if I misrepresented a position, you know, call me out on it.

51:13

It's not my desire to misrepresent. In fact, we don't really have good conversation if we misrepresent positions.

51:18

No, and maybe we should, we should do another show and invite someone on that would come from that position so that we can.

51:24

Yeah, that's right. Because I, because I don't want to misrepresent, but so they wouldn't, most post meals wouldn't say every person in a nation, but they would say, they would seem to suggest that we have the vast, a big majority.

51:37

And I don't think that's exegetically warranted from Matthew 28.

51:44

Right. Or any other text or Psalm 2. Yeah. That's not, I don't think that's it.

51:51

So in the same sense, you know, we have all these questions, what would create a majority to make the nation

51:58

Christian? I mean, you have all these doubts in my mind that rise up, but in the book of Revelation, every tribe, tongue, nation to be represented.

52:10

We're in agreement. That's what that means. Nation. Yeah. We're to go to all the nations and preach the gospel.

52:20

And so, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, like, the difference is,

52:26

I think the power of the gospel is displayed all the more beautiful.

52:32

The church is displayed all the more beautifully as this city on a hill.

52:40

Absolutely. And that is Christ power. You think, you picture some golden age where the streets are clean and there's no trash and the churches are filled and someone becomes a

52:55

Christian. And in that sense, they don't leave the world to become a Christian. They join the world.

53:01

And so, but I'm saying the power of Christ is displayed all the more beautifully as the brothels, as the church goes into the ditches and the drug dealers and the white collar crimes and preaches the gospel and sinners are converted and the house of Satan is pillaged right in his face and there's nothing that he can do about it.

53:27

Amen. So, I think that's one thing.

53:34

I forgot our train of thought there. One of the questions, you know, one of the questions that comes to my mind and that is the

53:41

New Testament is written to the church in persecution. Every letter, you know, right now in my church,

53:48

I'm preaching through Hebrews on Sunday mornings and James on Wednesday nights. And both letters are written to the 12 tribes in the dispersion.

53:57

And they're both written as letters of encouragement to the church in persecution.

54:03

So, one of the doubts I have, something I'd like explained is if we're supposed to have a theocracy and the kingdom of Christ is this gradual buildup of the lessening of that and the physical winning of the church of nationalistic governments, when do those verses not become real?

54:28

You know, Jesus says, they're going to hate you because they hated me. At what point does the world no longer hate me as the church because we've won the world?

54:39

Yeah, I think that's another aspect of all millennialism that I think is good.

54:45

And that is the New Testament seems to realize two ages. The present age and the age to come.

54:52

That's right. There's this age, this age, the church suffers, though, simultaneously is militant and triumphant.

55:01

Right. And in the age to come, she is fully and finally victorious with Christ reigning in the new heavens and new earth.

55:12

And so I think that there is always. So, for example, we can't ever picture an age where coming to Christ is something other than taking up your cross and following him or or hating mother and father or, you know, or more than Yeah, or, or, or where there's never an applicable time that all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted or or these are just coming to mind or that the reality of the

55:51

Beatitudes is not always. I mean, because here's what's happening in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the

55:57

Mount is a sermon about kingdom living, what it looks like. What does it look like for those who to live in the kingdom?

56:07

This is what it looks like. This is this is this is what our life looks like. Yeah. And the Beatitudes, none of the

56:13

Beatitudes are commands. The Beatitudes show what a regenerate heart looks like.

56:22

And so you think about that. Poor in spirit, you know, meek, mourning, meek, the hunger and thirst for righteousness, pure in heart, peacemaker and forgetting one there.

56:35

But the last one is what? Persecuted. Yes. For righteousness.

56:42

Yes. So how are we going to be persecuted for righteousness if righteousness is a standard of law?

56:48

Yeah. There's a passage that I love in Romans five. Therefore, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

56:58

Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

57:08

But for me, there gets there's you know, I think it was somebody asked Scott today, what is the end?

57:16

And he said... Dr. Anul. Yeah, Dr. Anul. And he said, the glory of God. There's nothing higher.

57:23

Right. So here in this passage, he says, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Right. There's nothing higher.

57:30

But listen, what he says in the very next verse. Not only that. That always baffled me.

57:37

You just said that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And then he comes back and he goes, but not only that, he says.

57:44

We rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance.

57:50

Endurance produces character and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

57:58

Holy Spirit who's been given to us. So here's the idea. What Paul's saying is in the midst of suffering.

58:06

They sing. They rejoice. They give glory to God. Why? Because they've set their hope on Christ and that hope doesn't put them to shame.

58:18

That's what Paul says when he says we've become like madmen in the world. Yeah. And the reason to become madmen is because we're singing, burning at the stake.

58:29

Well, and that leads me to another issue that I have.

58:37

And I put this out there and, of course, people push back. But I'd like you to weigh on this because this does have a historical context.

58:44

And that is I am concerned about post -millennial fallout, post -millennial depression.

58:56

Yeah. There is a historical context not, you know, with the Puritans, you know, not seeing post -millennialism play out.

59:07

Yeah. Like they thought. John Owen's the perfect example. I just read a biography by Crawford Griffin of John Owen, and he became the theologian of society.

59:21

I mean, I still can't even fathom that thought that people were looking to John Owen as the guy to ask the theological question of in society.

59:35

And, you know, he was he was in there with Cornwell. And all of a sudden it just crumbled.

59:43

And he went from being the chancellor of Oxford to pastoring this small church under the

59:50

Nonconformist Act. And it being illegal for them to meet together as a church and dealing with deaths in his church, people being killed by the government.

01:00:00

And it's like he fell into this depression. It's like he's struggling with his church members to say it didn't work.

01:00:08

And then he comes and he writes the glory of Christ, and I would encourage you if you've not read the glory of Christ, go read it in that context.

01:00:17

But he's saying. Can you read the abridged version? Yeah, don't read the Puritan paperback.

01:00:23

Read the real one. Buy the works of John Owen and read the one the big thick book in there. Right. But there's this quote.

01:00:31

I don't think I have it here with me. There's this quote that from Owen in the glory of Christ.

01:00:38

Let me see. I have it here. Let me read it. Let me read it because it's very good. He says this in the glory of Christ. There are two heads of the mediation of Christ in his kingdom, and this is their order, which they communicate into the church.

01:00:54

First sufferings, then glory. So he says two ways that Christ communicates to his church, one through suffering and then glory.

01:01:02

And he says, if we suffer, we shall reign with him. Second Timothy 2 12.

01:01:08

They do but deceive themselves who design any other method of these.

01:01:14

Some would reign here in this world. And we may say with the apostle, would you did reign that we might reign with you.

01:01:25

But the members of the mystical body must be conformed into the head. In his him sufferings.

01:01:33

We before glory. And so they must in them. The order in the kingdom of Satan and the world is contrary here in two.

01:01:45

First, the good things of this life and then eternal misery. Is the method of that kingdom.

01:01:53

So he says the kingdom of this world is the good things and then eternal misery. The kingdom of Christ is suffering and then glory.

01:02:02

Yeah, I know. I know. And I want to be charitable again. I know my post millennial brothers would say something to you, such as, look, your view is just too small.

01:02:14

Right. You've got to have a bigger view of time. And here's the deal. Again, I don't want to be disparaging.

01:02:19

But when I hear that, I'm going to use another sports analogy. Football. Two analogies. One, I'm an

01:02:25

Arkansas Razorback fan. You know, the Arkansas Razorback football. We've never lost a game.

01:02:32

We've just ran out of time. If we would have just had one more quarter. One more quarter.

01:02:38

One more half. If we would just play him again. Or I'm a

01:02:43

Dallas Cowboys fan. I know you like that. But hey, you know what year is a Dallas Cowboys year.

01:02:51

Next year. Next year. That's right. It's always next year. Right. And we've been saying that for 30 years and we hadn't won another

01:03:00

Super Bowl. But the point I'm trying to make is I think to look and just say, well, you just need more time.

01:03:06

We just got to add 500 years or a thousand years. Just have a bigger picture. I'm afraid that that minimizes what has happened the last 2000 years.

01:03:17

And that is in the last 2000 years, the church has not been defeated.

01:03:22

Yes, it's like any other kind of war, a physical war. You take World War II or something and you show a snapshot of American soldiers, for example, getting killed.

01:03:32

And you're like, well, see, they're losing. Like, no, no, no. They've won. They won.

01:03:37

OK, so you look at the last 2000 years of Christian history and you don't say, well, the church is lost.

01:03:43

No, the church is in militant and she's been triumphant. That's right. So we would look at our society today.

01:03:50

We look at theological society today and say, how long before there's another John Owen? Well, we're a long ways from that.

01:03:58

So we're going to have to have 2000 years to build. But the reality is he came and went.

01:04:05

I mean, those guys were successful in trying to bring this about.

01:04:11

And then it crumbled. Yeah. So that means like another thing

01:04:16

I think is helpful in these days about all millennialism. And of course, we share this with historic premillennialism.

01:04:25

But that is the church ought to be prepared for great tribulation.

01:04:33

You know, that's why I think rapture readyism, you know, that the not all dispensational.

01:04:41

OK, again, I don't want to mischaracterize, but there is a branch of dispensationalism that says we're getting out of here.

01:04:49

We don't got to worry about that. Well, I think all millennialism sees things the most biblically says there will be times of suffering and persecution, even even great tribulation and great persecution.

01:05:03

But again, as Owen has said, and I believe the scripture teaches suffering precedes glory.

01:05:12

And the church continues her fight. And so the kingdom. So my sermon that I preached recently was entitled

01:05:20

Physical Distractions to Advancing the Kingdom. Exactly. And I think that at times our brothers are who

01:05:30

I'm much appreciate for. I say that because I live in Twitter world sometimes where it's like people just feel like you hate them if you push back and like, come on.

01:05:41

But my brothers who I appreciate so much are distracted by building these physical things that the church has never succeeded in building.

01:05:52

The church has been victorious for 2000 years without ever being successful in creating a truly

01:06:00

Christian society. And you and you go back and you pick. Well, OK, what about the what about the 1700s?

01:06:06

You know, Great Britain again, slavery. Right. I mean, like. And it failed. Yeah, right. It didn't last.

01:06:12

Yeah. What did it end in? I mean, yeah.

01:06:18

When when they wrote the second London Confession, 1677, they're being taxed for meeting.

01:06:27

Yeah, no, that's right. We're experiencing some rain here and no one cares about this, but you'll care about it,

01:06:34

Jonathan. I don't have to I don't have to be done here in a minute. So we're the things I had to leave for were canceled because of rain.

01:06:41

So but but the idea is we don't go completely.

01:06:47

We're not saying we go completely. You know, earlier we're talking about pietism and, you know, we lump in there maybe, you know, extreme anabaptism or whatever, like like that's not that's not the position.

01:06:59

In fact, I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying stand. And I feel like I can

01:07:04

I can prove this by my own life. Not that my life is worthy. It's not. It's only by God's grace. But, like, stand in your street and preach the gospel.

01:07:15

Go to every door and preach the gospel. Yeah. Go to your magistrates and preach the gospel.

01:07:22

I've had contact with one representative who was not who opposed an abolitionist bill.

01:07:30

And I need to follow up with a phone call. I'm like, you shouldn't oppose that. Right. No, because you and I are both abolitionists in that in that sense that, you know, we believe that it should be a murder and it should be abolished.

01:07:44

And those who commit, you know, so I'm not saying like if you hear me saying retreat, like you misunderstand.

01:07:50

Because we've already won, because we are winning, because we are like, go and then if abortion never fully ends in America, you haven't lost.

01:08:04

No. And here's the other thing. This this hit me so hard. We did a conference here.

01:08:12

Fill the mill because we were going to the abortion clinic and anyways, we were provoked by the police and they were we had like five people from our church going once a month to the abortion clinic.

01:08:25

Well, like 17 police show up one day with all their crowd control gear on.

01:08:32

And I'm like, what are you guys doing here? And they said, we're here for the event. And I said, what event?

01:08:38

Well, you guys come once a month to the abortion clinic. I'm like, we're five people. Right. So it was a whole thing.

01:08:44

So I was like, well, if they want an event, I'll give them an event. So we did this deal called fill the mill. And it's what I was trying to work through some of this and how it works out.

01:08:53

And I'll never forget. We a brother preached here,

01:08:59

Brother Randall Easter. And he said, if you go to the abortion clinic and you hold up a sign that says babies are murdered here, you've done absolutely nothing.

01:09:08

And he says, why don't you hold up a sign that says repent and believe the gospel? Yeah. And it made such a huge point.

01:09:16

It's not the church's responsibility to end abortion. It's our responsibility to preach

01:09:23

Christ. Do we hope abortion ends? Yes. But is it our responsibility to end it?

01:09:32

No. Do we vote for bills to end it? Yes. Do we preach out against it?

01:09:40

Yes. But only as a mean to call people to repentance in the gospel. Right.

01:09:45

When you say it's not our responsibility to end it. Don't let me put words in your mouth. But when you say it's not our responsibility to end it.

01:09:52

You're not saying pull back. No. We're the church that went to the. Yeah.

01:09:59

Until it closed down, we're going once a month. I support bills. I meet with brothers about bills.

01:10:05

I preach. Well, I don't I haven't preached an abortion. I've preached abortion rallies in Arkansas, but I haven't preached at abortion clinic just because it's so far away in Little Rock.

01:10:17

I mean, it's not that far, but I just haven't done that. And some other brothers do that. But but but and I have done it with my friend

01:10:24

Michael Coughlin before in Ohio. So it's like I'm not saying don't go to the the abortion clinics and preach at all.

01:10:32

Like go preach, preach the gospel, preach the gospel to the magic. But but it's but what you're saying is the same thing, like it's not our responsibility to overturn the country.

01:10:43

Like if the like. So, for example, if you say. It is what whatever you say about the church, you have to be consistent.

01:10:52

And so you have to say the church in North Korea and the church in China, if you guys don't turn those countries around.

01:11:01

Then you're losing. You're losing and you're failing. OK, I'm saying do everything in our power to wield the sword of the spirit.

01:11:12

Which is the word of God. Preach the word of God. To all to the magistrates, hold them accountable to the law and gospel.

01:11:22

But if they don't turn the word, if it's preached, does not return void.

01:11:30

No. So. It's like someone asked me the other day when we go door to door evangelism, someone said from another church, is that are you finding success there?

01:11:43

And the answer is, yeah, I knew what they meant. You know, they meant baptizing people like, no, not yet.

01:11:50

But we're finding success. Why? Because Christ is king. King. And he is being proclaimed.

01:11:57

He is receiving the glory. And so so you brought up this point and I want to put it out there.

01:12:05

But you brought this point in a private conversation, and that is in the book of Acts.

01:12:12

You have the apostles. They have to get deacons. And the reason they have to get deacons is because they're giving to.

01:12:22

Primary duties. The apostles work. That is to study the word of God and the ministry of the word of God and prayer.

01:12:34

So I just need to understand how can we set those aside and pull in so much time for so -called nation building?

01:12:46

Yeah. Let me give an illustration. One day we were at the abortion clinic and we were attacked by these escorts at the abortion clinic.

01:13:00

Cops had to be called and all this stuff. They came in. And there's this huge 40 days of life people from the

01:13:06

Catholic Church out there. And so the cops are trying to say this is a dangerous situation for us.

01:13:12

There was a group opposing us pro -abortion. There's the Catholics over here. And then there's us over here with the speaker preaching.

01:13:21

And so the cops are saying we need to divide you up into groups so that we can better control you and have a look on all of you.

01:13:29

And he said, I want all of the pro -abortion people over here and all of the anti -abortion people over here.

01:13:36

And I said, no, no, no, no. We have to divide this differently. We need to put all the pro -gospel people over here and the anti -gospel people over here.

01:13:46

And he did that. So you had this group of Catholics and pro -abortion people stuck together.

01:13:54

And so you have all these pro -abortion signs around this big, tall statue of Mary. And somebody took a picture and I'm up on a table preaching to them the gospel.

01:14:05

That's our point. Yeah. The all -millennial position.

01:14:12

Do not misunderstand us, brothers, or please don't mischaracterize us, brothers. We are not defeatists and we are not retreatists.

01:14:21

No. We just don't believe that the promise to the world is governments.

01:14:30

Physical. Physical governments. You know, Christ is king. That's my politic, right? Christ is king.

01:14:36

Let the dead bear their own. It's not disengaging. It's not disengaging from politics.

01:14:42

Now, I will say this. I certainly and surely every side will agree with this. I, too, agree that politics for some on the left, for sure, obviously, but on the right as well can become idolatrous.

01:14:59

Sure. Okay. So, you know, for the people who are saying, like, Trump is equal to Christ, and I understand, mostly fringe, but they are out there.

01:15:09

Yeah. But we ought to vote conservatively, like I've told you before.

01:15:14

This might not have been true 10, 15 years ago, but now, like, if you openly vote for a

01:15:20

Democrat, you ought to be under church discipline. Absolutely. How can you vote for a party that is for the destruction of the nation?

01:15:31

So vote conservatively. Vote, you know, American values and all those things.

01:15:39

But, like, the kingdom that Christ is building is so much greater than a physical government.

01:15:48

Amen. And with that, I want to bring up two things that you might push back on this, and maybe so, if so, great.

01:15:56

One thing is when we're talking about the kingdom of this world, it is the beast.

01:16:05

So our position is in Amillennialism, the kingdom of this world is the beast that's constantly pushing against the church.

01:16:15

Yeah. Can I just quote something real quick? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm in agreement that because it says in Revelation 20, verse 4,

01:16:26

Then I saw thrones and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also, I saw the souls, by the way, not the body.

01:16:33

So I think the premillennial idea is misunderstood here. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God.

01:16:43

And so the martyrs and those who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.

01:16:57

So I'm just trying to say that's what we see is happening right now. Right. Those who die as martyrs and those who die having not worshipped the kingdom of this world.

01:17:12

Reigning with Christ. So go ahead. Sorry. I'm not pushing back on that one. No, no. That's one point is that the society is the beast.

01:17:24

All right. So I see this is when we speak of Christian nationalism.

01:17:32

If we're saying to that this nation would no longer be the beast.

01:17:41

I'm out because the Bible says that's what it is. Right. The society is not redeemable.

01:17:49

Right. And again, that's not saying you rather live under Joseph Stalin.

01:17:56

So that's the second thing. Yeah. The second thing. So the question to you posed the other day, would you rather live here or here?

01:18:02

So it's not about what I would rather live under.

01:18:08

Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't matter where I want to live. That's really the wrong question. It's the wrong question.

01:18:14

What is the biblical mandate? Right. What what is commanded in the scriptures?

01:18:19

What is what is the presented as the idea of scripture? And so if I was going to play on words and say, would you rather.

01:18:26

Right. Would you rather live in a cultural

01:18:32

Christian society? Where you're constantly battling the true

01:18:38

Christian idea against a nominalist Christian idea, or would you rather live in a society where there's few in the church, but faithful?

01:18:51

Yeah. Yeah. That's going to depend on where people's priorities are.

01:18:56

And I understand as a as a husband and a father, my wife's pregnant with our sixth child.

01:19:02

These are difficult things to wrestle with. But the but the point that you're making there is. That that Christ is building his church in the face of his true church, like like COVID again,

01:19:20

COVID is a result largely of the ineffectiveness of cultural

01:19:26

Christianity. Exactly. Cultural Christianity brought churches shutting down.

01:19:33

Yeah. You heard the so -called white evangelicals were the ones saying shut down.

01:19:44

Right. Your church in Perryville, did you guys close down? We stopped.

01:19:50

We did. And I repented publicly. You have to listen. Sermon in July of 2022,

01:19:57

July 24th, I believe. But but we did shut down for, I don't remember, like six to eight weeks where we just had online services.

01:20:05

We were wrong. And I know I know I'm going to make I'm going to ask something or something that might make you uncomfortable.

01:20:10

But I hope I hope you'll answer. If you don't want to answer, we can go to that. Yeah. But I know you.

01:20:17

Why did you stop meeting? We had we had pressure from people in the church.

01:20:26

Cultural Christianity. Yeah, that's right. I mean, that was the reality. Yeah. You know, and I'm not saying

01:20:34

I fault you. Okay. Well, in a sense, you should. And I did.

01:20:39

You know, I'm saying you're saying you don't fault me now, which I'm grateful. But but in a sense, like, I own that fault.

01:20:46

That was wrong. Right. But what I'm what I'm referring to is during that time, so many guys hadn't worked that out and resolve that.

01:20:54

And I said this to the guys in my church that wanted to blast everybody online. Right. I'm saying, look,

01:21:02

I took the stance that I did because I resolve that when I planted a church in Mexico.

01:21:07

Like, it doesn't matter. We're meeting on Sunday morning. I believe it's right. Right. Not saying that that wasn't the same resolve as you or these other guys here, but you just hadn't resolved that practically in a situation like that.

01:21:24

And so and so I told the guys in my church, give them some time. And what happened?

01:21:30

Faithful Brothers said, no, we ain't doing that anymore. Yeah. You know, Faithful Brothers saying I was wrong and not doing it anymore.

01:21:36

Right. But the pressure that brought that was cultural Christianity. Yeah. And I'm just saying,

01:21:42

I don't want to build that. You know, like that's not what I'm after. No.

01:21:48

I'm after advancing the kingdom of Christ as He will. And by the way, and this is interesting because a lot of this has to do with Calvinists.

01:21:59

In fact, I would guess 90 % or more, isn't it? Or probably have to be reformed soteriologically.

01:22:07

But it's like when you talk to these guys about evangelism and you say you're going out evangelizing, were you successful today?

01:22:18

They'll rightly say, Jonah 2 .9, salvation is of the Lord. Well, I would say the same thing about government, you know, laws or what, like it's of the

01:22:33

Lord. He builds nations. He tears them down. You know, He plants,

01:22:40

He plucks. And so, yes, like I'm going to preach the gospel.

01:22:45

I'm going to work in the kingdom of the world. I'm going to work in the opportunities

01:22:51

I have before me. And I'm going to preach the law and the gospel to magistrates and to teachers and to the cashiers and to the waitresses and to the poor and to the rich and all those, and then

01:23:04

I'm going to give a well -meant offer of the gospel, and I'm going to leave the results in the hands of our sovereign

01:23:12

God. And if the result, like, I'm not going to complain.

01:23:17

Like, let's say someone like Ron DeSantis becomes president of the

01:23:23

United States. I'm not going to complain. I'm not going to be like, man,

01:23:29

I really wanted a wicked dictator. No. And I would just say, brothers, like, please show some charity.

01:23:34

Like, that's not what we're saying. No, we're going to rejoice. And we're going to say it just became more comfortable for us.

01:23:42

I'm just saying, whether it's DeSantis or Biden or Kamala Harris, Christ is king.

01:23:50

Amen. And the church is militant and triumphant. And if it is DeSantis, the church is still militant.

01:23:57

Yeah. We haven't won anything. Right. Like, I said this in the

01:24:02

SBC last year when I went and I voted for Tom Askell.

01:24:08

I think Tom Askell should have been the SBC president last year. I think two years ago, it should have been

01:24:14

Mike Stone. Right. But the reality was, if Mike Stone or Tom Askell were elected

01:24:20

SBC president, there was no final victory. No. Because, like, in one sense, the battle was just beginning.

01:24:28

Yeah, sure. And so I'm just trying to say, like, I don't know.

01:24:34

I hope this conversation has been helpful. I'm not trying to go for third -way -ism or whatever.

01:24:40

I just think, and I hope that we haven't put ourselves on a little bitty island. But if we have to share a little bitty island,

01:24:46

I'm glad it's with you, brother. Amen. I'm willing to drink our coffee together.

01:24:52

Yeah. Hopefully they don't show up in 10 years and we've got two separate churches. That's it. But, yeah, that's what

01:25:00

Baptists do, right? Like, I don't want to divide. Like, these aren't the times to divide. I understand that.

01:25:05

But we do see dangers here. That's right. And that's the other side. So I'm trying to lay out the qualifications there.

01:25:13

I love my brothers. I want to continue being partners and partners in so many ways.

01:25:20

But I do see some dangers. And perhaps a lot of us are a lot closer than maybe the fringe sides say.

01:25:31

But I don't want to take away from the fact that if we end up marrying the kingdoms, that it's a mistake.

01:25:41

And it's a serious mistake. And I think that not only do I have biblical evidence, I think I have historical evidence.

01:25:49

I think Zwingli drowning the early Baptist. I think

01:25:55

Calvin. And, of course, again, I'm a big fan of Calvin. But Calvin overseeing, as it were, the beheading of Servetus.

01:26:07

Okay. And you say to me, but no one's advocating for that.

01:26:13

Look, I know you can't take the fringe guys. But I did have a guy tell me you should go to prison for hunting on Sunday.

01:26:22

You know me. There was a time. There was a time. And maybe you did, too. But there was a time that I hunted on Sunday.

01:26:28

But I don't do that. Yeah. You know, it's no big deal. I can do it.

01:26:34

But now I'm like, no, you shouldn't do that. So that's another problem is one sanctification isn't the same in everyone.

01:26:44

Justification is the same in everyone. Sanctification is not. Remember the parable of Sower. Some 30, some 60, some 100 -fold.

01:26:52

And so how can we demand Sabbatarianism? And I just preached it on Sunday.

01:27:02

You know, here at my church. I was in Hebrews 4 and on. I'm a Sabbatarian. Probably some would call me a legalist in that area.

01:27:11

But I don't even demand that in my own church. So I think progressive sanctification is a beautiful picture of all millennialism.

01:27:24

Exactly. Because progressive sanctification. And by the way, I don't have it in front of me.

01:27:31

But Herman Bavinck, I think it is in Volume 4, makes this point, too.

01:27:36

So this isn't just like some crazy, you know, Baptist guy, you know,

01:27:43

G .B .T .S. guy. Like, this is, I think, a historic idea for more than just us.

01:27:50

And that is progressive sanctification shows forth all millennialism because it's the already not yet.

01:27:57

We grow in Christ. We mature in Christ. But we don't have glorification until the return of Christ.

01:28:04

Right. I agree with you. Part of that Sunday, this

01:28:11

Sunday, I'm coming to the place. Those who have entered that rest, rest with God as He has rested. So the question is, if we've not reached that yet, how do we have rest?

01:28:25

You know what I'm saying? I genuinely ask the question. If we've not began to reign with Him, how then do we rest?

01:28:36

Rest in Christ. That's it. So the text says, if we've entered that rest, we rest as He rested from His Word.

01:28:47

And so we're not saying that we're sitting around doing nothing. But our soul is resting on Christ, and we don't need anything else.

01:28:57

Yeah. I can look out the window and not see it. So another point that I want to bring up, civil obedience is not an act of worship, of religious worship.

01:29:11

Right. Let me give you an example. So we're talking about this here on church on Sunday, a few of us.

01:29:17

And one of the guys is like, I sped on the way over here. I just wasn't going to make it in time.

01:29:23

So I had to speed. The question is, did he sin?

01:29:30

And we would say not all crime is sin.

01:29:38

You sped on Saturday coming back to come to your son to the emergency room. Yeah. You didn't sin.

01:29:44

Yeah. It wasn't sin. So civil obedience isn't an act of religious worship.

01:29:54

So are we to obey our authorities? Yes. We're not to obey them because the form of government's been set up right.

01:30:08

We're to obey them because they've been put there by God. And there's a sense where, yes, we're to obey

01:30:14

God by obeying them. But paying my taxes is not an act of religious worship.

01:30:21

And there's times when we should disobey them. Yeah. That's another point that I wanted to bring up on here, that Baptists, we do believe in resisting tyranny.

01:30:34

Right? I mean, we did it during COVID. However, I will say this.

01:30:41

We resist when we have no other option. And I think that's another problem with this new flavor of some of the post -Millennials.

01:30:51

I'm not grouping all of them together. There is a flavor of post -Millennialism that's radicalism and rebellion.

01:30:59

It's, again, go back to what your statement earlier on. It takes some of the very—rightly, praise

01:31:07

God for taking the good things, the theology and doctrine of the Puritans, but separated from the piety.

01:31:17

And I know this is going to make some people upset. I'm not going to say—because I'm not trying to disparage this particular group.

01:31:26

But I was shown a picture, and you know about this, but I was shown a picture the other day. And it said, Reformed Baptist Bible study.

01:31:33

And these guys were drinking beer and smoking cigars. Terrible. Yeah. And look, I just think whatever someone's position on alcohol, can we not all agree that flaunting alcohol is like, come on.

01:31:53

If people have made it this far listening, that might cause them to just turn it off.

01:31:59

But what I'm trying to say is there is a holiness, a holiness in all of life, which accompanied the theology of Puritanism.

01:32:11

And if we recover their theology without their holiness—

01:32:16

We're in trouble. We're in trouble. And I appreciate what you're saying.

01:32:22

I do appreciate the idea, like, again, you're a Texan. There's a rebellious heart, as it were, that lies within your—you know, deep within you.

01:32:30

On COVID, that first day, I put up a sign. I taped it to the door of my church, written out by a lawyer, with all of these things stated, under duress, we're doing this, under duress, we're doing this, because we met outside.

01:32:43

And the last point, here I stand, I can do no other. That Luther came out in me. You want my pulpit?

01:32:49

Come and take it. That's right. Come and take it. Right. Exactly. But if we have that rebellious stance, that radical stance, disconnected from the fruit of the

01:33:06

Spirit, disconnected from humility and patience, disconnected from a holiness without which no one will see the

01:33:16

Lord, then as commendable as rebellion is in its own right, it's wrong.

01:33:29

I'll add another aspect here, and we've seen this in several of these groups of post -millennialism.

01:33:37

I'm not grouping everybody together. I'm not making that generalization. In certain groups of it, there comes along with this radicalism a foul mouth.

01:33:48

There's no reason for it. You know, there's even books written saying you should use this type of language.

01:33:55

No, you shouldn't. Let no corrupting talk come from your mouth. And we should be careful how we speak.

01:34:04

We should choose our words carefully. And so when, you know, you and I talked about this the other day, you have this rebellious attitude that is like,

01:34:21

I'm going to oppose the government until it's the government that I've established. And I think we have to be cautious of that because that's not what the

01:34:29

Bible calls us to do. And again, the issue with that, with establishing a government, you know, is like, you talk to 10 different guys, you get 10 different things, and like,

01:34:38

I'm just afraid, like, if you don't baptize your children, there's going to be a fine. Well, that's the thing.

01:34:44

It's like every time I've asked, who gets to set the laws? OK, so if we're going to take the judicial laws of the

01:34:51

Old Testament and implement them in society, who gets to pick and choose how we interpret them? Because the

01:34:56

Pharisees interpreted one way, the Sadducees another way, and Jesus comes in and says, you're both wrong.

01:35:02

So who gets to do that? On numerous occasions, this has been the answer. Doug Wilson wrote a book explaining that.

01:35:10

That's my fear. And my other fear is the alliances, if we're willing to go for cultural

01:35:18

Christianity, the alliances we're willing to make. Now, here's the deal. I'm not talking about within orthodoxy.

01:35:26

We should be—we're brothers. If you're within orthodoxy, we're brothers and sisters in Christ.

01:35:33

What I'm talking about, I appreciate a lot of the things that Ben Shapiro says.

01:35:41

I appreciate a lot of things that Matt Walsh says. I cannot be in alliance with those guys because one is a

01:35:50

Roman Catholic and one rejects Christ as the Messiah. And so I'm just afraid that we're willing to go really far with our alliances because we're seeing this bigger deal of taking over and installing whatever it may be.

01:36:11

And it's messed up on both sides. Let me show it to you. John Owen and Nehemiah Cox actually worked with Catholics to remove the act of nonconformity.

01:36:27

And part of me is like, why are you guys working with the Catholics? These are two of my favorite theologians.

01:36:34

What were you thinking? But because they did not see that as a biblical responsibility, they just wanted to worship without getting fined.

01:36:45

Yeah. And so did the Catholics. The Catholics were saying, we can't have mass like we feel like we should because of the act of nonconformity.

01:36:58

So they actually got together in parliament to do that. And it's like something we talked about the other day here in Texas when

01:37:09

Roe versus Wade was overturned. Can we rejoice in that?

01:37:15

Absolutely. Were there Catholics involved in that? Absolutely.

01:37:21

Am I going to go to the abortion clinic to meet with Catholics to minister? No way. Yeah. Does that make sense?

01:37:29

There's no way because my ministry is a gospel ministry. Yeah. Right.

01:37:37

I just don't see things in terms of political alliances.

01:37:48

Exactly. Because I see my ultimate politic is

01:37:54

Christ is King. Amen. Yeah. I mean, this stuff, like I just saw on Twitter, with all due respect, our

01:38:05

Baptist brother, we beg to differ. A culture shaped by Christianity is not to blame for great cultural evils.

01:38:12

The failure of the church to hold firmly to sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it is the greater culprit.

01:38:19

All right. I understand the point there. But I want to say, wrong.

01:38:27

Donald Trump, Jeff, right here. Wrong. Right? A thousand times wrong.

01:38:33

Yeah. That's just not right. Because, and again, why would

01:38:40

I? Okay. If you're going to separate cultural Christianity from the church, why do

01:38:45

I even want that? Okay. Again, we're just going over and over here. I just happened to see that tweet.

01:38:51

But the point is, and I hope this has been helpful.

01:38:57

And I think that hopefully, maybe if you're listening to this, maybe you'll push back. And maybe, like you said, maybe we'll bring someone.

01:39:04

But really what we've been trying to do is just get our thoughts out there. We are separatists, but we're not divisionists, you know, in the sense that like, it's not our desire to separate from true believers.

01:39:20

Sure. But the idea, and it's certainly, it would be unchristian of us to break the ninth commandment about our brothers.

01:39:31

We don't want to do that at all. But, and we need to be, and I hope it's coming across to you. But I feel like, honestly, we've probably qualified this thing to death.

01:39:38

But the point is, we've been trying to put forth our position, which we think is the most biblical position, and to show forth some of the dangers.

01:39:49

And I don't know why there is such division in the

01:39:56

Reformed Baptist world. Like, again, I understand, like, the Presbyterian, it's in your statement of faith.

01:40:03

It's in the Westminster Confession. Confession of faith. But it's not in our confession.

01:40:10

And we've been going at it for a while, like with the Aquinas. And what's interesting about this is, so the

01:40:16

Aquinas— The Aquinas debate's kind of on the backburn, and now we're together again.

01:40:22

I'm kind of happy about it. No, yeah, well, I was going to say, like, the Aquinas debate, you said, okay, you got this group and this group.

01:40:29

And now with this, you're like, oh, are they on the same, is it both groups? No, it's like fractured again.

01:40:35

It's fractured again. But the cool thing to me in this, it's sad, but it's cool.

01:40:43

The best arguments against theonomy, Reconstruction, are coming from the guys that are kind of divided on the

01:40:54

Aquinas issue. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I mean, like, you know, I think about that, and it's like some of those best arguments.

01:41:02

I want to make one point before we go. I read a book this last year by Crawford Gribbon, Survival and Renaissance in Evangelical America, Christian Reconstruction in the

01:41:17

Pacific Northwest. It's kind of interesting. Crawford Gribbon is a guy from Ireland, grew up in Dabney's church, the dispensationalist.

01:41:31

And not when he was alive, obviously, but after him, and is actually writing a book on his dispensationalism.

01:41:41

But he was fascinated. He's been fascinated with this Reconstruction movement here in the

01:41:48

United States. And one of the points he makes is it would never work in Ireland. Like the culture just doesn't give it away at all.

01:41:59

And he dates it back to the revolution. And he says, because of the revolution, you had this rebel attitude, right?

01:42:07

That it's kind of hung around. And he thinks it has to do with that. But I mentioned that to say this.

01:42:14

You and I both work with guys from Latin America. Right. The extent of our mission work is training and reforming churches, training pastors, reforming churches in Latin America.

01:42:26

How many times have you ever heard one of these Latin American brothers talk about reforming their government and bringing a theocracy to their government?

01:42:36

Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. And I think this will sound pessimistic.

01:42:42

But I think a lot of these things that we're talking about in America, sadly, are really just purely hypothetical.

01:42:50

Because I see the demise of our country before us. And in many ways,

01:42:56

I'm afraid it's too late. Yeah, yeah. But you're right. These debates are really, to my knowledge.

01:43:03

Now, someone point out if I'm wrong. To my knowledge, these debates, the intensity of these debates are really only happening in America.

01:43:12

Here. And Crawford Gribbon does a great job in the book. He's very objective.

01:43:18

Even if you're on the other side of this, you would enjoy the book. I think you would finish the book and be like, yeah, that's a pep rally call.

01:43:24

He was writing for our side because he takes such an objective stance.

01:43:31

But but that's his point in the book is kind of this is an American thing because it wouldn't it wouldn't fly.

01:43:39

And he even says that there's no way this would go over in Ireland. Well, I do hope that this has been helpful.

01:43:46

And I do hope we get some pushback so that we can further define things.

01:43:51

Yeah. Amen. Yeah. I think that that's a problem. Whatever, whatever format you wind up listening to this on,

01:43:59

I'll sign off for our for our podcast. But you may be listening on the YouTube channel or something else.

01:44:05

But but thank you guys for joining us on on on this special episode of the rural church podcast.

01:44:11

We'll bring Eddie on next time. Yeah. But but Jonathan, I wanted to do this for a long time.

01:44:17

So by the way, Jonathan, as we close the rural church podcast. It's your preaching that they listen to.

01:44:23

That's our outro. So sorry. You have so few listeners. Yeah.

01:44:29

All right. Well, brother, I appreciate it, man. And I hope I hope maybe we can do a follow up here to see where our holes were, where we didn't define.

01:44:39

Maybe look at the confession some and see if this these ideas go along with our confession of faith as well.

01:44:46

Yeah. And yeah, last thing. But you have to give us a little bit of time because.

01:44:52

It's not, you know, it's not something I don't really think historically worked through well.

01:44:58

So all of a sudden this is a new thing. This is a new thing. And so you have to give us time to think through this and to respond.

01:45:07

And this is just this is not the be all end all response. It's just trying to keep the conversation going and to let first of all, to let brothers and sisters know you can take a different position and be faithful.

01:45:23

I think it's the most biblical position. And also to keep the conversation going with our brothers who are who are sort of pushing this.

01:45:30

So I better hit stop recording. We'll go all afternoon. All right, brother. Have a good day. Thanks for joining us.

01:45:44

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

01:45:50

God's doing. This this is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the

01:45:57

Hohe Mosque, the masterpiece of God. How are you going to respond?