Road Trip DL: Report on Progress, Apologia Weighs In, Thoughts on Daniel 7, Mohler on Theonomy

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Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line, another road trip dividing line from our new and I need to make sure to turn that volume down, don't

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I? Yes, I do. From our new studio here in our mobile command center, which and there were two bridges today.

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Let me tell you something, you don't notice this when you're driving a regular vehicle, but it's the entrance onto a bridge and the exit off of a bridge that there are certain states they just don't know how to do it.

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I'm going to tell you, I did find some stuff in the back of the unit that was not where it was supposed to be when

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I got back into it and I know exactly where it happened. There were two bridges and there wasn't any place to go, you know.

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I guess it could have driven off the side, that would have probably exacerbated the problem. Anyway, we are here in Memphis, Tennessee on our way to being just north of Nashville on Sunday.

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I've already given you all the information, we won't go back over all of that. Then, heading back the other direction, starting on Monday and getting to good old prior

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Oklahoma and Derek Melton and the folks there. Believe me, it never, ever, ever crossed my mind.

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First time I ever flew into Tulsa was picked up by Derek and we went out to the church.

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It never ever crossed my mind that someday we would be there via an

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RV. Like I said, I blame him for a lot of this stuff. He was the one that told us to get a diesel and we didn't do that and we should have.

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It was the setup on his pull behind RV that gave me the idea, hey, what if you had bunk beds in the back, then you could do what we've done here.

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Anyways, that's the rest of this trip. Then in July, 33 days, an entire week longer than this trip.

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Actually, more than a week longer than this trip. That'll be a big one. Had a wonderful time last night.

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I had to change this whole trip around because I was supposed to be speaking at something in northwest

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Georgia, up in the corner there. That got canceled.

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I had to rearrange everything. I'm looking at the map and going, well,

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I still need to go there. I still need to go there. Let's go to Conway. Let's go to GBTS. Contacted the guys there and they said, well, let's do something on that Thursday evening, an evening with James White.

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Then I was given the topic and I appreciate Jeff Moore. I love Jeff Moore. This guy is just one of the sharpest guys.

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His article in the first edition of the journal that we put out was just so, so good, which reminds me,

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I only have a matter of weeks to be working on my article for the third edition of the journal, which will be coming out.

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Anyway, Jeff Moore is a sharp, sharp, sharp guy, but he's a young, young, young guy.

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I do enjoy being the old professor dude. One of the fellows that was with us was my age and probably a little bit older than me, but I'm the old professor dude at GBTS and I like that.

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Jeff Johnson's younger than I am, a good bit younger than I am. Owen Strand was there.

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He's obviously a bit younger. We had a wonderful...

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I really wonder what the people around us... In fact, come to think of it now, everybody around us left. Sort of wondering, they're sitting there going, what are they talking about over there?

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We were having in -depth discussions on many of the topics that are controversial today, shall we say.

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Wouldn't you like to have a recording of that? Well, there isn't one. We did that in the afternoon and then in the evening.

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Well, the day before that, as I had told you, I got to talk to guys in a recovery program, had a really good time doing that.

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Then last evening, I was assigned by Dr. Moore, who I'm very thankful listens because he said, hey, you've said many, many times that if you're in the academy, if you're in academics, you need to minimally read 1

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Corinthians chapter 1, or even better, have it preached to you about every six months. So why don't you cover that?

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So that was my assigned topic. I had 45 minutes. I took a little bit over 45, probably about 47.

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Hey, for anyone at Apologia, that was still fast. It was very, very fast. Then Owen Strand came up and started asking questions.

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Everybody enjoyed this. It changed. He wanted to talk a little bit about Thomas and stuff like that.

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I have no earthly idea. I cannot remember how it is that we transitioned into a discussion of my book on grieving, but we did.

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It became very, very, very pastoral. I even mentioned,

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I said, the least favorite topic that I have to discuss is that one. I can do it.

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I've done it before. It does need to be discussed. Even after years as a hospital chaplain,

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I never developed the ability to turn off emotion. I have to wonder if that's not a negative thing, to be able to turn off your emotions.

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It is hard on me to do the issue of grieving.

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It takes a lot out of me. Of course, what Dr. Strand said, well, next time you come, that's what we'll talk about.

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Quatro Nelson was there. There were a bunch of folks that came. It was at the new location for the church there.

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They've gotten a new building, a new campus. Everybody can now worship together in the same room.

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Believe me, I get that. Apologia, we can't do that. We have an overflow room as well. It was great.

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It's not like the place was packed out, but there was a good number of people there and had great conversations with people afterwards.

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It's why you do this. It's why you do these kinds of trips. I will try to remember to link to the sermon audio recording.

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I don't know if they split it up between my

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First Corinthians chapter one presentation and then my discussion with Dr. Strand or what.

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I'll have to look at that and see if I can figure that out. I'll try to remember to link it when we get done here.

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I will undoubtedly forget and probably have to do it later, but there you go. Right before we got on the air,

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I ran across something. What was it? About a month ago, maybe only like three weeks ago,

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Babylon Bee put out a hilarious video about the

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AI bots. The AI bot is actually this one guy who's just sitting there typing really, really fast.

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He's chained to the desk and they won't let him out. He has to do 12 -hour stints and this kind of stuff.

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It was funny because then they brought up the issue of how the bots are only allowed to answer in a certain way because of the way they've been programmed.

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They got rid of the guy. The question was, if I recall, transsexuals and stuff like that.

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They brought a new guy in and the camera pans over and it's

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Kirk Cameron. He's going, all right, let's get going. It had been about three years since Kirk and I had texted back and forth.

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I'm like, he's probably like me. He's still got the same phone number he had in the 1990s, which

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I do, which is why I have to set my phone up so that only people in my contact list can call me.

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It'll actually ring through because my phone number is on. Of course, I've filled out all the stuff to get it removed from all those lists.

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Nobody does that. You all know it's worthless. It's like I donated to some candidate in 2022,

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I think. No, 2020. Now, you can type

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STOP. You can put STOP in every language you know. You can put it in all caps.

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It doesn't matter. When you type STOP, that's telling them, go. Keep going.

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He's there. This is still an active number. It's maddening. Anyway, I had texted

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Kirk and I said, hey, love the cameo on the

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Babylon Bee thing. He typed back, somebody's got to do it. It's interesting to see

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OAN thing just popped up on my Twitter feed. First interesting thing to see is to see

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Kirk trying to catch up with me in how gray his beard is getting. That's very, very interesting to see.

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The main thing is what he says here, I agree with. From the world's perspective, how long will it be until this is absolutely forbidden speech?

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Well, given the new CEO of Twitter, maybe next week. I don't know. I don't know what's going on there.

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It's troubling. But I did want to play this for you and just make a brief comment on it.

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So here's Kirk Cameron. The target is always children.

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And that's why God gave children to parents, not to governments, not to woke institutions that are then staffed and manned by those who want to undermine the faith and values that made

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America great and that advanced the good. So we shouldn't be surprised that nefarious forces are targeting children because the goal is ultimately the collapse of the family and the killing of God in America.

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Because what that does is it so destabilizes our moral and societal structures that it can then be replaced and reorganized with something different like progressive socialist communist ideas.

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And that has always been the plan. So I, of course, agree.

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This attack upon children, what we see every single day, every single day, you turn on your computer, you do anything in social media, and you are just stunned by what is there and what is being presented to you.

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Yes, he's exactly right. It is part and parcel of the entire plan. And I've often commented on the fact that, yeah, you know, my time in a public school was very important to my development eventually as an apologist.

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We tried to make Christian school options available for our children.

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My son did graduate from a Christian high school and they went to a

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Christian grade school for a period of time. But it was Summer who requested to go to the public high school.

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I've told the story. She said, I prefer my unbelievers straight up. That was a comment on how few

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Christians there were at the Christian school that we were paying through the nose to have her at. And, of course, she ended up having very important apologetic type experiences in the public schools.

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But she would tell you the same thing that I would tell you now. That's just simply not a possibility any longer.

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The NEA is simply one of the most evil organizations that has ever existed on the planet.

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And I'm not saying that. There's no humor in that. It is. It is designed to destroy your family and your children.

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That's what the NEA is. And I have a friend who's been battling the NEA for a couple of years now, and winning, by the way.

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We got to give him the credit that he deserves. I have a friend back in Missouri that founded a

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PAC. His grandchildren were in a school district. And as in pretty much all school districts, it doesn't matter where you are, all the

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CRT and stuff like that was coming in. And there were a number of financial irregularities, which is hardly shocking either.

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So he started a PAC, and they have now taken over the school board.

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In two elections, the first year was two people. This year is three people.

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So now they have the majority. And he was out there printing the signs, putting the signs up.

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He's a go -getter. And so they did what they needed to do. But of course, it's a never -ending cycle.

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And the other side will never give up. And he's like 71 years old. So you have local victories, but those local victories have to be things that are repeated over and over and over again.

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And the NEA just detests him. I have jokingly talked about the NEA snipers will get him eventually.

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And that's only slightly a bit of a joke. But things have changed radically.

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And the whole intention is to destroy the family, the foundation, and to make children wards of the state.

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But anyway, that was, I just saw that right before we got started.

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So I wanted to make mention of that. Don't want to go too far with that. I had a fairly short trip today.

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And that was very helpful. And on the drive, because it's bad weather for a while, really windy.

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Some of the strongest crosswinds I've had so far with the new rig.

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It did fine, but it was blowing. And rainy, and trucks would go by you, and you could barely see where you're going.

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It was interesting. Anyway, I listened to apology radio from last

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Tuesday, I think it was last Tuesday, on the subject of Christian nationalism.

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Now, most people would think, well, you're one of the elders at church, so I'm sure you all talked about it beforehand. No, not when

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I'm on the road. And even not when I'm there, necessarily.

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Because Jeff and Luke, and Zach Morgan, as well as the other

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Zach that's spelled differently, we just do different, Zach Conover, we spell things differently.

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It's the only way you can tell people apart, I guess. Anyway, they're in the studio now.

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By the way, apologies, studios are moving. And that's going to be a lot of work that, gosh,

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I'm just not there to help carry stuff. And if they decide to do it in June, I'll have to start my

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July trip very early. But anyway, there's plenty of young guys to do the heavy lifting.

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We don't need my torn up left shoulder to be being used for all that stuff.

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Anyway, I saw the, if you're not in the studio, you're not going to be part of hearing what the world's going on.

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So I'm, I'm very frequently sitting there going, oh, is that what's happening? I don't know.

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It's just the way it is. I'm, I'm the only guy who's full time someplace else with Alvin and Megan.

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And so that's how it works. So I was really interested. I wanted to hear what was being said for many, many reasons.

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And it was really, really good. What they did is they responded to one of the

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G3 podcasts. Well, they responded to portions, small portions, of, if I recall correctly,

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I think, was that the one they were talking about? Mere Christendom? Or about Stephen Wolf's book? I forget which one it was.

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Anyways, you need to realize, Jeff and Josh Bice, Jeff Durbin and Josh Bice, worked together very closely just recently in concert with End Abortion Now to get a bill into the

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Georgia legislative system. And if you haven't figured this out yet, because if you watch the left, this is how it's done.

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You introduce bills and they get shot down. And the process, you find out who your allies are, then you start working on more allies.

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And it, it takes time. Very rarely is the bill just simply plopped in and hey, it goes all the way.

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And the biggest battle that End Abortion Now has right now is dealing with the pro -life industry.

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The pro -life industry wants abortion to continue, but to be limited. That's, that's why they exist.

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And their big thing is that you can never, ever punish the mother for the murder of her child.

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Go, go to End Abortion Now. Watch the many, many, many, many videos where Jeff goes through the arguments about this.

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Because End Abortion Now is a Christian organization, and the whole foundation and premise is, the only way to deal with this is through the gospel.

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Okay? And so what do you say to a woman who murders her unborn child? You're, you are the victim?

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Is that what you say to her? If there is nothing wrong with what she's done, then you can't direct her to a savior.

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Because it's not, she didn't do anything wrong. She was a victim. See? And everybody knows that's not the case.

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And that's why you see so many videos that they'll put out, not a victim, where the women are going, you know, they're celebrating the murder of their unborn children.

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They're not a victim. The vast, vast, vast majority of those that are pursuing abortion do it simply as a mechanism of birth control.

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So anyway, Jeff has worked very closely with Josh Bison.

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I was very, very glad that that partnership developed when they were, they went out to Atlanta, and they met with hundreds of pastors, or at least over 100 pastors,

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I guess I should put it that way. And so Jeff has a lot of super kind things, almost too many super kind things, to say about Josh and Virgil at the beginning of this particular program.

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And so Jeff made it very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very clear that even though they're going to be responding to and disagreeing on things, that this is not something that causes, should not cause division.

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And this should just be the first of a lot of back and forth discussions. And I, like I said,

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I listened to the whole thing. I complimented the guys.

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We have a signal group that we're in, obviously. Jeff mentioned that they're going to be doing more programs.

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They're going to continue, because they didn't get to nearly all the stuff they wanted to get to. I offered to make sure that Josh knew about it.

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And he said, already taken care of. He sent me a tweet. So Josh had heard the response.

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And this is what needs to be taking place. You know, Doug Wilson responded to Scott O 'Neill's review of Mere Christendom.

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And I believe Scott has responded to Doug. And what

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I appreciate about Scott's statement, his review of Mere Christendom, now

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I didn't agree with everything. And that's probably what we're going to be discussing at G3, for the pre -conference conference in September.

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Sponsored by GBTS, because I'm the only post -millennialist. And of course, a lot of people are saying, this is all, you have to be a theonomic paedo -baptist.

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And while the points that Jeff and Luke and Zach made is that, that's not the case.

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The real issue from their perspective, because Christian nationalist is not a term

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I like. It's not a term that Jeff likes. It's way too silly putty -ish.

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You know, you can stretch it any which direction. It's liable to a lot of abuse.

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And the very fact that I raised the issue of sacralism, and it caused people to lose their minds and behave as children, gives you an idea of just why we're not really concerned about that.

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But Jeff can very rightly say, and said a number of times, look, our response from this is coming from where apologia has been from the start of the church in the early 2010s.

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And what they've been saying, especially about abortion, what they have been saying to the magistrates, what they have been saying to the legislatures, that you are under responsibility before God to protect these innocent children.

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Well, how do we know that? By what standard do we make that presentation?

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By what standard do we make that claim? And so go and listen to it.

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I will try to remember the length of that too, so that you can start following along.

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Because my hope is, if the mature people out there will just start ignoring the memesters, and start ignoring the people that I'm just going to meme harder, just let them go do their thing.

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If they want to use, like I guess one of the things, I've only seen it a few times personally, maybe it's just because of my feed,

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I don't know, but loser theology. I guess this is what some people are saying in regards to anything that isn't

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Christian nationalism. It's loser theology. There are a bunch of terms.

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Let me put it this way. What we're seeing with Doug and Scott going back and forth respectfully, because what

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I forgot to finish a thought earlier, I do that a lot. Scott Enyol, who is one of the top people in G3, and fellow professor at GBTS, as is

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Josh Weiss, as is Owen Strand, as is Jeffrey Johnson. There's connections there.

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But not unanimity, not sameness. Unity on the matters of the faith, but not unanimity in understanding how to make application of all these things, which is a good thing.

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But Scott had pointed out a number of, he had done what the memesters and the young guys aren't willing to do, and that is to go, you know, there's a lot that we actually agree on here.

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But all of us have to recognize that we are watching a society that is doing everything it can to slash its wrists and its throat to bring about its own destruction.

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And it's accelerating. And anyone who knows that Jesus came, that we might have life, have it more abundantly, when you see your society doing everything it possibly can to destroy itself and to engage the culture and to become the culture of death, you can't be silent.

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You have to say something. And so Scott had very rightly pointed out, you know, we have so much in common.

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We have so much that we share together. But here's where I differ.

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And when you respectfully do that, and you stick to the subjects, and I would suggest even allowing a certain amount of time to pass so that, you know,

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Scott has now responded to Doug, okay? I'd love to see

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Doug respond back without doing a formal debate or longer articles that can only go so far before you start repeating what you said before.

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I would love to see a public discussion. I would love to see maybe the exchange of much fuller articles, whatever.

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But the point is, my hope and desire, because I know both men.

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I actually know Doug better than I know Scott. But my exhortation for both would be, if the

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Lord's put you in a position to where you all are representatives of two different perspectives, here is an opportunity to demonstrate the presence of the

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Spirit of God. The fact that we really do recognize and know that the things we agree on are more important.

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The many, many, many things we agree on are more important than the things we disagree on.

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We say that with words, and then we deny it with our actions, and we deny it with the emotions that we bring in, and the offense that we feel, and the attacks that we make, and everything else that goes along with that.

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And so I hope that there will be a continued conversation that will, by its maturity, demonstrate how this needs to be done for the younger men who want to know.

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There's nothing you can do about those who are just into the scorched earth thing, all right?

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But for those who want to know, that they will be able to recognize this type of thing.

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Now, once again, Rich, I'm going to need you to do what we did last time.

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I wasn't planning on this, but I did know it was a possibility. I guess our current system does, and I need to learn how to do this myself, but you'll recall that we had someone come to my door last time, because we're live,

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I'm in an RV park, and I just had a neighbor pull in, and I have a

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Starlink dish out on that side, which is technically their side of things.

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I'm not using it right now, thankfully. We were trying to get it set up, make sure it'd be usable, but it was back and forth, back and forth, like it had been before.

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But they're just now pulling in, and so I'm going to need to take about a three -minute pause, go grab that thing, get it out of their way, and then we'll be able to go back to what we were talking about.

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So live webcasting, that's how it works. We will be right back.

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All right, thank you for that quick break. I actually lost Rich there. I was sitting here going, hello, Lucy, and exactly as I expected, the next -door neighbor just pulled in, saw me moving the

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Starlink thing. Hey, if you've got good reception there, leave it there, no problem. We're not going to be using it. I still wanted to get it out of their way.

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There's just rules, and that side is their side. They said, we're only here for the night, we're not even going to put ours out, blah, blah, blah.

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You know, everybody's always nice. Well, okay, there may be a few exceptions, but in general, everybody really works together in RV parks.

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It's cool. Anyway, back to the important subject at hand. I would encourage

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Scott Annual and Doug Wilson to continue this conversation, just as I will encourage

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Jeff and Luke and Zach Conover to continue the conversation with Josh and Virgil.

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All of this is very helpful to me, because it's all preparation for September, and it would be really nice if by the time we get to the pre -conference before G3, if maybe we've helped to define some certain things.

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Because I certainly felt that, for example, in the Apologia response to G3, at least the first one there, that it was really clear.

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What Jeff said was, hey, for us, this isn't an issue about Christian nationalism, we don't want the title, we're just doing what we've always done.

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And the reason we're doing what we're doing is because we're post -millennial theonomists, general equity theonomists.

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And that's where the connection with Doug Wilson is. That's where the connection with Doug Wilson is.

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That's where he's coming from. And that's where the division is with Stephen Wolfe.

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We looked at that in the last couple programs, the statements that were made there.

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That's a huge difference. And I think it's really, really, really important. Because Doug says it,

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I say it, Jeff says it, the actual creation of a situation where governmental authorities are actually seeking to obey

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Christ's Word requires the work of the Spirit of God and having changed their hearts. At the same time, their argument was, okay, if we're saying to the magistrates, this is what you need to do.

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If we're saying to the magistrates, murdering infants in the womb will bring

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God's judgment not only upon the nation, but upon you as an individual. Then we have to be prepared to then answer the question, what happens if they go, my goodness, you're right.

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Thank you, pastor, for bringing this to me. Now what do I do? And you have to be able to go, here's the standard.

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Here's your standard. That's the real issue. What's the standard supposed to be? If we are all made by the triune

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God, then His standard is the only standard that is going to bring life to us.

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And if the Christian church says, you know what, hey, we have all this light in Scripture.

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We have all this light in the new covenant. But you know, when it comes to government, the

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Noahic covenant's enough. Common grace plus a Noahic covenant, that'll do it.

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And you're like, really? How do you, if the magistrate turns to you and says, okay, what do we do next?

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You're going to say, Noahic covenant, common grace, just do the best you can.

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Yeah, that's not going to work well. So my hope is these conversations, because I hear a lot of people going,

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I'm just so sick of it. I hope that most of what people are sick of is the immaturity.

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Because there's some really immature people out there that are just, you know, throwing smoke bombs and stink bombs and doing graffiti on social media and that type of stuff.

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And this is a really good point. One of the things that was mentioned to me at the seminary was a real concern that there are young men getting all excited about Christian nationalism and losing their fervor for such things as visiting the sick in the hospitals and doing the kind of pastoral ministry that has to be done all the time.

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Now, again, what's your source of hope that you share with the people in the hospital?

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It is all connected. I get that. But there has to be balance. And that reminds me,

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I don't have it up. I don't even know that I could find it because it's old now.

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But I get done with the program and I sit there and go, oh,

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I forgot to mention that again. There was some young man on Twitter that I don't follow.

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I've never heard of him. But someone sent me a screenshot of him saying that, well,

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I have muted the G3 guys and I've muted James White because I just can't handle the damage they're doing to my faith.

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And I did mention this on the last program. I just realized it. But it connects up with this, with what

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I'm saying right now. And I call that imbalanced. Why is that imbalanced?

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Because this man said in other tweets, I've learned so much about Trinity, Reformed theology, so on and so forth.

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But now this one thing, this one area, is it because we're seeing the radical nature of what's going on right now?

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Well, it is radical. And it is happening so fast. And it's vitally important.

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I get it. But it still has to remain balanced. And I'm seeing people going, oh, yeah, you know, over the years,

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I learned a lot from Josh Bice and G3 and the sermons that have been presented there have just always been so helpful.

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And so you just throw all that out now? Because on one subject, they've said, no, we don't think this is the direction to go.

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So I'm just going to shut them off? What if Jeff and Luke and Zach had done that?

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And said, you know what? We're not even going to listen to what G3 had to say. We're not even going to listen to the webcast.

40:51

We're not even going to interact with them. You wouldn't have the useful conversation going on.

41:00

You wouldn't have the useful conversation when you talk to Doug Wilson and Scott Emu. So there is a concern that we need to have balance.

41:14

And as important as, you know, we're literally talking, we are literally talking about the purpose of the church, the relationship of church and state, all those things are important.

41:29

But it doesn't mean that they are more important than the things that even provide us with our brotherhood, our union with one another.

41:39

My friends in Germany will testify that I have raised this issue over and over again while teaching church history to them.

41:54

And that is the early church feared division more than anything else.

42:03

Now, that may have itself been imbalanced because you see division in the New Testament.

42:11

But if we've erred any direction, it's that we've gone the other direction, that we're just so used to having three different churches on every corner.

42:19

And the fact that they can't get along and in fact try to steal sheep from each other, that's just sort of become a given.

42:32

There needs, we need to give serious thought. You know, before you dismiss someone, before you mute someone, before you just simply go, so much for that.

42:49

Have you really seriously considered the length of their ministry, the depth of their ministry?

42:58

How long have they been at it? There's really, and I know it's really easy to go, well, yeah, white beard, it's real easy for you to talk about this now.

43:08

There are biblical passages about honoring elders.

43:13

And there's something in Presbyteros that actually refers to age and experience.

43:22

And before you just go, yeah, well, so what? So you're getting old, big deal. I've lived by this my entire life.

43:34

And I'll give you a glowing example that most of you all know about. How did

43:40

I treat Norman Geisler when I wrote The Potter's Freedom? Chosen but free was not a good book.

43:51

It was not well -researched, it was not well -written, it was not well -argued. Despite that,

44:00

I bought out -of -print books that Dr.

44:07

Geisler had written long before and tracked down articles. And I bent over backwards to be accurate and respectful, even in completely shredding

44:23

Dr. Geisler's arguments. Because I see people saying things, and part of it's social media, part of it is the impersonal nature of that glowing screen,

44:37

I get it. But I see people saying things to people that are 40 years older than they are, have been in the ministry longer than they've been alive, that I would never have thought, would never even dreamed of thinking and saying when

44:59

I was a 20 -year -old guy. I lived by that. So I think in our situation today, we really need to revisit basic Biblical principles about honoring those who have been serving for their entire lives, and asking what can

45:30

I learn from them? And not why am I so wise, even though I've actually never pastored a church,

45:39

I've never done full -on ministry, I've not taught, but I've figured out that I know everything there is to know.

45:48

There's a lot of people in that context, and it's not a good thing.

45:56

So I want to see these things continuing. Now, I want to throw out a text here, and I sort of lost track of the time because I'm not,

46:05

I think we only missed three or four minutes there. I want to throw out a text, and I want to, out of sync?

46:22

You mean, oh,

46:34

I just moved the Starlink thing around, it's undoubtedly lost. So, no, that would, okay, but do you want to, do you want to stop and restart?

46:59

Starlink was my backup, but when you grab it and just simply move it, it loses everything, and it takes it quite some time to get back.

47:15

I mean, it could be back right now, I don't know, but I have no way of testing it without looking at it.

47:23

So do you want to, do you want to start, do you want to, do you want to start a new session, or what do you want to do?

47:46

Okay, I will, okay, so have we fixed our problem?

48:02

Does it look like it's a little bit more synced up? Okay, all right, well, hey, this program used to be all audio, so syncing lips and syncing ships, what can

48:17

I say? Though I don't understand why that would cause that, though I could have some theories, but we'll have to worry about that at another point in time, because there's two more things

48:31

I still want to do, and so that's what I want to do. I want to throw a text out. I just want to,

48:41

I just want to, I don't like the term thought experiment, but I want to ask you to think about some of the possibilities here, and a lot of people really enjoy when we get into looking at the text of scripture and doing things like that, so let's do it and see if this won't help us.

49:11

Oh, I just realized, sorry, got to remember to get the,

49:16

I wish there was a way to attach this to the screen, but I got to get the pen out, be able to write on the screen, so live webcasting.

49:25

Okay, let's take a look at a text that is normally, normally we would raise this text with like Jehovah's Witnesses.

49:41

Mormons, Muslims, anyone denying the deity of Christ? So let's see if you recognize it.

49:47

It's from Daniel chapter 7. I kept looking in the night visions and behold the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming.

49:54

He came up to the ancient of days and came near before him, and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue might serve him.

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His dominion is everlasting dominion which will not be taken away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

50:10

So we know why this is so important, because of why.

50:18

Why is this so important? Remember what Jesus does with this. Jesus takes this text in his trial in Mark chapter 14, around 60, 61,

50:28

I don't have it up right now, and he joins it with Psalm 110.

50:38

And it should simply be a given that Jesus's interpretation of Old Testament passages trumps anything else.

50:50

And if he is combining these two together, Psalm 110,

50:56

God's favorite Bible verse quoted most often in the New Testament, and then the enthronement of the son of man vision in Daniel, that means this is incredibly important.

51:11

But here's the question I've got for you. First of all, please recognize, notice these things here.

51:20

We'll just do this real quick here. Notice that, what color would look best?

51:27

That would look best. To him was given dominion.

51:35

Oh, so you're not gonna do that for me, huh? Oh, well look at that.

51:40

Now it goes down there. That's interesting. There we go. Dominion, glory, think about Philippians chapter 2, and a kingdom, that, what?

51:54

All the peoples. All the peoples, all the nations, men of every tongue might serve him.

52:05

Now it's interesting, there's the term serve in verse 14.

52:11

But when you go over to the Greek Septuagint over here, there's the translation.

52:18

It's Latruo. Latruo is the highest form of worship.

52:25

So that all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue might serve him.

52:31

His dominion is everlasting dominion, which will not be taken away. His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

52:37

It is very, very, very, very, very hard not to think of Matthew chapter 28, 19 through 20.

52:45

All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth. So here's the question. Daniel's important in regards to what it says about the deity of Christ, what it says that, you know, the father and the son, the son being presented before the father, and yet everyone worships the son.

53:06

You've got John chapter 5 coming in there, 5, 23, and 24. All sorts of really important threads get tied together here.

53:18

But here's a question. When does this happen? When does this happen?

53:29

Behold, I kept looking at it, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming, and he came up to the ancient of days and came near before him.

53:44

Certain eschatological positions, you see the mention of the clouds of heaven, and you automatically go future fulfillment.

54:02

But if you look carefully at judgment passages, you recognize that this is apocalyptic language found regularly in the

54:17

Hebrew scriptures and then brought into the New Testament. When is the son of man presented before the ancient of days?

54:30

When Jesus was resurrected, and he ascends into heaven, do you think he just sort of arrived and said, hey guys, nice to be back?

54:46

Do you think it was a big deal that the incarnate one, the God -man, had accomplished everything he was to accomplish in the flesh, and has now ascended, and now the spirit is about to be poured out in fulfillment of John 14 through 16?

55:10

Let me just suggest something to you. Think about it. Ponder it. What if this is the enthronement scene after Jesus's ascension?

55:19

The ascension of Christ, when it comes to evangelicals, that is one topic, that's one thing we've just lost.

55:31

We just don't even give it a second thought. I remember a decade ago in New Jersey, I was asked to speak at a church on the ascension, and I enjoyed doing it, but as I was doing it,

55:52

I had to admit to myself, I don't know that I've ever heard a sermon on this.

56:00

What if this is the heavenly vision of the enthronement of Christ after His ascension into heaven?

56:13

He's accomplished, He's the Son of Man, and to Him was given dominion, glory, and it can sound a little bit like what the

56:23

New Testament tells us in the Carmen Christi. Every knee bows, every tongue confesses.

56:34

Jesus Himself combines this together with Psalm 110, which is about Him.

56:41

What if it is? How would this be fulfilled? How would

56:47

Jesus exercise dominion having ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of the

56:55

Father? How would all people's nations and men of every tongue atruo

57:04

Him, serve Him, worship Him? Now, for many people, you remove the time element, and it's all spiritual.

57:17

Of course, there is a spiritual aspect of all these things, but you'll notice dominion, glory, kingdom, all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue.

57:28

I suppose if you want to limit that to solely a spiritual fulfillment sometime in the future, but you combine that together with 1

57:43

Corinthians 15, and He must reign until every enemy has been put under His feet, you start seeing how all these images fit together.

57:59

And make a very strong argument, a very strong argument indeed. I just ask you to consider it, think about it, and you may see more than you expected to see.

58:16

One last thing here, this is,

58:25

I think, April 28th. On the Nine Marks website, we have

58:36

Dr. Albert Moller posting an article titled,

58:43

Theonomy, Serious Theology, Serious Politics, Seriously Wrong.

58:54

Now, it's really interesting. It was a really interesting article. He writes about, as a young man, he was exposed to, for example,

59:08

Rhusus John Rushdini, and to other, quote -unquote,

59:14

Christian reconstructionists. He says, I'm not a theonomist, but I take their ideas seriously, and their ideas and proposals deserve such seriousness.

59:22

It's really interesting, even though he says seriously wrong, by the time you get to the end of the article, you're not exactly sure.

59:31

He says so many positive things that you sort of go, so what was the serious wrong part again?

59:42

Because over and over again, he says the theonomists are right about what they've said about misrepresentation of Christian history.

59:54

Furthermore, I have been lied to by Christians, including pastors and Christian authorities, who had misrepresented much of Christian history, subjected the

01:00:01

Bible to shoddy hermeneutics, misread the relationship between the church and the culture, and had evidently never read many of the documents and writings they cited, and were arguing for a secular state and for Christian cultural surrender.

01:00:14

The theonomists had actually read the documents they cited, plus they had a clear proposal and picture of the world.

01:00:20

That put them ahead of their critics, or at least most of them, which was really, really interesting.

01:00:28

He says, when I refer to being lied to, I refer to the dominant argument of the day, still tenaciously held to by more secularly minded

01:00:36

Christians, that the American experiment and order liberty had been established on an intently secular foundation.

01:00:43

This was especially foisted upon my generation by more liberal professors and denominational leaders, whose bad thinking was based on bad history, and whose wishful thinking extended the supposed gospel benefits of a secularizing culture.

01:00:58

Then and now, theonomists puncture and expose that kind of evangelical foolishness with aplomb.

01:01:07

He says that he would say that we are in a second wave of theonomist revival in the

01:01:14

United States. The theonomists were not alone in sounding alarms, but they did come with a more developed answer to the obvious question, what do we do now?

01:01:24

What do we do now? The second wave has come in the immediate context of America's current cultural crisis, and some theonomists are certain of their immediate vindication, there's one of the problems, immediate vindication.

01:01:38

At the very least, they are generally right about the disaster of the evangelical left. Well, that's true, but when you're a post -millennial theonomist, immediate vindication is not necessarily the case.

01:01:55

Talks about the theonomist meant and now mean to replace and reconstruct the constitutional order.

01:02:02

Well, only insofar as that has been corrupted into an excuse to deny the lordship of Christ in all of life.

01:02:18

Rush Juney actually makes an argument for a theonomic libertarianism, but obviously within the realm of creaturely, the fact that we've created the image of God.

01:02:33

He says, so why am I not a theonomist? The most salient factor in my rejection of theonomy is that I am a decided and incorrigible conversionist.

01:02:46

Furthermore, I am a Baptist by conviction, formation and church membership. The central practical implication of conversionism is the separation of all human beings into two categories, those who by grace have been born again, have confessed

01:03:00

Christ, who live obedient lives under the lordship of Christ, and ultimately for his glorious kingdom. And those who, having never heard the gospel or having refused its call, remain unregenerate and defiant.

01:03:11

I believe in a church that includes only the confessing redeemed and a larger society that includes true

01:03:17

Christians, artificial Christians and pagans of all varieties. Okay, but that's not an argument against my understanding of theonomy, general equity theonomy, that doesn't say, in fact, go back to the last two sweater vest dialogues that Doug and I have done.

01:03:42

What has been a constant theme? Without a changed heart, you have rebel sinners.

01:03:50

That's the way it is. Now he goes on, mark this carefully,

01:03:56

I do not celebrate the presence of artificial Christians and pagans in our society. The theonomists are on unassailable gospel ground when they scorn limp -minded evangelicals who celebrate religious pluralism as a fact.

01:04:15

A central error of the theonomists is seeing the civil government as assigned an explicitly religious duty and, among some theonomists, touching the duty of separating the sheep from the goats.

01:04:29

There's the issue. Thus, theonomy risks conflating the identity of the church and civil society as a matter of law and polity.

01:04:37

That's sacralism, and I agree, we can't have it, but that is not what theonomy requires.

01:04:44

It requires sphere sovereignty. It requires the recognition of the different realms.

01:04:52

We're not talking about an ecclesiocracy. That came up when when

01:04:58

Jeff and Zach and Luke were responding to Josh Weiss and Virgil and Scott Enniel.

01:05:05

We're not talking about an ecclesiocracy where the church rules. We don't want the church doing the duties of the state.

01:05:15

The church needs to witness to the state and testify to the state of what its duties are before God, but you can't the situation that happened under Rome where that became the rulership of the ecclesia over the government so that the church turns a heretic over to the state for punishment, and the state has to do that because the state's afraid they're going to be next.

01:05:42

That was one of the big problems. That's not what we're talking about. So when it says theonomy risks conflating the identity of the church as a civil society as a matter of law and polity, yes, that's what sacralism is about, but that's not what general equity theonomy would require.

01:06:06

There's a great book. Go back in the archive. Look up Joe Boot. We had

01:06:12

Joe on the big screen in the big studio. We have three studios now, so we sort of have to define which one is which, but it's the big studio, and Joe joined us this time.

01:06:29

Back then he was in Canada to talk about his rejection of radical two -kingdom theology, and I've endorsed his book,

01:06:42

Ruler of Kings, that specifically addresses exactly these issues and doesn't fall under any of the reasons of disagreement that Dr.

01:06:52

Muller gives here, which I find very, very interesting. He says, I do not believe it is possible for a

01:06:58

Baptist to be a theonomist with any consistency. Well, I perked up at that point.

01:07:04

I sometimes feel the temptation, and I share the theonomic frustration with the ever -present threat of evangelical timidity and stupidity, but, and this turns out to be determinative,

01:07:17

I am a Baptist. I am not the kind of Baptist who argues for a secular state and what

01:07:23

Richard John Newhouse calls a naked public square. As a matter of fact, I believe that the modern secularist dream has turned into a predictable nightmare.

01:07:30

I would argue that our American constitutional order is only plausible when a fundamentally

01:07:36

Christian worldview provides the background conditions for our conception, may

01:07:41

I say definition, of law, liberty, rights, dignity, civitas, and morality.

01:07:49

The deliberate subversion of that Christian foundation has created a set of conditions in which the

01:07:54

American constitutional order is increasingly implausible. Yeah, I agree.

01:08:03

So, where's the inconsistency? Maybe he just got onto a roll and forgot to say, well, where is it?

01:08:12

If you're talking about a form of, and this is normally what people are arguing against, a form of theonomy where you have every bit of the penology, for example, forced into the modern context, lock, stock, and barrel, without any consideration for the change from a primarily rural agricultural society to a technical society, that's normally where people are going with this.

01:08:44

I get that. But I didn't see, you know, the first sentence of the paragraph, let's put it this way, my daughter is an excellent copy editor, and if I had written this, she'd circle that sentence and go, this is supposed to be your subject line, but the rest of the paragraph went elsewhere.

01:09:08

And it did. He says, I do not believe it is possible for a Baptist to be a theonomist with any consistency.

01:09:14

And then he turns around and says, I sometimes feel the temptation, I share the theonomic frustration with the ever -present threat of evangelical stupidity and stupidity.

01:09:24

Okay, where's the inconsistency? Didn't define it. Didn't define it.

01:09:29

Went on to say more positive stuff about theonomy. To state the matter straightforwardly, a society that has lost the stable categories of boy and girl, and I got to hurry up here because I've only got till 6 30 before someone's gonna be knocking at my door, has lost the stable categories of boy and girl, and defiantly destroys life and womb, is a society that renders the

01:09:48

American experiment in ordered liberty impossible. Ordered liberty becomes disordered calamity. The only recovery is ontological and moral, and yes, theological.

01:09:57

But the necessary affirmation of a foundation of Christian morality and the biblical affirmations of law, liberty, and dignity as essential the

01:10:04

American order, must not exacerbate confusion between the regenerate and the unregenerate.

01:10:10

I don't see how general equity theonomy could possibly do that. If I were a

01:10:18

Presbyterian, no doubt frightening actual Presbyterians as I write this, I appreciated the humor, I would still reject theonomy and see it as contradictory to the teaching of John Calvin and the doctrinal requirements of the

01:10:29

Westridge Confession of Faith. How is it, especially Calvin, I don't get that.

01:10:36

How, especially, I mean general equity is the terminology that's used in the confessions. Following Calvin, the

01:10:43

Westminster Divines recognize a distinction between the moral ceremonial and civil law, so it's theonomy. Theonomists argue for the legislation of Old Testament law, but the

01:10:53

Westminster Confession at the very least recognizes that sundry judicial law is given to Israel, expired together with the state of that people, not obligating any other now further than the general equity thereof may require.

01:11:04

There it is, he even quotes it. So it's almost like, well, theonomists are just simply saying we have to bring it all in and make no recognition of moral, ceremonial, and civil, but we do make those recognitions.

01:11:23

That's not a part of general equity theonomy at all. So I don't get it.

01:11:32

Then he says, but I must also argue that some form of paedo -baptism seems necessary to the theonomist vision and by deep and abiding conviction

01:11:41

I am not and cannot be a paedo -baptist. If victorious at some point the paedo -baptist theonomist will come for me and my fellow baptists, we will fight back with word and water.

01:11:50

Well, okay, they did in the past. I've talked about the baptist martyrs, but leaving that aside, and if you listen to what

01:12:03

Doug and I have said, and by the way, I had a line all queued up to use in the last sort of this dialogue and I didn't use it, but I was going to say we're both post -millennialists, which of course means that by the time that outpouring of the

01:12:19

Holy Spirit takes place, everyone will have already agreed the baptists were right and biblical, and so this isn't really going to be an issue.

01:12:27

Didn't get a chance to use that, my fault. But again, why would some form of paedo -baptism, and Scott Anial says the same, why?

01:12:38

I haven't heard the argument yet. I can see on a practical level if you're going back to the old ways, you know, the reason the anabaptists were hated so much is the tax rolls of the church were based upon the baptism, the tax rolls of the state were based upon the baptism rolls of the church, and so you were herding

01:13:00

Christendom. I get it, but we're not talking about that. That's what specifically we're trying to not establish.

01:13:14

So it's really interesting. So the last paragraph is, the theonomists have made me a better and more consistent thinker about both the ideal condition and the current crisis of church and civil society.

01:13:24

I'm certain many of their intellectual enemies are frauds and fools. I'm also certain,

01:13:31

Baptists that I am, that the theonomist confusion of categories, which I don't think we actually engage in, will certainly fail to bring about the society they envision were they to gain control.

01:13:42

The only way that happens is in the fulfillment of the post -millennial hope that the

01:13:48

Puritans had. I stalwartly insist that conversion is normative of the

01:13:54

Christian for the church. I don't see how that is in any way denied by theonomy.

01:14:01

I want to see an honest assertion of a necessary and explicit Christian foundation to the American order. By what standard?

01:14:08

By what standard? I do not celebrate the secular state.

01:14:13

I long for the rule of Christ and the saints. Only after? Or is that what leads to does

01:14:22

Christ reign and bring that about so that the last enemy is death that's placed under his feet?

01:14:28

I believe such a rule will one day come in fullness, but that day will be announced with the blast of a trumpet, not a conference on theonomy.

01:14:36

Well, it won't be announced by a conference on theonomy. But what does it mean?

01:14:45

He must reign. What does that have to do with Psalm 2,

01:14:51

Psalm 110, Daniel 7, 1 Corinthians 15, Philippians 2?

01:14:58

It all fits together. It really does. But I really found it a fascinating article, especially on 9

01:15:05

Marks. I think a lot of folks probably read that and sat back and said, there was far more positive said about theonomy there than they ever expected.

01:15:17

And if you had to put your fingers specifically on what the serious error was, seriously wrong, it's the alleged confusion of categories.

01:15:28

And yet anybody who's read Bonson knows that's not the case.

01:15:35

So I found it fascinating and actually rather positive. And it is good that we're having these conversations.

01:15:46

Mature people can read different perspectives, disagree, and then go have coffee together, if I like coffee.

01:15:56

It just seems to me the only people who find this threatening are the people who've been growing up on the internet, where whether you're going to be successful or not is how many likes you get, rather than how you have treated a fellow brother or sister in Christ.

01:16:16

So I found it fascinating. Really, really did. Wanted to share that with you, have some comments about it, stuff like that.

01:16:25

So, all right. Another program done.

01:16:32

It really seems to me that most of our technical challenges will simply be issues regarding, you know, we just, when you're in an

01:16:42

RV, you can't have the kind of hardwired, consistent internet connectivity that we have in Phoenix.

01:16:54

We've had problems with it, with that too. Had a lot of problems with it, in fact. So it seems to me that on the microphone, camera, on all those levels, we've worked through the vast majority of that stuff.

01:17:13

And my thinking about today was actually, I was going to say, let's try doing it all on Starlink, see how bad it gets.

01:17:23

But we didn't. We'll probably need to do that. I'd like to see if, so I have obstructions around here, there's trees and things like that.

01:17:32

I would like to try a program with no obstructions, when I'm just out in the middle of nowhere.

01:17:38

No cloud cover, storms, rain, got good sky. We're going to try to do a program that way and just see what happens with it.

01:17:46

If it falls apart, it falls apart. Then we know. And we don't have to worry about it in the park.

01:17:59

Wi -Fi here was very, very fast. But Rich said on his end, the bandwidth stunk.

01:18:05

Okay. So we keep working on that. And I think it's worth working on.

01:18:14

Because I get an opportunity to be preaching this weekend. Then with Derek, and hopefully

01:18:23

Derek will be sitting right there at some point next week. And we'll get to talk about ministry and things like that, and go on from there.

01:18:33

And it allows us to respond quickly to things that are taking place in the world. I think that's important too.

01:18:39

So thank you for watching the program today. We will see you next time on The Dividing Line. God bless.