Theological Inconsistancies We Need to Fix- Prt 2

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May 10, 2022

Please join Dan and Rob as they tackle the rest of the theological inconsistencies we didn't have time to cover in our interview with Dr. Jared Longshore. These are so important to recognize for the church at large.

00:28: Hey, good evening. Welcome. Thank you for watching Truth and Love. I'm going to have to work on that introduction.
00:34: It catches up on me. It gets in there quick. Thank you for watching. It's got a very abrupt stop.
00:41: It does. I didn't slide it in too easy. Thank you for watching
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01:33: Let's jump into tonight's discussion.
01:39: Tonight's discussion is, I want to turn on the comments so we can see if people let us know that they're watching and that they're there.
01:48: Tonight's conversation is an extension of the interview that we had with Dr. Jared Longshore.
01:55: He was in, I guess, guest appearing in a podcast that comes on Sunday evenings, the
02:04: CrossPolitic podcast. And in that conversation, he brought up the fact that in the past three years, we've seen
02:15: COVID come through, the lockdowns, the, what do you call it?
02:23: Quarantines, the masks, all the other things that have come about with COVID.
02:30: And then beyond that, especially in other countries, maybe not ours to this extreme, but you had, well, we were asked to shut down our churches.
02:44: But then in other countries, when they didn't do that, you have pastors being arrested. So a lot of things come to surface during COVID.
02:55: And also during this time period, we had social events happening like BLM, intersectionality, and other social justice issues that surfaced and became hot topics, big news in our country.
03:18: But it also should have become big news in the church. And I think that's what
03:24: Jared and the guys were bringing out that this, in some circles, it should have become watching with popcorn.
03:36: Thank you, Becky. It should have become big news in the church of what's going on.
03:44: How do we view this theologically? How do we view this biblically? And so Jared, Dr.
03:52: Longshore, he gave us a list on that program of different theologies that came to surface where we were weak, where there was, what did
04:05: I call it? Inconsistencies. And there was another word that I used.
04:11: Deficient. Deficient. Yeah. We're deficient in those areas. Inconsistent, weak.
04:19: And because we were weak, deficient, and inconsistent in those theological areas as the church, their consensus was that we, as the church, were the cause of these paths opening and these things happening, because the church should be influencing the culture, should be growing the kingdom in the culture.
04:50: And so we were, because we were silent, because we had weak theology, their consensus was we were a main cause or the cause of these issues.
05:02: And so it's a very necessary discussion that we have to talk about these theological issues where we're weak and deficient and inconsistent so that we can move forward.
05:15: Number one, we want to know how to face these issues in the future.
05:20: If they pop up again, we want to keep them from coming up again. That's another reason why we want to shore up our theology here.
05:28: And we also want to move forward. We don't want to move backwards. We don't want to stay stagnant, but we want to move forward.
05:36: And we can't move forward if we, you know, we're not just remaining in the milk of the word.
05:44: We're, I don't know, it's worse than staying in the milk of the word, in the infant things of the word.
05:55: It's, to some degree, in these theological areas, it's worse than just remaining on the milk.
06:03: Any opening comments on that, Dan? Nope. Well, I did want to bring up two things because I don't want people to think that we are similar or we're the same as,
06:19: I could think of two other different areas that have been popular in our country. The first one started in the 70s.
06:28: And the founder, the big proponent of this movement was
06:35: Dr. Jerry Falwell, founder, president of Liberty University. And he began the moral majority.
06:42: And from my understanding, I'm not an expert on history. I'm not an expert in all these things, but from what
06:48: I've gathered and what I've studied, you start with the name.
06:53: If you start with being moral, moralism, it can only get you so far.
07:00: And that's not gospel. The gospel is grace by faith.
07:05: And it's not moralism. Moralism is a beautiful result of God's grace and mercy on us, but it's not the gospel.
07:14: So you have it there in the name. And then one of their purposes in the moral majority was to promote, get certain candidates in offices and be very, very political.
07:30: Now we're not against being political. We believe that there's a right and proper way to do it.
07:37: And we believe that Jesus is Lord over politics, over government. So we're not against that.
07:44: But from my understanding, when it comes to the moral majority, to me, they were just another constituent, not a constituent, the people that give money to candidates or lobbyists.
08:02: Yeah, they were just another lobbyist. And the candidate really didn't have to meet any, of course, they don't have to meet church membership requirements, but they just had to profess
08:20: Christ. But it seemed like they went with the candidate.
08:27: It's pragmatism. We still use pragmatism today when we vote, so many of us.
08:33: The lesser of two evils, the candidate that's going to win, he might not be the best.
08:39: He may not be a Christian behind closed doors, but at least he professes
08:44: Christ in public. But it seemed like their plan was to pretty much be a lobbyist and support candidates that would win, that would support their agenda in return.
09:01: And we see where we are today. It seemed like a lot of moralism without a lot of gospel, almost like you would want to take the same thing that would happen if you applied the law without recognizing that the law points you to a need of your
09:16: Savior. So the Jews weren't able to save themselves through keeping of the law.
09:23: So why would we think that by living a moral life, holding to certain morals, keeping that would affect anything?
09:34: It doesn't. Now, granted, those are all good things. We should be living moral lives. We should be voting for good candidates.
09:40: But if we don't recognize Christ's rightful place as King on a throne, and we don't put forward people who also believe that, then all we have is a hollow morality that, well, let's face it, it can go off the rails quick.
09:59: You can dive off to the one side or to the other, either being pulled more liberal, or you can become more what the caricature of what people call fundamentalists, when just ungracious, hateful people who want nothing more than to squash people's fun and be killjoys and jerks to everybody who doesn't agree with them, trying to kill people and beat them up.
10:27: And that's not what we should be doing. That's not how we ought to live our lives.
10:34: And Christians today are considered bigots and racist. It's a sad caricature.
10:42: Yeah. I mean, we're going to get that anyway, so we might as well not give them a reason to actually say it.
10:48: That's right. You're going to get that just from standing up and saying the truth of God's word.
10:55: So what is it? Peter, he says, count it all joy if you suffer, but not if you have it coming.
11:06: That's my own paraphrase of it. It benefits you nothing if you're getting persecuted, but it's persecution that you deserve because you're just being a jerk.
11:16: Or because you've actually done something wrong. You've been thrown in jail because you're a criminal. Well, it's not real suffering for Christ's sake.
11:23: That's not persecution. That's you being a criminal, needing to repent. Yeah. So the direction that we're going is not them.
11:37: Okay. So I wanted to make that distinction. We're different from the moral majority. And then the other one, which is, you know, it's been around a while too, but it's also popular.
11:47: You may have never heard of it, but it is popular in certain circles and it comes in different forms.
11:55: It's part of the NRA. The NRA is the
12:02: National Rifle Association. We're okay with them. Sorry. Sorry about that.
12:08: Cold dead hands and stuff. That's the NRA. The N -A -R. N -A -R.
12:14: Yes. I forgot what the acronym stands for. New Apostolic Reformation.
12:21: New Apostolic Reformation. Thank you for the correction. Hey, don't talk bad about the
12:28: NRA now. That's right. The N -A -R. You may have heard of it.
12:46: That's a funny face to freeze on. Yeah.
13:10: I don't know what happened. Because somebody in the comments, let me know if Robert froze or if I'm froze.
13:23: So if he's not saying anything, I can kind of continue on. Hey, I'm the only one here.
13:30: So let's talk about the New Apostolic Reformation for a second. That is a theological camp where a...
13:44: That has the frozen chosen alive.
13:50: All right. The New Apostolic Reformation is a camp in which people believe that they're there to bring in a...
14:03: Basically bring in the kingdom of God by overtaking several different spheres in the world.
14:08: Usually there's seven of them. Government, entertainment, education, church.
14:14: I forget all of them. But they kind of branched their eschatology off into something called the
14:20: Seven Mountains Mandate. There he is. He's back now. The Seven Mountains Mandate is kind of their twist on what it would look like for Christ to take dominion in the world.
14:40: That was when you froze. Frozen chosen alive.
14:49: Yeah. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to make a distinction between folks who believe that they are going to, through a revival of apostles and prophets and things, that they're going to bring about the change that happens in the world.
15:09: Whereas the position that Robert and I are coming from is one where the positive change we believe that we're going to see in the world is going to come from the work of God through his gospel by the power of the
15:21: Holy Spirit. So it doesn't come through extra effort or revitalization of apostleship or a new structuring of the church.
15:33: It comes through the preaching of the gospel, the conversion of people through the work of the
15:39: Holy Spirit and God's keeping of his promises to draw people to himself.
15:47: Yeah. From what you heard, did I summarize that well enough for you?
15:53: I agree. Yeah. And the kingdom part of it is something that we could bring up when we get to that theological aspect that Dr.
16:04: Longshore brought up. So let's start with the first one, if you're ready. And thank you for covering for me while I had some technical difficulties.
16:13: Those are the two things that I wanted to make sure that we made sure that we were making the distinction between us and those mindsets.
16:25: So the things that we went through the past three years, one of the things that surfaced that some have seen, and the reason we want to continue this conversation is because maybe the whole church needs to see this.
16:43: The whole church needs to have this conversation. And these conversations may not be happening where you are.
16:53: You may have never heard or even thought to have these conversations. And that's why we want to talk about it and bring it to the forefront, because these conversations are some that need to be had amongst all of us.
17:07: Critically looking at, evaluating ourselves as the church, as Christians, when these things happen, are we doing it right?
17:19: Are we following scripture? Are we doing what God wants us to do? And if we're not, how can we get back on track?
17:28: So the first one is the myth of neutrality. From my understanding, it can work both ways.
17:37: So you've got the word neutrality there. So somebody is acting in a neutral position, and I think it works on both sides from my understanding.
17:48: And Dan, I'll let you tighten up my definition here and my thinking.
17:55: So you have the church, and we've bought into this idea of separation of church and state, and that the state itself will remain neutral when it comes to the church.
18:12: They'll just leave us alone, and we can worship, and we have the freedom to worship, and we'll continue to have that freedom to worship.
18:21: And so we believe that the government will just remain neutral or not concerned with the church and with the
18:32: Christian church and our religion and what we do. And then on the flip side, we believe that we as Christians in the
18:46: Christian church should remain neutral. We have a spiritual kingdom, and social issues, political issues, those things that happen outside of the church, we should just remain neutral.
19:02: We should just be worried about spiritual things. And I think, and I know there's a whole lot more to it, and I hope
19:10: Dan will kind of sharpen up and shore up that definition, but we call it the myth of neutrality.
19:18: So both of those areas are myths, that the government is going to remain neutral when it comes to the church, and we've saw that that's not the case, where pastors in Democratic Republic governments are being arrested.
19:40: And then the church itself and us as Christians, it's a myth that we should remain neutral when it comes to social issues, political issues, our workplaces.
19:53: So yeah, hit me up, Dan. So it's a little bit broader, but also more narrow than that.
20:04: So let me explain, because I just talked out of both sides of my mouth. One way to think about it is that ideologies, ideas, thoughts, competing ways of the world works and the worldviews, whatever, that they can talk to one another, engage one another, and somehow come away with something that works together.
20:30: For instance, think of a school system.
20:37: Think of, you go into a school system and say, well, we don't want to discriminate against those people who have different beliefs.
20:43: So what we're going to do is we're going to say, you don't have your Christian stuff blaring out in the open, slapping people in the face, and we'll keep
20:50: Islam kind of over here to the side, and then we'll let them have a little bit more, a little bit less, or whatever.
20:56: But basically, the standpoint that we're going to go from with our curriculum is a secular standpoint.
21:01: So that'll be neutral because it doesn't take a position on anything. Here's why that is a myth, because if you come from a purely secular standpoint in education, what you have is an atheistic worldview.
21:15: You're assuming that God doesn't exist or assuming that some other higher power does exist, be it science or depending on what school you're looking at, going to a
21:28: Muslim school or a Jewish school or whatever competing ideology, the baseline where they say that they can be false.
21:35: And here's why. Because any ideology, any worldview that goes against the true worldview that says that Christ is
21:44: King, that He's sitting on His throne, that He's created us to live in fellowship with Him, that we have sinned and that we're in need of a
21:50: Savior, anything that goes against that is false. So it wars against the true reality of God and His creation, of His world.
22:02: So there's no place where we can come and lay aside the assumptions and the presuppositions that Christ is
22:08: King, that we live in this world, that we're created by Him, where we can put that to the side and assume a level playing field or a neutral area where we're not going to fight for or run after our specific ideology, our
22:28: Christian distinctives. And that is unfaithful to the
22:34: Word of God. Especially you think of the most pointed example would be in the end of Matthew, where he says, go into all the world and disciple the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
22:49: Father, Son of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all things that I've commanded. And behold, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.
22:55: How are we supposed to go into a system, a school or a government or some other public sphere, and with the mandate from Christ Himself to teach the nations to obey
23:08: His commands and then leave Christ out of it altogether? It makes no sense. Christ is on His throne in heaven.
23:15: Each person who has authority on the earth is under Christ's authority. They will answer to Him for what they do with the authority that they were given to them by God.
23:25: So there's no way that we can be neutral, which means that positively speaking, everything that we do needs to be done in a distinctly
23:36: Christian manner, needs to recognize Christ as King, needs to recognize the reality of the gospel, the reality of sin, the reality of the fallen nature, the way that the world works, the fact that we are creatures and not
23:52: God ourselves, that we don't get to make moral decisions, but that those moral decisions have been made for us based on the
23:58: Holy Character of God Himself. So that's what the myth of neutrality is, is that we can't engage with other worldviews and think that we can lay aside some distinctive or another and come to them on neutral ground, because in doing so we put aside what makes us
24:18: Christian in the first place, which is Christ, His Lordship, His gospel, and His reality as Creator and our being
24:27: His creatures. I think you used a really good example, because as you were talking about the school system, from what
24:37: I've always heard, the answer is, and the reason there has to be an answer is because there's always issue, there's always problem, there's always falling behind, it's not good enough, it's not where we want it to be.
24:54: So the answer is always, we need more money, we need more money, we need more money. And throwing money is always the answer to their problems.
25:06: When in reality, if we had a Christian worldview, an actual view on the entire world that's
25:16: Christian, the answer would be Jesus. You want a better testing, you want better students, you want better grades.
25:27: Overall, kind of like the Proverbs, there's going to be issues here and there, because we're still human, we're still man.
25:36: But the answer overall is Jesus. Jesus is Lord over education.
25:43: And it's interesting what you said about teaching it from a secular secularistic worldview is basically atheistic.
25:52: And why is that? Because you're trying to explain it, you think that it can be explained apart from God.
25:59: Right. And it can't be. Right. Science and history are completely different when taught from a
26:06: Christian worldview than when taught from a secular. But even mathematics, something so structured and ordered and understandable as mathematics, it speaks to the orderedness of the world around us.
26:24: A God who made these numbers and the logic that goes behind it just flow perfectly.
26:30: But we're just going to, oh, we came up with numbers because we're so smart.
26:37: That's not how it works. History, we should do this, this, or this, because this is right and this is wrong.
26:44: But you have no basis in morality, because if you're just a piece of stardust bumping into other stardust, what does it matter what you do?
26:53: Why does it matter what we remember? Because we're trying to, and the thing is, we're trying to make some sort of utopia, some sort of thing where evil and suffering doesn't exist anymore.
27:07: But we don't address the problem of sin if we are stardust bumping into stardust, because it doesn't really matter.
27:15: Science itself points to the reality of a creator. You think of the different, name anything in education.
27:27: Coming from a Christian worldview is different. And without that aspect, you end up going into the world with a stunted set of presuppositions with which to look at the world.
27:42: I use this illustration sometimes. If Becky and I were driving down the road and I said, pull over at this next exit, because we're going to get biscuits and gravy and sweet tea.
28:01: And we pull over at any one of the next 150 exits running south, the chances of me finding biscuits and gravy and sweet tea are very, very slim.
28:16: You don't find it that often up here. I may know that it exists.
28:22: I may think that it's good. I may think that I should put it into my belly. But if my presuppositions are wrong, that I think something's going to exist where it doesn't, then
28:33: I will end up, I know, sad face. I'll run around pulling off at every exit between now and Northern Virginia, trying to find biscuits and gravy and sweet tea.
28:44: Highly disappointed. And that's kind of what it's like when you take the Christian worldview away.
28:51: You may be able to understand things from history, from science, from mathematics. You can become very, very, very intelligent, but you're missing critical presuppositions to be able to interact with creation, with the reality of the world around you that's going to have you acting in certain ways that's detrimental to you.
29:14: And you're not going to realize why. Why is it like this? Sometimes that just happens.
29:20: No, there's a reason for it. The reason for it is you have poor presuppositions. The Christian, on the other hand, should not have those proper presuppositions to where, hey,
29:30: Christian, why are you messing up? Why are things not working out the way you are? Well, I know exactly why it's because I'm a sinner and I need to go to Jesus and ask him to forgive me.
29:40: We understand why we get stuff like when we get stuff wrong, we know the solution.
29:46: The solution is to repent and turn to Christ and find forgiveness of our sins. When folks who don't have that come across problems, their solution is money or I need to vote for this candidate.
30:00: Or if I was in charge, or it's not real socialism because they haven't tried it my way yet, or it can be one of a hundred thousand different things.
30:12: But when you don't have Christ as the forgiver of sins, the one who died in the place of those who are wretched, when you don't have that worked into your worldview, you make poor decisions along the way and you just don't know why.
30:28: That's why it's so important for us to go out into highways and hedges and call to people and say, hey, this is why your life is in shambles.
30:36: Now, sometimes they'll be really happy to hear that. And other times, like say you're a bricklayer and you're up on the 500th row of bricks and you point out a flaw in the foundation, they may take a brick and chuck it at your head because, well,
30:52: I'm not stopping now, my wall is built. Like, no, you need to tear it down and start over. They may get upset with you, but yeah, that's why there is no neutrality because you can't take away the basics of what makes the world tick and expect the world to tick.
31:13: It just doesn't tick that way. Well, and some people may be asking, how do we step out of neutrality into not being neutral?
31:24: And here's a simplistic example that I was just trying to think about, and it would be,
31:31: I guess, step one. And I would say that it's a matter of recognition. So here's the simplistic example, and it's very simplistic.
31:39: So when you think about the theory of relativity, who do you think about? Albert Einstein.
31:45: When you think about chocolate, who do you think about? Hershey. When you think about KFC, who do you think about? Colonel Sanders. When you think about a
31:51: Ford truck, who do you think about? Henry Ford. It's a matter of recognition. Sorry, I was thinking about some poor joke broke down on the side of the road.
32:01: You may think about that too. But when you think about those things, you think about their origin, their founder.
32:12: And so you need to stop with food. And so the same thing, moving out of the myth of neutrality is a matter of recognition.
32:22: How do we do that in the school system? It's a matter of recognition. Submitting your thought to the fact that there is an authority.
32:32: There's a king. There's a creator God over all things. He created those things, and he's over those things.
32:40: And so we should submit our thinking and our efforts to his lordship, which is another thing.
32:48: We want to talk about kingdom. We want to talk about the lordship of Jesus Christ. And there's a good segue right into it.
32:55: We want to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ. And it's not just spiritually.
33:02: So let's talk about the kingdom first, or which direction were you going?
33:08: No, I'm right there with you. Okay. So let's talk about the kingdom first. Matthew 28,
33:15: I think Dan referenced it earlier. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
33:24: Therefore, baptize the nations in the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.
33:33: And lo, I'm with you even to the end of the age. Jesus says he has all authority in heaven and on earth.
33:40: We look in Daniel chapter seven, verse 18 is one, but the saints of the highest one will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever for all ages to come.
34:03: Verse 14, and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.
34:14: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away. And his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.
34:21: And verse 27, then the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the highest one.
34:33: His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all the dominions will serve and obey him.
34:41: This is our king, and this is his kingdom, and he has dominion. And he says, we will have dominion, we will reign.
34:52: And so why do we act? And that's why we have a weakness, a deficiency, an inconsistency in our theology is that we don't understand this idea of the kingdom.
35:09: We don't understand Jesus and how he rules. We don't understand our position in the kingdom and what scripture actually teaches about Christ's kingdom,
35:23: Christ as king and our place in that kingdom. It is especially troubling.
35:30: It especially gets off kilter when you push all these things from Daniel to weigh thousands of years in the future in this undescribed gap that people place in Daniel.
35:47: And so we're just waiting on this future kingdom, but that's not what scripture describes at all.
35:55: So then what do you think about how are we messed up in our thinking on Christ's kingdom?
36:02: I think the largest mishap is people thinking that somehow we bring the kingdom about through our actions.
36:14: Now, here's what I mean by that. If you go to Psalm 2, Psalm 2 starts off, it says, why did the nations rage and the people's plot in vain?
36:23: It says, the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.
36:34: In other words, we don't need to be bound by what this other sovereign is trying to tell us, the one who's been anointed by God to rule and reign.
36:45: And so what is God's response to that? Verse four, he sits and laughs and holds them in derision.
36:52: He'll speak wrath to them and terrify them in his fury saying, as for me,
36:57: I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.
37:03: Now you think to the book and it goes on saying, kiss the sun, lest you be angry and you perish in the way.
37:09: It's a warning to the nations to turn from their wicked ways, to turn from thinking that their kingship is ultimate.
37:22: It says, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. And then we see in the
37:28: New Testament, it's written down that, oh, my brain just quit working.
37:36: It's written that he sat down after accomplishing or providing sacrifice once for all, he sat down at the right hand of the father in heaven.
37:53: The right hand of the father is a place of power in heaven. That's where the one who is in charge sits.
38:00: So after he fulfilled the office of a priest or executed the office of a priest on the cross and taking his blood and making atonement for sin, he sat down at the right hand of the father in heaven as king.
38:20: So since he's reigning as king now, what does that mean about each place on the globe?
38:29: Each place on the globe is a part of the kingdom of God. Now I understand
38:37: America does not look like it's part of the kingdom of God, but think of it this way.
38:43: If we were to go to say
38:50: Russia, and I'm not advocating that we do, but say we go to Russia and we go march up to Vladimir Putin over there and we go and we kill him, knock out his government and say, this is
39:09: America now. Immediately that land comes under a different flag. It's now
39:16: America, but you go to little towns, little towns all the through the countryside of Russia, you go to big cities, you go to different places, go to the different bases that they have there.
39:36: Are those people going to think that they're under a new flag? They're not.
39:43: Now there will be some who will say, okay, we're under new rulership. Now we need to turn around, need to stop doing what we're doing, need to submit to this new authority.
39:51: But a lot of people are not. And until the power can be consolidated and we can go through and make sure that everything is set up in just a way to where we can actually have control over the situation and then put in the right governors and right rulers in different places, there's going to be a lot of rebellion in the land.
40:16: Now at the time where Christ came and he conquered sin, death, and the devil, he went to sit at the right hand of the father.
40:25: He is king. And he's king because he planted his flag in the ground and said, this is mine.
40:32: He paid for sin. The earth was redeemed. It was his. There's still a lot of rebellion on the earth because people who are living under that old kingdom, under the kingdom of Babylon and Assyria and Greece and Medo -Persia and Rome, those people who live under those kingdoms, kings of the earth who are fighting against the
40:56: Lord, they're still loyal to those old downtrodden, done away with, judged kings.
41:05: So what you see in the world is something mixed.
41:11: You see something funky, something that is Christ but doesn't act like it's
41:17: Christ. But if you look at a snapshot now and you look at one 2000 years ago where you had 120 people in a room and now you have 2 billion
41:30: Christians, at least in name, across the entirety of the globe
41:38: Christ's kingdom is overtaking the earth. His rule and reign is being recognized. He is with us until the end of the age.
41:46: He who sits in the heavens laughs. You guys think that you're going to rebel against me?
41:51: No, I own this. I created it. I created you. He has all power. So where that really comes like rubber meets the road is when you take that knowledge that that is the reality, that that's the case, and then you go to a school board meeting or you go to the grocery store or you go to the voting booth or you go to drive on the street.
42:25: If you don't remember that this whole earth is the Lord's, that it's been purchased and bought with his blood, redeemed, cleansed.
42:34: It's his. If we forget that, then we have a tendency to compromise in ways that we think would be expedient for us instead of holding true to what
42:47: God has actually said. The murder of the unborn is wrong. Homosexuality is sin.
42:53: Pornography is an against God himself. Divorce is hideous.
43:00: You could go on and on and on. I mean, the Bible is full of things, but we tend to try to make things easier on ourselves by like the nation of Israel.
43:11: Well, we'll let that town over there go because they don't seem to be bothering anybody.
43:17: Or we'll let this group of people slide because they don't seem to be bothering anybody. And then one, two generations down the road, they're enslaved to those people.
43:30: So how do believers lower gas prices?
43:37: Really practically, the corruption in the government has to go away.
43:46: How does that happen? Let's put the rubber meets the road situation here.
43:53: How do we lower gas prices? We preach the gospel. And here's what
43:59: I mean by that, because this isn't Mrs. Smith's Sunday school class where every answer is
44:04: Jesus, God, heaven, hell, or pray. And I stole that from one of my professors.
44:11: So if he ever sees this, I'm going to give him credit for it. But it's not a Sunday school answer.
44:17: Here's why that answer is correct. Because the problem with gas prices is corruption across the board.
44:27: The reason why we have, well, corruption in being unwise. I'll put it that way. Some people may just not know better, but there's a lot of corruption too.
44:35: So you've got foolishness in the way the world works and moral foolishness rejecting
44:42: God. So what the gospel does, the gospel when preached is the means by which
44:51: God draws the people to himself. Those people who are drawn to God will then live differently.
44:58: If we elect leaders who are living as they should, as godly leaders, who are taking the responsibility as ministers of God's economy, of God's kingdom on the earth to rule and reign and to govern the way that God has called them to do so, then that corruption goes away.
45:20: And the price increase that came from corruption goes down. Also, people who live a godly life, people who trust in the word of God will also read the book of Proverbs, which will tell them you don't undercut your own money supply.
45:35: You don't do foolish things and expect to survive. You do things that are wise and prudent.
45:42: And then you see the foolishness, the inflation of foolishness drop.
45:50: I don't know where it settles out. It's not for me to say, you know, what is the,
45:55: I don't know if gospel power lowers at $2, $3, 30 cents. I mean,
46:01: I can't say that, but how do we lower gas prices? How do we affect change in the school system?
46:07: How do we do anything? It comes by preaching the gospel, baptizing people in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit, and teaching them to obey all that God has commanded.
46:22: Because even if they won't trust in him as their savior, if we make the laws of God, the laws of the land, then they have a righteous standard that they're going to be held to, even if they don't believe in the savior who could save them from their failure to uphold that law.
46:40: Yeah. I think there's another way, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's another way from a
46:45: Christian perspective that we can lower gas prices. And I think it carries from it started, began with Adam and it is carried over.
46:57: God has carried it over. It was his intention, his plan, all the way through Christ and Christianity.
47:03: And it's the dominion mandate. And what we were supposed to do with the earth and this planet that God has given us.
47:12: So I would think from a Christian perspective, another way to lower gas prices is to not stifle innovation.
47:21: I'm not anti -corporations. I'm not anti your business becoming big, but I'm anti what
47:31: Dan was talking about, the corruption of it, where we only allow those corporations to advance that supply money, the lobbyists supply money to the senators and stifle innovation of other products.
47:54: We're only moving towards electric, this and electric, that because of lobbyists.
48:02: The green movement or the environmental movement or whatever, it all has to do with lobbying and greed.
48:11: But so I don't think there's anything wrong with corporations and you growing your business, however big
48:19: God allows you to grow it. But the corruption of it is awful and we shouldn't do things to stifle innovation.
48:29: From my understanding, and I don't think it's conspiracy theory. I mean, I think that men have invented engines that have run off many things.
48:38: Gas, alcohol, water, things like that, steam.
48:50: There's all kinds of engines and fuel that we found for engines that have not come to fruition, that have not been allowed to get a
49:01: Tesla and tweet while you're driving or hiding in the passenger seat.
49:08: Well, here's the thing about get a Tesla, that solution is not sustainable.
49:15: The more the really expensive, much, much more relevant to our conversation here.
49:25: The solutions that we're putting forward are not solutions that are going to fix things overnight.
49:32: We're talking about rebuilding a culture on the foundation of the gospel and the kingship of Christ.
49:42: And that means that it's almost like we're not doing this for ourselves.
49:51: We're doing this for our children, for our children's children.
49:57: We're doing this because the promise of God has come to us and the promise of God is for us to live in a world where Christ is king.
50:10: That's why we baptize babies. And on the same token from the baptist side, a lot of times you'll see baby dedications because I understand that what
50:24: God has given is not just given, what
50:29: God has claimed and he has is his kingship, his authority and his gospel. And so we look forward to the time when those things are realized, actualized in the reality all across the earth.
50:46: And so we trust that if we don't see it, our children will.
50:54: And if their children don't see it, their children will. And if their children don't see it, their children will.
51:00: And if we don't see it for a long time, that we are pushing forward, growing and putting out there the gospel of Christ and the authority of Christ as king.
51:15: So that way, when Christ is ready to do his thing, to show his authority over the entire earth, that it will be as wonderful as you could imagine and more.
51:32: I just think about some of our forefathers who had a better understanding of city on a hill theology, who had a better understanding of Christ's lordship, kingdom theology, and some even had post -millennial leanings.
51:51: And our forefathers built, founded and built universities at the beginning of our nation.
52:00: They started and built hospitals. I didn't look up and I didn't think to look up all the inventions that Christians have done, but they have invented so many things because they were being innovative.
52:16: They were taking dominion, taking what God has given us and making it better.
52:25: And some of them had the post -millennial perspective to where they were part of God making things better.
52:35: And then the problem, the reason that we're here where we are today is because this inconsistent, weak, deficient theology crept into those seminaries and those colleges and they latched on to it, unfortunately.
52:50: So, we've kind of also talked about the lordship of Christ in that conversation about the kingdom.
52:59: Anything else we want to say about the lordship of Christ? I know that, well,
53:04: I mean, of course, but yeah, I mean, there's so much we could say about it. One of the things that I was thinking about was, one of the things that we want to correct or that's become popular to correct in our
53:16: Christian circles today is there used to be the call for salvation or call to come to Christ to make him savior.
53:27: And then you had this conversation about lordship salvation, where people were like, no, he's our savior first and then we make him our lord.
53:41: And then you had someone on the other side that said, no, he's our savior. We make him our savior and our lord at salvation.
53:50: And then you had others that jump into the conversation that says, you know, he becomes our savior, but he's already lord.
53:59: He's already been lord and he's lord, whether we make him lord or not. So, he's already our lord.
54:08: And here's the next step in that conversation. Not only is he savior, not only is he lord, but it's not just in a spiritual sense.
54:21: It's not just in the spiritual realm. It's not just on the individual basis.
54:27: He is savior of the world and he is lord of the galaxies, lord of the universe.
54:34: And so our mindset is so debilitating to our, you know, moving forward and because we're so narrow in it, in our understanding of Jesus's lordship.
54:54: What do you have to say on that one, Dan? Yeah. I mean, all across Christianity, one of the big issues has been discipleship.
55:09: And it's been such an issue for such a long time that people will say stuff like, well,
55:18: I don't want to worry about that theology stuff. I just want to trust in Jesus or I don't need to know how to evangelize because I just trust in Jesus or I know
55:31: John 3, 16, or I don't want to get off in the weeds on this, that, or the other thing.
55:40: And what happens then is instead of going deeper, instead of learning spiritual disciplines, instead of growing together as a church, what we do is we stifle ourselves.
55:53: We think, well, I know the very basic message, so that's all I need and here we go.
56:00: But in doing that, we've not thought through how that basic message, which is true, it is all we need, but we need to understand it and understand who
56:16: Christ is in light of everything around us. We need to go through the thought exercises of what does it mean to go to war knowing that Christ is
56:26: King? What does it mean to engage in healthcare knowing that Christ is King? What does it mean to have educational systems knowing that Christ is
56:36: King? If we just stay right, we confuse a childlike faith for childish faith.
56:47: Instead of trusting in God, knowing that no matter what I see, He's right, we're like, ah,
56:52: I'm just going to keep it basic. We have such a rich, deep connection to our
57:01: Creator that when we keep it shallow, it's almost like we're saying, yeah,
57:11: I know you've created all this other stuff, but I don't really want all that. The problem with that then is when we have situations like came up in the last three years, and we haven't thought through what does it mean to submit to my governing authorities knowing that Christ is
57:36: King? What if they do something that they shouldn't? At what point can
57:41: I buck against what they're saying? At what point do I have not only the right, but the responsibility to disobey those who are above me knowing that Christ has placed them there in that place of authority?
57:57: The first sign of trouble, they're jumping all over the government, whether there's actual trouble or not.
58:05: Some people will follow the government straight into heresy and just straight out of the church.
58:14: That's the problem. We haven't thought through where does one thing start, where does the other end?
58:23: How does my understanding of who God is change every single aspect of how
58:29: I live my life? How does it inform me knowing that Christ has died for me? How does it inform what
58:34: I do knowing that He sits on His throne? Yeah, we've been deficient in that.
58:40: I think because of the seeker -sensitive sort of easy believism where you just say a prayer, walk an aisle, you're good, let's go on.
58:56: I think it was Bill Heibel said that he was disappointed that his church had gotten so big, but they weren't very deep.
59:09: A lot of them. I think they tried to do some discipleship stuff, and I don't want to throw any lies at him or anything.
59:16: He's got to worry about all that. But yeah, it can be troublesome when we don't think things all the way through.
59:31: I'd like to ask you this question on a practical level on this issue to help me, to help other people as we think through the past three years and what may be to come in the future.
59:49: So you've got the mandates, and we all know what was mandated.
59:55: People don't like to use those words because of algorithms and artificial intelligence scanning our videos and our posts on social media, but we all know it was mandated and the closing down of churches.
01:00:13: So when was it okay, or what should be the Christian's perspective on, or why is it okay for a
01:00:21: Christian to buck the system on those type of mandates? I think most people can kind of get that the government shouldn't shut down the church, that we should have some type of autonomy.
01:00:40: We do submit to the lordship of Christ when it comes to his local church, but not so much in the workplace or in society that it's, some people thought they should mandate those things in society.
01:00:56: What's the Christian perspective? Why was it okay to buck that system as a
01:01:02: Christian? Oh man, are you going to ask this to our end?
01:01:13: Well, first I want to say that sometimes it was okay and sometimes it wasn't.
01:01:20: The government does have a real job to reward good and punish evil.
01:01:27: And I think that can even extend to a situation like what we saw with a pandemic level spreading of a virus that we don't really know much about.
01:01:42: The issue started coming when we started finding out that not all the information was getting to us.
01:01:50: When the things that they said were going to happen didn't happen.
01:01:57: When it looks like they may have exaggerated things.
01:02:03: They started to lose a little bit of credibility, but it still doesn't change that they still had a
01:02:13: God -given authority in a situation to protect a people and that we should listen to them to a point.
01:02:24: When we realize that they're telling us to do things that are not practical, we have a responsibility to trust in Christ more than we do in those rulers who are telling us the false things, lying to us, blowing things out of proportion to tell us that we're not allowed to gather together for church.
01:02:50: While that may be practical, say bubonic plague comes back or large outbreak of Ebola or something like that, guys, you're being evil by not caring for your neighbor.
01:03:04: You know that this kills 75 % of the people that it touches and it's highly contagious. You need to stay home.
01:03:11: Fair. When that turned out not to be what we were dealing with and people started going back to church, started meeting together, still taking precautions.
01:03:27: There's still a virus out there. Sanitize your hands.
01:03:32: Maybe you need to step back a little bit from some of the elderly people in the church or some of the younger people in the church.
01:03:40: You take precautions to do well to people. I can't give you an overall when is it right, when is it wrong to do this or that because each situation is different.
01:03:57: The thing that I get nervous about saying anything hard and definitive is because what happens if another virus comes out in say 10 years, only that one is serious.
01:04:11: We have gone so gung ho, more serious than this one because I know people who have been affected by it and nothing to say that's not real or anything like that.
01:04:22: But say one black plague level virus does come out.
01:04:29: If I were to give you a blanket statement where I said, well, these guys are fools and they shouldn't ever talk about this stuff, then in 10 years, if that is our message, then our message will get people killed because we're not listening, because we're being bullheaded.
01:04:46: We're not trusting in the authorities who are there to promote good, which is preservation of life.
01:04:53: That's one of the 10 commandments. So where do we do that?
01:05:00: We walk through those things with our pastors. We trust our pastors. We should trust even more than that the word of God.
01:05:09: If we can see that our pastors have the same set of data in front of us, that we can trust the data, and then they're trusting the government over the word of God.
01:05:25: I mean, I'm not going to tell anybody to leave their church, but that needs to be a conversation you need to have with your spouse. You need to go to the word of God.
01:05:31: You need to pray the whole way through that because at a certain point, there are there are those in the church who can be unfaithful to submit to tyrannical rule at the spiritual detriment of their people.
01:05:55: I think we need to have that conversation. We need to be able to have that conversation and we need to dig because I think there is a line between a government protecting and a government being tyrannical.
01:06:15: And so we need to be able to have that conversation and not just blindly sit back and be she.
01:06:26: And we also don't need to be so bullheaded that we'll run into any situation.
01:06:32: That's right. Yeah, exactly. And we need to have the information, the true legitimate information to be able to have those conversations and to make decisions on our own.
01:06:47: You just have to look at our recent past. Even in our home state, you had forced sterilizations.
01:07:02: Somehow, our state was convinced that it was for good purposes. But, you know, so we need to be able to have that conversation and see what's going on.
01:07:20: Transparency. Just be able to have the information so we can have the discussion and see where we draw that line between protection and tyranny and see what's good for ourselves and for our families.
01:07:34: So, yeah, I think you're right on. I think it's good points. Yeah. I don't know.
01:07:41: I'd like to go back and live through it again with the information that I know now.
01:07:49: Uh, so I think that it's a good thing to go through these things and learn to remember, not forget to steel your spine against tyranny and to soften your heart that maybe sometime, maybe not this time, but maybe sometime it is going to come where maybe the government's onto something.
01:08:14: I mean, maybe they're not, but maybe they are. We should always be balanced and wise.
01:08:22: We should look well into the matter before we make any rash judgments. That's what the world does.
01:08:30: The world rushes into things based on what they think they know. We're not the people who rush into things.
01:08:36: We're a people who um, who trust in God and we act on the basis of truth.
01:08:44: So we need to do that. We need to remember who is King and who he's put in charge and, and who he's put in charge, where he's put them in charge.
01:08:55: Um, you know, the elders of the church should have more say in what goes on in the church than the government.
01:09:02: But if the government makes common sense mandates, which
01:09:07: I don't necessarily think they did, but if they were to make common sense mandates, then no, perhaps we should follow them.
01:09:18: So, yeah, we shouldn't, we shouldn't be a people who are only have a diet of conspiracy theory.
01:09:25: And we, we shouldn't, um, we shouldn't also be people who blindly say everything the government does is, is good and uncorrupted.
01:09:37: Right. You're quite welcome. Thank you for, thank you for joining us.
01:09:43: We appreciate those comments. Thank you so much. Um, yeah,
01:09:49: I, I think we need to definitely be, be, be thinking through those issues and, and examining them through God's word.
01:10:00: And the reason why I think we got in a lot of trouble and this goes back to what the whole interview was about is because we, we'd been deficient because we didn't think through those things.
01:10:13: We had a lame view of God's law, a poor understanding of how the kingdom of God is supposed to work on the earth, a poor understanding of education, the rights of parents, the rights of, uh, you know, different spheres, the different spheres of influence, no church, uh, state, family, uh, individual.
01:10:36: Uh, we really didn't think those things through. We kept ourselves shallow. Um, and it, it came up and it bit us.
01:10:44: Um, we had to learn on the fly, you know, when do I trust my government? When do
01:10:49: I not? When can I rebel? When is it duty to rebel? When should I submit? Even though I think it's kind of dumb.
01:10:55: Um, yeah, we, uh, we, we didn't think through those things ahead of time and we should have.
01:11:06: Um, so that way when something comes up, yeah, we're prepared.
01:11:11: So, oh, I remember this one. So now I know what to think about. I know the categories to think through.
01:11:17: So that way I can make a wise decision. I can walk through it with people who are smarter and wiser than me and together, uh, we'll pray to God and look through the scriptures and the
01:11:27: Holy spirit will guide us into all truth. We just kind of went into it. Like, uh, have you ever seen the princess bride?
01:11:35: Maybe. Okay. Well, the princess bride is like the best movie that's ever been made. But at one certain point, um, if you haven't seen it by now, it's like 40 years old.
01:11:47: You just got to um, uh, Wesley, the main character has been hiding, uh, who he is from princess buttercup, who is his, uh, love from a while back.
01:11:58: And she didn't know, and they were fighting and stuff. And so, uh, he said one thing as he, like, she pushed him off, uh, down to like a deep ravine and, uh, and as he's falling down, he lets him let her know who he is.
01:12:12: And so she just like throws up her arms and just like, like lunges herself off of this, this ravine.
01:12:19: And that, that's what I think, uh, we, we kind of did with, with all of this stuff.
01:12:25: We just kind of, uh, said, oh, we need to fall after God. I don't know what to do. Lurched ourself off the cliff and no banged our head and arms and side a good bit on the way down.
01:12:40: Um, so we need to be prepared, uh, by thinking through these things, by getting into a good church, finding a solid group of people who are going to be there with us.
01:12:49: We're going to be building a culture that's cancel proof. Uh, we should be able to do business with one another, educate our children, um, think through things, uh, run for office.
01:13:01: That way we have a good, godly Christian voice in every aspect of, of government life.
01:13:07: Uh, really we need to be taking this world that is Christ and telling them that they need to obey him because he is their creator.
01:13:18: Yeah. Yeah. We need, we need to get rid of this mindset that, that we just need to, um, go into our workplaces and act morally and hopefully people will see
01:13:28: Jesus. Um, no, do what Dan is talking about. I think scripture is leading us, uh, and teaching us to do what
01:13:36: Dan was telling us. Um, go, go build your Christian businesses. Christian, go run for office.
01:13:43: Christian, you know, build, build your corporations. Um, make your movies.
01:13:50: Um, take the time to prepare, to do all those things well, and don't just jump into it thinking that because you're a
01:13:57: Christian, you're going to do it good. Right. Yeah, exactly. And, um, and what you were talking about too, you brought in, um, one of the other theological areas we were inconsistent and had a weakness in, and I'm not going to belabor this too much longer.
01:14:16: I just wanted to make sure that we made these points, um, the, the different spheres of sovereignty or the, the doctrine of, um, lesser magistrates, which is something that you touched on.
01:14:28: So with, within the kingdom of Christ, he has different spheres of authority, spheres of sovereignty.
01:14:34: So, so Jesus is Lord, he's king over all. And then you have, um, the government, which he puts in place, um, and, and underneath that you have the church, um, and correct me if I'm wrong, if I mess up on these, um, and then you have the family and then you have the individual and then you're also, go ahead.
01:14:57: Right. Well, the, all those are not necessarily underneath one another, but each aspect of our lives is governed by a different, uh, different sphere.
01:15:10: So in the public sphere, we are governed by our, um, our political rulers or, uh, guide, uh, those who are making sure we don't run somebody over with our car.
01:15:22: We're not cheating each other, uh, in business dealings, stuff like that. Uh, in spiritual matters, we submit to our elders in the church.
01:15:30: And, uh, because they are, they're the rulers over the sphere of, of religion or spirituality.
01:15:38: Right. Um, in the family, um, in your family, your leader is, um, should, should be the, uh, the father.
01:15:48: Um, obviously situations look different. And so we'll walk through that if, if we come across it, but it should, it ideally it, it's the husband and father, um, who is ruling his house well, loving and caring for his children.
01:16:02: And then we all take individual responsibility, uh, knowing that Christ is our King, that we've listened to the
01:16:08: Holy Spirit, that we, uh, uh, by reading the word and praying and, uh, taking time to become more and more like Christ.
01:16:16: So those, those are the different spheres, not necessarily under one another, uh, but they operate in different aspects of our lives.
01:16:26: Yeah. And we've already talked about government a lot. We've talked about church a lot. Uh, one thing that I wanted to mention about the family sphere is, you know, we don't live back in the day of Noah where they live hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years where, you know, some of the, some of them knew, um,
01:16:46: Seth and, and, um, and Cain. Um, you know, they, they, their lifespan went through generations.
01:16:56: And so they just accumulated knowledge and knowledge and knowledge and shared it with one another. Um, but our lifespans are, are shorter.
01:17:04: And, and I think what we're failing to do is all these things that we're, um, you know, talking about tonight and learning tonight that, that we need to, um, theologies where we need to strengthen up and, and, and shore up, we're not passing them along to our children.
01:17:20: And you and I are having to learn them because, you know, they, they weren't passed down through our, you know, our families and church families, um, and because they, they weren't passed down to them.
01:17:37: Um, so that's another area that needs to be strengthened is, is that sphere of, of sovereignty that, that place of, of authority called the family and, and teaching our children these things so that they don't have to, um, learn them the hard way or, or learn them, you know, because of pandemics or because of social issues like we're having to do.
01:18:00: Right. And, and there's one very practical way, um, to teach your family those things, um, and that is to have dinner together.
01:18:12: And then because dinner time politics come up, stuff that happens in the world comes up, sometimes it's, it's small, sometimes it's big, but before you get up from the table, uh, sing a song, read some scripture, explain it and pray.
01:18:30: Um, my kids hear about stuff that's going on in the world and they hear about it, not from, you know, news or radio or their friends or whatever.
01:18:41: They hear about it during family worship time. We apply things that are going on in the scriptures.
01:18:48: We apply things, you know, to stuff going on in the world. I mean, you know, they're, they're, my kids are six, four and two, so we don't know your appropriate levels of stuff, but, but, um, they know that no, if people are fighting, somebody is, is wrong that they need forgiveness and that forgiveness is found in Christ.
01:19:09: So, um, yeah, if you want to, to take rule and dominion over your family as a husband and a father, start by washing your wife in the word and leading your family towards God.
01:19:24: Um, if you don't get any further than the first commandment, you know, teach your family, don't have any other gods before God.
01:19:35: Um, you know, move on from there, but start, start somewhere, start there, show your family who
01:19:43: God really is. There's a statistic that like 75 % of Southern Baptist teenagers, once they leave for college, never go back to church or at least don't go back to church until they're like 35 and having their own kids and they want their kids to grow up.
01:20:00: Um, if you want that number to greatly decline to almost nothing, have family worship time.
01:20:09: I mean, now there's still some children are still going to rebel. That's just what they do.
01:20:15: But that, I mean, that's discipleship. That's something that we're not doing.
01:20:21: We're not taking the time to, you know, like it says in Deuteronomy, uh, or X is probably both, uh, you know, write, write it down on the doorpost of your house.
01:20:29: Talk about when you rise up and when you go down and when you're walking in the way and when you're sitting and when you're eating and you're, when you're here and there and doing it, basically wherever you go, if you see an opportunity, tell your kids about Jesus, tell them about something from his law, tell them about some of the
01:20:45: Proverbs. Also, you need to know them yourself. So, so get in the Word. Listen, if you have a commute, listen to the
01:20:51: Bible. Um, you can have somebody read it to you. Um, and it doesn't have, you don't have to have everything done at once, just slowly, methodically, faithfully trust in Christ and read his
01:21:06: Word, pray to him and don't shut up about him. You know, whether you're at home, whether you're going to a school board meeting, going to politics, whatever, it's real simple.
01:21:17: Simple is not always easy, but it's real simple. That's right. That's, that's a great example.
01:21:23: And that's great advice. Um, let me touch on, uh, a couple more, um, and I'll try to do it quickly so that we can wrap things up.
01:21:33: But the, uh, another thing that's come up because of social issues, the intersectionality, the gender, the gender issues, gender identity, um, those things have brought up the fact that we have a weak theology, inconsistent, deficient theology, and the creator creation distinction.
01:21:51: Um, on one of the social media platforms, um, I'm seeing this guy pop up everywhere and he claims to be, to be a pastor.
01:21:59: Um, one of the things that he's saying is that God, God has given us individually, um, authority and, um, autonomy over ourselves and over our own bodies.
01:22:11: And that's totally contrary to scripture. We don't have, he does not have a price.
01:22:18: Do what? So you're not your own. You've been bought with a price. Exactly. Exactly.
01:22:24: Um, and, and also, well, he, he does not have a biblical creator creation distinction.
01:22:31: The creator has authority of how things are, how, how he made things and how he wants them to be.
01:22:41: And then once we come to Christ, exactly what Dan just said, you know, we've been bought with a price.
01:22:47: So, you know, we've got a double portion there that we are to submit to the creator and his ways.
01:22:55: And we are to submit to Christ because we've been bought with the price. Um, and so no, no,
01:23:00: God has not given us authority and autonomy over ourselves that we can identify who we are by our feelings or about what, or by society or by what we want it to be.
01:23:11: Um, we have to submit to our creator and the one who bought us with a price. Any, any thoughts on that?
01:23:18: No, you hit it. Okay. Um, he, he brought up, um, eschatology, which you and I, um, seem to bring up a lot because it hits a lot of areas of life.
01:23:31: Um, and I think the reason why it come up in the past three years is because it comes up every time that there's a global or a national event that is negative.
01:23:46: And so you have, you have one, one eschatology or at least a few eschatologies, um, that, that say, look, here, here are signs of things to come.
01:24:02: It's going to get worse. Uh, we need to be looking for certain things to happen. And so, because we are looking, looking up, um, for certain events to happen because we see negative things happening around us, um, we're, we're not bringing
01:24:18: Christ into the spheres of politics or in, in culture. Um, and our evangelism, even though we're, um, encouraged to use the, you know, the scare tactic of, um, it can happen any moment.
01:24:35: So you better come now. Um, that's our, that becomes our evangelism is a scare tactic.
01:24:42: And, and so we're, we're just all off center there on, on all fronts.
01:24:50: Um, that, that's why to me, this post -millennialism is the most consistent with scripture, um, and, and consistent logically, reasonably, um, on, on our areas.
01:25:08: Um, is that similar to what you've seen? Yeah, it does seem to be the most, uh, consistent both with scripture and with the things that we're called to do as Christians, to go out and disciple the nations, to baptize them, to remember that Christ's authority, that he's with us always.
01:25:32: Um, it, it doesn't, I don't know. It may, it seems to be more consistent to have a theology that understands that Christ's command to disciple the nations will be accomplished through the work of his gospel, um, through the saints and the power of the
01:25:51: Holy spirit. It makes more sense that that would be the case rather than, um, we have a mandate to go out and to disciple the nations, to bring them in, to remember the power of God until the end of the age, but you're going to be defeated and diminished for all of church history.
01:26:11: Um, which hasn't really happened. Um, but yeah,
01:26:18: I don't know. It seems more consistent with, with, uh, not only that, but with the different parables that describe the kingdom of something that's getting bigger and bigger.
01:26:28: Some, uh, the, you know, the mustard seed that gets bigger and bigger until it's so big, all the birds come and live there or the, uh, the leaven, um, which is not always about sin, but it's sometimes about the gospel, uh, where the leaven, uh, just a little bit gets in the leavens, the whole lump, uh, see, um, no, the, the little bitty stone that was carved without or carved without human hands that hits the world kingdoms and grows larger and larger until it fills the entire earth.
01:27:02: You hear Habakkuk and Isaiah saying that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is going to fill the earth like the waters cover the seas.
01:27:10: You see the, uh, the bride of Christ coming down, uh, out of heaven.
01:27:16: Um, and the earth being, uh, beautiful, glorious in the book of revelation, uh, all, all throughout you see, uh, we see there in Psalm two, the end of it, um, the, the, uh, earthly kingdoms being put away, the, uh, the rule of God over the whole earth being established.
01:27:42: Um, the promises in, uh, Deuteronomy, they're fleshed out a little bit more in, uh, was it
01:27:51: Romans four, uh, where it says that, uh, the, the children of Abraham are going to inherit the entire earth.
01:28:01: Um, yeah, it's, it's all over the place. I'll watching base, the, uh, the different, uh, things in revelation pointing back to a fulfillment of what was no shattered in Eden and in the fall.
01:28:15: Um, it just seems so much more consistent to me. Uh, but here, here's the thing.
01:28:21: It's not everybody's going to agree on that point of eschatology. And so say, you don't say after all that, you're still like, nah,
01:28:30: Dan, I think you're wrong. Fine. Whatever your eschatology is, do not let your eschatology keep you from the great commission to keep you from trying to affect change, positive change in the world around you through the message of the gospel and through the recognition of the kingship of Christ over all of his creation.
01:28:56: Um, so even if you remain dispensational, don't, don't get discouraged.
01:29:02: Don't think, well, I'm bad out of here. Um, so why bother?
01:29:08: No, I'm not going to polish the brass on a sinking ship. The sink, the ship isn't sinking. This is Christ's world.
01:29:15: He has all rule and authority and dominion. And here's the thing. The dispensationalist believes that too.
01:29:21: In the end, they just believe that it happens after lots of charts and graphs happen. Same with all of the eschatological systems believe that in the very end, everything that we see around us will be
01:29:36: Christ and that it will be perfect and holy and, and wonderful. Whatever your eschatological position, work for that end.
01:29:48: Even if you think you may not see it and it's going to happen later off in the future, work towards the reality that you know is coming, that Christ is king and that everything in the world needs to be brought under his subjection, that those who have sin need to be forgiven by the power, by the blood of Christ.
01:30:08: Um, so if we take that mindset to work towards what we know will be the reality in the future, that will help all of us, you know, dispensational, all millennial, post -millennial, historic, pre -millennialist, um, it'll take all of us and set us up to be able to handle the next storm that comes.
01:30:33: Yeah. Uh, the next storm that kind of, uh, you know, whether it's political, economic, uh, pandemic, health -wise, uh, whatever, uh, we'll be ready to, um, be ready to weather it because we'll, we'll have thought through those things, knowing that everything is
01:30:56: Christ. Yeah. I, I definitely second Nancy's, um, amen there.
01:31:01: I think that's great advice. Uh, really, really great advice. And, and that's, you know, we, we come together, um, all the different forms of eschatology, you know, we come together, um, in unity on Christ anyway.
01:31:16: Um, but, but that's another area where we can find deep unity. And I think, um,
01:31:22: I'm, I don't, I don't think that I've heard it put that way before, and I really appreciate it being put that way.
01:31:28: Um, that, that whatever your position is, um, build towards that end.
01:31:34: Um, that Jesus is King and this is his world, and this is, this is kingdom and, uh, and not be discouraged.
01:31:42: I think that's great advice. And then one great place, another great place where we can find unity.
01:31:49: Um, before, before I share the gospel and let you pray for us, Stan, did you want to touch on any of these other ones, any last words before we go?
01:32:07: Nah, I would just, I would just, uh, encourage everyone to try to be diligent, consistent, and in a local body of believers that is doing the same thing is being consistent and in the scriptures.
01:32:24: And if you don't have a place like that, I need you to move to Oneonta, New York. And we were trying to build that here and we will take you and we will put you to work and we will love and care for you while you're here.
01:32:38: Amen. Uh, I know you thought I didn't say New York, but I did. And it's coming up on summertime, which actually absolutely gorgeous up here.
01:32:47: So come on before winter hits and you change your mind. Uh, well, while you're taking that into consideration, would you take this into consideration too?
01:32:58: And, and if you already know Christ as your, as your savior and Lord, and you submitted to him as King, share this with all that unit, share this information with all whom you know.
01:33:09: Um, we needed a savior because we've, we've blown it. We've broken God's laws, his commands.
01:33:16: We, we never could. Um, since we, since the beginning of time being born with a sin nature, that's all we, that's all we know.
01:33:25: That's all we've ever known is sinning against God, rebelling against him. James chapter two, verse 10 says, if we've kept the whole law and yet stumble at one point, we're guilty of guilty of it all.
01:33:36: So we're hopeless and helpless and deserving of an eternal hell because it is an offense against an eternal
01:33:44: God. But because great love and mercy, loving kindness and grace, he tells us that he, he loves his creation.
01:33:57: He loved his world so much that he sent his one and only son, Jesus Christ, that everyone believing in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.
01:34:05: Um, Jesus lived a sinless, perfect life to honor and glorify his father, to fulfill his, his mission, his calling.
01:34:18: And he took on, he became a curse for us.
01:34:24: He took on our sin for us, the punishment, the wrath of God for us, for his father, for his glory.
01:34:33: But the benefit, we reap the benefits in that we can be saved because of his work, his death, burial and resurrection, and his ascension.
01:34:43: Um, his whole work we can benefit from. And he says we must come to him in faith, calling out to him, believing in him in faith and repenting of our sins.
01:34:55: So we would encourage you to do that today and share that information with everyone that you know.
01:35:00: Dan, would you mind to close us in prayer? Sure. Dear heavenly father, God, we thank you for today.
01:35:06: Thank you for what you've done for us. Pray that you would give us a good evening tonight.
01:35:12: Let those things from your word sink into us. I would pray that you would give us a, a zeal to see your gospel spread in your church to flourish, that we recognize your kingship in everything.
01:35:25: And we pray that you would, uh, have your kingdom come and your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.
01:35:33: Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys for watching. And we would really appreciate it if you would share these videos, um, to help us share the gospel and share
01:35:43: God's word with our communities. Um, thank you for doing that. And we want you to remember that Jesus is king.
01:35:50: Um, go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the authority of Christ and go share the gospel of Christ.