Was Jesus Enthroned in Daniel 7? What Does His Reign Mean? And Much More

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. We've got a lot to get to today. In fact,

I was just, it's one of those, again, Twitter, Twitter distractions, right?

As you're, you're literally getting ready to start the program, you look over and guess what happened?

See, it's already scrolled by. Yeah, there it is. Okay. I found it. Guess what happened on this date in 1949?

1949. What happened on this date in 1949? Since I'm looking over here, 1949, 1984 was published.

George Orwell's classic, 1984 is published on this date in 1949, 74 years, 74 years.

How did he get all that stuff right? It is amazing, amazing.

And you got to remember, I remember I, it was an assignment in high school and I remember reading it and the screen, the view screen in the apartment where you have no privacy, where a big brother can always see you and make you exercise harder, remember?

I read that before 1984. So that would have been, probably read it 78, 79, may have been a little bit earlier than that if it was freshman year, but I think it was probably sophomore year.

So 78, 79, somewhere around there. So 84 was still in the future, but the idea of government surveillance on that level, wow.

It was scary to think about, but it's like, that'll never happen. And now we have

Alexa and my phone's nearby, so I won't say the other one.

We've got all this stuff and we've got cameras and it's all so easily understandable how it could happen.

1984 published this date in 1949. That's yeah, that just popped up on my screen.

So yeah, there you go. Not that I'm going to be discussing that anymore, but lots of stuff we could be talking about regarding the

SBC coming up. I'm not going to do that. I don't know if we're going to have our annual troublemaker in Texas report from the

SBC or what. I don't know. I haven't talked with him about that, but lots and lots of stuff going on.

I guess there was a report about all the money being spent on amazing things at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

And again, I just remember 1980, 81, when

I was, no, no, it was when I was in college. I just,

I just remember Southwestern was the place, man. That was the place to go.

If you were in the Southern Baptist Church I was in, yeah, Southwestern is, that was, that was the place that was where you wanted to be.

And it's, it's not anymore. And fascinating stuff about what they're spending money on while cutting staff at the same time.

But we won't be getting into all that right now either. I did say on the last program that I would just leave up what

I didn't get to. And so I think it would be best to do that. And then

I, again, was looking at the computer and ran across a video from Leighton Flowers saying it's been two years waiting for an answer on this.

I don't listen to Leighton Flowers unless something pops up. Unless someone says, hey, you specifically need to listen to this or something like that.

Um, from my perspective, we have so fundamentally refuted the foundational, where Leighton Flowers stands foundationally, that anything after that is just going back over the same stuff over and over again.

It can be helpful to folks to demonstrate the numerous errors and exegesis and misrepresentation, and straw man right, left, and center.

But it's just not, most of my days pass without ever thinking about Soteriology 101 and Leighton Flowers.

It's just, yeah, anyway, so I saw a video and I just now realized, oh wait a minute,

I've got, okay, I've got another, too many windows open at the same time.

I do have it, and so it's very, very short, and again, it'll allow us to get into the word.

That's the most important thing. Um, just for anybody's edification and interest, again, we're between big trips, um, big trip coming up starting the 23rd of June, which will include, and we have on the website, on, we actually got something up, smack dab on the website, uh, well, well ahead of time.

So no one can say, oh, I didn't hear about that. Uh, real nice graphic put together by Redemption Hills Church.

Uh, my dear friend, uh, Bruce Nicolay, um, who is, uh, has asked me to,

I don't know how to, basically I'm going to be trying to present

God's kingdom as we are to be living it out today.

It's, I'm, I'm not, I'm not nearly as comfortable with these topics as I am with stuff that I've been doing for 30 years.

Now, obviously almost anything where we address what's going on in our culture today is going to involve all sorts of new stuff and questions that are hard to answer and all that kind of stuff.

But I'll just be honest with you. When dealing with eschatology,

I still, and I see it every single, I'm seeing it right now on Twitter as we're speaking so much more heat than light in the vast majority of situations.

And why? Because no one, no one, no one is willing to lay aside their position for just a moment and go, well, let me get over here from your perspective and see it's, it's the one thing where it's just like, nope,

I'm not doing that. That's, that's how heritage are made. You know, it's the one thing and I've been there, uh, you know,

I grew up with that perspective. If you, if you, you know, it was this next room right over here, right through that wall.

It was where we recorded the conversation with, um, um, oh gosh, crazy

King James man here in, uh, in Phoenix, um, this is normally when

Rich would pop in and go, that guy, I don't go, yeah, that guy. Anyways, the name is slipping me at the moment against someone else.

I do not think of very often. And we did that big long interview in there that, uh, 30 seconds of which ended up in the movie.

Anyway. Uh, I just remember him going off and I think it was after the cameras went off, um, going off about somebody and it had something to do with pre -trib, mid -trib, post -trib.

And it very clearly from his perspective, unless you have the right one of those three, you're not even a

Christian. You're a heretic. You're, you're lost. You're going hellfire. You can believe in the Trinity and justification by faith and all the rest of that stuff.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Um, you're going to hell. And that attitude.

Okay. That guy, he's, he's got that kind of attitude about everything, but it's just, it's hard for me to get the energy up to do some of the arguing.

Because for most folks, it's just like, as soon as they raise an objection to something you said, you know, that they are going to insist that you hold to a viewpoint that you'd actually don't hold to in the first place.

And they're, they're not going to give you any, any room. And it's just like, I'm just not interested in that kind of stuff.

Really, really not. So I, I'm, I'm looking forward to a positive presentation up there in Littleton, Colorado on the kingdom of Christ, building the kingdom of Christ in the midst of the deepest darkness we've seen in our society, in all of our lives and in all the history of the

United States. There's no question about that. And so I want to give,

I think there's great hope and there's, I love how this is the fulfillment of the roles, the father and the son, the spirit, and just beautiful stuff we'll look at here in a moment, but I'm looking forward to doing that.

And I know that the questions about down here in the weeds and what about this verse here and that verse there, they're going to come.

But I hope to be able to present an overarching, positive, encouraging perspective.

I honestly think that we're getting through to a lot of folks, but they're not the ones making all the noise.

They're just going, wow, well, if that's true, then man, what we're going to do on the

Lord's day when we meet, that's, we're, we're building the kingdom where we're pushing it back and pushing back the kingdom of darkness where we're really doing something important in, in eternity by the little things we do in time.

Yeah. As long as that gets through, we're good. We're good. So I'm looking forward to that.

We'll see you out there in Littleton at Redemption Hills Church. Go to the website.

It's all there. It's a Saturday, Sunday, two things, Saturday morning, Sunday morning service as well.

And you will be warmly welcomed at Redemption Hills. It's a wonderful fellowship there and look forward to seeing some of you folks there.

So with that being said, I said on the last program that I didn't get to an interesting element and it sort of continued on Steve Camp doing some stuff on Twitter, like Steve Camp does on Twitter.

And some people probably thought I was being a little bit nasty to Steve, but look, you've got to understand most folks don't have a long memory as to what's gone on just over the past few years.

And if it happened before 2020, it didn't really happen. That's ancient history. But in 2016,

Steve was one of the many people that ambushed me.

I think it was horrifically, not just unbrotherly, but just simply unfair, unkind.

It was just nastiness. A number of people that I, up until that time, had figured were along with me on most things came after me because of the

Asarkadi Dialogue, which again, I remind most people don't even know what that was.

Do you know that was what, seven years ago now, seven years, right at seven years about now, it was

I think May, if I recall correctly, May, June, because I remember Janet Mefford ambushed me on her program and I did that program from Bruce and Marty's house in Colorado.

And so I remember right now being on the phone, walking back and forth in their kitchen when that was taking place.

And that was a situation where, again, if you want to see those dialogues and I really need to contact

Yasir and we need to do some more of them. We both have become very, very busy and haven't done that even though we've talked since then and both of us have expressed the desire to do that again.

And he's in the Dallas area and I go through there all the time now. So there just, there wouldn't be any reason not to.

And so I want to, because if you go look him up, if you didn't see him, go watch them, universally

Christians outside the United States thought they were absolutely fantastic. That it was such a door opener, such a conversation starter, such a gospel foundation laying opportunity to have that kind of respectful conversation with a leading

Muslim scholar without laying aside your differences, but discussing them openly and with respect for one another, especially people in primarily

Muslim countries thought what an opportunity, especially the second one where I'm the mosque and he's asking me awesome questions just straight up.

And I've talked about some of the conversations we had afterwards that were just great. But in the

United States, there were a number of people who were just disgusted.

And there was the guy that does the videos. And again, his name has slipped my mind too, but I don't really, even if I did remember,

I'm not sure I'd bother bringing it up, but ended up in movies, called me a useful idiot.

Steve Camp went after me. Like I said, Janet Mefford went after me and I had hosted for her. I literally filled in for her.

I'd not only been on her program over and over and over again, but I had actually done her program when she was out of town.

I'd gone down to KPXQ and actually hosted the program. And when she asked him to be on,

I knew there was a possibility this could happen. But I, being hopeful

James that I was, I didn't think that it would, well, it did.

And yeah, it was quite the experience at that particular point in time.

And I would very highly recommend that people go back if you have not watched them. But James White Yasir Qadhi, Y -A -S -I -R

Q -A -D -H -I. Put that in YouTube and they'll pop right up.

The first was at a church in, I believe it was the Memphis area when it happened.

That's where he was located at that time. And then, that was not a church service.

It was during the middle of the week. And then the next night in the mosque. And it was just, it was fantastic.

It was a great opportunity and again, love to see that type of thing happen again. So, anyway.

Oh, okay. Again, I finally switched over to TweetDeck.

I am seeing more than I used to see.

But I'm still missing stuff. There must be some way of, I don't know.

But at least TweetDeck does allow me to see a lot of the stuff that I, at least it's popping up.

So I was just seeing someone, talking to someone who I had blocked at some point.

I have a very long block list. Alright, let's get back to where we were here. I'm sorry. I said on the last program that I wanted to respond, and that's actually where the connection was.

Steve Camp made a comment yesterday or this morning, one of the two, about how everyone he sees presenting postmillennialism or theonomy, it's never exegetically based.

Even Doug Wilson. Doug Wilson doesn't do a lot on Twitter. But even

Doug had to respond going, there's been a lot of guys that have published a lot of books that have done a lot of exegesis on this topic.

And you may not have read them, but that doesn't mean that they weren't put out there.

And it's true. I don't think that Steve has spent much time actually looking into these particular issues.

But, as it may, that was directly related to what

I mentioned on the program yesterday about noticing something interesting.

1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter. It is a lengthy chapter.

Much ink has been spilled over the years on different portions of the chapter because it does break up into different sections.

And there are some extremely challenging texts. 1

Corinthians 15, 29, baptism of the dead. If you want to make most preachers stutter, ask them about that after a sermon or something like that.

No wonder, were you even listening to me? What does that have to do with what I was saying? But lots of stuff in 1

Corinthians 15. But in the middle of it, you get...

1 Corinthians 15 touches upon the big, top -level issues of God's ultimate purposes and the relationship between the

Father and the Son and especially... How do

I put this? There's... It's really challenging to deal with Father and Son and Spirit pre -creation, eternal, non -temporal relationships between the divine persons.

And then, in light of the... what theologians call the eternal covenant of redemption or the simple fact that...

simple recognition that God decrees what

He's going to do. He has the goals, the means He's going to get there. And given that Father, Son, and Spirit take different roles in accomplishing those things, then there has to be...

there is unity between the divine persons as to the roles that each is going to take.

And... I really have to wonder in many current

Thomistic formulations of theology how this is even relevant.

How you can even have a pactum salutis, a eternal covenant of redemption within that framework.

But anyway, I won't get into that today. You see that touched upon in 1

Corinthians 15 and you have to deal with... when we're talking about the Son, the relationship with the

Father, we're talking about the resurrection, so we're talking about the resurrected Son. And so, now you're dealing with issues of the resurrected

God -man. And a lot of Christians, honestly, after the resurrection, things get fuzzy.

It's just... I... I mentioned with...

when I was on with Tim Bushong that... and that we had a little discussion about stuff that aired,

I think, on Tuesday. It premiered, I think, right after I got done doing the program. And I mentioned there that a lot of Christians, they...

they never think about the ascension of Christ. I hadn't. I was asked to preach on an ascension

Sunday at a church in... again, I'm thinking it was

New Jersey. And I was like, I don't remember anybody ever preaching about this.

I've never heard a sermon on this subject. It was... it was a wake -up call for me. And what happens after the ascension and the relationship between Father and Son and...

what it means for the Son to be the God -man after ascension into heaven.

I think a lot of Christians just go, yeah, that was the incarnation stuff, and then he sort of just gets rid of the body and...

but that's... that's not what's taught in Scripture at all. And so, we get a glimpse into some of that in 1

Corinthians chapter 15. Paul brings up a bunch of stuff as foundation for answering the fact that there are people in Corinth that were denying the physical resurrection of the dead.

And... it is... in that context, what does it mean?

He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father when he has abolished all rule and all authority.

1 Corinthians 12. Then comes the end when he, Christ, hands over the kingdom to the

God and Father when he has abolished, done away with, all rule and all authority and power.

There's a lot there. Obviously, the resurrected

Son has a kingdom. So, I wasn't going to do this, but stick with me.

I wonder if I have this... Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to this. Maybe I won't.

I don't know. I asked on a program just sort of rhetorically a few months ago.

And I'm going to throw it out there again. And for everybody who is struggling with things, it may only make you struggle more.

Daniel 7 .13. Now, there's already been a revelation of the

Ancient of Days in verse 9.

Sound familiar? Sound familiar? Yeah.

Description of Christ to the churches. But this is the Ancient of Days, and the

Son of Man is presented before the Ancient of Days. So, these are descriptions of deity and majesty.

The court sat and the books were open. Here's Daniel 7. You've got

Isaiah 6. You've got all these visions of the heavenly realm that are given to you.

And it's in the midst of that that, behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a Son of Man was coming, and he came up to the

Ancient of Days and came near before him. So, this is in the heavenly place. This is before thrones. Context of power, authority.

And one like a Son of Man was coming with the clouds of heaven. Where have we heard that?

Oh! About the Ascension. Huh. I wonder if there's a connection.

And then when you realize some of these things that you're reading were written hundreds of years apart from one another. And, of course,

Isaiah, Daniel, hundreds of years before the time of Christ.

So, here you have the presentation of the Son of Man before the Ancient of Days in the heavenly context.

And he comes with the clouds of heaven. When does this happen? Well, the more

I study it, the more it seems very clear this is the enthronement of the resurrected

Messiah. This is the victorious Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, having accomplished redemption in his sacrificial death.

He's presented before the Ancient of Days. Sound a little bit like Revelation 4 and 5?

The Lamb standing as if slain and what's the result?

All created things praise Him who sits upon the throne and the Lamb. Daniel 7 -14, and to Him that is the

Son of Man was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue might serve

Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not be taken away and His kingdom one which will not be destroyed.

Sounds like Revelation 5 is going hey, here, here's what's going on.

All the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue might serve Him and what's interesting is the

Greek Septuagint. Well, here, let's let's see if I can bring it up for you here.

See, I've got the there's serve in Legacy Standard, but look at the

Greek Septuagint. Latruusa. Latruusa.

Now, you might do I dare even try this?

Ha ha ha ha! Except it's backwards. Um, ha ha ha ha!

Let's uh, let's try this. Well, now they've got two of me.

We're having fun here. Let's go back to here and we'll just you can still see it there, so I can talk and do it at the same time.

There you go. Nobody needs to see me anyways, but it is a video, so you sort of have to do these things.

Here, Latruo, Duluo, Dulia, Latria, to use the

Latinized versions of these Greek terms. If you're wondering where you've heard those things before, this is central to the argument that we have with Roman Catholicism about the veneration of saints and angels in Roman Catholicism.

Latria is only given to God. Dulia can be given to angels and saints and things like that.

And then Hyperdulia is given to Mary and she's the only one that receives Hyperdulia. And the distinction is a distinction without meaning.

normally one particular Hebrew word Ahav is used to translate both of them, so it's a distinction that is not derived from scripture.

It is one that's created to try to have an excuse for the idolatry that is a part of, has become a part of Roman Catholic tradition.

But the point is, here, in the Greek Septuagint, it's the highest form of worship,

Latruo. You can't even try to, because in the New Testament, normally you have

Prosecuneo and Prosecuneo can be used of God. God is worshipped with that term.

Jesus receives Prosecuneo worship. But Prosecuneo can also just be bowed down before a king or a high -ranking officer or something like that.

So it doesn't have to be worship. If it's in a religious context, it is, but it doesn't have to be worship.

Latruo is the worship in the temple. And that's what you have here in the

Greek Septuagint in regards to all the peoples, nations, and men from every tongue might serve him, might worship him.

He is given, his dominion is an everlasting, his exousia is exousia ionios, which will not be taken away.

His kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. This is the enthronement of the exalted

Christ. And this is what we see in this situation.

So I'm running solo in case

I didn't mention that. I assumed everybody knew that, but I'm running this all on my own. Rich is on vacay.

He's not really taking a vacay, but he's on vacay, so he's not here. So if I mess anything up, it's all my fault.

Anyways. So here is the enthronement of Christ, Daniel chapter 7.

And that then is what we end up seeing in 1

Corinthians chapter 15. And so then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to now that LSB uses the

God and Father, and I'll go ahead and show you here. It is valid because we do have the article but I'm not sure that that's hands over the kingdom to God.

Even the Father, I think would be just as appropriate. But when does he do this?

When is the end? When he has abolished all rule and all authority and all power.

Who? Christ. When he has done this.

Again, there could be people who say, well yeah, but he doesn't do that until the millennium or something like that.

So we're going to go to the last book of the Bible and come up with this concept that's only found there and read it back into everything else.

Whereas the writer of the Revelation is wanting you to define the

Revelation on the basis of all the stuff he's drawing in from the preceding scriptures rather than doing it backwards.

Because it says in verse 25 and I was going to wear my shirt and I forgot. I can't believe I did that.

I even thought of it this morning. I still forgot it. Sorry. I was going to wear my digar altan basal uine shirt and that's right there.

For it is necessary for him to reign akri hu until and then notice here it is above me there.

Good. So you can still see it. I can roll it up so you can see it easier. This is in italics.

The rest is in italics. Pontas isn't. But he has put he must reign until akri hu when he has put all his enemies under his feet.

So there is an active reigning on the part of Christ who has been enthroned in heaven.

He has been given dominion and power. All authority has been given to him in heaven and earth. He reigns until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

Not everything falls apart and then there is this big invasion and you use divine power to bring about the battle of Armageddon and however you put that maybe at the end or the beginning or however it works out but there is this big breaking in and you wipe out all the enemies and then there is people argue about what happens during the millennium and all the rest of that stuff and then there is rebellion at the end and all that kind of stuff.

Here you have Basel Uwein he must reign that means he is reigning until he has put all his enemies under his feet and he is the one who does this and the question is and the last enemy to be abolished is death.

That is the last one. And this is something Christ accomplishes as reigning king and so you can say well yeah we lose down here it all gets bad and then

Christ comes back and zaps everybody and then he will reign. But what about now?

Well he is reigning spiritually in his kingdom but he is not putting his enemies under his feet now because there are certain understandings of eschatology he is not doing that.

That is not going to happen until rapture time or after the tribulation period people have different theories.

The last enemy to be abolished is death. So what is that quote from? This is what was interesting to me is in this citation here is from Psalm 110 and Yahweh says to my

Lord sit at my right hand until I put your enemies as a footstool for your feet.

So here is the section that is quoted in 1

Corinthians 15 but instead of what you have in 1

Corinthians 15 which is akrihu in the

Greek septuagint you have haosan very similar phraseology until I place your enemies under your feet.

So here the and you see in verse 2

Yahweh will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion saying have dominion in the midst of your enemies.

This is clearly what Paul is bringing in and going this must take place first.

But who is doing the reigning? And who is doing the subjection?

It's interesting that in the fulfillment passage Paul puts all your enemies because he wants to say the last enemy is death.

All these enemies are going to be placed under his feet. And if you're going well one says the father is going to do it and the other says the son is going to do it.

That's like trying to say there is a contradiction in the Bible because we see all three divine persons involved in the resurrection.

Jesus says he has authority to take his life back again. The father is obviously the one that raises him from the dead.

The spirit is the one who raises him from the dead. All three persons are involved in the same action.

It's not something you create a contradiction out of. You simply see that they're taking different roles in accomplishing this.

But it's interesting. Sit at my right hand is a position of authority. That's Daniel 7.

You bring that together and Paul is also going to pull in Psalm 2 in the same section, 1

Corinthians chapter 15. Here is the overarching purpose of God.

This is this is what got me. Okay, I'm just explaining it to you.

And I simply say you need to my suggestion is this. It is far more important that our ordering principle sorry that our ordering principle.

There we go. It's far more important that our ordering principle in theology and in eschatology be the high order revelation of what father, son, and spirit are accomplishing in eternity than it is your pet theory as to who

Gog and Magog are. Or how many people in Chinese armies so you can have 200 million coming across the

Euphrates or something along those lines. I was once there.

That was when I was a young person, that was what eschatology was about. But when you see that the apostle

Paul is looking at these texts, he's drawing these texts together, he's blending them together and he's saying he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

That is an action of the enthroned Messiah the risen

Lord to whom all authority has been given in heaven and earth. And so when good old

Steve Camp says I never see you people ever using bible verses, you know putting a bunch of bible references at the end of a tweet isn't exegesis.

Dealing with why is it that the apostle in talking about the big overarching issues uses these texts, key messianic texts in the way that he does.

Where do you learn that from? I've often said wouldn't you have loved to have been one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus?

Wouldn't you have loved to have heard Jesus opening up the scriptures and explaining from Moses onward, testimony of him.

Was this part of what was revealed at that time that we need to understand as well?

Important questions, I think. Important questions indeed. I just love looking at stuff like that and again

I'm just like, you know what? I'm just going to throw this out here for folks. I'm not going to, I'm not trying to browbeat anybody into anything.

I don't want the heat. I only want the light. I shine the light and I go, think about it.

Because for me seeing the harmony Postmillennialism is

Trinitarian to its core. And I think you could hold the other views without even being

Trinitarian. Because when I look at Psalm 2,

Psalm 110 ask and I'll give you the nations as your inheritance.

You can't do that without the Trinity. You cannot understand the application of the

New Testament that if you're not Trinitarian. And so for me seeing that harmony is beautiful.

It's beautiful. So there you go.

I throw it out there and oh by the way, oh I forgot to bring it.

I want to have Tobias Riemenschneider or if you really want to say it to impress it,

Riemenschneider my dear brother Tobias on the program, he's got a

Ezra Institute just put out a book that he wrote if you thought we had challenges in the

United States and yes I'm shifting topics here but not really going this direction, but just mentioning, if you thought we had problems here

Germany was a lot worse. And I sort of walked through that with my dear friends in Frankfurt Peter Schultz and Tobias Riemenschneider there in Frankfurt at the church there,

I'm still teaching church history for them we finally got we've been doing this for over two years

I think maybe coming up in three and in fact I need to find out whether whether we're doing a class this

Friday or the Friday thereafter and this one's not showing it to me not sure why, but huh,

I thought for sure there was one in there we've been doing a church history class for years now and so I was sort of walking through them through this, with them it came up a lot in our conversations and just love those brothers, love that church and Tobias has written a book you may know

Tobias is one of the primary writers of the Frankfurt Declaration which if you haven't looked it up look it up, sign it and I need to have him on to talk about his new book from Ezra Institute Joe Boot's organization,

I'm one of the fellows of the Ezra Institute you may have seen Joe and I were at the thing in Georgetown teaching there just a few weeks ago anyway,

Tobias has put a book out on the subject of government overreach and tyranny and things like that and we need to get him on the program

I ain't trying to do that while I'm alone though there's only so much you should try to do and not break everything in the process maybe someday

I will have the skills to do all that by myself probably not probably not so for some reason

I'm not sure what it was that triggered that in my mind but we need to have him on so you can learn how to get his book and things like that probably if you go to Ezra Institute you'll be able to order it from there we are transitioning however into see if I can find it anyway yes, alright here we go

I did want to and I have 12 minutes or so it's not like anybody cares if I don't if I go 5 minutes over no one cares

I'm not having to go anywhere or anything like that ok, here's the tweet oh, wait a minute wait a minute hold on, hold on I did have this up and I will never remember this if I don't do it now a fellow on Twitter and this is

I should have kept this with the last topic a fellow on Twitter said that myself,

Jeff Durbin and others promote Christian nationalism and want to project a better world in a far, far away future for their great, great, great grandchildren hoping they will be living in a sanctified nation while ignoring that we are ambassadors not citizens when you say someone's ignoring something, may

I point something out to you you know, when you say stuff like that about me

I'm like when you say something like that about Jeff and you you can go online and you can find video after video after video of Jeff Durbin standing before governmental officials legislators local, state national all over the place fearlessly proclaiming the lordship of Christ being an ambassador for Christ and saying to legislators you must defend preborn children because Christ commands you to and you will be judged that's what an ambassador does sir you know who you are um so pick your words significantly more carefully because that was just absurd we haven't forgotten anything and I do want and pray for my great, great grandchildren and I want to live and act now in such a way as to invest in them plant and build for them and be remembered by them for having been a person who did consider them and gave my ministry and life for their betterment and if there is and there may well be

I hope and pray not but there may very well be a horrific time of darkness between now and my great, great, great grandchildren there may well be

God is under no obligation to make everything a bed of roses and what's very clear to me is that in his sovereign decree in the history of the church we have been given example after example after example of what happens when you walk away from his truth what happens to nations what happens to cultures and we may be getting the biggest example ever and if we are still in the early church or maybe the middle church whatever else it may be it's going to be an example that's going to have massive implications that's quite possible it's quite possible

I can't control any of that but I can be faithful to the calling that has been given to me and so I do not apologize for working toward that end but then he makes the argument that well what we're saying is our activities is what's going to bring about Christ returning and he can't return until we do all the stuff that's just absurd we are reformed

God has a decree the day of his return is set he's decreed the ends as well as the means

I just don't understand the silliness of people and it is just absolute silliness the other thing

I can't spend much time on this but yesterday

I just tweeted how sad I was about this um

I remember sometime

I was I was teaching at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley beautiful place they're not there anymore sadly

I'm sure that campus sold for enough money to run the reduced size seminary forever most prime real estate well until now

I mean the Democrats have driven San Francisco into the sewer literally people are fleeing there the leftists are even fleeing there maybe that's their plan even drive the leftists out so they'll infect every place else

I don't know anyway I was teaching and I remember every time you'd go up to teach on campus

I normally taught L1311 it was Christian apologetics world view class and you'd be put in a different housing unit and I remember what this room looked like I'm not completely convinced it wasn't the same trip where I had the conversation with Marty Minto about what had happened with Norm Geisler I've told that story before the potter's freedom and chosen but free and all that stuff anyway

I remember the room and somehow while I was there

I came to realize that the group Cademan's Call had mentioned me in one of their recent album releases and I think could be wrong but I think it was while I was there that I had my first contact with Derek Webb and my recollection is that they were playing some of my debates on the tour bus and and you know

Lecrae did that too and stuff like that a lot of things have changed over the years but I met

Derek I think twice I know I met him in Mesa or Tempe Arizona he was doing a concert and he let me know about that as I recall and we got together before the concert and sat around he was in his white t -shirt

I think that's the only thing I don't think he owns any other well we're about to see if that's not the case um and so I would like to have thought that had

Derek had questions about the faith or about the bible or about things like this he certainly knew how to get he told me we had each other's phone numbers

I've tried his number since then it's changed so I don't have contact with him that way anymore um he hasn't blocked me yet on twitter but I have said some strong things to him but then

I heard of his apostasy well first I heard of his divorce and then his apostasy

I've listened to some stuff and it was just it was really hard to listen to the profanity and the depravity of thinking things like that but you can't stay there and you know

I remember about two or three months ago I played a little video of where he was talking about well hey you know nothing

I can do I gotta wait for God to do it and it's his excuse for loving his rebellion because he loves his rebellion it's definitional of him and yes he could be one of the examples that there are times and it's a terrible thing to think about that God takes people who have had a tremendous amount of light and he he does this there's

Derek in a dress and pearls and it says with June being pride month

I want to take the occasion to clearly say I unhesitatingly and wholeheartedly support my lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer friends their rights their marriages their unencumbered pursuit of happiness and their breath this is also true

July through May and then as you may know he then put out a song video where he's singing while he's being made up as a drag queen did you see that there were

LGBTQ plus groups pressuring

Target to restock and to press on they've lost 14 15 billion dollars um

Bud Light's dead but you need to sacrifice yourself on the altar of the culture of death this is what you all need to do and they need to restock all their pride stuff because and did you hear this is the

LGBTQ people there is no neutrality and they're right there isn't any neutrality it'd be nice if we could convince

Christians of this some of us have been preaching that for a long time there is no neutrality but they get it and I can't imagine that when

Derek first decided that he was leaving the Christian faith that this was where he was going to end up being willing to do this kind of thing but is it really shocking or surprising it where's the stopping point where's the place where someone can grab hold and go no farther why would they even why grab hold of anything given he has no world view left to even be able to discuss it's tragedy but we must learn from it um we know from scripture that when

God brings these things into time we are to learn from these things we're to learn from what happened to Israel we're to learn from their example and I think we're to learn from Derek's example too and we're to learn that we should never presuppose the grace of God in our lives and when someone has a tremendous amount of light um and they sin against that light the resultant darkness will be a very deep darkness that's what

I said when I posted this on twitter I said when you sin against light as bright as he had the darkness you will experience will be a deep deep darkness it really will alright let's look at this here it's very short it's not going to take forever um well his comment isn't but we're going to take some time to look at in scripture and again

I don't have to be anywhere at any particular point in time um and so let's this is like I said this is um what

I saw on twitter um and it was

Layton Flowers saying it's been two years I've never gotten an answer I've not seen this before uh so there you go but here's um let's just take a look at it therefore you have to have an intimate personal relationship with God before you have faith in him can you explain that sure

Layton we've explained it to you many many times and it's again further further evidence of the fact that whatever you thought you were years and years ago a knowledgeable Calvinist you were not and um that's a sad reality but that's that is the reality um

I don't know oh wait why does that Rich is going to watch this and go oh

I could have fixed that but I don't I don't know alright let's look at this let's just look at it this way and don't worry about me uh here's the conversation between the

Lord Jesus uh and the Jews okay uh the

Jews then gather around him this is in Solomon's portico and we're saying to him how long will you keep us in suspense if you're the

Christ tell us openly I told you and you do not believe same phraseology is used in John 6 said to the disciples who had rowed across the lake the works

I do in my father's name these bear witness of me but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep but you plural are not believing because you are not of my sheep this is why you don't believe it's because you are not of my sheep why because my sheep hear key phraseology in the gospel

John hear my voice my sheep hear my voice and I know them

I know them and they follow me I know them now it maybe this was you know

I don't I don't know by looking at it what particular comment

I was making or what program it was and I'm not certainly not going to invest time with everything

I'm trying to do to track that type of stuff down but one of the things that must be emphasized from John chapter 10 is that if you are truly one of Christ's sheep there is that intimate personal relationship because the shepherd chooses his sheep the sheep don't choose the shepherd isn't that obvious isn't that a duh situation just as in John chapter 6

Jesus is addressing the unbelief of men who have tremendous light they have tremendous light they have the scriptures the

Messiah is standing right in front of them they have tremendous light but they don't believe in the next chapter what's going to happen what's

John 11 resurrection of Lazarus some of these very same men are going to see that that's not very far away from Jerusalem so many of the same men who heard

Jesus say you do not believe because you are not my sheep they're going to see

Lazarus walk out of the tomb four days after he was put in there you know what their reaction is going to be we got to do something about this guy they have no ears to hear no eyes to see because they're not his sheep and the shepherd chooses the sheep and the shepherd makes it so that the sheep will hear his voice now he then goes on to say my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give eternal life to them and they will never perish ever that's the

LSB's somewhat stilted way someone asked me about this recently but that is their way of expressing this it's called the air subjunctive strong denial you've got the double negative so they will never ever perish the

LSB says they will never perish ever and no one will snatch them out of my hand my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand

I and the father are one please notice plural are one we are one they are one in the accomplishment of the salvation of God's people and so notice what we have in verse 29 my father who has given them to me ha dedokenmoi and if you go back to John chapter 6 this is where you're going to see the exact same terminology you have the same terminology in John 6 that you have in John 8 that you have in John 10 that you then see in John 17 it's just over and over and over and over again the father gives a particular people the sheep to their shepherd and he is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand

I and the father we are one and as a result the Jews picked up stones to stone him because they recognize what this claim is actually all about so what is

Layton Flowers complaint here well you're saying that the sheep know him but you have to be the sheep to believe so you have to have an intimate relationship with him before you can believe in him and sometimes when

I hear Layton trying to see what Layton Flowers does his job and he works at it day and night and I feel for the man

I truly do his job is to try his job is to do what the

Jehovah's Witnesses do with the Trinity I remember years ago I don't have it here but their primary study book was the life everlasting the red book with all the pretty pictures and stuff like that and that's what they would study with people and they got you to do a study with them in the home that's where they would start and we called it the infamous black page it was a page where they reverse printed it so the print was a light color and black in the background and it was where they would give an accurate definition of the

Trinity and then in the next paragraph give an inaccurate definition of the Trinity and all of it was specifically to create confusion so as to communicate to people you shouldn't believe this stuff because it's so confusing and it doesn't make any sense and all that kind of thing and that's what that's what

Layton does in regards to Reformed Theology is his job is to try to make it as confusing as possible because what

Reformed Theology is saying is the father in eternity past Ephesians chapter 1 has given a specific people to the son and he has entrusted their salvation to him and as the son says in John chapter 6 he's come down not to his own will but the will of him who sent him what's the will of him who sent him?

that of all that he has given me same exact terminology I lose none of it but raise it up on the last day all that the father gives me will come to me that's the prior action, that's the action of the father he's given a people to the son and they come as a result and all we're saying is is that that giving by the father to the son makes you one of Christ's sheep or to use

John chapter 8 why do you not hear what I'm saying to you? because you do not belong to God you've not been given to me that's why you can't hear it's the same theme,

John 6, John 8, John 10 it's a drum beat we can allow all these passages to be related to one another see how it's a consistency reading through the gospel of John synergists have to jump all over the place they can't do that kind of exegesis and end up with a synergistic man -centered gospel like they have so in John chapter 10 we are saying

Christ's sheep hear his voice and they are made Christ's sheep by the father giving them to the shepherd that's all we're saying, the giving takes place in eternity past it then has fruition in time and so you have the eternal decree forms the fabric of time and when

God decrees, spirit moves raises us to spiritual life we hear the message, we hear the gospel the message of our salvation we believe we are regenerated and saved to use the nice broad term but that's what happens in time what happens in time is the result of the eternal decree of God that's what you have in John 10, that's what you have in John 6

John 8 and so on and so forth so he's trying to say well if you say that the sheep have a personal relationship with Christ then they've always had that relationship and so you have to have a relationship with Christ before you can believe in Christ oh look at the confusion and of course that ignores the reality that when we're talking about the sheep have that intimate relationship with Christ they,

I know them Christ says to those he sends away, I never knew you depart from me, he can't say that to his sheep because he says to his sheep

I know them and they follow me, there is a relationship that exists there and it's a relationship that we become aware of and experience the reality of at the time when

God breaks through in his grace, raises us to spiritual life regenerates us, gives us the gift of faith and repentance and now we long to be with Christ, we long to hear his voice, we long to follow him that takes place in time what

Layton has over and over and over and we've documented this,

I don't know how many hours we've spent on this but I've said this for years when was the debate, was it 2015?

was it that long ago? they cannot allow the biblical revelation of the full orbed beauty

I did something, did I where did I put that? I haven't seen it for a while hold on a second are you back here?

nope you're not back there hmm I'm going to have to find it because I bought a crystal thing and one of the reasons

I wanted to get it was to illustrate not sure where I would have put it, it's in the other room somewhere how many times have

I said time and eternity is a full orbed thing and what

Layton Flowers and Ascension just do is squish it down it has to be two dimensional we've got to be able to understand it and there can't be the eternal reality father, son, and spirit the divine decree that kind of thing and then the experience of that decree in time we can't, nope, nope, nope it's all got to be something we can do in time so we're going to create this contradiction because they won't believe everything the bible says and so there's no contradiction the contradiction is created by Layton Flowers refusing to hear that the giving by the father to the son is what determines what takes place in time that's all there is to it it's right there in the text and that's why hey, how many times have

I said I'll walk in with just this, you and me

John 6 Greek New Testament I'll tell you what Layton, you can bring everything you want you can bring all your notes and you can have them in a big old slobber proof notebook when you put your notes in plastic it may be because you just don't want to get them ruined by spitting on them some people do that but you can have your big old notebook and you can have your bibles and you can have all your pre -made ready questions because that's how you guys do stuff as we've seen

I'll still just use this because this is all I need.

If you want to just do John 6 No, we've got to be able to go here I'm not saying that you do not have to, because even here

I pointed out the consistency the terminology between John 6, John 8 John 10,

John 17 it's purposeful on the part of the author I'm not saying you can't point that out but Layton, you know in your heart of hearts that you cannot sit there with just the bible and walk through John 6 and come to your conclusions, you know it you know it

I drive through the Dallas area all the time anymore sometimes I go north, sometimes

I go south sometimes I go right through the middle, all depends I know a church in Houston that would be willing to do it you've been there before who knows, but anyways there's the answer sorry it took 2 years

I didn't know there was a question about it there you go ok, almost an hour and 20 minutes, according to what

I'm seeing and the microphone things are moving up and down hopefully something is getting recorded hope and pray hopefully we did it better this time

I'd forgotten to do something 2 days ago I'd forgotten to load presets which

I have to do when I'm in the RV as well but that's for the cameras I had to load the presets for the switcher here,

I did and so hopefully everything worked we'll find out

I even had to figure out all the stuff that Rich does in the other room 2 days ago on the blog and sermon audio and YouTube and extracting audio all the stuff that he's been doing all these years he didn't show me how to do that part,

I just sort of went well looks like you do it like that got it figured out

I'll let him continue to do that in the future but at least we're to the point where if I had to we could get through this together, so guys we enjoy doing this for you oh by the way in closing

Pat Robertson died never met him I was at CBN once secretly

I'm sure it's been long enough now that it doesn't matter for me to say this publicly but we recorded stuff on Islam for use in Islamic countries and we used their facilities that's great said a lot of silly stuff toward the end of his life, gotta admit however one thing

I noticed and don't forget this his wife died last year and I can't tell you how many times

I've seen people just not live much longer than their spouses do because they were defined by that person but they were married almost

I think it was 68 or 69 years that's awesome say what you will complain about some of the wackiness that he got into but he was married to the same woman for almost 7 decades and these days that's something to salute honor make mention of my parents only had

I think 53 before my mom died now you know