Leaving Behind the End Times | Theocast

Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we're going to talk about the end times.

Not that anybody out there is interested in that subject matter. We're going to talk about it anyway. From our perspective, it seems that most of the conversation around the end of the world and the return of Christ, pointedly, has been very fear -based.

The return of Christ is a fearful thing, even for believers. Is that how it should be? John and I consider that on today's episode.

And not to give it all away, not to steal our own thunder, we're going to pivot in the second half of the episode to consider how the return of Christ, from a

New Testament perspective, is actually meant to give us hope and it's meant to motivate us for action now.

And so if you would like to consider that and think about how that could possibly be true, today's pod is for you. And then for the

SR podcast today, we're going to talk about heavenly reward and a judgment according to works. What do we think about that?

What do we say to those things? We hope you're encouraged by the content. Hope it's helpful to you. Stay tuned.

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

Christian life from a confessional, Reformed, and pastoral perspective. What we're doing here at Theocast is seeking to clarify the gospel and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ, all in about half an hour or so.

We'll see. May the Lord be gracious to us. Your hosts today are John Moffitt, who has already inserted himself into the conversation today.

He is the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

John, it's good to be behind the mic with you again. This is our second straight week of recording A Double Dip. We'll go ahead and pull the curtain back and let everybody know that.

It's good. We recorded some content on Theonomy last week. It was released over two episodes, obviously.

My voice was super struggling because I completely lost my voice a couple of weeks ago.

I feel a little better today, closer to 100 percent. I'm thankful for that and happy to talk with you about nothing other than eschatology.

People don't have any opinions on the end times, do they? John Moffitt Not really, no.

Justin Perdue So tell people what we're going to talk about. John Moffitt I've always got announcements. I always got something to say, right?

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Justin. We're done. Well, you got to tee up the topic now. Yeah, I know. Because you got to talk about the end times and all the things related to it.

Yeah, and all that merch won't matter in the end, but it's fun in the meantime. I mean, that t -shirt might just be sitting there on the floor with no one to fill it because you were taken.

That's right. So there are two things that when I grew up that just really put a bad taste in my mouth. And as I grew in my theology,

I began to understand why. But back when I was younger, I didn't really understand it.

I remember I was so afraid that I was going to be left during the tribulation. I was going to be left behind as probably

I was nine, ten at the time. I would get out of bed almost nightly and say the sinner's prayer just to make sure

I got covered for the day. And I can't remember how many times.

I was baptized three times as a kid. It's kind of like, let's make sure the first one takes.

And it was unfortunate. And a lot of people have, I think, have experienced where there's three responses to end times.

We'll talk about where it comes from. When we mean end times, like Jesus coming back, you're either highly confused.

And so it just creates angst because of the debate and the arguing that happens. And you just don't even want to think about it.

There's negative ramifications to that. Or you're absolutely infatuated by it because you're terrified of it.

You want to know every detail and you want to make sure that you don't take the mark of the beast. And you don't want to make sure you're following the false prophet.

And so you're following news. You've got the Bible in one hand and you've got the newspaper in the other. And you're really trying to make the connection.

I had someone tell me a book last night that I should read. And after he started describing it and I was like, dude, this is dispensational premillennialism, like in time stuff, just repackaged.

It's new. And or the third one is you're being motivated by rewards.

So you're not necessarily, you're afraid of what you might miss out on. Like if you don't live the life that you should, then at the end, and we're going to deal with rewards later in the podcast.

And at times we laugh and make fun of these things, but this was legitimate fears for me.

And I know that to this day, I did back during COVID, I did an episode that's still one of our top viewed top commented videos on is the vaccine, the mark of the beast.

And it's, you know, people are very serious in those comments. So I'm not here to make fun of them.

This is pastors and authors and conferences and books who have convinced people to live in fear and doubt.

And they are constantly worried instead of finding joy, which we're going to talk about and hope in the return of Christ, there is it's anxiety.

So that's my experience, Justin, I know that you've had, you have one that's similar. Justin Perdue I do. I just brief anecdote even before another one, maybe there was a little,

I got into my office yesterday. So we're off on Mondays. And so Tuesday is our

Monday. And there was a kind of like a staple, you know, sort of like papers sort of wedged in the door.

And so I grab it and I'm like, well, you know, somebody obviously just left this here for us to see. And we get these things periodically, you know, and this was a person that had written,

I mean, 10 single space pages of work on all of the stuff pertaining to technology and government, and like the book of revelation.

And, you know, how any like, basically, people shouldn't go and get medical procedures done, because whenever we go under general anesthesia, you know, chips are being implanted into our brain, that's effectively like the mark of the beast.

And there's all this, I mean, it's this insane thing as satellites and how those factor in. And it's just like all this stuff, like these connections that are being made or the person is attempting to make, you know, and all of it is this, it's very fear driven.

It's like people are unknowingly, I guess, being, taking allegiance with Satan, not even knowing they're doing that, receiving the mark of the beast without their knowledge.

And this is apparently an appropriate way to call people to vigilance and faithfulness to the Lord. But that was that.

Just to add to the craziness, you've got Harold Camping on top of that. Oh, sure. If you don't know who Harold Camping is, twice he has predicted the return of Christ.

The second time he had convinced people to donate millions of dollars to put up billboards around the world to, and we're talking people, they, they emptied their retirements, they maxed out their credit cards.

And what was it? 2000, I think it was like, what was that? Like 2000, I want to say it was 2008 or 2009 or something like that.

I'll have to go look at the date. But, and like we said, we're, we're talking sort of, I don't know, we're, we're joking a little bit, kind of, we're, we're just trying to talk pop level.

We're acknowledging the things that happen that are not great. And this is deadly serious because people, contrary to popular opinion, like Christians actually want to be faithful to Jesus.

And I'm kind of, again, jesting there too, because a lot of times with the way we talk about the gospel, we get shot at for being antinomian.

And it's like, nah, I mean, the, the saints actually want to honor God and obey him. And they're grieved at the thought of offending him.

And so it's not hard to motivate Christians. If you tell them that if you do A, B, or C, you are disobeying, then you can get people to do a lot of stuff.

And it's terrible that this occurs. But yeah, I grew up in a context where the, the church that I was a part of was liberal theologically in like three articles in the statement of faith, aligned with kind of a liberal

Baptist denomination, but had been aligned with a more conservative denomination at one time. And so there was a lot of just residual moralism, you know, in the church.

And so we would like so many churches do every year around Halloween, the youth group would go to the judgment house, which was something that a church across town would put on, you know, where they would take like, turn their entire education building into this very detailed, like you 3D thing, like you, you walk through it, right.

And you go from room to room, to room, to room, to room, to like see different scenes of, and it would always be like a teenager, a couple of teenagers, you know, like together, a group of friends together.

And there would usually be a car accident, you know, or something like that, or, or it would be an incident where something happens and some of the individuals were taken to heaven and some were left behind and everything.

It's all, everybody's terrified. It's fearful. And then you would, they would take you into hell, you know, where like people are, it's all dark strobe lights, people are dressed up as demons, you know, but they're hidden and they jump out and grab you.

And like, the whole thing was just insane. Then you would end in heaven, you know, where it was like, everything was good and, you know, bright and hearts and clouds and the whole thing.

And then at the end, there would be this like gospel presentation, you know, where it's like, you, you know, what about you?

What about your soul? And if you die tonight, you know, that kind of stuff. And do you want to go to heaven or hell?

And, and this is just how it was talked about. The reason I even bring up that anecdote, I remember this because like you, man,

I was always afraid in spite of every effort to be faithful to Christ and trust

Him and honor Him, because I knew He was legitimate, even though I wasn't in a good church. I was like,

I want to be Jesus. I'm so afraid that, that I'm going to be left behind. And then, you know, we'll like we were talking before we recorded, you know, you get left behind and now it's like, you're going to go through the great tribulation and you weren't obviously faithful enough to Jesus before you weren't legit enough before.

And maybe now, you know, if you endure hell on earth for Jesus' sake and you keep the faith, then maybe you can finally enter heaven, you know?

And it's like, well, I don't want to go through that. And I was afraid of that. Or I was afraid of standing before Christ at the end of history and Him looking at me and saying that He never knew me.

You know, it's all motivated by fear. Jon Moffitt Yeah. Well, they use the verse like every word that you've ever spoken, you will be held accountable for.

Justin Perdue Right. Every idle word. Right. And you're like, well, my gosh, I've spoken a bunch of those. And, you know, all of my deeds are going to be judged.

And it's like, well, I've done a lot of bad stuff. And, and all of that is kind of isolated, you know, and it's divorced from the biblical context, high level and any kind of redemptive historical covenantal understandings or Jesus and His work in our place, which we'll probably get to.

But the point of everything we're saying is that this has been the experience of so many people. Whenever the end of the world is thought about or talked about, whenever Christ's return is talked about, thought about, preached about, there always is this kind of underlying fear factor that permeates the whole thing.

It's a scary thought. We all struggle. We're going to talk about this too, I'm sure. We all struggle to be earthbound in our thinking.

We all tend to love this life too much. And so then, you know, we have to wrestle in our own souls with like eternal realities as it stands.

But then you have people really attempting to scare you into faith and obedience by preaching a frightening, harrowing thought of Jesus coming back.

It is frightening for those who don't trust Him. But for those who trust Him, it's actually a wonderful, hope -filled, glorious thought.

And I never was taught that, and it doesn't sound like you were either. And I don't think many of the listeners grew up with that kind of a thought either.

There we go. Both of us grew up in semi -different dispensational backgrounds.

Yours was more self -conscious. Mine was kind of by default. Pre -millennial, pre -trib, pre -rapture, if you, or rapture, sorry.

Pre -trib, rapture. Yeah. And listen, not all modern day pre -trib dispensationalists will emphasize in times in the same way.

So I'm not going to broad brush all of my dispensational in times brothers. But listen, the left -behind series, the left -behind movies that continue to be made, they're still making left -behind movies.

I've never seen any of them actually. Well, yeah, they've even, I mean, they've got, it's insane how they, there was a new one that just came out.

Somebody asked me if I was going to watch it. And I was like, no, I have no desire to watch it whatsoever.

But they have been making left -behind movies for 30, almost 40 years now.

I mean, the original ones came out in 70s. So it has been a part of our culture. The Tim LaHaye series is one of the number one selling books like ever, as far as Christians go.

And even there, he took a lot of liberty, but he was a dispensational pre -trib, pre, you know.

Sure. Pre -trib rapture guy. Rapture guy. So, and you know, the books obviously led way to the more modern movies with Kirk Cameron and all of that.

And I did see the first Kirk Cameron one that came out, I don't even know how many years ago that was. So it's been a part of the culture.

And because Theocast is on YouTube, we do get a lot of people who will interact with us who are from that persuasion.

And it's really sad, Justin, because it seems like all of what Christ has said and all has been said about Christ becomes secondary to the end of the world.

And all we can think about is how the world is going to end. And we're looking for all the signs and it's almost like it's

FOMO, right? We're afraid we're going to miss out, so we've got to be alert. And I agree, we've got to be alert, but we're being alert for the very wrong reasons.

You know, we're waiting for the return of Christ and we're longing and looking for it, but we're not trying to figure it out.

There's a massive difference. Justin Perdue Yeah. Brief thought on this. You know, there are a lot of secular, quote unquote, secular movies made that have the end of the world kind of as a theme and as a focus.

I think there are reasons for this. Human beings, we're all obsessed with where did we come from, where are we going, what's the reason for our existence, will this world end?

We all are. I mean, believer, unbeliever alike, we think about this stuff and we find it very intriguing.

And I think it's an Ecclesiastes 3 .11 reality that God has written eternity in man's heart, and he's done so, though, in such a way that man cannot find out what

God has done from the beginning to the end. And so I think the end times obsession in the church is understandable at that level.

And I think what's sad is that whenever theology gets a little bit off -center and wayward, a lot of times,

I trust motivations are good, but what ends up happening is well -meaning people, well -intentioned saints end up being preyed upon and manipulated by bad doctrine.

And I think that has certainly happened in the realm of eschatology, you know, study of the doctrine of the end times, the doctrine of the last things.

So let's talk, John, and I think at least personally and anecdotally and a little bit generally talked about how fear has been the driving factor for so many people in the church when they think about the return of Jesus or the end of the world.

It's a fearful thing, and fear then becomes my motivation for obedience, fleeing from sin.

In one sense, I'm believing in Jesus and I'm believing in God because I'm afraid to not because if I don't...

It's all kind of driven by, I want to escape punishment, basically.

I don't want to go to hell. That's it. Forget even the pursuit merit -driven,

I want to be rewarded. That's kind of secondary, but mainly I just don't want to go to hell and face judgment, and that's my motivation for everything.

The New Testament, obviously there's warnings about the wrath of God and the judgment to come and all of those kinds of things, and those are legitimate to talk like that.

But to the believer, generally speaking, in the New Testament, the return of Jesus is not talked about as a fearful thing.

It's not written of as something that would terrify us and therefore motivate us to action.

The tone in the tenor is actually very different, and that's what I think we want to talk about maybe for the second half of the episode. Yes. If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called

Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

Reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org

slash primer. I'll do one tip of the hat here, and we'll get into this a little bit maybe next week, but some people will then say, well, then why all these warning passages and why the book of Revelation?

How do you guys make sense of that? And the 30 -second answer to that is Revelation was written to a people that were underneath immense amount of persecution.

And they were beginning to waver, thinking maybe we got in the wrong cart here because this one seems like it's going over a cliff.

It felt like doomsday. And John writes to these people saying, all right, you're seeing a physical ramification of a spiritual battle, a spiritual war.

And so Revelation is the description of this cosmic war that has been happening. He brings in the past.

He brings in the history. He brings in the future. When you read chapter 22, you get to the end and it's like Jesus wins.

Praise God. That's the point of it. I know you feel this, and so he's giving all this description of war and battle, and you're in the midst of this war.

You're in the midst of this battle. No, this is a good start to the piece on the return of Christ is meant to give hope.

Yeah. That's the point of Revelation. Jesus wins. Writing to the late first century saints who, like you said, were undergoing persecution, many of them maybe were discouraged that Jesus has not returned already.

The letter is not meant to scare them. It's actually meant to comfort them on multiple levels that God will execute justice on all those who hate him and hate his people.

But mainly, God is faithful. He's going to keep every promise he's ever made to you. Jesus is coming back, and the heavenly

Jerusalem is going to come down, and all will be well. That's not often how the book is handled.

No. An early introduction to this is Ezekiel. I just finished preaching it. We'll put it in the notes. But in chapters 36 through 48, which we did a little bit of this a couple of episodes ago,

I just want to make reference that in chapters 38 and 39, where he is the battle of Gog and Magog, he kills this fictitious king and this fictitious army.

He kills it five different ways, five different times. It's a beautiful illustration.

At the end of the world, God does serve justice against those who are his enemy and those who have attacked us, because he flows fright from that into the new heavens and the new earth in the description of what our relationship with God would be like.

I also put a video out about the temple. We'll put a link on that here as well. But even from the

Old Testament perspective of God's relationship, the first and second coming of Christ were two anticipated hopeful events, not ever negative.

So the first one was for their justification, and the second coming they longed for because it says they longed for their homeland.

So there was a glorification to be in the presence of God. When it says, we fall short of the glory of God, which means to be in God's presence forever, holy and right.

They longed for that. So what's interesting is that Old Testament saints and New Testament saints saw the comings of Christ as something to be joyfully anticipated, not afraid.

They were not afraid of Christ's first or second coming. Right. He came the first time to save us.

He's going to come the second time. Yes, judgment will be executed, but he's going to bring us to be with him where he is.

That's how we should think of his return. All of the sufferings, all the trials, all of the difficulty that we face in this life, all of the battles that we fight against the corruption of our own flesh, all of those things, we will finally be delivered from all of that when he comes back.

So it is nothing but a hope -filled message for the saints, because we will stand before him covered in his own righteousness, represented by him.

The one who is the judge is the one who died for us and who advocates for us. So there really is nothing to fear for the believer.

If anything, whenever we think about his return, that is the greatest hopeful thought we could have.

We know that our present faith in Jesus and our present justification guarantees our final salvation.

Then we live from the end of the story backwards. We live with the new heavens and the new earth in view all the time.

That's what we should do. I think I've acknowledged this already. I prayed this for you and me before we recorded this.

We're all earthbound in our thinking. We all struggle to believe the promises of God, particularly related to the new heavens and the new earth, because we can't see it yet.

We can't visualize it. We can't conceive of a reality where there's no sin and no evil and where we're going to see

Christ. Nothing bad will ever happen. Nothing will ever turn or change for the worse.

I can't conceive of these things. It's hard to believe it sometimes. That's why we pray all the time for faith, that we would live by faith in Jesus, trusting in him, hoping for his return, and living in light of the promise of the new heavens and the new earth.

It's going to be even more difficult to do that, though, if the thought of his return just scares me and my only thoughts go to how

I'm not good enough and I'm probably going to be judged by Christ. That's going to wreck your soul.

Justin Perdue Well, it's the story of two dads. You have the kid who something went disastrous, and they're so terrified of when their dad gets home because they understand the consequence that's coming.

I can't wait for dad to get here because he's going to help me fix this. That's the difference, the anticipation of,

I really am looking forward to him getting here because then he'll help me solve this issue. I'll give an example.

This is 1 Peter 1. Just listen to how he starts.

Justin and I hold that God is sovereign in our salvation, and he is sovereign in our sanctification, and he is sovereign in our heavenly reward and glorification.

Peter wraps this up in just two verses. Listen to this. Blessed be the God and Father of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us, sovereignly, to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, unfiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who, by God's power, are being guarded through faith for our salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

He's saying he's giving you what has happened so you don't have to earn or maintain your salvation, and he's giving you what will happen, and he tells you how it's protected, who, by God's power, is being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.

Your performance is not in question here. You're not worried about what you're going to be doing or not be doing when

Christ returns around the rapture. A well -known passage, while we're still talking about this hope -giving idea,

Romans 8, beginning in verse 18, says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

That's a statement, as in 2 Corinthians 4 .17, similar. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comprehension.

First comment. Those verses are not statements about the smallness of the trial and the smallness of the suffering now.

Those are statements about the greatness of the glory that's coming. There's an obvious sense in which the Christian is grounded today in the difficulty that he or she faces by being reminded of their eternal hope.

Then going on in Romans 8, Paul talks about how the creation was subjected to futility, the fall, the curse that was brought upon it by the sin of Adam.

The creation is longing to be set free from this bondage and this futility. That's going to happen when we are resurrected and when our adoption is finally realized, our bodies are redeemed.

But then Paul says, For in this hope we're saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees, no one.

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Then he talks about how the Spirit helps us, the

Spirit intercedes for us in our weakness. Those who have been justified will be glorified, the certainty of all that.

Then the whole business of we're not going to be separated from the love of God because Christ died for us.

He was raised for us. He advocates for us. He intercedes for us. It's very clear that the hope of eternity, the hope of bodily resurrection, the certainty of our salvation in Christ is meant to give us hope today.

Maybe pivoting slightly to the final thing that we want to talk about, it actually serves as a motivation for our action.

That sounds counterintuitive because we have such a legal frame that we tend to only see motivation being, well,

I want to escape punishment. So that fear thing, that's a motivator. Or merit,

I want to earn it. I'm going to work hard and I'm going to achieve it. Those are the typical motivations that we understand naturally as humans.

The idea that we would be motivated to action, whether that's the pursuit of good works or fleeing from sin, doesn't matter.

We're going to be motivated to action by certain hope that somehow doesn't compute with us naturally.

But that's how the scriptures write, repeatedly, that we're motivated by security, by peace, by joy, love, and gratitude.

Looking into the portals of the future, knowing that we're good with God, that Christ is going to return, that the heavenly

Jerusalem is going to come down, and that we're going to be a part of all that, that motivates us to act today.

That's right. One passage, I'm not going to look it up, I'll just quote it, but 1 John 3 gives this very indication.

What we will be has not yet appeared, but when He will appear, we will be like Him as He is.

You talked about whether it's fleeing sin, so we purify ourselves as He is pure. John is saying you need to hope in Christ's return, and that's what motivates your obedience.

It's what motivates holiness. Holiness is a dirty word. It really breaks my heart.

I remember holiness to me, and we'll do another pod on this. Holiness to me was refraining from modernity.

Anything that was modern was bad. Don't be like the world, basically. Take it to the nth degree.

For whatever reason, after 20 or 30 years, it became okay. Styles of old were fine, music of old, and movies of old.

That's what holiness became. It was what I didn't do. Holiness is the reflection and the otherness of what

God does in counteraction. I want to take that thought and just continue reading here in Peter because we're talking about action now.

He says, in this you rejoice. Going back to this inheritance that's waiting for you, in this you rejoice.

There's a positive action. We are rejoicing knowing what's waiting for us.

He goes, in that, rejoice in that. Though now, going back to Romans 8 that you talked about, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, because it's our faith that guarantees us this, our faith in Christ, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

So all positive, positive, positive. Then, just for the sake of time, we're going to jump down to verse 13. Here's where action comes in.

Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Therefore, why?

You always have to say, what's the therefore, therefore, right? It's pointing back to this glorious hope of our salvation and our glorification.

He says, therefore, in the King James, it uses a literal translation, gird up the loins of your mind, right?

So they would take their garments and they would get them battle ready. They would come up and tie them close to themselves so that you're not entangled.

He's like, listen, you got to clean up the mind. You got to make sure the mind is focused. Then he says it this way, and being sober minded.

What's the opposite of sober mindedness? Intoxication, right? So he's saying, don't let the world's ideologies and the lies of the world intoxicate you.

Gather your thought, Paul says, take every thought captive. Then I love this, Justin, set your hope fully, not investment wise, 60, 30, 10.

He says, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

He uses Christ's return as our reasons for the mind war we're about to find ourselves in.

Three times in Peter, he says this. Look at, I'll just do this quick. First Peter 4 .7, the end of all things is at hand.

Well, we're going to talk about that next week. He's saying, listen, this is about to come to an end. Therefore, be sober, self -controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.

First Peter 5 .8, be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking the immediate devourer.

I think he devoured a lot of people, Justin, by getting people not hopeful in their return.

He devoured their hope because he can't take their faith. He can't do that, but he can distract their hope.

I think a lot of people find themselves ineffective and unfruitful, second Peter 1 .9, for the work of the kingdom.

They're not salt. They're not light. They're not loving their neighbor as they should. They're grumpy. They're afraid.

They're selfish. But when we see what Peter is talking about here, we find joy and hope and saying, listen,

I can endure this because of what's to come. Justin Perdue I'll be brief here. I'm not going to read the verses or anything, but two passages come to mind.

Not explicitly talking about the return of Christ in those words, but they're all very future looking, and they're grounded in the certainty of our salvation and in the hope of bodily resurrection.

That's plain. One is Philippians chapter three, where Paul spills a lot of ink on something that he said he's already written to them, but he's happy to do that because it's safe for them and he doesn't mind.

He goes in on don't be influenced by the circumcision party, basically Judaizers, who are telling you that you've got to do all these things for righteousness.

Then he talks about how he had all these reasons to trust in his flesh, but through his conversion, he's come to see that all of that was worthless.

He now trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ so that he might have a righteousness that is not from the law, but is actually by faith in Jesus Christ so that he may attain the resurrection of the dead.

Then in Philippians 3 .12, we know the verse pretty well. Not that he's already obtained it, or that he's already perfect, but he says he presses on to make it his own.

Then he says, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. We struggle very much with the because of reality.

We don't ever do things as believers so that something might be true of us. We do something as believers because Christ has saved us and we've been united to him, and because we have a certain hope, we now act.

We can act without fear because we know the end is good. That's huge.

Then in Romans, even the progression from Romans 5 into 6 and 7 and 8 and all of that, we're reminded in the beginning of Romans 5 of the certainty of our salvation.

If we've been justified, we have peace with God, how much more will we be finally saved by Jesus?

Then we get into the Romans 6 union with Christ stuff, and it's all this because of stuff.

In Christ, we've died to the guilt of sin, and in Christ, sin will not have dominion over us.

That's a statement of fact. In Christ, we become obedient from the heart, and all of this is going to be true for us.

Yes, we have an internal war now, and the battle is real, but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Then there's the promise of the fact that we're never going to be separated from him, and we will live with him forever. That's what grounds us, and that's what motivates us, and gives us peace in our souls, and drives us, and propels us in action.

Final thought from our confession, John, chapter 32, final paragraph 3.

There are some good words there about how nobody knows the day or the hour of Christ's return.

That's a good thing because, effectively, the confession says it produces vigilance in us, which is true.

We want to be watchful. We want to be mindful of the fact that Christ could return, and it teaches us to say, come

Lord Jesus, come quickly. The idea there is the uncertainty about the date of Christ's return does produce vigilance in us, and it allows us to live every day with hope, thinking today could be the day.

What a different emphasis is typically made there at the end of our confession. I'm thankful for it.

Every time I teach through it in membership class, I always draw people's attention to say, look at how this ends.

We wake up every morning and think, man, today could be the day that Christ returns, and the new heavens and the new earth become our reality.

That's how we should live. May the Lord give us grace and faith to live that way. Jon Moffitt So what about rewards?

Justin Perdue I know. That's what I was going to say. Jon and I are going to keep talking because apparently we just like to do that. We are going to record a second podcast.

I'll be a little bit shorter than this one. It's called the Semper Reformanda podcast. Semper Reformanda is just the name of our membership, people who have partnered with Theocast financially and get access to a number of things, including an extra pod each week.

If you're interested in how you could become an SR member, you can find all of that information over at our website, theocast .org.

You'll get some intel on what all that might mean for you, including access to an app and a community of people that are processing through and learning the same things you are.

In addition, that Theocast U thing that Jon mentioned at the beginning, you've got access to lectures and various kinds of educational material.

Jon Moffitt By the way, Justin, we're like 10 people away from having like 700 people in that app. Justin Perdue Awesome. That's wonderful. It's cool.

I'm encouraged by it, and it's a sweet community of people. We leave all that to you. For those of you who are

SR members, we'll talk with you on the flip side as we're going to consider heavenly reward and how does that factor into this conversation on eschatology.

For the rest of you who are not yet SR members anyway, we'll talk with you again next week. Lord willing, grace and peace.