Let's Be Honest About "Christian Nationalism"

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May 25, 2023

Join us for the newest episode of Apologia Radio in which we continue our discussion responding to our friends and brothers at G3 regarding so-called "Christian Nationalism." What appears to be the main issues in this discussion? Let's talk about it. Tell someone about the show! Check out The Ezra Institute at... https://www.ezrainstitute.com/ Check out our store at https://shop.apologiastudios.com/

00:01: When the scribes and Pharisees asked our Lord about the greatest commandment, He replied, You shall love the
00:07: Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
00:12: So why do we hear some of today's most prominent pastors saying things like this? It had everything to do with how we talk about the
00:20: Bible. And specifically, or along with that, what we point to as the foundation of faith.
00:26: Which for most Christians, unfortunately, is the Bible. We need to do better.
00:33: We need to love God with all our hearts, and stand unashamedly on the rock of His Word. We need to love the
00:39: Lord with all of our souls, and respond to the worldview issues of our day with the wisdom and discernment that comes only from Him.
00:46: We need to love the Lord with our minds, and understand the calling of God's people in every area of life in God's world.
00:53: We need to love the Lord our God with all our strength, and face the work of building a life -giving,
00:58: God -honouring culture. Join us for 10 days at the Runner Academy for Cultural Leadership, as we consider how the
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01:11: Christian thinking to every area of life. This is
01:27: The Academy. I am Eli Ayala of Revealed Apologetics, and I will be bringing a six -part series on presuppositional apologetics.
01:35: What is this called, The Apology Academy? It's just called The Academy. Okay. What's up, everybody?
01:40: My name is Pastor Jeff Durbin, and you're watching Collision Today. I'm going to be interacting with an atheist on TikTok.
01:47: So here we go. Unsupervised and unhinged. Welcome back to Cultus the
01:54: Aftermath. Hey, everybody.
02:02: Welcome back to another episode of Ask Me Anything. You are watching Apologia Radio's After Show exclusively for all access.
02:23: I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it. Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite?
02:32: We're being delusional. Delusional? Yeah. Delusional is okay in your world view. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional.
02:39: You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your world view is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt.
02:46: It's hung up on me. What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.
02:58: The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.
03:05: Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives.
03:11: Right. Don't go into the world and make homies. Right. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle, Nick. That's a joke, pastor.
03:20: When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.
04:11: And seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
04:27: And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
04:38: That's one of my favorite sections of scripture, I think. That's a big one. Welcome back, everybody.
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07:07: We're remastering, or we remastered a bunch of the audio because some of it's just old and janky, and we fixed it.
07:13: And so ApologiaStudios... Very technical term. That's right, janky is a technical term, just like buttload. It's actually a real...
07:19: It is. It is. We've looked it up before. Buttload is actually a technical term. We have actually looked that up. Yeah, yeah, and didn't know that, but it is.
07:26: But that was educational. Yeah, yeah, got a buttload of education. And... Use it in a sentence.
07:31: Not even a bad word. It's just... It's an actual measurement way that you... Now I got to look it up for the camera. Yeah, look it up.
07:37: Find out what it was exactly, because we didn't spend time on that before. We did. Just to confirm that buttload is a real technical term.
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07:52: You and partner with us in this ministry. Wanted to give everyone just a quick note.
07:58: I'm going to be in Alabama next week at the Capitol in Montgomery, next
08:04: Tuesday with our team. Also going out there with Jason Storms, Darren Stid with OSA, and possibly
08:11: Bradley Pierce as well with Abolish Abortion Texas. And that's all going to be happening because we have a bill that's been put in by Representative Ernie Yarbrough, and it is
08:22: HB 454. That's right, right, Luke? 454? HB 454,
08:28: Bill of Equal Protection happening in Alabama right now. And so if you want to come join me at the State Capitol, I'll be there around 11 a .m.
08:34: We're going to be there just to try to educate people on the bill, and hopefully meet with some legislators there.
08:41: So that's what's happening in Alabama. Pray for that. And thank you all so much for your support for EAN, making all these bills take place across the country, and helping us to actually support other churches and pastors and organizations that have gotten bills in themselves.
08:55: We're grateful for all of you. And so we're back now talking about the
09:01: Christian nationalism discussion. So last week, we had a sort of mandatory family, elder family time of fellowship and rest.
09:11: It's been a very difficult last six months of ministry, hard on us, hard on our families. And so we like to try to make sure we take care of our families and give them some rest.
09:21: And so we had a week of rest as families. And so we missed Apologia Radio last week. We're going to pick back up where we left off, responding to some of the comments and good questions of our friends over at G3.
09:32: And when I say friends, I mean that genuinely. Our friends, our brothers over at G3, they're asking really, really good questions.
09:38: And I like the spirit of the discussion that they had on their podcast. But we missed last
09:43: Thursday's Apologia Radio, and some of you didn't miss it. You saw that there were two strange fellers. Well, one strange feller.
09:48: Well, one strange feller in here last week. It was Isaac Benegas. But he talked for two strange fellers. He did.
09:53: Isaac Benegas and Zachary Conover took over for us last week, did a great episode, really enjoyed it.
09:59: It was very thorough. Very thorough. And you got to learn a little bit more about Isaac. Now, Isaac's been on Apologia Radio before, and he had the same discussion with me before that show that he had apparently with you before your show, and that is he gets all nervous, and he says, you're going to have to back me up.
10:17: You're going to have to help me out. I'm like, I'm not going to have to help you out. He's like, no, you really have to help me out. You've got to back me up. And then as soon as the show starts, he just talks and talks and talks and talks.
10:26: And there were several times we watched the episode. We're talking about the Book of Revelation. I tried to get a word in, and I was like, well, he's like, no, hold on, hold on, let me finish my thought.
10:33: So I'm like, I'm trying to help you like you asked. I'm doing what you asked me to do, but you are doing it.
10:41: Exactly. Isaac, I love. He's one of my very best friends. But Isaac will take an issue, will take an issue like this, and he will want to talk about every single point about that issue and make sure, don't miss any part of this and see how we can extend that out.
11:01: A conversation will become a six -hour conversation. Very quickly. It could have easily been a 30 -second conversation, but Isaac wants to make sure.
11:08: No, we've got to tap this thing out. We're going to tap it out. Yes, that is how his mind works. He's been telling us, you need to keep
11:14: Apology Radio like 45 minutes. Say it again for those in the back. Isaac Benegas has been saying that he wants to keep
11:21: Apology Radio to 45 minutes. We're like, we need an hour, bro. That's what we've always done. Dude spent 45 minutes on his first segment.
11:28: Right. And I went to point a look over, and Zach was nodding off, I think. He was like, oh, wait, what?
11:34: He ordered lunch. He ordered lunch. And Isaac was talking to himself for a while. But it was good.
11:41: It was thorough. And he definitely made his point very clear. Yeah, for sure.
11:48: You understand, right? You understand how hard it is sometimes to keep it brief.
11:54: Do you remember the infamous Reformation Sunday thing we did with Isaac years ago? Oh, yeah.
12:00: Where we were like, this was when we were at meeting, I guess, to May Lutheran. And the fellowship hall was basically connected to the sanctuary.
12:06: And it was Reformation Sunday. We were having this big koinonia thing. So there was all this food. And they're cooking. Everyone could smell it.
12:12: Everyone's hungry. And we're like, hey, Isaac, can you do a 10 to 15 minute little thing on the Reformation before whatever?
12:19: And it was 45 minutes long. And there was people passing out and falling into the aisles. People were falling out of windows dead.
12:26: Seriously. He was completely oblivious. He just kept going. And we're like, dude, guy died. That guy just died.
12:32: Hey, guy died. He's dead. The ambulance comes. Yeah, the ambulance is here.
12:38: He's kept going. We're like, Isaac, he's like, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I can't get a word in here.
12:44: This guy's dead. Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to catch this thought. We're just starting. We're just finishing with Huss.
12:50: Great. That's a Reformation era joke right there.
12:55: There you go. If he just was on Huss, we have a ways to go. Okay. Hey, anyway, look,
13:01: I'm going to play something right now, because I think we need to put it in the record, just for historical purposes.
13:06: People look back and go, oh, hey, they were talking about that. I'm not going to. I don't even want any commentary. It's really important, because I don't want this video to get shadow banned.
13:15: But what's talked about in this video, I think we can play it and not get shadow banned, because it's not us saying anything.
13:23: So I think I'll just play it and just put it in the record. Say nothing, because I don't want the video to get shadow banned.
13:29: We'll just let everyone hear. Is this relevant to the conversation? In a way. Yes. I wanted to get back to the buttload.
13:37: Oh, please. Before we get too serious. Yeah. Okay. So a buttload is an actual unit of measurement.
13:44: It has to do with casks. Casks. Yeah. So one buttload is two hogsheads, which is approximately anywhere from 63 to 140 gallons.
13:58: So it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Hence its usage. Yes. Yeah. That's a whole lot.
14:04: You got a buttload. Yeah. So there you go. There you go. Okay. Thank you.
14:10: Speaking of buttloads, there's a buttload of issues related to this issue of the video
14:19: I'm going to play you. That people just don't want to talk about. All the ways that people want to bring this practice into our world, whether it's with children or adults, the kind of irreversible damage that it's doing to people.
14:38: Christians should say something. Because if you love your neighbor as you love yourself, you will say something when your neighbor is being destroyed.
14:46: And so all of the promotion of this stuff, all of this is good, all of this we should do for children.
14:53: I just want to play this for you. It speaks for itself. It's only about a couple minutes long, but I think we need to put it into the record.
14:59: People need to start knowing this. You need to have access to this in your files in here so you can share this with others in this conversation.
15:07: As you bring the word of God to bear against this, and you bring the gospel into conflict with this, you need to also know this in terms of the reality of the situation.
15:16: These are the consequences. These are the destroyed lives. And so, again, no commentary.
15:22: I'm just going to play it and let them speak for themselves. It has been a decade since my sex reassignment surgery.
15:29: I had my SRS ten years ago. It's been almost four years since I had the first stage of my vaginoplasty.
15:36: I had my second SRS revision surgery. I am getting a second surgery.
15:43: After my surgery, I was just in such a dark place that I didn't really want to talk about it. I didn't really want to have to go back into it and feel all those feelings over again.
15:51: I had a few complications, bleedings, infections. I've had complications, and I've had a hard time.
15:59: I did have some complications, and I did have some, you know, concerns that not everybody deals with.
16:04: I thought it would make me happier, and initially it did. Was that worth the constant issues
16:09: I've had, the dilation I have to do for the rest of my life? I'm having the worst time with dilation.
16:16: I was experiencing a little bit of dehiscence, which is basically when you are so swollen that the sutures that they put start to rip open.
16:26: It was as bad as it sounds. I had trouble urinating. I kind of walked around with it for a year before I seeked help.
16:33: The reason I'm dilating twice a day is because if I miss once, it is so painful.
16:40: I, like, dread it so much because it's so painful. Went to dilate again that night, and I think that I moved a stitch.
16:47: I don't know what happened, but something happened, and I was in excruciating pain. It felt like literally somebody had, like, shot me or stabbed me or burned me or something down there.
16:59: I had to dilate, and I had to try to open my urethra up, and it was just like...
17:05: Yeah, I'm going to start crying. I was bleeding every time. I literally was going to pass out.
17:12: I threw up because I had so much pain. I remember, like, bawling my eyes out, saying, like, what did
17:18: I do? Like, what did I do to myself? I fucked myself up. I'm never going to heal from this. My body is constantly trying to heal after surgery since it considers it to be an open wound.
17:29: I mean, what can I do except go and have another revision? I remember starting to cry in the surgeon's office because I was like,
17:36: I'm depressed. I'm in school. It's painful. Like, it's just, it's a lot. The issues I had very early on should have been indications to me that I should not have done this, but I hated my male self so much that I needed to, and now there is no way to go back.
17:55: You can never go back. When you get out of surgery, it's not always going to go well.
18:01: If I had known about the irreversible physical damage I caused to my body, then
18:06: I would have never done any of this. It's very much a commitment for life.
18:11: You're going to have to rely on doctors for the rest of your life. Don't be like me and deny problems until it's too late.
18:18: Rather, address them so you can be happier and live a healthier life. There you go.
18:25: All right. So, like I said, speaks for itself, right? Consequences of this worldview and doing these things.
18:34: Irreversible damage. They seem happy. They seem happy.
18:42: They seem like they've brought themselves to a place of peace. Again, you need to not only know the biblical argumentation against this and bring the
18:52: Word of God and the Gospel to bear against it, but you have to also have these stories on standby.
18:58: These stories. These are the irreversible consequences. This is the damage. This is what the end of the road looks like, and it's not the place of peace that you think it's going to be.
19:08: The place of peace and harmony is in the way that God made the world. I'm not a perfect man.
19:15: I'm a sinner. But in terms of me being the me that I am and that God has created,
19:22: I don't deal with any of those problems. I don't have those problems. I don't have to contend with that kind of pain every day of my life because I'm living in the way that God created me as a man.
19:36: There's no consequences I need to contend with like that on a daily basis. Ultimately, the sad part of it is that these people have been encouraged by the culture and society to do these things, and ultimately they're responsible for doing it to themselves.
19:49: It doesn't mean we should vilify them or hate them or be rude or unkind to them in any way.
19:55: It's just to say this is the consequence of the choice. You make the choice. These are the consequences. With that, which is very much connected to this conversation, this cultural conversation we're in right now, we have been talking about a very important issue.
20:10: If you guys are new to the discussion that you picked up on this broadcast rather than the first one we did, just go back into the feed here.
20:17: Two weeks ago, we started a conversation with our brothers over at G3, Josh Bice, Virgil, and, forgive me,
20:24: Scott. Sorry, my brain's in neutral today, but I'm doing my best.
20:33: It's been a long, long week. We started a conversation about Christian nationalism, and just to do a quick bullet point, we made it clear that we really have no jealousy over the term or title
20:44: Christian nationalist or Christian nationalism. What we have wanted to do in engaging in this conversation is we wanted to actually talk about how all of this conversation essentially intersects with the conversation that is really more of a historic conversation related to eschatology, and that is the eschatology of optimism and victory, and that would be post -millennialism, and the discussion surrounding theonomy or theonomic ethics.
21:16: And so our part of this is we're not coming at this saying, hi, we're the Christian nationalists.
21:22: Let's debate with our brothers over at G3. No, we're saying, hey, the conversation you are all having, actually all the main points, the principled main fundamental points are the same conversation that's been happening with post -millennialism and theonomy for, like, forever.
21:41: And so... The questions are the same. They're all the same questions. It's all the same ultimate issues.
21:47: It's all landing in the same place. It all has the same hidden assumptions in the debate between post -millennialism and pre -millennialism and the issue of theonomy.
21:58: So what we're saying here is that, look, Apology at Church has had a consistent position since the very inception of Apology at Church, and that is that we're reformed, we're post -mill, we're theonomic, we're presuppositional in our apologetics methodology, and so our entrance into this discussion is saying, hey, that's a really interesting discussion.
22:18: Don't really care about the title. Christian nationalism doesn't mean anything to us. I know there's some guys that believe some strange things that take the title, so I'm not jealous for it, but hey, you guys are having a good conversation.
22:28: Welcome to it. We've been having it for a while, and we're not the first to the stage here on this.
22:36: You've got giants before us, whether it's the Puritans, whether it's Jonathan Edwards and his post -millennialism, or whether it was
22:43: Rush Dooney and Bonson having this discussion, this debate over the last generation, whether it was
22:50: Bonson against Westminster with his book Theonomy and Christian Ethics, or whether it was with Rush Dooney's Institutes of Biblical Law.
22:57: This conversation has been had and has been underway for some time, and everything in this conversation about Christian nationalism is intersecting with the main points that we have, as post -millennialists and theonomists, been saying for a very long time.
23:13: And so actually, I wanted to make a suggestion. Josh and I were texting— by the way, just in terms of how close we are and how much we love each other and respect each other,
23:21: Josh and I were texting each other yesterday, unrelated to this issue. And so we're entering into this as a brotherly conversation that's already in the public square.
23:32: And so we're having this conversation now, and we're saying, look, you guys are all having an important conversation, and you're asking questions that actually, guys,
23:41: Bonson did a whole book on that. You know what I'm saying? So in this
23:46: Christian nationalism podcast, episode 75 with G Theory Ministries here on YouTube, you guys were asking questions that I'm going, oh man, this conversation's actually been had, and it's already been engaged with, and it's not with the
24:03: Christian nationalists, the guys like Stephen Wolf and stuff. They're kind of newcomers to this.
24:08: The stuff that you're asking about, like, what laws do we apply? How would they be applied?
24:14: What would it look like? I'm going, oh my goodness, Rush Dooney wrote a ton on that. I don't agree with everything
24:19: Rush Dooney said, but he had a lot of valuable to contribute, and he did a lot of phenomenal exegesis and application in his institutes.
24:30: And Bonson had these discussions, and before that, Christians have been having these conversations for a long time.
24:37: How exactly do you apply the law word of God to culture and society as you're evangelizing society?
24:44: So all that to say, I want to make sure that if you're coming to this broadcast for the first time and you're seeing the Christian nationalism discussion,
24:50: I want you to at least get that as a fill -in. Welcome to the conversation. We're just the standard sort of crusty old post -mill theonomists here going, hey, this whole conversation really just lands on what we've all been talking about.
25:05: I'm not advocating for Stephen Wolf's stuff. We're just saying, welcome to the conversation, guys.
25:12: It's really important that we have it. And I think the last two years of what happened during the vid and the jabs and all that stuff has brought a lot of good opportunity for the church to actually examine ourselves and say, well, wait a minute.
25:30: How much authority does the state have, and are they allowed to disobey
25:35: God's law? Are they allowed to take control of the church and the worship of the church?
25:41: Are they allowed to be God? So the church is asking good questions now. Look, Josh, Virgil, Scott, guys, we have been trying to have this discussion since the beginning of Apology Radio.
25:55: This has been a major point of conversation for us since the very beginning as we try to apply the gospel and the law word of God to culture and society.
26:03: So I'm so grateful that we're having this conversation, and I'm actually grateful for the way that Josh and Virgil and Scott handled it in this podcast.
26:11: I love the questions they asked, and I think it's going to reveal some good stuff. I think it's really important to point out before jumping into this that no matter what, whether we're jealous for the title
26:23: CN or not, or whether we're indifferent to it, the fact of the matter is this, that in our cultural climate, believing what we believe, we're going to be called it, no matter what side of this issue you come down on.
26:36: That's Doug's point. Whether it's eschatological position that they hold, we hold our position on God's law.
26:42: It's like if you believe the Bible is the standard for all of life, which they do, then they're going to lump us all into the same lump of coal.
26:51: Yeah, that's, Jeff, you told what I was going to say, but because there's really, you have like, even like in this conversation, you've got
26:59: G3, you've got Doug over here saying one thing, you got Wolf saying another thing, and they're all, none of them are like on the same, there's a lot of overlap, but none of them are in like the same positions.
27:09: And I mean, I appreciated some things Doug was saying. I listened to Doug and James go talk about this twice on sweater vest dialogues.
27:19: And Doug's like, look, we're just trying to work, work through these things now. So when we do get to that point, you know, we have answers, which
27:26: I appreciate that. And he said that, I just listened to the blog, a blog today, it was the one you sent. Yeah, yeah.
27:32: He basically said like, which I don't know if, I don't know if I agree with it, but he basically was like, you know, we're going to be called that anyway, so you might as well accept it and be able to defend it.
27:41: It doesn't mean you have to be a champion of the logo. It just comes to terms with the fact that the world hates you.
27:46: And if you believe the Bible is true and that everyone should obey it, you're going to get called that name. Yeah, exactly.
27:52: Yeah, yeah. Just real quick, you guys may have, I want to give, I want to just give a shout out to here, to ICA Bibles, because I realized, oh,
28:00: I read out of it and it's right here. First of all, this is the required thing to do with new
28:05: Bibles. Is that the one that Zach gave you? Yeah, it's nice. It's pretty.
28:11: Oh man, it's nice. That is a quality, quality Bible right there. Is that the shark skin one?
28:17: I don't think it, no, it's not shark skin, but man, the leather is nice. That would be cool. I think Zach has a shark skin. Have you seen a snake skin
28:23: Bible? Oh yeah. I get to see that. That would be poetic. I've seen it. I've seen it. Yeah, I've seen it.
28:29: Crushing the surface. I think I saw Robert Downey Jr. had it. No, I'm just joking. John Bon Jovi has one,
28:36: I'm sure. I was going to say that straight ate his butt rock. Or Def Leppard, or pour some sugar on ESV.
28:46: So the yap on this thing is just phenomenal. It is nice. It is a good yap.
28:51: The yap protects the pages. ICABibles .com. Man, do they make a good
28:57: Bible. Now, by the way, they haven't paid me to do this or asked me to do this. They just sent me a gift. This Bible is a gift, and I'm telling you right now, it is nice.
29:06: It is very, very nice. ICABibles. I want to make sure you guys send me a great Bible and make sure people know about you.
29:13: ICABibles .com. Okay, so let's get into it. Shout out. Here is a very important moment with Scott in the
29:22: Christian nationalism discussion. Again, it's episode 75 with the guys over at G3. Scott Anial is how you say his last name.
29:28: Yes, and so this is, I think, a very important... You know, when
29:35: I say in the title, what's the main issue? Like, what's the main thing? This is it.
29:41: This is where you finally end up. I'm going to start the show with this. You finally end up that this is the real underlying issue.
29:49: It's that we have presuppositions that do not allow us to see our inconsistencies and the whole thing.
30:00: And so this is, I think, the moment that reveals that presuppositional commitment that Scott has that is really stopping him from actually finally going over to full consistency on this.
30:14: Because he would fundamentally agree with most of everything that we say. But what's stopping him is this commitment right here.
30:23: It gets messy. But at the end of the day, the church has jurisdiction over the spiritual realm, which, of course, involves how we live.
30:33: The state has jurisdiction over these externals, which are manifestations of the heart.
30:39: That's why it's messy. But still, it's important. This is part of the problem. We're unsatisfied with the messiness.
30:47: We want utopia. And I do, too. I long for a
30:53: Christian nation. I long for utopia. I long for this perfect union of church and state.
30:58: And you know when that's going to happen? When the king is visibly on his throne, ruling with a rod of iron.
31:05: I can't wait for the day. But we live in a sin -cursed world right now, so we have to operate as God has designed for us in this present evil age.
31:15: And scripture tells us what God has designed for us. So actually, hold on.
31:20: Let me play that. It's big. You're right. It's big. We need Jesus Christ, the king of kings, to return.
31:27: That's what we long for. There you go. So there you go. That was it. So do you hear what
31:33: Scott said there? Is that I long for this. This perfect union between church and state.
31:38: And I long for this picture of Christian nationalism, this utopia. I long for the law word of God to be the premier thing.
31:47: But that's not going to happen until Jesus returns and is physically on his throne.
31:53: There's the issue. That is the issue. And so you see, really, the intersection here is on eschatology.
32:01: Because what Scott is saying is, I agree that that ought to be the case. I agree that that ought to be the case where the government obeys
32:08: Jesus Christ and God's law word is respected and employed. I agree that that's what ought to be happening.
32:16: But that cannot be now. But it's not now because we need Jesus to be physically on his throne.
32:22: We don't see Jesus physically on his throne today. And my answer to that is
32:27: Matthew 28, 18 through 20. Jesus said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been, past tense, given to me.
32:35: That was given to the disciples in the first century. Jesus already declared that he had that authority.
32:41: And Jesus has already ascended. And Scott would agree with this, and so would Virgil, and so would Josh, that Jesus is on that throne now.
32:50: And what's really important is when someone says, we need Jesus to return to be on his throne to get to this place.
32:57: My answer is he's already on the throne, the Davidic throne. And how many verses do you need to see that?
33:05: I mean, you have the Apostle Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 15 that he is reigning now. So he is a
33:11: Davidic king, the promised Davidic king on that Messianic throne. And Paul says he's not waiting to reign.
33:17: He is reigning now. And he says, And he must reign until all of his enemies are made a footstool for his feet, quoting
33:23: Psalm 110. Which is a psalm, the most popular psalm quoted in the New Testament from the
33:28: Old Testament, that is the psalm about the Messianic kingdom and the Messiah's throne.
33:35: Also, I would say this. It's very important that Scripture places Jesus on that throne now. If you wanted to say, okay, look, if someone said, look, this is obviously where we have to go in history, but Jesus needs to be seen physically on his throne.
33:47: I would say, well, if you want to see Jesus physically on his throne, read the book of Revelation. That was written in the first century.
33:55: Whether you believe it was before the fall of Jerusalem or it was during Domitian's reign around 96
34:00: AD, or whatever your understanding of the dating of Revelation is, we can all agree it's written in the first century, and the scene in Revelation has
34:10: Jesus on his throne. And so, yeah, Jesus is visibly seen on his throne today.
34:17: He actually is. But, of course, that throne is a heavenly throne. But Scripture teaches that Jesus isn't waiting for any more authority.
34:26: He's not waiting to have more rule given to him. It says in Ephesians 1,
34:33: I read it, he has all rule today, in Ephesians, over every rule, authority, power, and has dominion.
34:42: He's not waiting for additional rule to be handed to him, additional authority to be handed to him, and he's not waiting to be seated on his throne.
34:50: He's on the messianic throne. He's putting enemies under his feet. He's been given all authority, and he already has all authority and rule over every dominion, rule, authority, and power.
35:01: And let's just be honest, we all agree with this. He is today called the King of Kings and Lord of Lords today.
35:07: So what are we waiting for? What are we waiting for in terms of what ought to be the case?
35:14: Are we waiting for that to come later? Because there is the issue. It's an eschatological issue.
35:20: It's not a question of whether this ought to be the case. God agrees with that. This ought to be the case.
35:25: It's a question of where you place the rule of the Messiah. Is it current?
35:31: And is he ruling and reigning over everything today? And you're gonna hear the guys here say that the governments and rulers today ought to obey
35:42: Jesus today. So here's the deal. If you believe that's the case, the governments and rulers today ought to obey Jesus today.
35:48: And if Jesus is actually on his throne today, then aren't we working towards Christian nations that obey God? The way you put that really piqued my attention.
35:57: It's impossible for Jesus to delegate all authority unless he is the possessor of all authority.
36:03: It would be unthinkable for him to be able to say, here I'm giving it to you, the head over all things, given to the church, which is the passage that you read at the beginning.
36:14: It would be impossible for him to do that in an ultimate sense. If he didn't have it all already, he has it all.
36:20: That's why he's able to give it away. Hebrews chapter two, this idea that when we visibly see him on the throne, right?
36:30: That was the claim. Hebrews two verse six. This is a quotation from Psalm eight. What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you care for him.
36:39: You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything at subjection under his feet in the
36:46: Psalter. That's written of Adam, the original dominion man. Right. Genesis one, 27, 28.
36:52: The man of culture, if you will, the man who was to tend God's garden and to cultivate this arena of worship for the glorification of the triune
37:00: God. That was Adam's role. And then you have Jesus who restores what father Adam lost and restores what it means to be the true dominion man, the man of culture.
37:09: Right. And he was made for a little while lower than the angels in his incarnation. This is what the author of Hebrews wants us to see is that for a little while, he he's divine prerogatives were, you know, veiled.
37:22: If you will, he took on human nature. He became like one of us. That's how he's able to represent us corporately and be the one who stands in our place as our sin bearer and as the one who establishes a perfect righteousness.
37:32: And it says he was crowned with glory and honor. And here's that phrase that you use from Ephesians one, putting everything in subjection under his feet.
37:41: That's what God did in Christ. And it says now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control.
37:49: Boom. At present. We do not yet see everything in subjection to him. Amen. Every everybody.
37:55: We don't yet see the world in subjection to Jesus that much we can agree on. But here's what it says next verse nine, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels namely
38:08: Jesus crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.
38:14: So according to the author of Hebrews, with the eyes of faith, we are to see Jesus reigning on the throne.
38:20: And that is to actually have significance and meaning. It's actually to be real and true now. So until we see him, well, the
38:28: Bible says that we do look upon him now reigning, right? The author of Colossians says, consider yourself this way.
38:34: Count yourself as dead to sin alive to God in Christ. Jesus, you're dead. Your lives have been hidden with Christ in God.
38:40: Set your minds on things above where Christ is seated, right? So it's a call to pattern. You're thinking after this grounding reality that Jesus is reigning over all things in heaven and on earth.
38:50: And you are with him there, right? You've died with him. You've been crucified with him. You've been buried. You've been raised with him.
38:56: You've been seated with him in the heavenly places. That is to so orient your reality and the action of your life.
39:01: It's the guiding principle or truth behind everything. So just that point until we see him, the book of Hebrews says we see him now.
39:12: Right. And how is him returning in a future eschatological sense, which we all believe there will be another coming bodily.
39:20: Yeah. How is that position that he's going to occupy after that point an improvement upon the one that he currently possesses?
39:27: Yeah. How is that better than being what Ephesians 1 says? The king over all ascended reigning over all.
39:35: How is that an improvement upon anything that he has right now? The fact that he's going to be reigning from a geographical location or something to that effect, which
39:44: I'm not sure what their exact position is on that. I don't know what they believe, but how is it better?
39:50: I mean, it's better, of course, in the sense that he'll be present. But can we really say it's an improvement upon his authority?
39:58: He already has it. He's got it. All of it. Over everything. All rule, authority, power, dominion.
40:04: All of it. And I just want to say just a quick note for people who want to just study this later. Read 1
40:10: Corinthians 15, then I'll turn it over to you, Luke. 1 Corinthians 15, very important passage in terms of timeline.
40:16: If you want to see the inspired apostle's timeline of history, then read 1 Corinthians 15. As he explains the gospel, then he says
40:23: Christ is reigning now, and he must reign until all enemies are made a footstool for his feet.
40:28: He quotes Psalm 110 .1, which is the Messianic Psalm, God's favorite Bible verse. It's the most quoted Bible verse in the
40:34: New Testament from the Old Testament or alluded to. So Paul says he's reigning now. That reign is a present reality.
40:40: The Messianic king, his reign is happening now. That's first century. It's still happening today.
40:47: And he says he must reign until all enemies under his feet as a footstool for his feet. And then he says this, when that happens, all enemies are a footstool for his feet, then death will finally go under his feet.
40:59: So it's history is Christ the ruler reigning now, all enemies under his feet, then finally death.
41:05: And then it says this, when he returns, it's to deliver the kingdom to the father.
41:11: Not bring it, but to deliver it to the father as finished. Look father, look what
41:17: I did. And so that's the timeline of history. I would say just as a humble encouragement, just sketch it out.
41:23: Place 1 Corinthians 15 in front of you. Take a white piece of paper and a pen, pencil, and just sketch out the timeline that the inspired apostle puts out.
41:32: Where's Jesus now? Oh, he's reigning now. And then what's going to take place? All enemies. And then what? Finally death. Then what? The kingdom is delivered to the father.
41:38: The kingdom doesn't then arrive. It's then delivered to the father. That's the inspired apostle's timeline of history.
41:46: So I don't want to assume what Scott's saying and what he believes. But this is what it sounds like to me.
41:51: Maybe you guys can elaborate on this. But it sounds like he's saying he's waiting for this unified where Christ comes and he is ruling politically.
42:01: And that's great. That's what he's saying. It's classical premillennialism. Yeah, okay. That's what it sounded like.
42:07: I just wanted to make sure I was understanding it correctly. Obviously we're saying, well, no, because there's two separate jurisdictions.
42:13: Christ is still ruling and reigning and everything now, but we still have the civil governmental sphere. They can still rule separately.
42:20: They're not actually unified. They overlap in some jurisdictions, but they have their own jurisdictions. And so I think that's—
42:28: Both under his rule. Exactly right. I just wanted to make sure I understood him correctly. Yeah, and one thing that Scott had mentioned is in this podcast somewhere, and I'm sorry
42:35: I didn't have it queued up here, but it's a major portion of this. The question of where do you see this idea that we need to have
42:43: Christian nations? Where do you see that the goal of the Christian church and the goal of the gospel is everything, including governments and all the rest?
42:53: Well, I would say we could do this for a long time. I would say a key verse would be Matthew 28, 18 -20, where Jesus says,
43:00: All authority in heaven and on earth has been, past tense, given to me. And on that basis, therefore, go make disciples of all the nations, teaching them, baptizing them.
43:09: And then he says, teach them to deserve all that I have commanded you. So teach them to obey. So there's a verse, and that's a pretty significant one.
43:16: That's the Great Commission passage. We all affirm that. And so when you say, like, where do we ever get this idea that we need
43:21: Christian nations and everyone to obey Jesus? I would say, well, let's start with the Great Commission. Let's just leave out all the
43:27: Old Testament passages that clearly show the Messiah's kingdom ruling over every detail of life and blessing every area of life.
43:33: But you can also go to the first chapter of Romans and the last chapter of Romans, where the Apostle Paul very clearly states in those chapters the goal of the gospel.
43:45: And he says, in Romans 1, we said this last week, but I'll say it again, verse 5,
43:58: And he finishes in Romans 16 by just basically repeating the same thing.
44:05: He says at the very end of Romans, in Romans 16, he says in verse 26,
44:15: Like, where are we supposed to be doing this?
44:22: He says it's a command. Who says we're supposed to be doing this? It's a command.
44:28: The command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith. Among who?
44:34: Well, Romans 1, among all the nations. You could go, again, to what we already showed in Ephesians about Christ's rule and authority and power.
44:41: But how about this verse we all know, we're all well aware of, and it says in verse 15 of chapter 1 of Colossians, it says that Very important verse to show to your
45:03: Jehovah's Witness and Mormon friends about Christ as creator of all. And it says, Just in heaven.
45:37: No. To reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
45:46: So when someone says, I just don't see the idea that the whole earth is going to be filled with the knowledge of God, you know, sort of, well, the verses specifically say that.
45:55: But I just don't see this idea that every realm, everything, that all needs to come under the feet of Jesus, and everyone's supposed to obey
46:02: Jesus. Because it's like, I mean this respectfully, I don't mean this as a jab, but like, are we reading the same New Testament?
46:08: Because it's everywhere. The authority of Christ over all things in heaven and on earth.
46:13: And I mean that with all my heart. I don't mean that as a jab. I mean that in sincerity. Please pay attention to those texts that we quote from so often as pastors and teachers and ministers.
46:24: This is who Christ is. This is the authority he actually has. And this is first century context.
46:29: I mean, they're saying these things with an earshot of Nero kind of thing, right? Like, I'm sure he'd have something to say about this.
46:37: King of kings over you, Nero? Yeah, he's got something to say about that, which is why he killed Christians. He didn't like the fact that they weren't saying
46:43: Kaiser Kyrgios. He didn't like the fact that they were saying Jesus was ultimate over him. And so, yeah, the
46:49: Christian church in the first century looks very different in terms of its influence because it's at its inception.
46:55: And that's a big thing too. It's like someone looks at our New Testament and goes, and we were having this conversation, someone looks at the
47:01: New Testament and they go, oh, look at the church in its infancy. They're just this persecuted minority, and they're just focused on holiness and righteousness and preaching the gospel in the public square where they can.
47:11: But man, they're just being beat down. We need to get back to that. We need to get back to that. The gospel really flourishes. It's like, guys, that's the first century church.
47:19: That's after the ascension of Jesus when he says, okay, now go get the nations. And of course it's going to look different because They did.
47:26: Yeah, it's going to, of course, it's going to look different. It's going to look very different. First century
47:32: Christian church influence is going to look so different than 2 ,000 years later where Christians have proclaimed the gospel faithfully in so many ways in so many areas and influence and brought so much light and life to the world.
47:46: It's just going to look different. And it's so odd to me that somebody would say, well, like in the first century church, they're just the persecuted minority.
47:52: It's like because they're the persecuted minority because they're at the inception. But the portrait that the
47:59: Bible gives to you of the Messiah's kingdom is the earth is full of the knowledge of the
48:04: Lord. Like the waters cover the sea. Like how wet is the Pacific ocean?
48:11: It's all wet. It's pretty wet. It's all wet. And that's what scripture says about the knowledge of God covering the earth.
48:17: Like the waters cover the sea. Do you think that God had the view of like total victory and knowledge of God filling the earth?
48:23: Do you think the idea was that all the nations obey this messianic king? Well, Genesis 49, 10, there's
48:30: Shiloh is coming into him shall be the obedience of the nations. This isn't foreign or novel understanding.
48:37: This is the story of the messianic king and his redemption. And yeah, in the first century, it looked very different because they just started that proclamation of the good news and his kingdom in the first century.
48:48: And Jesus says the kingdom of God grows like a mustard seed to a tree. It grows like leaven in a lump of dough.
48:54: It will eventually make its way through the dough. But it's not like you hear, like my friend says, the hammer's banging and the drills and saws going off.
49:03: It's like slow, quiet transformation, right? A little bit of growth at a time. Sometimes you can't even see it happening in front of you.
49:10: But it grows. That mustard seed will grow into something that's larger than a man. And so, okay.
49:17: You guys want to fill in here because we got more. No. Let's do it. Okay. All right. So next point, important point.
49:22: Virgil's talking here. This is at 40 minutes and 56 seconds of the podcast. He says this.
49:28: He says modern religious liberty advocates deny this. He says, but I, Wolf, affirm it.
49:35: Yeah. And what that begins to do is forget religious liberty and even expression of any form other than the version of Christian nationalism that's being posited by Stephen Wolf.
49:49: Yeah. So if we're Baptists and we're not willing to baptize children that have not professed faith in Christ, well, what do you do with that?
49:59: Yeah. Are those folks criminalized? And again, I can hear the people on the other side of that.
50:04: Ah, yeah, and we're not going to do that. I mean that's not what we're going to do. On what basis? That's the question. On the basis of what they're arguing, why wouldn't they flog
50:13: Baptists? Right, right. They say they wouldn't. I mean they're good people. I believe them. But there's no actual theological reason they wouldn't.
50:19: There isn't. And then, I mean, you've got to ask yourself a question that has a lot of different religious expressions,
50:26: Christian and non -Christian, Muslim, right, Mormon, folks who are atheists.
50:32: What do you do with those people? And what kinds of laws are set into place and how do you actually enact this level of punishment for those people?
50:41: Yeah, well, good question. Virgil, really good question, brother. Good question.
50:47: I want to start in the back of it. So starting in the back of it, we deal with the issue of Muslims and Mormons and what would that look like?
50:54: What would it look like if you had a nation that was mostly converted to Christ, professing faith in Jesus, and the government recognizes their role as God's servant,
51:02: Romans 13, we're the servant of the true God, and you've got the church and the state and both want to honor Christ and all the rest.
51:07: What would it look like in a nation like that, where you had a truly Christian, professing Christian nation, a nation that acknowledges the
51:15: Lordship of Christ's sake? Because this is a question I think Josh asked publicly, is like, what would you say would have to change in the
51:21: Constitution? I'll just give a quick one. We can have this discussion for hours. That was this morning, actually. This morning. So Josh, good question, too.
51:28: In terms of the question of the Constitution, there's some good studies on this.
51:34: I can give you some good resources on this, brother. There's a big moment before the formation of the Constitution of this nation where one of the debates was, if you don't do what the
51:45: Covenanters did in Scotland, and that's specifically identify the Lord of this nation, name the triune
51:52: God, name Jesus Christ, have the nation come into covenant with Jesus Christ. If you don't do that, it's going to lead, it's a fast track to atheism, and it'll blur everything.
52:02: So one of the things I would say is a failure of our Constitution is not specifically identifying
52:08: Jesus Christ and the triune God of Scripture as the God of this nation. When there's a, we're all created equal.
52:15: Okay, so there's acknowledgement, we're created, there's a God there, but which God is it? So that's a failure of the
52:20: Constitution. Like, we need to name the true God. You know, being closed on Sunday. Obviously, it's Christian context.
52:26: Closed on the Lord's Day. I get it. Obviously, there's the Christian, you can see all the—
52:31: That's what Calais is doing for theonomy. Yeah. Closed on Sunday. So you can see all those things there.
52:38: You know, the year of our Lord. I get it. Like, it's all there in the Constitution. You can't deny the
52:43: Christian worldview surrounding the Constitution. You know, when you look at the
52:48: Bill of Rights, and you're talking about the things like, you know, no warrantless searches and seizures, you don't have to be a witness against yourself, you know, the right to self -defense, and all that stuff, all that is clearly
53:01: Christian. You can trace it all the way back to English common law, and all that stuff.
53:06: So, clearly Christian. But a failure is, yeah, not specifically acknowledging the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the
53:12: Triune God of Scripture. It wasn't so in the colonies. I mean, it wasn't so in the colonies, or even some of the early formation of the
53:20: Union. You had states that had state churches. And that also gets to the
53:26: Establishment Clause, is in forming a union, it was just a union of states.
53:31: In forming a union, they wanted to make sure there was no Church of England situation. They wanted no sacralism.
53:38: They don't want a Church of England situation, so there's no national church of the United States of America.
53:44: But it was perfectly fine for states to have their own churches, and that's how they saw it.
53:49: Like, okay, clearly this is a Congregationalist up here, and these are, you know, mostly Presbyterian down here. The Establishment Clause is not that we don't want
53:59: Christ to rule over our nation. We don't want a Church of England situation where there's a national church.
54:05: And that was a good move on their part, by the way. But it gets to the question where Virgil asks, what do you do with Muslims and Mormons in a mostly
54:15: Christian nation? My challenge would just be this to Virgil, and Virgil and I are probably going to have dinner sometime in the next year or two if I ever go somewhere where we sit down together.
54:25: What would a nation look like if it actually honors Jesus Christ in that area? Do you think that Christ would want idolatry present in that nation?
54:35: Like, that's the main question to ask, is like, if Jesus is ruler now, and he's King of Kings, and legislators are all required to obey
54:43: Jesus, does Jesus want paganism practiced in the streets? Does Jesus hate idolatry?
54:50: And I think all of us would say, of course he does. And so, yeah, I think that, of course, if you had a nation that acknowledged the triune
54:56: God of Scripture, and they wanted to be submissive to Christ, you wouldn't allow for open public displays of paganism in that nation.
55:06: And look, here's the deal. There's no getting around the obvious nature of this problem today, where you've got
55:12: Satanists coming to offer prayers before the legislature. You've got Satanists building baphomet statues in front of like state capitals, and all the rest.
55:22: Do you think that the King of Kings wants that today? Do you think that Jesus has something to say about that today?
55:28: Look, absolutely, we believe that there should be freedom of religion.
55:34: And what I mean by that is freedom for the Christian religion to speak and preach the gospel. And of course,
55:41: I don't want paganism rampant in the streets, and I don't think Jesus does either. And so, yeah, could a
55:47: Muslim live comfortably in a Christian nationalist nation, like a nation under the rule of Christ?
55:54: And the answer is yes. They absolutely could, in their mind, in their conscience, be a
55:59: Muslim, but they wouldn't be allowed to practice Islam openly or to build mosques within a
56:06: Christian nation. You wouldn't be able to build pagan Mormon temples in a Christian nation, because it would be dishonoring to the
56:14: Lordship of Christ, the one true God that that nation has fidelity towards. Gilbert would have a lot of space.
56:19: Yeah, exactly. So that's my answer to that. But here's the deal.
56:25: That might sound really strange. Somebody might say, dude, you sound, really? You don't want
56:31: Muslims to be able to build mosques and Mormons to be able to build temples in a nation? You don't want idolatry? My answer is no,
56:36: I don't want idolatry. I don't want false gods and false religions to be able to preach. I think that should be, you can be a
56:42: Mormon in your mind, but you can't build a Mormon temple in a Christian nation. And somebody says, man, that seems so different.
56:49: It's like, well, yeah, maybe we've been influenced by our culture and not by the Bible. Maybe we've been influenced by the culture and not by our
56:55: Bibles. And you know, here's the thing. I'm not the only one saying it. Here's one of my favorites. Dr.
57:01: MacArthur. I don't even support religious freedom. Religious freedom is what sends people to hell.
57:11: To say I support religious freedom is to say I support idolatry. It's to say I support lies.
57:17: I support hell. I support the kingdom of darkness. You can't say that.
57:23: No Christian with half a brain would say, we support religious freedom. We support the truth.
57:33: So there you go. So it's not just the crazy theonomists and post -millennialists that are saying that.
57:41: Right? So like we asked the question, are we more influenced by our culture? Have we been indoctrinated by our culture on a fiction about what the founding documents of this nation actually say?
57:55: The Establishment Clause and freedom of religion did not mean to those
58:00: Christians that we do not have the Lordship of Christ over our government and our colonies and our states.
58:07: And it did not mean that it's olly olly oxen free. You can build a Baphomet statue in front of the
58:13: United States Capitol. That's not what they meant. That is not what they meant. And I absolutely am opposed to idolatry.
58:22: And that's why we preach the gospel against it. We think about it. It's like Christians are like, we want to have this religious freedom where you could build a
58:31: Baphomet statue in front of the Capitol. It's like, well, then why are you out preaching the gospel? Like, aren't you out preaching the gospel to end all that idolatry?
58:38: And so the question is here, does the state have a responsibility to obey God and not allow idolatry in a nation?
58:47: And my answer to that is, well, of course. Yes, the state must enforce the first table of the law.
58:53: Of course, because here's the deal, right? Just answer the question straightforwardly. Is the state, is the civil magistrate the deacon of the true
59:02: God or of a false God? Of the true God. True God. The servant of the true
59:08: God. So if the state is explicitly called the deacon, the servant of the true
59:14: God, then does the true God expect the state to be his servant faithfully?
59:21: And if the answer is yes, well then, okay. Does the true God expect the servant of God, the state, does the true
59:28: God expect the servant of God to actually uphold his standards of righteousness and justice and his statutes?
59:35: And my answer to that would be without question. And if you say like, really today? Well, do you believe he's king of kings today?
59:41: Lord of lords today? Are the kings of the earth supposed to obey Jesus today? So yeah. And you had something you want to add to that?
59:48: I don't think so. Okay. I don't think I can say it more clearly. I want to add this because this is really important. And I want to say this, this is so, so very important.
59:57: We are not at odds with Brother MacArthur. Dr. MacArthur is in large measure responsible for me.
01:00:06: And what I mean by that is that when I came out of my addiction to drugs and alcohol, whether I was truly saved before that or not, my wife and I have debates over that.
01:00:15: She thinks I truly was. I don't think I was. As I got back into my Bible and examined the gospel, it was also in tandem with reading the gospel according to Jesus by Dr.
01:00:25: MacArthur. And it was the text that he was pointing out that showed me that I don't think I ever understood the gospel, like coming to Christ and really turning to him.
01:00:33: So Dr. MacArthur is in large measure responsible for this ministry. So thank you, Dr. MacArthur.
01:00:39: So we're not at odds with Dr. MacArthur. However, we do have some points where we disagree with each other, and this would be one of them.
01:00:46: One of the things that's been said consistently is that, you know, we don't like the dichotomy that the post -millennialists are making of like, you know, you believe that Christ is victorious and you have optimism and we just believe in loser, loser theology or loser stuff in history.
01:01:06: May I read the quote? Please do. So the quote by Scott Anuel, optimistic versus pessimistic to describe differences in eschatological positions is a fundamentally false caricature created by post -millennialism.
01:01:19: Can you read that one more time? So optimistic versus pessimistic, so the dichotomy, to describe differences in eschatological positions is a fundamentally false caricature created by post -millennialism.
01:01:33: Don't accept the premise. Yeah, so don't accept the premise. So Scott wants to say that when we say optimillennialism versus pessimillennialism, optimistic eschatology versus pessimistic eschatology, where we have victory in Jesus here in this life now versus losing in history, that that's a false dichotomy.
01:01:54: Don't accept the premise. That's not actually the truth. Again, to Brother MacArthur. Oh, guess what?
01:02:08: We don't win down here. We lose. You ready for that?
01:02:15: Oh, you were a post -millennialist. You thought we were just going to go waltzing into the kingdom as you took over the world.
01:02:23: No, we lose here. Get it. They killed Jesus. They killed all the apostles.
01:02:30: We're all going to be persecuted. If any man come after me, let him, but not himself.
01:02:41: Okay, so first of all, correction to Brother MacArthur, a humble correction because I love this man very much.
01:02:47: A humble correction is post -millennialists don't believe that. Right, yeah. No post -millennialist believes that.
01:02:53: That we go waltzing into the kingdom. Has taught that. Nobody. And I've read a significant number of books by post -millennialists.
01:03:02: I've read a significant number of statements dating all the way back to Athanasius, the patron saint of post -millennialism.
01:03:10: And no post -millennialist believes that we go waltzing into the kingdom. That is a caricature of post -millennialists.
01:03:18: We do not believe that at all. But here is Dr. MacArthur saying we lose down here.
01:03:25: We lose down here. Get that through your heads. We lose down here.
01:03:30: And to that, I would say, there's a number of ways to refute that, but how about the meek shall inherit the earth? How about Romans 5,
01:03:38: Abraham's descendants would inherit... Romans 4, Abraham's descendants would inherit the world. It's clear in scripture that it's the meek that inherit the earth and Abraham's descendants that inherit the world.
01:03:51: And it's very different from this idea of losing down here. And so again, we could do a whole episode responding, showing all the passages of the promise of victory in the world.
01:04:02: We've already touched on some of them. We could do Isaiah 2. We could do Isaiah 9, Isaiah 11. You could do
01:04:07: Daniel 7, 13 through 14. You could do Isaiah 42. We could go, again, for days on this to show that is actually not what scripture says that we lose down here.
01:04:15: It says the opposite, actually. Is there persecution in the first century for the church?
01:04:21: Absolutely. That's the inception of the church. Is there going to be persecution as we bring the gospel into hard places and bring it into conflict with idolatry and paganism?
01:04:28: Absolutely. Christians are still going to die as we proclaim the gospel and his kingdom expands and grows around the world.
01:04:36: However, according to scripture, Jesus wins down here. And on that one significant point, they killed
01:04:44: Jesus. Don't you know we don't win down here? That's how Jesus won. Right. Okay.
01:04:52: That's, yeah. They killed him. Yeah, they killed him. And also there's not just the fact that he won in his death, but that he won in his resurrection.
01:05:01: There you go. Jesus didn't stay dead. He's alive. And more than just being alive from the dead,
01:05:07: Jesus actually ascended and was seated on the messianic throne. So yeah, he died and he won there and then won again with his resurrection and won again with his ascension and won again with being seated on his throne.
01:05:20: And now he is the ruler of everything, the ruler of the kings of the earth today and has all authority in heaven and on earth today.
01:05:27: So the point in playing that, and we're going to continue this discussion because it's a good one to have. We need to be having it. The point of that is to actually demonstrate, no, actually there are elements to eschatological beliefs that do tend towards a loser theology that we lose down here.
01:05:46: And you've got one of my very favorites, Dr. MacArthur, saying that right there. I mean, guys, how many times do we need to hear people saying things like, why bother polishing brass on the sinking ship and all of that?
01:05:57: Because that's the portrait. If we lose down here, then we act like it.
01:06:03: That's if you tell people we lose down here, then they will act like it. And so what we're saying here is that there is a fundamental conflict between what
01:06:13: Dr. MacArthur says here in terms of the authority of Christ and King of Kings and Lord of Lords and Scott and Virgil and Josh in terms of the full authority of Jesus.
01:06:26: They would say he is reigning now. He is the King of Kings now. And then what they say about the implications of that in this life now.
01:06:33: There's a conflict. It's really, really important. Really quick. We don't win down here.
01:06:39: We lose. Okay, that's one side. And then in the podcast that we're reviewing right now,
01:06:45: Scott says, be faithful. Ordinary Christian faithfulness, moms.
01:06:51: Ordinary Christian faithfulness, businessmen. Whatever your vocation, whatever you're calling, whatever you're doing, you have no idea what that produces.
01:07:01: Well, we were just told on one hand that it doesn't mean anything because we don't win down here. We lose. And in what sense does that carry over to victory if we don't win down here, but go be faithful.
01:07:15: Go preach, go live, go conduct business, go teach, go raise a family.
01:07:23: Why? We don't win. We lose. That has to mean something. And I think their response, of course, would be, well, it's the ultimate victory, right?
01:07:32: It's eternal victory. Jesus wins in the end, right? Whereas our position would be, yeah, and amen, but there's also this historical mop -up project that he's intimately involved in.
01:07:44: Very much so, yeah. And I'll say, well, we'll end on this and then go into our after show. Comment here by Brother Josh.
01:07:53: We can agree with our brothers on a lot of things. We can agree with preaching the gospel openly, indiscriminately, passionately.
01:08:02: We can agree with preaching the law of God to civil leaders.
01:08:07: We can agree with preaching the gospel to civil leaders and demanding that they bow the knee now to Christ because one day they will bow the knee to Christ.
01:08:16: We would agree with that. We would agree with... And there you go.
01:08:23: I think that speaks for itself. Josh is on the same page as us, completely. What we're saying is that we're not seeing the implications carried through.
01:08:34: If Josh says, and he really believes it, that we should be going to legislators today saying bow the knee to Jesus today, because you will one day, but you do it today and you go to legislators,
01:08:48: Josh says, and you tell them to obey God's law today. So legislator, you're accountable to Jesus, bow the knee to him today and obey
01:08:57: God's law. The question is, Josh, what if it happens?
01:09:03: What if it happens and it happens in a large scale where there's this conversion and submission by the legislators, souls that need
01:09:12: Christ, when they say, great, I have bowed the knee to Jesus today and I'm going to obey his law. What does it look like now with legislation?
01:09:19: Does it look like godly legislation? Does it look like they start looking at their Bibles saying, what's the general equity of that law and how do
01:09:26: I apply it today? How do I apply that justice today as I'm legislating? And the answer
01:09:32: I think all of us would admit, well, they would look very different. And so just act like it's a mustard seed that becomes a tree.
01:09:38: When it becomes the tree, will those higher outer branches be actually going, yeah, obey
01:09:45: Jesus and look at his law. And that's what we're going to do in this place. We're going to obey Jesus. He's the king of this nation.
01:09:51: We're going to do what he says. We're going to follow his statutes. We're going to look to his law. We're going to look to his wisdom.
01:09:57: Now I'm thankful, listen, that we need to all acknowledge this. I'm thankful for the faithful men and women behind us that were prophetic and faithful that influenced culture and society so much that actually
01:10:09: God's wisdom and God's statutes and God's law were actually enshrined in law. You want an example of that?
01:10:15: No warrantless searches and seizures. Where's that come from? Mosaic legislation. You have to have multiple witnesses before you can receive a charge against somebody.
01:10:24: Or how about cross -examination in courts? Any number of things.
01:10:30: The first amendment? The first, yeah. Any number of things that you wanted to demonstrate. It's like this all came from Christians and from godly wisdom.
01:10:38: I'm very grateful for John Jay, our first Supreme Court Justice, for when he's giving the case law system of our nation, he actually quotes directly from the
01:10:46: Torah. I'm so grateful for that. That's what we're talking about when we talk about a nation under the rule of Christ is that from the very top they acknowledge the lordship of Christ, their fidelity towards the triune
01:11:01: God of Holy Scripture, that the ultimate authority in the nation is the law word of God. That's what it would look like.
01:11:08: Evangelism will bring us to that. We want everyone individually to know Christ, but there needs to be an acknowledgement from the top that we're not serving some foreign god, we're serving the king of kings.
01:11:19: That's the hope. I think it was Jesus who said that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
01:11:28: That's right. That doesn't sound like losing. Apparently we don't lose. MacArthur's position there just reminds me of the
01:11:37: Israelite army standing before Goliath. They're like, yeah, we're going to lose. We've already lost, that guy's going to slay us, but I don't want to die today, so we're just going to hang out over here.
01:11:48: Then David comes over, Mr. Captain Postmill. Captain Postmill! He's like, who are you on circumcised
01:11:53: Philistine? I got the army of the Lord on my side. That to me is the difference right there.
01:11:59: That's a perfect picture. Also, Isaac messaged me and said he wants a redo. He wants a redo of what?
01:12:05: Of the show. He wants to do a show again? Yeah, just make sure you give a three -hour slot to him.
01:12:11: All right, Gabe, do we got any super chats or anything going on? Should I talk about those? Or let's just do this, guys.
01:12:18: Not this time. Not this time, okay. Everyone, thank you for watching today. We're heading over to Apologia Studios right now.
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