Dead Men Walking Podcast Greg Moore, Jason Hamlin, & Dr. Sam Storms Episode 12

Dead Men Walking

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Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between.

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Broadcasting from an undisclosed location. Dead Men Walking starts now.

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Well hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Dead Men Walking. I'm your host,

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Greg Moore, here with my co -host, Jason Hamlin. How are you, sir? How's it going, guys? And guys, I just want to say thank you so much for reaching out to us, sending us questions, leaving us reviews on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, all those places you get your podcasts.

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That really helps with the algorithms to get us more views, advance the kingdom of God, bring him glory.

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Usually, we do a little banter back and forth in the beginning, but we have to get right into it because we have a very special guest today, and I know

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Jason and I were very excited when he said he would call in. On the line with us, we have Dr. Sam Storms.

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He's a THM from Dallas Theological Seminary, former board member of Desiring God, sits on the council of the

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Gospel Coalition, pastor of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City. Just the list goes on and on with all his credentials, but Dr.

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Storms, welcome to the show. It's good to be with you all today. Been looking forward to this. Well, thank you so much.

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So what we wanted to cover today, if anyone isn't familiar with Dr. Storms, his videos online, his sermons, his preaching on end -time eschatology has just helped me, has ministered to me for years now.

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And I emailed him and I said, boy, I would love for you to come on and maybe just give us some foundational information on end -time eschatology.

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I have always said, probably one of my weakest points when I go through the Bible, it's something that I had ignored for a little bit and just thought, well, maybe it's not that important, and the

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Lord just really convicted me and said, no, to know that eschatology is to know me and you really need to dig in.

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So before we get into that, for our listeners, doctor, could you just give maybe a little five -minute bio of who you are and how the

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Lord saved you and just kind of introduce yourself to the listeners? Sure. Well, I was raised Southern Baptist, pretty much in Southern Baptist churches all through my early years, up through college.

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I went to the University of Oklahoma. And when I left, when I graduated from OU, went to Dallas Theological Seminary.

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And it was pretty much about the second semester of my first year there that I started attending something other than a

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Southern Baptist church. I did a four -year THM at Dallas. I got my

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PhD at the University of Texas at Dallas in intellectual history. Pastored in a couple of churches there in the

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Dallas area for 12 years. Then we moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma. I pastored there for eight years.

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And then from there to Kansas City. And then from there, I went to Wheaton College and taught theology at Wheaton College for four years.

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Back to Kansas City again, and I established Enjoying God Ministries. And just for the sake of listeners, pretty much everything that I have written, largely,

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I don't know what percentage it would be, but largely is available for free on my website.

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So if you just go to samstorms .org, dot O -R -G, you can find it there and make use of it any way you see fit.

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And then in 2008, I came to Oklahoma City. And I've been the senior pastor here at Bridgeway Church for the last, coming on 12 years in August now.

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So I got saved when I was about nine years old. I've been, in fact, my wife and I just celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary.

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So that dates me. Oh, thank you. Congratulate her that she's endured me that long.

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I have two daughters, four grandchildren, and yeah,

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I'm just, I'm loving being here in Oklahoma City and staying busy, writing books. And especially during this pandemic,

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I've been able to get a lot of writing done. So that's been rewarding. So did you grow up Baptist then in that denomination?

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Yeah, I grew up Southern Baptist, pretty much straight down the line, Southern Baptist in Oklahoma and Texas for all my years until I went to Dallas Seminary.

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Yeah, it's funny, up here in Michigan, there's a lot of non -denominational churches. And I think we find this across the country as well.

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They're non -denominational, but in my area, and growing up in church, when I got older,

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I went, oh, they're really basically Baptist churches. They hold to all the same doctrines and dogma, if you will.

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So I always found it funny when they would say, we're non -denominational, but I said, boy. You act like it. Yeah, I guess if you walk like a

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Baptist and talk like a Baptist, you might be a Baptist, you know? Well, yeah, Bridgeway Church, we're

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Baptistic in our theology. In other words, we practice believer's baptism, but we are non -denominational.

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We're not affiliated with any denomination. We are a part of the Acts 29 network. So it's worked well for us.

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We're happy there and we're flourishing. Yeah, and that Acts 29 network, that's another pastor who just ministered to me from afar,

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Matt Chandler. And what you guys have done just over the last five years, the way you plant churches.

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I mean, it's a whole nother subject, but even how you become a member at one of those churches, the accountability, the discipleship, boy, it's everything that I would love to see in our local churches here in Southern Michigan.

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I think the closest one to me is about 50 or 60 miles away, maybe a little closer in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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But yeah, great work you guys have been doing there. So let's jump into some terms.

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I'm 30, how old am I, 38, 30? I'll be 39 next month or two months. Yeah, okay.

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So I'm an 80s kid. And it's funny because I grew up on the -

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Pre -trib. Pre -trib, yep. And the Left Behind series, right? I learned all my anti -mescatology from Kurt Cameron and all my spiritual warfare from Frank Peretti.

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That's what happened in the 80s into the 90s with churches. So that's what

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I grew up on, on a pre -trib, rapture's coming, end times are near, get ready, we're gonna be raptured up out of here.

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And then it was very confusing for me as a child because it was like, well, okay, are we raptured? But then there's still people left and then do they get a second chance to believe?

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And I just never really found all that in the Bible when I was reading it. So it was very confusing to me.

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So could we maybe, Doctor, go through some terminology? Define some terms, yeah. Maybe define some terms of difference between preterism and amillennialism and all those.

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And I'll let you dealer's choice on which one you wanna start with. And maybe just give us a little overview for the listeners. Sure, well, my history is very much like yours.

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I was raised believing in the pre -tribulational rapture. I was a dispensationalist and a premillennialist.

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So maybe I oughta define those terms. Sure. Dispensationalism is a way of interpreting scripture that places primary emphasis on a pretty solid and rigid distinction between Israel and the church.

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God has two covenant peoples. They have two different sets of promises and therefore will inherit differently in the age to come.

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And part and parcel of the dispensational view is the pre -tribulation rapture. This notion that the great tribulation, to use the language that Jesus used in Matthew 24, is a yet future seven -year period and that the church, all living believers will be translated out of the earth, will be raptured prior to the outbreak of that period of time.

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And then Christ will return seven years later at his second coming to destroy his enemies.

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And at that time, according to the view that I held for many years, he will set up a literal 1 ,000 -year reign upon the earth, centered in Jerusalem.

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And at the end of that, he will bring about what we call the great white throne or final judgment, and that will lead into the new heavens and the new earth.

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So the language is dispensational, strong distinction between Israel and the church, two different peoples, two different purposes, a pre -tribulation rapture and a pre -millennial return of Christ.

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So Christ returns before the 1 ,000 -year earthly reign. So that's the view that I embraced, the view that Dallas Seminary still teaches to this day.

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And it was while I was at Dallas that I began to have some doubts about those views.

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It began in a course on the Greek exegesis of the book of Ephesians. We were randomly assigned paragraphs in Ephesians to write our term paper on, and I was given,

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I think it was by the providence of God, Ephesians 2, 11 to the end of the chapter. And that's the passage that talks about how

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God has removed this barrier between Jew and Gentile and how Gentile believers are now fellow citizens and co -heirs in the

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Commonwealth of Israel, now heirs to the promises, the same promises given to Israel are now inherited by believing

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Gentiles. And so my dispensational views began to erode in light of that passage, and of course other texts as well that began to lead me away from the dispensational view.

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And then about the same time, there were a couple of books that came out. One was by Robert Gundry called

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The Church and the Tribulation. And he argued very persuasively for a post -tribulation rapture that the church will in fact be on the earth during this period of time.

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And then George Ladd's book, The Blessed Hope, other books began to circulate on the

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Dallas campus. And we had some pretty lively debates, and maybe I should say some sinful arguments instead of lively debates, but it became pretty intense.

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By the time I graduated, I had become a non -dispensational and post -tribulational in my view of the rapture.

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And then the millennial issue came to the forefront. And for the next several years, I began to examine the millennial issue because largely we had been taught that any view other than premillennialism was a slippery slope into theological liberalism.

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And people who didn't believe it basically just simply didn't take the Bible for precisely what it says.

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And so I began to re -examine that and began to read some really solid amillennial authors.

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And basically what happened was I conducted a study of everything the

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New Testament said that will happen at the second coming of Christ. And it was a real, if I can use this word in a right way, it was a real revelation to me.

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And I realized what my premillennial convictions entailed.

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And I don't know how, probably most of the people listening to this are premillennial. And I suddenly realized if I'm premillennial,

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I have to believe that physical death will continue to exist beyond the time of Christ's second coming.

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Because premillennials believe that people will die physically during the millennium. That was confusing for me as a young Christian.

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Yeah, and I also realized I had to believe that the natural creation will continue to be subjected to the curse imposed by the fall beyond the time of the second coming.

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I had to believe that the new heavens and the new earth would not be inaugurated until 1 ,000 years after the second coming.

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I also realized that to be premillennial, I had to believe that men and women could still come to saving faith in Christ after the second coming.

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I had to believe that unbelievers will not be resurrected until 1 ,000 years after the second coming.

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And I had to believe that unbelievers would not be judged and cast into the lake of fire until 1 ,000 years after the second coming.

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Now, having said all that, there are probably people who are nodding their head and saying, well, yeah, right. And then

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I suddenly realized, no, wrong. Because in my study of the second coming,

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I realized that none of that can happen. Physical death ends at the second coming. And the natural creation is delivered from the curse at the second coming.

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And the new heavens and new earth is inaugurated at the second coming. And all hope for salvation ends when

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Christ returns. And unbelievers will be resurrected and judged and cast into the lake of fire at the time of the second coming.

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So all the things that a premillennialist must believe, I found to be precluded by what the

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New Testament says happens when Christ returns to the earth. So this forced me to re -examine

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Revelation, especially chapter 20. And I came to embrace what's called the amillennial view, which, and people say, oh, so you don't believe in a millennium.

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I said, of course I do. It's right there in Revelation 20. I just believe that Revelation 20 is describing what is going on currently in what we call the intermediate state.

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The intermediate state, that's what the Christians, if you die, if you die of the coronavirus and you're a believer in Jesus, you enter into the intermediate state.

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It's intermediate because it's in between the current existence we have on earth and the time of the final resurrection.

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And I believe that Revelation 20 was describing the reign of Christ over the world, over the nations during this time that we call the interadvent age between the exaltation of Jesus in the first century and his second coming at the close of history.

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And that believers who die enter into that reign with Christ and they share his dominion.

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They are co -regents, as it were. So I do believe in a millennium. I just don't believe it's describing a literal 1 ,000 years on the earth.

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I believe it's describing the entire current age of Christ's rule from the right hand of the father between his first and second comings.

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And isn't there some textual, sorry to interrupt. Isn't there some textual evidence for that as well when we look at that word 1 ,000 year?

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I know throughout the Bible, there's other places where when 1 ,000 is used, it's almost meaning a span of time, kind of like even

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Genesis, obviously, is Hebrew. 1 ,000 sheep or 1 ,000, you know? I don't know how we get that literal 1 ,000.

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Yeah, I'm fairly well persuaded that there's not a single instance in the Bible, Old and New Testament, where the number 1 ,000 is to be taken literally, as if you can mark it off on a calendar.

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It's always symbolic. You know, the cattle on 1 ,000 hills belong to the Lord. So it's always -

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One day is like 1 ,000 years to God, yeah. Right. And especially in the book of Revelation, that is almost entirely symbolic and figurative.

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Now, people immediately say, oh, you don't believe Revelation is true? Yes, I do. Of course,

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I believe everything in the Bible is true, but not everything is literally true. A lot of it is symbolically true and figuratively true.

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You know, we say, is Jesus literally a shepherd? No. Is he literally the door?

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No. But those figures of speech, those metaphors, describe something that is true, but it uses a variety of different kinds of language to express that truth.

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So I embraced the amillennial view. There's also a view called postmillennialism.

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And the primary difference between the amill and the postmill view, and it really is the only difference, is that the postmillennialist believes that the

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Holy Spirit, working through the power of the gospel and the ministry of the church, will gradually transform society to be reorganized or renewed according to Christian principles.

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And that when Christ returns at the end of history, he will come back to a largely Christianized world.

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They don't believe that every single person will be saved, but they do believe the vast majority will come to saving faith in Jesus before the return of Christ.

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So basically, the difference between amill and postmill is that the postmillennialist believes that this millennial kingdom will emerge progressively on the earth through the ministry of the church and the power of the gospel, and that things will gradually improve.

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The amillennialist at least shares this with most premills, says that things are gonna gradually deteriorate.

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Now, that doesn't mean that there won't be great spiritual flourishing in the church, just means that broadly based society, government, educational systems, institutions, political parties will progressively deteriorate until Christ comes back to defeat his enemies.

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So those are the three views, premill, amill, postmill. And then there's one other view that I gradually came to embrace, and it needs careful definition because people get confused by this.

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There's a view called preterism, and preterism in its full and expression basically argues that all biblical prophecy was consummated and fulfilled by 70

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AD in the first century, that with the destruction of Jerusalem in the temple, that this was the promised second coming of Christ, this coming was a spiritual coming in judgment, and that the resurrection and the inauguration of the new heavens and new earth and the judgment of both believer and unbeliever happened then.

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I think full preterism, as I've just defined it, is borderline heretical.

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Maybe I need to remove the word borderline, but I am what would be called a partial preterist.

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And what I mean by that is, I believe that the Olivet Discourse, and we call it because it's the discourse

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Jesus delivered on the Mount of Olives, Christians can read, you can go read it in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21.

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I believe that virtually everything in the Olivet Discourse has already been fulfilled, and that Jesus wasn't prophesying primarily about the end of human history.

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He was prophesying about the end of the Jewish age and the consummate judgment brought against Israel in 70

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AD. Now, having said that, there is still the possibility that what Jesus is describing in Matthew 24, that primarily refers to the events from about 33

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AD to 70 AD, are providing us with what we might call a blueprint for what will happen on a global scale at the end of history.

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In other words, if I remember, I'll try to simplify this. In other words, what Jesus was describing on a local, microcosmic scale in the first century provides us with a pattern for what will happen on a global, macrocosmic scale at the end of human history.

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That's still a possibility. I'm not totally convinced by it, but I'm open to being persuaded.

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So I'm a partial preterist in that I say that a great deal of what we read in the

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New Testament, and especially in the Olivet Discourse, has already been fulfilled. So that leads to, well,

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I'll say one more thing, and then I'll shut up and let you all ask questions. Oh, no, go on. This is awesome, I'm loving this.

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I'm at church right now, we're good. Great, right? Oh, it's amazing. That leads to a conclusion that a lot of your listeners are gonna probably scream in rebellion against when

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I say this. Okay, here we go, get ready. The great tribulation to which

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Jesus refers in Matthew 24 has already come and gone. The great tribulation to which he made reference actually referred to the events in about 67 to 70

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AD and are explicitly applicable to what happened in Jerusalem when the city was surrounded by the

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Roman armies led by Titus, and the city and the temple were utterly and absolutely destroyed.

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And what took place in the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and I go into great detail on this in my book,

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Kingdom Come, was in all likelihood the most horrific, concentrated expression of tribulation trial and pain and suffering that human history has ever known.

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And I think that is what Jesus was referring to when he talked about the great tribulation. So the implication of that is people then say, oh, wait a minute,

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Sam, so you don't believe there's gonna be a future seven year time of great tribulation? And I say, well, there might be, but it might be seven months or seven days or seven weeks, or it might be 140 months.

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I don't believe the Bible specifies a specific time period, but I do believe the

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Bible says that as we approach the second coming of Jesus, there is going to be increased and intensified global persecution of the church.

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It will be a time of great tribulation, make no mistake, but the great tribulation is an accomplished fact of past history.

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So I'm not denying that there's gonna be a really bad season that's gonna transpire just before the coming of Jesus.

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I believe there is. Maybe we're in it, I don't know. You know, it's interesting, when we talk about this, my guess is a lot of our

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Christian brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe cringe when they hear it. People in the

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Sudan, people in India, people in North Korea, our brothers and sisters who have been horrifically, people in Nigeria, people who have been horrifically persecuted, tortured, arrested, lost all their property, executed.

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And they would say to us, wait a minute, you're afraid that you're gonna suffer persecution sometime in the future?

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Come live where I do. I think it's an incredible offense. To the suffering church globally, that we would cower in fear over, you know, deteriorating conditions in our society.

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They have experienced tribulation to the max in ways that you and I can't even begin to envision.

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So all that to say, will there be an increased global persecution of the church as we approach the end of this age?

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Yes. But I don't believe that's the great tribulation that Jesus was talking about. So maybe

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I should, so if people are saying, so we're gonna be on this earth when this massive persecution of the church occurs?

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Yes, we will. And at the end of that time, when Christ returns at what we call the parousia or the second coming, there will be a rapture.

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All living saints will be translated and caught up to be with the Lord. First Thessalonians four describes this.

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But we will continue with Christ as he descends to the earth to judge his enemies and to establish the new heavens and the new earth.

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Yeah, wow. That's so good. I'm Ah -mil now. That's all it took, that's all it took, huh? I'm partial preterist and Ah -mil.

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20 minutes with Dr. Sturbs. Well, you know, that makes so much sense.

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And when you say template, that in my mind that makes sense because when I go macro on the Bible and I look at the life of Jesus and I look at the covenant

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God that we serve, it really makes no sense when you kind of have a halfway

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Jesus. Well, I'm coming back, but I'm also waiting seven years, but there's still gonna be people that can be saved and maybe they have a second chance.

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I see a God and a Jesus that when he does something, he does something completely and for once.

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And then also, isn't that a parable? I mean, a parable is talking about a story that might not specifically be happening, but you're going to have examples like it.

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So when you say, Dr. Sturbs, when you say template, that makes total sense to me to where in Matthew, when he's saying, yes, there's gonna be this actual physical destruction of the temple, right?

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And I mean, didn't Jesus walk around going, no, you guys don't get it. I am the temple. I, you know, it makes sense to me that we're talking about the

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Jewish age ending and the church being obviously grafted into that. And then you have that backed up with, you know, books upon books of Paul telling us that and the disciples telling us that.

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Yes, so for example, you know, Jesus talks about, they said, how are we gonna know when the end comes?

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And he says, well, don't get, don't panic. There are a lot of things that are gonna happen first. You remember he talks about wars, rumors of wars, nation rising against nation, famines, earthquakes.

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Those are just the beginning of birth pangs. And he says, tribulation, they'll put you, they'll bring you up in front of the court.

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You'll be hated for my sake before all people. Yes, that occurred in AD 33 to 70, and it's been thoroughly documented.

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I document it in my book. But yes, it also is true of the period from 70 AD up to the present day.

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The same events, the same kinds of scenarios, earthquakes, tribulation, war, persecution of believers, lawlessness, all of that has been ongoing throughout the entire course of the church age.

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So, but Jesus was talking specifically about the conditions within the land of Israel leading up to the destruction of the city and temple in 70

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AD. But yes, it does apply in a kind of a secondary application to what's been going on for the last 2000 years.

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So then let's shift a little bit into, well, you did explain amillennialism.

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So let me maybe do a deep dive into that. So, like I said, I grew up in the, like when you're on the

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Left Behind series, you're talking Mark of the Beast and it's about computers and it's - Getting a microchip in your hand.

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Getting a microchip and the anti -Christ. Where do those kind of, and you said earlier, revelation is literal in some sense and figurative in some sense.

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Is that, am I summing that up correctly? Or do you think it's all figurative? No, there are some literal elements there, but certainly.

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But revelation is a unique genre or type of literature.

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You don't read revelation the way you read Romans. Revelation is not this airtight, logical, building of an argument.

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It's kind of a, it's a circular book in the sense that it recapitulates the whole period of history between the two comings of Christ.

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But we don't want to get delayed or deterred there. Go on and ask your question. What was your question going to be?

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So those type of things where those are, Mark of the Beast, anti -Christ, those type of things that are very prevalent in a certain type of eschatology, like rapture -heavy, pre -mill type of eschatology, where does that fit in for, let's say, someone who's exploring amillennialism?

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Sure. First of all, let me just say a little bit about the beast. It's important.

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A lot of Christians don't realize this, but the word anti -Christ does not appear anywhere in the book of Revelation. It only appears in the

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Johannine literature, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. The beast in Revelation is primarily, in my opinion, an image or a metaphor of all opposition to Jesus Christ and his kingdom.

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In other words, you look at our society today, and you look at governmental institutions, political agendas, philosophies, education, the radical abortion industry, the undermining of sexual ethics, all of the various expressions of belief and practice that are opposed to the personal work of Jesus and his kingdom, that, collectively, is the beast.

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The beast is our nations, politicians, philosophies, educational agendas, financial institutions, anything that seeks to oppose and undermine the kingdom of Christ and the work of the local church.

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That is the beast of Revelation. That beast has been very much in existence and operative throughout the history of mankind.

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I mean, it was described in terms of those kingdoms in the book of Daniel. It's been ongoing throughout the whole present age.

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Now, the question is, and I don't have a really, I'm gonna disappoint you here because I don't have a definitive answer.

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The question is, will there be a singular individual, a human being, who embodies all of that opposition to the kingdom of Christ, who will emerge at the end of the age, that we then call the

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Antichrist? I'm open to being persuaded that that's the case. I'm not entirely convinced by it.

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The only place, you know, there are a couple of places where it seems to allude to that, 2 Thessalonians 2, 1

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John 2. But, and I'm open to that because the, there were two prior examples of the

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Antichrist, or what we call the abomination of desolation. There was a man called Antiochus Epiphanes in the middle of the 2nd century

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BC, who ransacked Jerusalem and desecrated the temple. He is explicitly called the abomination of desolation.

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Then Titus, the Roman general in 70 AD was another embodiment of this principle.

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So maybe there will be one individual who emerges, who will, in a sense, lead this global persecution against the church of Jesus Christ.

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I'm open to being persuaded of that. I'm just not entirely convinced of it. In fact, I don't see it in Revelation.

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I see it maybe in 2 Thessalonians 2, 1 John 2. But not in Revelation. Now, so what is the

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Mark of the Beast? Well, the Mark of the Beast is not a tattoo. It's not an embedded computer chip.

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It's not a special credit card that you're gonna have to have in order to buy and sell and conduct commerce.

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The Mark of the Beast is an image designating your loyalty to the opposition to the kingdom of Christ.

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See, here's what people need to realize is there's not just a Mark of the Beast. There's also the Mark of Jesus Christ.

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In Revelation chapter seven, we are told that there will be people who have the seal of the living

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God upon them, on their foreheads. For example, Revelation seven, verse three, says, don't harm the earth, the sea, and so on until we have sealed the servants of God on their foreheads.

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So let me ask people who are listening. Do you believe that Christians are gonna have a mark of the true

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Christ tattooed on their foreheads or embedded as a computer chip in their hands? Well, of course not.

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What he's talking about there is this is an image designed to communicate the idea that we are loyal to Jesus.

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We follow Christ. We confess him as savior. We are dedicated to the principles of his kingdom.

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The Mark of the Beast is a demonic or a satanic counterfeit of the mark of the people who follow

31:21

Christ. And it simply means people who are loyal to the opposite side, who are loyal to Satan, who are loyal to the institutions that oppose the church of Jesus.

31:32

It's not a literal tattoo or mark or anything of that sort. It's a way of describing their allegiance to the opposition of the kingdom of Christ.

31:44

Whether that's a corporate institution, whether it's an individual, that to me is of secondary significance.

31:50

So that's the Mark of the Beast. That's the beast, that's the mark. It's basically saying,

31:57

I am loyal to, I follow everything that is opposed to the kingdom of Christ. So not necessarily a physical marking, but could it be visible in action or allegiance by another observer?

32:09

Well, it reminds me of Deuteronomy 6. It's how you live, it's how you live.

32:15

It's the allegiance of your heart. It's the ethical system that you live by.

32:21

Are you gonna live according to the principles of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, or are you gonna live in accordance with the principles of the kingdom of Satan?

32:29

That's basically it. And this idea of a mark or a tattoo or whatever you wanna call it, was simply a way of describing in very vivid terms whose kingdom you belong to.

32:41

Do you think that Nero may have been the beast at all?

32:47

Oh, sure, yeah, absolutely. You know, the number 666, when you spell out

32:54

Nero. Yeah, I think Nero was very much in John's mind, and he used him as something of, if we can say it again, a template or a pattern or a prototype of the beast.

33:05

It's not just Nero, it's also Diocletian, who persecuted

33:10

Christians in the third century. It's also, the beast is also Arius, who denied the deity of Christ.

33:16

The beast was Machiavelli. The beast was 18th century deism.

33:23

The beast is, you know, gosh, we could give, Darwinian evolutionary theory.

33:29

The beast is higher critical scholars who try to undermine the authority and the integrity of the

33:36

Bible. Any form of opposition to the principles of God's word and the kingdom of Christ is an expression of the beast.

33:43

So it's almost along the same lines as the Antichrist? So then they're not two separate entities, are you saying?

33:51

No, they're not two separate entities. I don't mind using the terminology of Antichrist, but, you know,

33:58

John says in 1 John, there are many Antichrists, and of course, what he's talking about is when he gets to chapter, in chapters two and four, anybody who denies that Jesus Christ is the incarnate son of God in the flesh, he is an

34:12

Antichrist. Now, will there be one final individual embodiment that we call

34:18

Antichrist? Maybe so. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't.

34:25

But the beast of Revelation, again, as I said, is any expression of the kingdom of Satan in opposition to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

34:34

Which your, you know, what you've talked about that I've been watching over the last few years, and obviously in your book,

34:39

Kingdom Come, it made so much sense to me growing up in the theology that I did to where God is saying, you know, this is, it's a heart issue, it's your obedience, it's this allegiance to me, and then we have an interpretation of Revelation that says, oh, no, no, no, no, you just don't have to get this mark, and it's gonna be this one guy.

35:02

And I would read that as a younger Christian and say that it doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the

35:08

Bible with me. I mean, even if I'm on the fence or not regenerated or, you know, secularist, and I just go, you know,

35:15

I'm not gonna take a chip or a tattoo to avoid maybe possibly this being true.

35:21

It almost seemed too easy. I know that's probably not the right term, but it just seems, first of all,

35:26

Satan is a deceiver, right? And it just seemed that it didn't jive with the rest of the

35:31

Bible, so the way he explains this is making sense. We were taught as kids, you know, in the pre -trib situation, you know, there were gonna be

35:42

Apache helicopters you can find in Revelation, you know, there's gonna be, you know, rivers of blood and, you know, blood red moons and all this different stuff.

35:53

I mean, you know, it just got to a point where I was just like, okay, this all seems so, you can't really find all these verses within the scripture, and you have to twist a lot of things just to come up with this type of eschatology.

36:08

Yeah. Right, I preached through Revelation last year, and I think it was 35 or 40 messages.

36:17

Oh, wow. And the one thing that - Is that available, by the way? Oh, yeah. That's available on his website.

36:22

Oh, sweet, I will get that for sure. You can find it in one of two places. You can either go to my website, samstorms .org,

36:31

and look under sermons, under resources, it'll say sermons, or you can go to my church website, bridgewaychurch .com,

36:38

and under sermon podcasts, and you can watch them, they've been videoed, you can listen to them, and furthermore, all of the notes, the manuscript of my sermons are all available, not at my personal website, but at the church website, and you can get all the notes and download them and use them.

36:55

Awesome. But what I discovered was, is that virtually all of these graphic images of these horrific things happening throughout the course of history and especially as we approach the second coming are descriptive of demonic activity.

37:10

You know, the locusts, and the weird -looking beasts, and the frogs, and all these other things, that these are various descriptive metaphors pointing to increased demonic activity, which

37:23

I think anybody with any sense of discernment can look around our world right now, and if you don't see the proliferation and intensification of Satan's kingdom at work,

37:36

I mean, I don't think I can convince you of anything, and I think that's what Revelation is largely describing.

37:42

Yeah, sadly, I think that's lost on us in Western Christianity, especially in the United States, because we live in a country of such blessing, abundance, freedom, and liberty.

37:51

Just a few episodes ago, I was kind of half -joking and saying, you know, 10 ,000

37:56

Christians slaughtered in China last year, and we're over here complaining because we had to bake a cake for someone.

38:03

Now, I don't agree, but you know, our bake -the -cake goes right to the Supreme Court, the highest law on the land, over a religious freedom, and yet, in other countries,

38:12

Christians are being executed, tortured, martyred, and like you said, Doctor, earlier, it's a slap in the face when we say, oh, there's going to be persecution.

38:21

Things are gonna get worse, and worse, and worse. It's bad now. Look, sin has always been here. This is a fallen world.

38:27

I tell people that all, I mean, look at Rome. I mean, Rome would take little children and sew bear skin onto their backs, and then, you know, try to splice

38:35

DNA and do all kinds of weird stuff throughout history that we've seen. I mean, sin is here, and you're absolutely right,

38:42

Doctor, too, when you just look at the world around us and how it's progressively, I mean, even 50 years ago in America, we might have done sin in secret, but our society as general said, well, no, we're still at least going to try to be somewhat righteous and lawful, right?

38:57

There were certain things, even in public, that you couldn't do, even if we were, you know, giving lip service to God as a country and maybe doing them behind closed doors, but now all bets are off.

39:07

I mean, you know. By the way, let me just give the correct information here.

39:13

If you go to bridgewaychurch .com, you click on resources, and you'll see a little thing that says sermons.

39:20

You click on sermons, and just click on series, for example, and you go down,

39:25

I'm looking at it here, the series on Revelation is called Revelation, Triumph of the Lamb, and you just click on that, and, you know,

39:34

I did, gosh, I finished it in June of 2018, and I don't know how many sermons there are.

39:40

There are like 40 or something, and like I said, all the, you can watch it, you can listen to it, all the notes are there you can download, and it basically forms a commentary on the book of Revelation that's basically at a layman's level, so I think people will be able to really benefit from that.

39:55

It's actually right on Google, right under Bridgeway Church says Revelation, Triumph of the

40:01

Lamb, and you can click right on it. Yep, there it is. Yeah, you can find it in a variety of ways. Oh, that's great, that's super.

40:07

So besides some of the books that kind of, you know, influenced your views, what were some of the particular

40:14

Bible verses that lend you to amylenalism? I know we touched on a few of them, and I know we touched on Matthew 24 for partial preterism, but was it textual evidence?

40:23

Was it just kind of looking at the Bible in a macro sense and seeing that it all fit together with that type of eschatology?

40:31

What were some of the key things, if someone is searching and saying, well, okay, that's great, he read some books and he has these theories, what biblical evidence are you leaning towards with that type of eschatology?

40:42

Well, I would come back to what I said at the very beginning, those passages that describe what happens at the second coming of Christ, in my opinion, make impossible the idea that there would be 1 ,000 years of extended history on the earth between the second coming and the introduction of the eternal state.

41:05

So I would direct people to Romans chapter eight, verses 18 through 25, which ties the deliverance of the natural creation from its curse to the redemption of the bodies of believers when

41:20

Jesus Christ comes back. I would send people to 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul very clearly says that at the second coming of Christ, the last enemy, which is physical death, will be swallowed up.

41:36

Or he also says that, you know, so that's very significant. Then I would take people to Ephesians two, 11 to 22.

41:46

Once again, the passage that I think tells us that the church of Jesus Christ is the true

41:51

Israel of God in which there are believing Jews and believing Gentiles. I would go to, oh, 2

41:59

Thessalonians chapter one, for example, where Paul talks about at the second coming of Christ, those who reject

42:07

Jesus, those who do not believe at that time suffer the punishment of eternal destruction.

42:14

It's not 1 ,000 years later after this millennium, but it's at the time of the second coming. How long has the 1 ,000 year reign theology been around?

42:25

Do you know off the top of your head where that was established? I actually have, yeah, I have a chapter in my book,

42:31

Kingdom Come, where I talk about the millennial debate in history. And there were in the early church, and by that I mean probably in the second century, third century, a few people who advocated premillennialism and advocated for this earthly reign, they were the minority, contrary to what a lot of people think.

42:54

I think amillennialism is very clearly documented in the writings of the church fathers, and I give all the documentation of this in my book.

43:04

But really from about the fourth century, from the time of St. Augustine up until the time of the

43:10

Reformation and post -Reformation period, for about the next 1 ,000 to 1 ,100 years, the amillennial view was the dominant position.

43:18

In the Reformation and post -Reformation period, post -millennialism took over. The Puritans were largely post -millennial.

43:26

And then premillennialism and kind of the dispensational variety really emerged in full force in the middle of the 19th century with a man named

43:35

John Nelson Darby. And it took root in England, and it began to grow in America in the early years of the 20th century, so, you know, 1900 to 1930 or so.

43:48

And then of course, you know, with the establishment of several schools like Dallas Seminary, Grace Theological Seminary, Talbot Seminary, many of these schools, most of the

44:02

Southern Baptist seminaries as well. And this is a sad thing. I just,

44:07

I wish it were not the case. But what happened was the dispensational, pre -tribulational, premillennial view became identified with Christian orthodoxy.

44:19

So if you were not an advocate of that particular eschatology, oh, that must mean you don't believe in the inerrancy of scripture.

44:26

You don't believe in the deity of Jesus. You don't believe he was born of a virgin. He was raised from the dead.

44:32

And of course, that was very sad, but that was the way it was portrayed. And anybody who held a different view, as I said earlier, was kind of labeled as being liberal and not a real true

44:43

Bible believer. And then of course, this predates you guys, but I was very much alive when it happened.

44:51

The summer of 1970 was when everything really came to a head with the publication of Hal Lindsey's book,

44:58

The Late Great Planet Earth. I was in between my freshman and sophomore years of college when that book came out.

45:05

It was, at least until the Left Behind series came out, it was the best -selling book in America outside the

45:12

Bible itself. It sold, I think, over 35 million copies in its history. And Lindsey popularized the pre -tribulational, premillennial view.

45:22

And then of course, as you all have even mentioned, the Left Behind series just took it to the moon.

45:29

And that series of books just indoctrinated people of this escapist mentality, like, well, thank you,

45:36

Jesus. You're gonna come and get us out of here before it gets too bad. And that Left Behind series,

45:42

I think, kind of solidified the whole perspective that we've been talking about. So it's been around pretty much in various pockets throughout history, but never was really widely disseminated until the middle of the 19th and into the middle of the 20th century.

45:59

I literally remember asking my youth pastor, you know, if Jesus is just gonna come and take us all before it gets bad, why didn't he take all the martyrs?

46:08

We just learned about all these martyrs and people dying and persecutions. What makes us so special?

46:14

And he didn't really have a good answer for me. So even from a young age, it was very hard for me to accept these kind of things that I was taught.

46:19

And I absolutely agree with you, Doctor, that I grew up in a church to where if you weren't pre -trib, rapture, you weren't a

46:27

Christian. What heresy are you talking about? I mean, it was pounded into my head and it took me, you know, eight or nine years to unwind that and pray about it and dig into the word and just say,

46:37

Lord, show me the truth. And it does it, you know, growing up in that and then saying, no, you can't be a

46:44

Christian unless you have this type of eschatology. And then, you know, my church didn't have very good biblical backing for it.

46:51

People get really upset. I watched your - Let me go on record and say one thing.

46:57

It's very, very important to all of the people listening to this. If you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, what unites us is far more important than what divides us.

47:07

And what unites us is our belief that Jesus Christ is coming back personally, physically, and visibly to defeat his enemies and to consummate his kingdom.

47:16

That's what unites us. That's where we need to rally. That's the truth we need to hold forth.

47:24

That's, you know, one of the fundamentals of the faith. I don't believe you can have true biblical

47:31

Christianity apart from that singular confession that Jesus is coming back. Now, all the other issues we've been discussing, these are secondary matters.

47:40

It's sad that they divide Christians. Some of my very, very best friends in life are dispensational, pre -tribulational, pre -millennial.

47:48

Some of them are post -mill. Some of them are post -tribulational pre -millennial. We don't divide.

47:53

We don't fight. We discuss in a very lively way, but as long as we hold collectively to our belief in the second coming of Jesus, that's the central and most important issue.

48:07

So I just wanna make sure that people realize that that is it. That's why, for example, you guys just alluded to it.

48:13

I face the same thing. When I declared my belief in a post -tribulation rapture that we weren't gonna be taken out before times get bad, you would have thought

48:23

I denied the resurrection of Jesus. People questioned, have I lost, has Sam lost his salvation?

48:29

You know, and I'm not exaggerating. That's not hyperbole. They really - Which is a whole other point if you can lose your salvation.

48:37

Don't get them started on that. For some people, and it's an odd phenomenon.

48:43

I think I understand a little bit of it, but it's really strange. For some people, I say some, maybe many, this idea of a pre -tribulation rapture is as dear and near to their hearts as the deity of Jesus Christ.

48:56

And it's like if you question that, you have just ripped the heart out of their relationship with God and undermined everything that they hold and cherish dearly.

49:07

And it's really sad. That's the sad part about this whole dispute. And it's what really turned me off for a while from even really digging into it.

49:15

Because I had such zealous people for one way, and it was if you don't think it's this, then it's my way or the highway, essentially.

49:23

Yeah, exactly. And - Let me give you one quick example. Sure. Two very good friends of mine are both pre -millennialists,

49:30

Craig Keener and Michael Brown. And I differ with them on other issues of theology, but we are good friends.

49:39

We love each other. We minister side by side. And they wrote a book recently called Not Afraid of the

49:45

Antichrist. And it is the most thorough refutation of this pre -tribulation rapture you will ever read.

49:52

And I wrote an endorsement for it. There are certain parts of it that I don't necessarily agree with, but the primary thesis, they go into all the texts, all the arguments, and they clearly demonstrate that this pre -tribulation rapture is unbiblical.

50:06

And yet I differ with them on the issue of the millennium, but that doesn't mean we divide.

50:11

We can side by side labor for the gospel and proclaim the coming of Christ in a way that I think is honoring to the

50:18

Lord Jesus. Absolutely. So as we wrap it up here, I just wanted to go back a little bit because you said something that stuck in my mind and you said the post -millennial, they have this progressive view of kind of the gospel being shared and spread and progressively the kingdom is advanced to when

50:38

Christ comes back, he comes back to a mostly Christianized world. If I was the devil's advocate or if I believe that, what would be my biblical support for that?

50:48

Where am I finding that in the Bible that says, hey, it's progressively going to honor?

50:55

By the way, I hope the post -millennialist is right. We'll call

51:00

Doug Wilson. Who would vote against that? I mean, the spread of the gospel, the majority of people getting saved, the institutions and structures of society.

51:11

I mean, who would be against that? I hope they are right. I have a whole chapter on post -millennialism in my book,

51:18

Kingdom Come. And I go into all the texts that they cite. Many of them are from the

51:24

Psalms and from Isaiah, but particularly the Psalms, which talk about all the kings of the earth and all the nations will come and worship the

51:32

Lord Jesus Christ or the coming Messiah. And they basically say that occurs before his second coming.

51:38

I think it occurs after his second coming in the new heavens and the new earth, but they would use passages like that.

51:46

And there are many of them in the Old Testament. I think most of their biblical support comes from the

51:53

Old Testament, largely from the Psalms, some from Isaiah, the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth like the waters of the sea.

52:01

And again, let me make a real quick distinction. I won't go into detail, but there are two different kinds of post -millennialism.

52:07

There is a post -millennial view, which says a synonymous word has been called reconstructionism.

52:16

And what they argue is that society as a whole will be reconstructed in accordance with biblical principles.

52:23

In other words, a lot of the mosaic law will come back into play and institutions and law throughout the globe will be transformed.

52:34

Social structures will be transformed. Another view of post -millennialism says, no, that's not necessarily the case, but the vast majority of people will come to saving faith in Jesus.

52:45

Society will still be decidedly anti -Christian, but the majority of people in the world will come to faith in Christ before his second coming.

52:53

So not all post -millennialists believe in this societal reconstruction. Some of them do, some of them don't.

52:59

So that's an important distinction to keep in mind. Thank you. Jason, did you have anything else for - Man, I have so many questions.

53:05

I don't want to take up all your time, Dr. Sam. Well, I'll throw one out really quick if you want to stay.

53:13

It's kind of off subject, but just on a side note. So do you believe, so it's a secondary issue.

53:20

Let's say someone who believes dispensationalism versus maybe someone who's covenant theology.

53:26

But those are secondary issues, but do you believe those type of theologies or beliefs can actually kind of influence the way you treat your

53:34

Christian walk and the way you interact with other believers and non -believers? Well, I certainly do.

53:41

And I think perhaps the principal way is one we've already discussed. And that is if your highest hope and expectation is to escape persecution, that's going to shape how you live your life.

53:55

It's going to shape the degree of courage and boldness with which you share the gospel.

54:00

It's going to have an effect on your willingness to engage in ministries of the local church that can serve the community.

54:10

And are you really going to strive for racial reconciliation?

54:17

And I don't like to use the word social justice, but for biblical, if what you're waiting for and your greatest expectation is,

54:25

Jesus, just come and get me out of here, that's going to have a pervasive effect on the kind of life you live and the decisions you make and how you relate to one another.

54:34

So although secondary, still very important. Oh yeah, massively important, certainly.

54:40

Did you have any final words for us, doctor? No, I don't think so. I just want to reassure the people who heard this and are absolutely pulling their hair out.

54:51

I am not the antichrist. I promise you, I am not. Well, we definitely don't think you are. No way.

54:57

You've been such a blessing to my life personally. And I would encourage all of our listeners, anyone listening to this, definitely go out and get

55:04

Kingdom Come. Definitely go to Dr. Storm's website. Look at that literature and those videos and audio that he has.

55:13

If you're wanting to dig deeper into this and just want good, biblical, factual references, teaching, and the way you explain it is very, very easy to digest.

55:26

So I do appreciate you coming on and talking with us and the listeners and just kind of giving us a,

55:32

I don't want to say a new view, but giving us something to chew on. Yeah. Yeah, this is, I mean, I love this.

55:38

I love eschatology. So, I mean, you know, just going through any of this, I mean, I could sit here and talk to you for hours and hours and ask you questions about it.

55:47

Don't give your number to Jason, doctor. He will be texting you at two in the morning about, hey, what about Revelation 11?

55:53

Do you think it happened? You know? Hey, I've written on it. Just go to that church website and I have extensive notes on Revelation 11.

56:02

You can find out what I believe. That is awesome. Yeah, and the elements in 2 Peter 3 .10. It's like so many things, you know, but anyway.

56:11

All right, we better wrap it up here before it goes off the rails like it normally does. Dr. Sam Storms, everyone.

56:17

Thank you so much for coming on. It was such a blessing. And once again, listeners, I encourage you go to that website.

56:23

It's samstorms .org, correct? That's right. samstorm .org. Obviously, you can find sermons and resources for where he preaches and pastors at Bridgeway Church.

56:35

And then of course, Kingdom Come, such a fantastic book as well. Doctor, thanks for being on the show. Guys, it was great.

56:42

Thanks for having me. It's been a blessing. All right, guys, thanks. We'll see you next time. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Dead Men Walking Podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips or email us at deadmenwalkingpodcast at gmail .com.