Episode 88: Orthodox Eschatology

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local - Well, let me be the very first. You understand that this comes out really early in the morning,

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Eddie? Oh, it does. Yeah, I always put it out for like 4 a .m., and I don't know who listens to it that early.

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But let me be the first to tell our listeners, happy three months till Christmas Day.

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Yeah, three months till Christmas. That's awesome. You got your tree up? I don't have it up yet.

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I may by the time people listen to this, though. Probably not. The way it feels today, we're actually recording this in August, and the temperature -

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Man, it feels like it's fall, though. That's right. So nice. I guess I need to mention a disclaimer.

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Technically, this is supposed to come out September 25th, but sometimes things get moved around.

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Right. So if you're hearing this at a different time, and you're like, what's going on? They've lost their minds.

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But it should be September 25th when you're listening to this. Yeah, yeah. Which, if you understand 2 plus 5 is 7, add that to 9, it's 16.

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Revelation 16. Jesus is coming back next August. Is that what that means?

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That's a good segue, maybe. Welcome. I know of at least two eschatology conferences going on in Arkansas in the next couple of weeks.

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So it's kind of a big hot topic. Really? Where at? Well, one is just a local church, and our association is having a conference next week.

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And then I know there's a group of guys, one that you and I know him, are having a conference.

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I don't know if it's this weekend, if it's full preterism. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

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Well, we need to talk about these things. Welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. I am your co -host,

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Alan Nelson. With me is my partner in crime. I mean, it will be crime if Kamala's elected president.

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No kidding. But Eddie Ragsdale, pastor, First Baptist Church of Marshall.

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What's up, brother? Man, it's just good. You know, we're looking forward to getting into the fall.

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You know, I know a lot of the schools have started back. You know, we always look forward to this time of year.

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One of our highlights of our year is this week coming up. By the time everybody listens, this will be over.

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But we look forward to going to the – Man, it's kind of our area's claim to fame, the national championship chuckwagon races next week.

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And then after that, you've got fair time. And then you start thinking about getting in the deer woods and looking.

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And then we move on to Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year. Man, it's a good life, isn't it?

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God has blessed us. A brother came over yesterday, shout out to money, and helped me put together a deer stand.

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I got a new deer stand, kind of a nicer two -seater deer stand. So hope to take the younger – or I should say the –

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I call them the little middles, but the three – they're not the three youngest anymore because of Margie.

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But anyway, the little middles. Hope to take a couple of them hunting this year. But –

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Hey, let me ask you a quick question. This is kind of not a podcast question. Maybe you can cut it out if you need to.

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But, Monty, does he ride a motorcycle? Yes. Did he come to Shirley last weekend for a motorcycle rally?

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That I do not know. I just seen a picture. My son was set up there selling stuff, and I seen a picture posted on Facebook of my son talking to a guy, and I was like, that's the guy that goes to Cuatro's church.

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Maybe. I was like, I don't know. It looked like him. It looked like him. I'll ask him about that.

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I'm leaving this in, so everybody has to deal with the banter. I don't like podcasts, like what we're doing right now, forever banter.

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I'm like, I don't know you guys, so I don't want to listen to your stuff. But I guess I'm a hypocrite because when

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I'm on this end, it's fun talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, let's get to eschatology. Eschatology.

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So we're teaching that. So that's what we're doing on Wednesday nights at our church. I want to think about how to handle the whole topic.

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I guess really kind of my two main goals today. See what you think about this, Eddie. Goal number one,

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I want to talk about what is orthodox eschatology. And then goal number two,

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I want to talk about how we can have, within the bounds of orthodox eschatology, how we can have both agreement and healthy pushback.

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Does that sound fair to you? It sounds good. Yeah. So let's start,

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I guess before we get into the various positions, let's start with the orthodox position.

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When we say orthodox, let's start with that. What do we mean when we say orthodox? Not Greek orthodox.

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Right. We mean that which is right teaching, the right doctrine. And we're saying what must you believe?

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If you're a Christian, this part is all Christians have got to agree on this.

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So even outside of just talking about eschatology, we would say, well, all Christians have to agree that Jesus Christ is

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God. You can't deny the deity of Christ and be a Christian because that is orthodox.

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That's right. There are things that we could disagree on, but that's not one you can disagree on.

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Presbyterians and Baptists have very different views of the church, and I don't think they're unimportant.

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No, they're very important, but they're not foundational to being a believer.

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But we happily unite with these brothers and sisters as Christians in the faith.

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Right. Okay. That's good, brother. Okay. So what we're thinking through then is what do you have?

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I mean, what puts you outside of Christianity? Oh, we should start with this, eschatology.

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Eschatology comes from two Greek words, eschatos and logos. And so it's the study of the word.

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Am I saying that right? Eschatos is last, means last. It's used a lot of times in the

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Scriptures, actually, the Greek word is, in the New Testament, just last. Whoever's first will be last.

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That's what the word means. It just means last. So it's the study of the last, the study of, or more formally, the study of the last things.

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I mean, we say the study of the end times maybe, but I don't know, that's almost kind of an automatic dispensationalist.

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Yeah, right. Maybe. But I mean, formally, properly, eschatology is study of the last things.

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It's really a much broader topic, actually, than what we'll get into today, because you talk about death, the intermediate state, what happens to the soul, the new heavens, new earth, which

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I guess we'll kind of talk about that. But I mean, it's pretty broad. So what is orthodox eschatology?

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Do you want to go first? Do you want me to add some things to it? I just want to say one thing, and then

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I'll throw it back to you. The church has had a lot of varying views within orthodoxy.

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I mean, very differing views within orthodoxy concerning the millennium, concerning the return of Christ, concerning all those things.

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But what would denote something being outside of orthodoxy really is, if they're denying something, that's going to come back and affect what you believe about the gospel and the promises the gospel makes.

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If your belief about the millennium or the return of Christ causes you to deny something that is fundamental to the promises of the gospel,

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I would say that is what would put you outside of orthodoxy. Well, I think that we have to be realistic here that we believe, okay, all believers believe the world is headed somewhere.

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Right. Every worldview has this, whether it's formally thought out or not, every worldview has this, where is the world headed?

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For example, the atheist worldview, the world's just headed to oblivion because humans are going to destroy it or something.

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Or the sun's going to expand until it consumes our galaxy or whatever.

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So everybody, technically everybody, they wouldn't say it this way, has an eschatology.

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Sure. They have an idea of how the world's going to end, or at least thoughts or theories or whatever.

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But Christians, we have an eschatology. And let me just go ahead and throw this out there.

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It doesn't matter your position. All believers, because of orthodoxy, have an optimistic eschatology.

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Right? Ultimately. I mean, so I understand the marketing use of that word, optimistic.

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And I do think I am optimistic on certain things, but ultimately we're optimistic about the reign and rule of Christ forever.

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So the idea is the world is headed somewhere.

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That's right. So yes, and I agree with what you're saying. I think that obviously if your eschatology tweaks the gospel in some way, that's a problem.

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I've actually kind of seen that in a couple different ways. We'll talk about that later.

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But what are some things that the faithful have confessed? I know there's disagreements, and we'll get into those in just a minute.

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But what are some things that we confess together? I would say that we confess that Christ will come again.

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Literally. Literally. Bodily. Bodily, and that there is a bodily resurrection of the saints.

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Yeah. So let's just start with that. The return of Christ being a literal bodily return.

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Right. Why do you think that? Well, you have places like in Acts 1. They're standing around, and they're saying, we see, why are you standing here?

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The way you've seen him come up, he'll return again. So you have that.

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You have, of course, the resurrection of the body in 1

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Corinthians 15. I'm going to go ahead and say this. I might get in trouble, but we have,

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I don't think I'll legally get in trouble, but the Free Grace Press soon,

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I hope before the end of the year, will be publishing a new tome.

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I say book. Book is not fair. A new tome by Dr. Sam Waldron. Oh, wow.

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On biblical eschatology. Wow. I'm going to read a little bit from that. So I'm sorry,

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Jeff Blair, but he says, the denial of the return of Christ is a damnable doctrine.

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I'll just read a couple paragraphs. This is why Peter describes those who deny the second coming of Christ as mockers.

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2 Peter 3, 3 and 4, cross -reference Jude 18. To describe someone as a mocker is to mark him not merely as one who is not a

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Christian, but as one who is the worst type of unbeliever. Though the same word is not used, the same concept is present in Proverbs when it contrasts the naive with the scoffer.

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He lists some verses there. I'm not going to read them all. Thus, when Peter identifies those who deny the second coming as mockers, he makes clear that they have departed from the

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Christian faith and that the second coming of Christ is a central Christian doctrine. A similar curse is placed upon those who reject the truth of the second coming by John in the book of Revelation.

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There are, of course, a number of debatable passages in the book of Revelation, but a central message is clear.

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It is that Jesus is to return in judgment to the world. Revelation's clear and central message must certainly be in mind when

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John pronounces the curse upon those who take away from the message that he had been given by Jesus.

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The fearsome character of this curse makes clear, then, how central to the Christian faith is the return of Christ to this world.

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So, Dr. Sam Waldron, there you go. New book coming from Free Grace Press. Pulling no punches there.

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The physical, literal, historical, actual,

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I don't know what else to say, return of Christ to the earth is central to the

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Christian faith. Yeah, and I think that's really important that we make all of those, you know, somebody listening may say, why is he belaboring the point?

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We get it. But it's because, you know, I've talked to some of these guys that would say to that very objection that they're not scoffers, that they're not denying the return of Christ.

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They're claiming that he did return. They're claiming it's already happened. And so, which then the next thing we would probably say is, well, that's exactly what

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Paul warned against with Hymenaeus and Philetus. But they would claim that they're not doing that because they do believe in a return of Christ.

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They just believe that it already happened. But what we're saying is, but you don't believe that it happened.

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We're saying bodily is necessary, that a real fulfillment of the promises of Scripture about the return of Christ and the hope of the life to come for the believer in a glorified body, a glorified form like Christ, is a part of the gospel hope.

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That's right. I mean, this is clear. So you say, well, this is not denying the gospel.

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However, what is the very argument Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 15? He says that if there is no resurrection of the body, then

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Christ has not been raised from the dead. So if you say there's no bodily resurrection to come, no physical, actual, literal bodily resurrection to come,

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Paul says you've denied the gospel. Yeah, and he says, and if that's the case, then our faith is futile.

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Yeah, that's right. It's of no value. There's no value to your faith if you believe that.

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So, yeah, full preterism in that. If you call yourself a full preterist and you embrace no physical resurrection, no.

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I mean, because I understand there's some nuances on this. Some people, I guess, may call themselves a full preterist, but still try to hold to these physical, actual return, physical resurrection.

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Maybe I don't know for sure, but I'm just saying, if you deny a physical return of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, if you deny a physical bodily resurrection, you're outside of orthodoxy.

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Right. I heard one brother who you and I would disagree with where he stands eschatologically, but heard him say it's the only thing when it comes to eschatology that the

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Church has historically agreed on is that you can't believe this. Everything else is kind of up for grabs, but you can't believe that there is not going to be a return of Christ and a real bodily resurrection.

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The Church has agreed on that. You have to believe that. Well, yeah, and I say the Church has agreed on that, but also,

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I mean, just read the Scriptures, right? Right, yeah, yeah. And I would argue that, and Sam Waldron argues too, he notes both the

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Athanasian Creed and the Apostles' Creed, but the Church has confessed for a long time, even though we've had disagreements, the

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Church has confessed for a long time. For example, the Athanasian Creed down towards the end, he ascended into heaven, he sits on the right hand of the

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Father God Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give an account of their works.

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They that have done good shall go into everlasting life, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

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This is the Catholic faith, meaning the universal faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.

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Of course, the Apostles' Creed, we know at the end, what goes through what

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Jesus has done, he ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

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I believe in the Holy Ghost, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, meaning universal, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting in all men.

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This is the Christian hope. Do you think we've made the case for orthodoxy?

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I hope so. Now, here's the deal. We've given a big overview.

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We haven't gone to particular little passages and said, okay, now let's debate these passages, because I understand you might go to one passage and someone might say, ah, but that doesn't really mean what you think.

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Sometimes you can get into that, like Matthew 24, or is it

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Matthew 24 and Mark 13? I understand, but we're not trying to debate these every little verse so much as we're trying to give a big overview picture that these are required.

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This is the Christian faith. This is Christian eschatology. Like I said, remember what I said earlier.

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Everyone has an eschatology. A lot of people have an unchristian eschatology.

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You can. I mean, it's not permissible. It's not like the

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Lord's okay with you holding it, but you can. You have the, quote -unquote, freedom to hold an unchristian eschatology.

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But what you and I are doing here in this episode is laying out this is the Christian eschatology.

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And so let me say this, and maybe I think we'll have time maybe to kind of give an overview, but if you believe what

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I just said, physical return of Jesus, physical resurrection of the body, Jesus making all things right, eternal state of glory and joy for the righteous, eternal conscious torment for the unrighteous, like whatever else you believe about the end times, it is important.

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We can argue about it, but we ought to share the right hand of Christian fellowship and love one another and be, you know what

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I'm saying, like we can argue and it's good, but we can't divide. So maybe what we should do at this point is we should contrast what we've just talked about, what is orthodoxy, with what is popularity, because a lot of times

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I think people, what is popular becomes in many people's mind almost what they think is orthodox.

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Oh, yeah, that's good. Like I've always heard, like this is the Christian teaching. I've heard that before.

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This is, and listen, this can come from both sides.

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You know, I've heard, you know, of course, we've grown up in the

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Bible belt. We've grown up through the left behind era, and so dispensationalism has went through its,

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I think it's had its heyday. I think it's waning, but it's still probably culturally the most popular view, and I think to this day, if you walk into most churches where we are, there's going to be a lot of people that they're just, they're going to not even know that there is another view.

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They're going to be like, that's the only thing that there could be. If you deny a seven -year tribulation, people want to -

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Or a secret rapture. Yeah, people want to put you outside the Christian faith, so let's be careful about that.

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Right, right. Yeah, I mean - But that's more because of popularity than because of orthodoxy.

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It's just that they don't even know. They've just been, their whole life, every pastor, every evangelist, every preacher they've ever heard has only told them that, and maybe, honestly, they've not studied these texts all that well, and so they're convinced that -

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And I'm not even here arguing that they shouldn't hold that view if they're convinced by Scripture.

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I'm just saying it's so popular that a lot of people hold it without being convinced by Scripture.

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They just hold it almost as a default. Yeah, I think that's right.

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There are always, every time something happens in the Middle East, everybody's like, ah, you know?

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Yeah, yeah. I think, so let's kind of talk - These are the options within orthodoxy.

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Maybe I should just say the main options, and there's some overlap. But what is going to be central to this is

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Revelation 20. I won't read that, but you can read that. This is central because when we talk about millennialism, we're not talking about people born in 1980.

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We're talking about a thousand years, which is mentioned,

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I think, six times in Revelation 20. So the idea, then, of the millennium and how you get these words premill, postmill, allmill, it all centers around this thousand years.

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But all this falls in under orthodoxy. So you have a thousand years. If you are premillennial, what you're saying is

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Jesus is going to return pre the thousand years. So he'll turn before the thousand years.

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But again, it's within orthodoxy. Physical, bodily, literal, actual return of Christ prior to this thousand years that's mentioned in Revelation 20.

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If you are postmillennial, you are - Jesus is going -

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Again, these are just very broad categories. Jesus is going to come after this thousand years.

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And I would say, technically, those are the only two technical terms.

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Those are the only two orthodox positions. There's no position that Jesus is going to come back during, like halfway through the thousand years, or mid -millennial, or something like that.

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That's not a thing. So every person, you either believe Jesus is coming back prior to the one thousand year reign, premillennial, or he's coming back after the millennial reign, postmillennial.

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And so we would say, even if your concept of the millennium ends up being something other than a literal thousand years, if you believe he comes back after that, at the end of that, that's still a form of being postmillennial.

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So you know my position is all millennial. Right. Which is not a great name.

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Horrible name. All means not, or no. Like an atheist, it's the prefix a, means no, no

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God. So all millennial, no thousand years, which that's not true, that's not what we believe, but it's actually,

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I would argue that it's the purest and best form of postmillennialism.

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But it is technically a postmillennial position. Yes. Okay.

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But obviously today, maybe I really make people mad, right?

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I'm not trying to. I'm trying to find agreement. But neo -postmillennialism, I would say, is really rampant today.

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Reconstructionism, all that. But I would say that all millennialism is more akin to the classic postmillennialism, if you get in the history.

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Anyway, but the point is, you either believe Jesus coming back before or after. With postmill, you have postmill, all mill, and you have a lot of different things.

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With premill, you also have a couple of categories. So premillennial does not mean dispensational.

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No. But you have dispensational premillennial, and you have what we call historic premillennial.

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So why don't you, I've been talking a while. So what is dispensational premillennial? So this is very important because oftentimes people think it's just a matter of how you understand last things in times.

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But it's actually more than that. Dispensationalism is a way of reading the

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Bible. And so where you and I, and we would encourage people, if they want to know more about Baptist covenant theology, we did some episodes on those.

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I think you've said before, those are some of our most popular episodes. They could go back and listen to those.

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So covenant theology is a way of reading the Bible according to the covenants that God made with man and how

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God has dealt with man, and the covenant that the Father made with the Son. So you can think through all those things.

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Well, dispensationalism is kind of like that in the sense that dispensationalists read the

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Bible as different dispensations when God dealt with humanity in different ways.

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And so they would see God as dealing with old covenant Israel. That's a dispensation.

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And then they would say now we're in the dispensation of what they would say is the church age, the dispensation of the church, the new in Christ when the

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Gentiles are coming in. And for the most part, dispensationalists, and I know there are different kinds, progressive dispensationalists and different ones, but for the most part, they would say that God still has promises that he's going to keep to the dispensation of Israel.

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And so right now he's dealing with the Gentiles. He's bringing them in in the church. And they would say at some point this parentheses of the church is going to end and that the church is going to be taken out, secret rapture, and then

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God's going to return to dealing with Israel. And that's going to have to do with Christ reigning as he's going to return, he's going to reign on the earth for a thousand years as the son of David, on David's throne, and that that's going to be the time when

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God fulfills all the promises to Israel. Now you and I would hold to that God has kept his promises to Israel in Christ.

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And so that God doesn't have promises to keep in that way.

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Or I shouldn't say you and I, I should say I do. He also has promises to curse too. I mean like we all have promises.

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So anyway, yeah, but that's. Yeah, yeah. So dispensationalism, like I said, it's more than just the end.

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It's actually the whole way you read the Bible. Well, you're according to these dispensations of God dealing with people.

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And that's the thing too about eschatology. So you, I forgot to issue the one, the one one, the one view of eschatology

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I haven't mentioned is pan -millennialism, you know? Yeah, it all pan out. It all pan out, which

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I understand if people take that with, you can be humble and you're like, you're still working, you're still on your journey.

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That's okay. Like you're still trying to figure it all out. But I don't think that it's okay to just be like, I don't care because it's not just dispensationalism.

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All eschatological views are going to come into the present and affect the way that we think about this.

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You know? How do you read the Bible? That, that matters. I mean, for every doctrine.

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That's right. So I'll give you an example with all millennialism. I, I, so some other words

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I would use here is inaugurated eschatology, realized eschatology in a sense.

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The point is I see the whole Bible in two ages, the present evil age and the age to come.

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And I see the age to come has in one sense broken into this age.

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We see that in. So anyway, so I'm just, I'm not going to get, I'm not trying to make a case in this episode for all millennialism.

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I hold that. I think that's the right position. You hold historic pre -millennialism. You think that's the right position?

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No, I don't. Oh, I thought you did. I'm not historic pre -mill. Oh, what didn't you used to be that?

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I did. Oh, I would, I would say, you just, you just made the point about the,

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I would say I, I'm not sure I'm, I'm studying. I think it really matters, but I probably, if I had to pick a view,

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I would be all millennial at this point. Whoa, celebration. Yeah. Yeah.

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Well, so when I was, when little caveat audience, so a few years ago

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I was preaching through Luke. And when I got to Luke 21, I took a pretty strong, the way

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I interpret it, I don't know how else to read it. I take a pretty preterist approach to it.

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Not full preterism, but a very preterist approach to that text. Preterist meaning what?

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Meaning, meaning, I think that a lot of what Jesus says in Luke 21 happened in the first century.

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So there's an event, you need to know in eschatology, there's an event in 17B, where, where Jerusalem is turned on its head.

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General Titus, or is it Emperor Titus? Anyway, he's, he's general, Vespasian's the emperor.

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So general Titus lays waste to Jerusalem. And specifically the temple is destroyed.

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And so this goes back to, oh yeah, since Eddie's all meal now, everything I've said is out the window. Team all meal, all the way.

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No, no, I really am. I'm teasing. But it's this whole thing. We go back to dispensationalism.

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They're looking for, and that's why you often hear stuff. They're looking for the temple to be rebuilt.

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So, and again, let me say this very clearly. The best form of this, of dispensational,

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I think the best form is, is John MacArthur, that, that form.

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And I'm very grateful for those brothers. And, and, and I think there's much that we commend.

32:37

One thing we could commend is they're, they're trying to take the Bible seriously. That's right there.

32:43

And, and we should commend that. We should love that. The worst form of this I'm thinking is like John Hagee or whatever, you know, which, which you're, you're, when you say,

32:54

I think Hagee has made comments like the Jews don't need the gospel. Yeah. You don't even need to preach the gospel to them.

33:01

So now, different plan for them. So in that, so in the, in the, so we'll take these two broad categories, pre -meal, post -meal.

33:07

In the pre -meal category, if you drive hard enough in the dispensationalist, you can become unorthodox.

33:15

That's right. John Hagee. In the post -meal camp, if you drive hard enough, you get to. Full preterism.

33:21

Preterism or whatever. I mean, if you drive in a, I'm not saying it's consistent, obviously I wouldn't say. No, no, no. But I mean, it's the point is there's errors all over the place.

33:32

yeah, man, did I know you were all meal? I'm just like, I don't, I just assumed I feel like this is not a new thing.

33:40

I mean, well, okay. So, so, so, but the thing is dispensational pre -meal, the

33:46

John MacArthur variety checks off all the orthodox. And I remain grateful for that.

33:52

I think he's wrong. I think it does affect, you know, are you looking for the temple to be built?

33:58

No, I am. I am. I'm looking for the temple to be built. In fact, it's being built, right? Oh, yeah.

34:06

Yeah. It's funny that you tricked me on that. Cause I actually just preached from Psalm 150.

34:14

Yeah. This last Sunday. And, you know, he, he, he says, praise God in his sanctuary.

34:22

And that was a big part of my, of the message was when the old covenant, the sanctuary was the temple in the new covenant, the sanctuary is the temple, but the temples, us.

34:35

It's clear. I know we'd have a lot of disagreements with, you know, dispensational brothers, but it's like, look,

34:42

Paul, Peter says you're living stones. That's right. And Paul says you are a temple.

34:47

The Holy spirit. And it's like, you read the old Testament. You're like, whoa, I see the church, right?

34:53

That's one thing difference between covenant, theology and dispensation. Like I see the church, you know, and, um, beautiful things.

35:01

Uh, they are spoken. Oh, city of God, you know, I think that's Psalm 87, three anyway.

35:08

Uh, so, so you got me sidetracked here with John. But you got dispensational pre -millennial.

35:14

You've got historic pre -meal, which I think I could be wrong about that. I think that was the position of Benjamin.

35:20

Um, but that's the idea. It's not talking about all this dispensationalism stuff and that's, and you're like, what about the tribulation, all that?

35:27

And like, so most, I would argue that most of Christian history has understood the tribulation as the entire time between the first and second coming as, as, as the end time does with, with various views towards a heavier tribulation at the end.

35:46

But as far as like a seven year tribulation or whatever, that's unique to dispensational.

35:52

Sure. Um, and that's kind of like why, that's why I don't like to call it the doctrine of the end times so much because more like the doctrine of the last things, because I would argue that we're in the end times right now, like this is end times, like the whole time between the first and second coming of Christ.

36:10

And you talk about, so with the all millennial position, so post -meal is different. It has some nuance, but, some, some,

36:18

I would guess are looking for a literal thousand years, but it's going to start, you know, some point we'll usher in most are kind of more of like some sort of like golden age, you know, where the, where the whole earth, uh, base,

36:31

I mean, not necessarily every single individual, but the nations as a whole, uh, prior to the arrival of Jesus are, uh,

36:39

Christian, if you will. And then the all millennial position is not that is not, not a thousand years.

36:48

It's that the thousand years is symbolic of the rank of the church age that Christ is reigning right now.

36:55

And that we are, um, we are in, uh, we are in this age, but the age to come is, is spilling over as it were.

37:05

And it's not that things are necessarily, and it's not the thing. There's so many different positions, not that things are necessarily going to get worse and worse.

37:14

I see, I actually see history more cyclical or I mean, um, yeah, it's like it goes in cycles.

37:20

Like sometimes things are good. Sometimes things are bad. But what you're saying is in my position,

37:27

Jesus is not redeeming nations as far as like geopolitical entities, right?

37:33

Redeeming his people out of the nations. Sometimes that even actually highlights his sovereignty and power is that the strong man is bound.

37:43

And even in the midst of wicked nations, he's still saving his people. So I'll give you an old

37:48

Testament example and tell me what you think about this. But it's like, this is to me fits a one -to -one correlation with all millennials.

37:56

So sometimes you have the kingdom look like Nineveh in Jonah.

38:01

And that is repentance happens. A large number of people is my understanding.

38:07

The way Jesus retells a story, a large number of people are converted, actually repent and look to Yahweh as their merciful, you know, as the merciful

38:18

God that they need to trust. But that doesn't result in Nineveh becoming over the years, this mega

38:25

Christian nation or whatever, right? Because then you have the book of Nahum.

38:31

And so sometimes it's like the book of Nahum. And what happens in Nahum is God destroys

38:36

Nineveh. Well, what happened? Well, that generation that experienced the revival, it didn't pass on.

38:43

And so then God brings judgment. So that's the way. So I think that's an old Testament example.

38:49

That's the way I see history. Sometimes God is pleased to pour out revival, but sometimes that revival, well, all the time

38:56

I've never seen a revival that's lasted, you know, a thousand years or whatever. But that revival eventually wanes.

39:03

And then people get back to doing what their heart desires. yes.

39:09

So that's how I see history playing out. but I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic about the victory of the church.

39:16

And I'm optimistic about the victory of Christ. And we've kind of got off track there. What I've been talking, you were laughing at a text.

39:23

I had to carry the show. My shoulders are hurting. I'm carrying the show right now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you'll, you'll, you'll see the text.

39:31

You may have already looked at it, but I haven't looked at it. So you'll see it here in a minute when we get done with the podcast.

39:36

You know, there, there is one other thing that I think we need to mention. I know that we're, we're kind of running out of time here.

39:43

So I did want to make sure we mentioned this and you already kind of alluded to it earlier, but I just want to make it very explicit.

39:50

Once we get past the threshold of orthodoxy and we want to assert the importance of these things, like it's not okay to just shrug them off as well at all pan out.

40:03

And so I don't really have to worry about that. I'm just going to trust Jesus and I don't have to worry about that. What's in the

40:09

Bible. So you need to, and the way you read the Bible matters and that's going to affect what you believe about these things.

40:14

And so you do need to study everything in the scripture, including including revelation, including

40:21

Jesus, all of all of that discourse, including Lord, what

40:27

Paul says to the Thessalonians, you need to study those things. You need to study what God said through Daniel and Ezekiel and Isaiah, that we need to know what those things mean and we need to study them.

40:38

All of that being said, you know, I look back over my Christian life and I just realized how much

40:44

I didn't know and how much I don't know. And I realized the greater and greater every day, my need for humility, like that.

40:55

I think this especially is one of the areas where if we come at it without a lot of humility,

41:03

I mean, especially, and I would say this to the guys who maybe have just discovered what they think is the key and they think, now

41:12

I've got it. Whether, whether you just discovered dispensationalism or you've just discovered, you know, full -on theonomist post -millennialism, reconstructionist, or you've discovered all millennialism and now that's just fitting everything together for you.

41:32

We all need humility. We all need humility when we talk about these things, when we deal with God's word.

41:39

And when we, when we talk with other brothers, recognizing that they are brothers and that, that they're not, it's not like we're smarter and it's not like they're not taking the scripture seriously.

41:54

I appreciate what you said about John MacArthur and others that might view things different than us.

42:00

That, that it's not because they're not taking the scripture serious. And I think sometimes we almost act like, well, if you, if you still think that you're not here, you're not even, you're not even taking this serious.

42:13

Well, no, they are. They've just come to a different, a different position and, and I want to recognize, man,

42:22

I've been wrong about a lot. Yeah, that's good, brother. The Lord has been gracious to us and that's good.

42:27

I do think that we need more charity and humility and, and these things are important.

42:33

Neither one of us are minimizing that. Everybody should be an all meal right now, but, but these things are important and Kamala Harris doesn't care what your eschatology is, right?

42:44

That's right. That's right. What I mean is, I hope there's not a day this happens, but if there's a day you have to go to jail for being a

42:54

Christian, we can debate eschatology in there, but no one's going to be like pre Trevor post, you know, pre meal, raw meal.

43:02

If we confess Christ and his gospel, then we are, then we're, we're, we're united and good important topics.

43:10

So I will say just an important, so if I, since we control the podcast here, I would say, look for this book.

43:18

I think it's just going to be called the doctrine of the last things and optimistic on millennial view by Dr.

43:25

Sam Walton. That'll be coming out with free grace press. It's big. I mean, like it's a, it's going to be a big, maybe

43:31

I shouldn't release how big, but it's going to be big and it's going to Lord willing.

43:37

I hope maybe it's a 2025 thing, but I hope by the end of this year, it should be coming out.

43:42

It's already been announced publicly. So I don't, and at the eschatology conference, so I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong there, but, but yeah.

43:50

And, so it's more than a pamphlet. That's what you're telling me. Oh yeah. It's, it's a, if it'll fit your whole wall, it'll be good.

44:00

But I think most importantly, what we need to do is continue to study the scripture, talk through these things together.

44:07

So hopefully this has been somewhat helpful. No, no one's going to know this, but you and I won't be recording next week in real.

44:15

I'm going to take a week off. You'll be in, I'm going to go play cowboy. That's right. But by the time people hear this, it's already

44:21

September. So they don't, I mean, that's, that'll be well over with. Yeah. But maybe in the next episode, we'll, we'll be talking about how that went.

44:29

Yeah. That'll be great. As always, brother, it's good to talk to you.

44:34

And if the rapture doesn't happen, no, we, yeah, I do believe in an imminent return of Christ.

44:41

By the way. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. We're going to be caught up. That's right. Amen. So, well, you know what, before we get in trouble, why don't you just go inside?

44:50

Well, I'll, I'll say this before I say my normal sign off. Hey, brother Shaolin says, when

44:55

Jesus comes back, that's a wrap. We'll see you guys next week. If you really believe the church is the building of churches, the house, the church is what

45:07

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