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Dan and I will discuss God redeeming work in culture.
Hey, good afternoon. I'm not used to saying good afternoon. We usually do it together in the morning, but we're thankful we're going to try new things. This is Truth in Love, and I'm thankful that you're able to watch and join us and support what we're doing.
We want to join together with each other, with other pastors, with other teachers, with you, to reach our community for Jesus and share God's Word. We'll share His love and share truth with as many people as we can.
Truth in Love comes from Ephesians 4, verse 15, where Paul tells us, Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, even Christ. Every aspect of theology, every aspect of life, we want to cover all our bases and grow up in Christ.
As we do that, we want to speak that truth in love. Thank you for joining us. If we can pray for you, all you have to do is type me. Let me pull up the comments here. All you have to do is type me. You don't have to say what it is.
We'd love to pray for you. If you watch the video later, we'd love to pray for you at any time. Let us know that we can pray for you. If you have anything that you would like for us to talk about, what we're doing on Saturdays, Dan and I, is what we're calling a What Is series.
We're taking time to look at ideas, concepts, terms from the Bible, trying to make them clear and understandable. Every other Saturday, we've been looking at eschatology, in time's prophecy, especially one.
I don't want to use the word theory. What would you call it, Dan? One position. There you go. That's fantastic. One position of eschatology, which is going to be the post-millennial position and also known as the eschatology of hope, making people more aware of that position.
I was unaware of that position, never heard of it for a long time. As I have dug into it and looked at Scripture, I've become more and more convinced of its truth. As a friend was saying earlier today, it seems to be the most consistent eschatology with the rest of all the other doctrines of Scripture.
From Genesis to Revelation, it fits right in there with the consistency of Scripture. Let us know that you're watching. If you are so inclined, help us to spread the word by giving us a heart. Let us know you're watching.
Share. We'd really appreciate it. Today, what we're looking at, and I'm excited about this, not because of the quality that I can bring. I really appreciate Dan being with me to help me on that aspect of it.
The topic, as time has gone on, as the week has progressed, and I've looked more and more, God has revealed from different places at different times understanding about this topic and put it all together.
I still only feel like I'm scratching the surface of this topic. This is, of course, the What Is series, and we're looking at the eschatology of hope. Hey, Nancy, thank you for watching. The eschatology of hope and the aspect underneath that that we're looking at is redeeming the culture.
We've looked at redeeming the individual. We've looked at redeeming creation. Now, today, we're going to look at redeeming the culture. A lot of verses that we look at that we use will be similar because it's all kind of wrapped up in the same mission, the same objective.
Jesus came to redeem, and I think what Dan and I are trying to bring out is that this idea that we've carried for so long is this singular focus of redeeming the individual and individualistic evangelism, and we've left out God is redeeming creation, God is redeeming culture, and we need to bring that back into the light, back into the forefront, and then what is our application as far as God working in creation and God working in culture?
Any thoughts on the opening segment there, Dan? No.
No, that was a pretty good summary. Looking at how Christ's redemption, how His purchase of redemption for mankind, how His doing away with sin affects not just individuals but everything that is a part of creation, how His sins, curses are rolled back, like we see in Genesis 3 that the ground was cursed for man's sake, how as those curses are rolled back, what is it that we're going to see in the world?
How is everything going to work out? So, yeah, you hit it right on the head. Right.
So, I want to begin in Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 7, verses 10 through 15, and I've got to get a bigger desk because I end up with a lot of paperwork, my Bible, my notebook, and articles. So, we'll take care of that one day.
But Isaiah chapter 7, verses 10 through 15, and I'm just going to follow an outline here, and Dan is going to try to fill in my gaps where I miss some things. But we want to start at the beginning, I feel like is a good place for us to start.
And, of course, there's so many prophecies that we can look at in the Old Testament. But if we look at Isaiah chapter 7, verses 10 through 15, this is what it says. Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God.
Make it deep as Sheol, or as high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. Then he said, Listen now, O house of David. Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?
Verse 14, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Emmanuel. And he will eat curds and honey at the time he knows enough to refuse evil and choose good.
So here we have a scenario where you've got Israel shaking in their boots. But God is giving Ahaz some encouragement. Here's going to be your son. I'm going to send someone. And he's going to be born of a virgin.
Of course, that's a prophecy which was fulfilled in Christ. But here is the account where God is giving him that sign. Be looking for this sign. There's something new coming. There's going to be a redemption coming.
And you don't have to be discouraged or dismayed. So there's the first part of the beginning. And then you flip over to chapter 9, verses 1 through 7. And we're more familiar with this text because we recite it and sing about it every year.
But what we need to do is listen to the whole context. Not just a few words from a certain verse, but listen to the whole context. And listen to the words that are used because it helps inform many doctrines of Scripture.
Not just the doctrine of the prophecy of the Messiah to come, even though it does. It helps inform so many more doctrines, especially the one that we're talking about today. So Isaiah chapter 9, verses 1 through 7.
But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish in earlier times. He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt. But later on he shall make it glorious by the way of the sea and the other side of the Jordan of Galilee of the Gentiles.
The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. Thou shalt multiply the nation. Thou shalt increase their gladness. They will be glad in thy presence as with the gladness of harvest.
As men rejoice when they divide the spool. For they shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff of their shoulders. The rod of their oppressor as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the boot of warrior in the battle tumult and cloak rolled in blood will be for burning fuel for the fire.
Verse 6. For a child will be born to us. A son will be given to us. And the government will rest on his shoulders. And his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness. From then on and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.
So recognize that promise at the end. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. So we can have confidence. There's confirmation that he will he will accomplish this task. What is being said now?
What is being said? We're so familiar with with the first part of verse six. You know, we sing about it. We we discuss it. We read it every year at Christmas. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a child is given.
We hear it read. We hear it recited in children's plays. Christmas plays, you know, every year. But we can't leave out the rest of it. We hear his name. He'll be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God.
You know, we get the doctrine of Christ here that he is not just merely man, but he is God himself. He's eternal. Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. And then here's the important part that relates to what we're discussing today.
There will be no end to the increase. I mean, there's so many things in this verse that we that we cannot pass over and let go. It will have no end. And then we got to recognize the word increase. Increase tells us that it has a starting point and it's going to continue and it's going to grow.
It's not an instant flash. And then all of a sudden there's an appearance of something. You know, we feel like that's how God created. He spoke things that was existence. And there it was. Or, you know, when Jesus performed his miracles.
A woman, a woman touched the hem of his robe. Immediately she was healed. You know, you have those instances. But here when we have the Lord describing the the method of his kingdom's growth, we have to we have to recognize it.
We have to put this into our eschatology, our doctrine, our the file cabinet of our mind and not leave it out and not ignore it and come up with our own in time scenarios. There will be no end to the increase of what his government.
He's going to be in charge, his kingdom, and then it says or of peace. So we're working towards an increase of his government. It'll start out small and grow and grow, grow, peace, start out small, grow, grow, grow on on the throne of David and over his kingdom.
To establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness, so you have justice and you have righteousness starting and growing and increasing and it has no end. So.
What do you think, Dan? Oh, man, there's so much here that is just wonderful. This passage, this passage and the one before in Isaiah seven, both of which are coming at a time where the nation of Israel is just about to go into exile.
They're facing incredible odds against them in the physical realm. There are nations that are seeking to take over their nation. And the whole reason is because of their their faithlessness in living the way that God has called them to live by trust.
Number one, believing in God, trusting in him before he says he is following his law as a means of obedience in showing their faith in the God who is who has called them to himself. When you place it in its context, the solution that we have to imagine, we have to put this into our terms.
This may be a little weird for some people to think of, but imagine an enemy, me being in upstate New York. There is a country just north of us, Canada. Imagine the Canadians mounted up on their horses, drinking their maple syrup and all the Canadians.
But imagine this nation, most of their population at the border coming to take over our nation. We deserved it and they have the power to do it. Our military has been weakened and that is that's just what's going to happen.
Like we're in trouble. And then God shows up to speak. This is what the situation that Israel is in. There are people, there are nations that are about to come and destroy them. So what is the message that God gives them in that time of real physical national cultural danger?
They're everything that they know is going to be destroyed. What is their hope? The hope is in a baby. The whole big Assyrian army that's going to come and destroy them. Little bitty baby. Going to be their hope.
And that child who is not going to be born for another 400 years or so, or 500 years, a little bit longer at this point. That little bitty baby who's not even there yet, not going to be there for a while, is their present hope.
And why is either present hope? Because that is the one that God's sending to make an end to all of the enemies that will come across God's people. So when Jesus shows up, which is what these passages are prophesying, it's prophesying that He will preserve God's people as God's people.
Now, as we learned in other places, God's people are always those who are of faith. Always those who believe in Him. Always those who have been called to God by the Father, drawn by the Spirit, and in the New Testament, we know, saved and purchased by the Son.
But it's important to realize here that He's not just saying that He's going to nationally save a people. What He's saying is He's coming with a permanent solution to the problems that are facing them.
Now remember, the first problem isn't those armies that are going to take them over. That's how it's manifesting itself, how they can see the problem. The real problem is their sin. So what we see here in this passage, I'll say all that to say this.
The real solution to the problems that we see in front of us is a doing away of sin. The solution to the Assyrian army at their doorstep is the doing away of sin by the purchasing of redemption by Jesus Christ.
The cultural problems that we face today, the manner in which it's going to be done away with, is not by us voting correctly or battling politically. It's not going to be by going to war or doing any of those other things.
It's going to be by Jesus Christ calling a people to Himself, calling more and more people to live under His authority, and then those people doing so. And then that peace becoming more and more and gradually increasing and growing.
Just as it says here, authority or government rests upon His shoulders. Now remember that word authority from Matthew 28, where He says, all authority has been given to me. So here it says it's going to be given to Him.
There it says it has been given to Him. And what happens after that? His authority or His governance shall grow continually and there shall be endless peace. And that comes through the kingdom of God.
That is the kingdom that Jesus preached when He came to the earth. There's more, but I rambled and forgot where I started. So I'll get back to you and allow people to fill in the blanks.
You made a key comment that's not only related to this, but I related it to helping me understand other things happening in Scripture. You talk about it was their present hope, this looking forward to the child, looking forward to Jesus.
It was their present hope. And I go to Hebrews 11, and it talks about this person had faith, this person had faith. Well, what you said was a good way to describe, to help us understand what they were experiencing for Abraham and for other guys and ladies and gentlemen, men and women in Hebrews 11.
They're looking forward to the Messiah to come. That was their present hope. That was the faith that they're talking about. And that was what helped sustain them was that present hope. I think that was an excellent way to talk about that.
And here's another thing that I think we cannot pass over. If we're talking about eschatology, if you're trying to decide, if you've been brave enough to join us to watch these videos, if you've been brave enough to say, hey, I'm going to look into this myself.
I'm not just going to take the word of what I'm supposed to believe, or I'm not going to let intimidation frighten me. Dan, as a former pastor, as a minister yourself, you know, it can be intimidating to approach a church, be looking for a job.
And because you hold a different doctrine, a different belief, a different understanding of Scripture, even though it doesn't cause disfellowship, you can really be, you could, people can really turn their back on you based on certain beliefs that you have.
And I'm sure, maybe you've experienced that. I know I've experienced that. If you don't hold to a popular understanding, then people will turn their back on you. And it's a very sad situation. And that's one of the reasons why I've tried through this program to reach out to people who maybe hold different beliefs, different understandings than I do.
But yet there's areas where we can work together, we can pray together, we can look at God's word, iron skin sharpened iron, and we both can grow within that fellowship. And so we don't want to turn our back on true brothers and sisters in Christ.
But if you've been brave enough to begin to examine eschatology, I commend you for that, despite what consequences there might be. And one thing that I don't want us to look over here in this part of Isaiah is it tells us where this is beginning.
So we know the scenario here. We know that this is speaking of the birth of the Messiah. Hindsight looking back, we know that the New Testament tells us that that Messiah, the fulfillment of that prophecy, was Jesus Christ in Bethlehem in the stable in the manger.
We've got that. We've nailed that down. We know that information. But we can't pass over, look over, forget, or intentionally leave out so that those that contradict our other doctrines. The fact that it says it begins there.
The context of that passage is for a child will be born. All right, so this is what's happening. A child will be born at his birth. This is the beginning of it. And what will happen? He's going to have a government that's not going to have an end, and it's going to increase.
This government's going to increase. The peace is going to increase. Justice is going to increase. And righteousness is going to increase. It's not something that we are holding on to for a future while we wait in this unknown gap age.
Isaiah says, here's the context. You're looking for a child. He's going to be born. And this begins this transition to this new government that's never going to end and it's going to increase in its size, its authority, its rule, its peace, its justice, and its righteousness.
So does that make sense, Dan? Absolutely. In fact, we see that exact sentiment echoed in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 20 through 25, where it says that Christ will reign until all of his enemies have been put under his feet.
And then comes the end, and he'll take the kingdom and deliver it to the Father. So what we're looking for is that this here, as it says in Isaiah 9, verse 7, that he will establish his kingdom in justice and righteousness and uphold it.
It'll be established and upheld. It'll increase from the time he comes until the end when he has all of his enemies put under his feet. It's just this that we're talking about. It's just a natural outworking of what does that look like.
And while you're going to be talking and explaining some other things, I want to try to look in Isaiah 1 and 2 because there were some things that I wanted to point out from that section that I forgot to jot down in my notes.
So forgive me if you're talking. I'm still listening, but I want to try to find those verses. But the next verses that we want to go to next is we've established that this is the beginning, not just the beginning of salvific history and the fulfillment of prophecy, but this is the beginning of what Isaiah says, this new government, this new kingdom.
This is when it starts. And now we get to Colossians 1, verses 13 through 18, and Paul in Colossians tells us explicitly, clearly, without exception, I mean, there's no wiggle room here and there's no gaps.
There's nothing missing. He tells us about our new king, about Jesus, the one who fulfilled these prophecies and what he's all about. Starting in verse 13, where he delivered us from the domain of darkness.
So we were at one point in a different domain, a different dominion, a different kingdom, this kingdom of darkness. And something you said earlier reminded me of this idea of darkness. Things are coming to my mind about things that I read, the article that we're talking about that I'm going to bring up earlier.
This idea of darkness. Israel, when God fulfilled his promise to take them out and be captured, they were going back out into darkness. The Gentiles have the idea of being out in darkness. We're going to go to Eden.
We're going to go all the way back to Genesis. And that idea of the earth that has not been subdued and taken over by Adam was kind of an idea of being in darkness. So this idea of darkness, of course, here, that's right, Roger, always search Scripture for yourself, absolutely.
But, of course, this idea of darkness here is the dominion, the kingdom rule of Satan's sin. This is where we dwelt apart from Christ. Sorry for the side note there, sidebar. The domain dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son.
So now we're in a new kingdom in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, and he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. There's that language again. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth.
So he is the creator of all things, visible and invisible. Now we're getting to the content. Things that we see and things that we don't see, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
He is also head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself might come to have first place in everything. This is one of those sections where we love to read.
We read it often to exalt Christ and glorify him and praise him and just glory in who he is, which, of course, this is a perfect passage to do that, but it seems to me it's also one of those passages like in Isaiah 9 that there are portions of it that we want to leave out or look over because it doesn't fit into certain doctrines or theologies that we have, one being eschatology.
Paul clearly tells us that he created heavens and the earth, things that are visible and invisible, thrones and dominions, and he is over all of them. We have a tendency, it seems, in recent church history to just focus on Christ being head of the church.
We want to set him apart as Lord in our hearts, and we want to set him apart as Lord over the church, and that's kind of where we stop with it, and we forget that Colossians is telling us, or Paul in Colossians is telling us that not only has he created all these things, things visible and invisible in heaven and on earth, but thrones and dominions, rulers and authorities, all things have been created by him, that he is the beginning, he is the firstborn from the dead so that he himself might have first place in what?
Everything, not just in our hearts, not just in the church, but where? In everything, in heavens and on earth, thrones, dominions, anything that you can think of. He has created it, and he is over it, and he has first place in everything.
What would you add to that, Dan?
I don't know what you can add to it. Christ is head over absolutely everything. A way that one fellow put it was that we need to have all of Christ for all of life. What that means is that what we need as fallen human beings is we need the redemption of Christ.
We need his righteousness. We need everything that he is that we're not. And we don't just need that in the portion of our lives where we read our Bibles in the morning, or we pray, or we go to church, or we try to maybe even structure our homes correctly.
It is for all of life. It stretches into every sphere out there because every dominion or every realm of authority, every sphere of authority, it was created by God for a specific purpose, which means that all of those things, Christ has authority over.
It's not just the church. It's not just our lives. It's not just a space in between our heads, which is what a lot of people would like for us to do if we practice Christianity at all. It would be to keep it to ourselves, keep your morals if you want to, but that's not what the reality of the situation is.
The reality of the situation is that Christ has actually created everything. He has control over it, and he's calling us to live under that authority. There are consequences when we don't, but there is great blessing when we do, and we should realize that as he's putting all his enemies under his feet, that things will start to look different, not just in our homes and not just in our lives, but in the whole world around us.
All of it is being subject to Christ, just like it says, so that in all things, he may have preeminence or the first place in all things.
To begin to tie these things together, let's make some connections. We've quoted it here, and we've talked about it before, this idea of Jesus putting all his enemies under his feet, and the last enemy is going to be death.
It comes from the Old Testament. It's repeated in the New Testament. Explain to us where this begins. Why do we say that this is happening now, this process is being fulfilled right now?
It all stems back to the Garden of Eden. Since Christ created all things, Christ actually has control over all things. What that means is that it's his world to do with what he pleases. When we go back to the book of Genesis, we look at it, understand exactly what was his purpose, what was his plan.
If we look at Genesis 1, we look at the original purpose for mankind. This is way back before the fall. There was no sin in the world. God was creating everything within the first six days of creation.
It says, starting in Genesis 1 verse 26, then God said, let us make humankind or man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
God created man in his image, in the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. God blessed them, and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.
God said, see, I have given you every plant yielding seed upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food, and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.
And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. There was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Now, what we have to understand here is that when he says he has, the plants upon the earth were given for food for the animals, and the animals were given under the charge of Adam.
In order for him to name them, to have dominion over them, and even to extend where the animals live, and their habitat outside of the garden. He was supposed to fill the earth, subdue it, basically take everything that was not in the garden of Eden planted by God, and make the rest of the world look like the garden of Eden.
Now, why this is so important is because the only things that were created at that point, were the earth, obviously the heavens, with the stars, and the moon, and sun, and the plants, the animals, and the fish, and the birds.
So, everything that God created, it was in its basic form, was given to mankind in order to subdue it, and fill the earth with it, without sin. Our job as mankind was to take, as stewards of God, not as of our own volition, but as stewards of God, to take what He had created, what He had planted, what He had given to us in the garden, to make the entire world look like that.
That was our first initial action. We see in chapter 2 of Genesis, verses 18 through 20, we see God actually getting Adam started on that path. What was the first thing that He did? Then the Lord God said, It is not good for man that man should be alone.
I will make a helper as his partner. So out of the ground the Lord took, the Lord God formed every animal of the field, every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.
Whatever the man called every living creature, that was his name. The man gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field. The first thing Adam did was to name all the animals.
He named them all. He knew what they were. It was his first job. Take what God has given me, and understand it, and cause it to multiply. The thing is, it says that there wasn't a suitable helper found for him, and so God put him to sleep, took a rib, and formed his wife, so he could fulfill the rest of the creation mandate, which was to fill the earth, multiply, to subdue the earth.
That was our gig as mankind. That was what we were supposed to do. It was made much more difficult for us in chapter 3, when we fell. But it wasn't taken away from us. That same mandate for us to go, be fruitful, and multiply, to fill the earth, to subdue it, was still in effect, but the curse made it more difficult.
Look at chapter 3, verse 17. It says,. And to the man he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Curse is the ground because of you.
In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, or the sweat of your brow, you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground out of it, for you were taken.
Out of it you were taken. You are dust, and to dust you shall return. The mandate never went away. The mandate was made more difficult because of sin. In fact, for us to fill the earth, multiply and subdue it, it was going to take a much longer time because as Adam went to work in the earth, eventually he would die.
Part of filling the earth then, would be his, if he were to pass away, there would have to be someone there to take his place. It would take much longer for it to actually fill the earth. Not only that, when he was going to subdue the plants and make sure that the animals did what they were supposed to do, there's going to be thorns and thistles, weeds that were going to choke out life from the plants, and these things were going to cause much more trouble.
On top of that, this is not even to mention that mankind itself was going to be more sinful, or going to be sinful, period. That caused the biggest harm because we see very, very quickly, even the next generation, we see men killing men.
We see the poor worship of God. And this goes so far, even into the days of Noah, where God looked down expecting, because of his command, to see the earth being subdued, to be filled, there to be multiplication, for God to be honored in the earth.
And what he looked down and saw was that, chapter six, verse five, it says, the Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.
We as mankind hate the dominion mandate. We hate that God has told us to be his representatives in the earth. We hate that we should be led over by God. In fact, Romans one says that we see the truth of God in all of creation, the creation that we're supposed to be taking care of for him, and that we subdue that truth.
We press it down with our own unrighteousness. At this point, God destroyed the world. And very shortly after, when they started to fill the world again, they sinned more by trying to make a giant monument to themselves in the Tower of Babel, which case God had to step in again and confuse their language, which was actually a means of grace because he made it more difficult for us to sin as human beings, because now we can't communicate with other people who may have really good ideas on how we can be more sinful, but we don't get to talk to them because we speak a different language.
That is a grace for mankind that we don't get to collaborate with other sinners and come to a greater understanding of how we can be sinful. And this leads us to where that promise starts to get some traction, because right after the Tower of Babel, Abraham is called and says, through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
And it's that promise that we see from the garden that the earth, I mean, the seed of the woman would crush the head of the seed of the serpent. That starts to, we see it start to move forward a little bit.
He calls Abraham saying that through him, all of the nations of the earth are going to be blessed. And there's a whole lot that gets connected at this point. Absolutely. Do you want to jump in? I was about to go to Exodus 4.
I can jump in just for a minute. I think you're taking me to the article that I want to go to, and you can chime back in once we get there. A couple of things. Let's try something new about that. Roger says, I think when Jesus began to preach, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, was key to how to view scripture and eschatology.
What do you think about that?
Absolutely. I heard it said one time Jesus didn't preach. The kingdom of heaven is at hand after a 2000 plus year parenthetical period and a seven year tribulation. And then there was a war and then there was a millennium.
He said, no, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's here. He even promised that some people wouldn't pass away. Some people who were actually there with him were not going to pass away until they saw the kingdom of heaven.
So, yeah, it's absolutely key. It's amazing how such information is overlooked, ignored, just to fit certain eschatology and doctrine.
Sure. Some people will try to take that, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand and say that it was a kingdom offered specifically to the Jewish people and that the Jewish people, since they rejected it, that the kingdom was then postponed.
But the passage you read from Colossians was written to a bunch of Gentiles who were said to be taken out of the kingdom of darkness, put into the kingdom of the beloved son. Some will go even further to try to say that there's a distinction between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God.
But when you look at all the instances, there's there's no real distinction there. They're one in the same thing.
Yeah. And some want to just try to spiritualize the whole thing.
Yeah, that's true, too. They want to put it off into a spiritual land.
Yeah. Yeah. Before we move on, I want to go back to Genesis. Yeah. And I think I want to make another connection. I want you to help us do that because today's topic is redeeming the culture. This this mission that Jesus or this work that Jesus is doing involves the individual creation.
And now we're talking about culture. Help us to understand what what do we mean when we say the word culture? And then compare that to Adam and Eve in the garden. What what was their culture and how what what with what they were doing?
And how was that fulfilling the mandate in their culture?
Sure. Culture is kind of the is the sum total of what makes up a particular society. It's their art, science, their business practice, their government, their their cultural liturgy, so to speak. You know, how does your week flow?
How does your month flow? What are the holidays that you observe every year? What does your music look like? All of that put together. It comes from somewhere. It's a prevailing, overarching feeling and mindset, a worldview, basically, that permeates the culture, the permeates the culture, because it is the basis of culture.
It's a sort of worldview that kind of stems out and is seen in all those different aspects. It's their basic core. Ideas and beliefs is what make up your culture. So when you go back to the garden, their core understanding of what they're supposed to be doing had to do with the physical world around them, because that is what God had created at that point.
That's what they were involved in. So their job, their culture was to know God, to know the world that they were in and to make the world around them. Subdued, brought under the authority of God, because it wasn't, it's not like it was being rebellious, but it had no guidance.
The world was just kind of going, just being, you know, nature can just go and get crazy at times. Their job was to make it cultivated, which is actually interesting. It's the same word, culture, cultivated, the same root word.
They were supposed to take the world that they saw around them and turn it into something that was glorifying God. They got that idea, that first core idea from the garden that God made for them and placed them in.
He said, this is what I want, whatever you do out there to look like. I want it to look like this. So culture will then evolve. It's probably a weird word for it in this context. Talking about creation, not evolutionary evolve, but it's more of culture will move along or progress as the situation that you have changes.
As there become more people in the world, there's going to be a different aspect of what they needed to do. As they brought children into the world, part of multiplying, filling the earth is not just putting other people out there in the world, you know, populating the earth.
You didn't necessarily say populate. He said, multiply and fill. All of that with the understanding that they too, their offspring were also supposed to be working towards making the world around them glorifying to God.
That everything there would be subdued, brought into subjection, working in one goal, one thrust, one motion towards the worship and glorification of their creator. Here's where it went wrong, as you see in chapter five and chapter 10.
Again, it tells of a whole bunch of different people who came into the world and some people did this and some people did that. Some people worked with bronze and some people made music and some people found agriculture and shepherding.
As they went and they branched out and did all those different things, what is their one purpose in doing those things? It's to do them in a way that glorifies God. By doing them without sin, doing them in a manner that is consistent with God's character.
To be holy and righteous. Obviously, that gets muddied real quick in the fall. But as we start, as Adam and Eve began, their culture was one of holiness, righteousness that extended to every endeavor that they had in the world.
Really, that's what our culture should be as well. Our culture isn't. We saw that in chapter six of Genesis, God wanted to destroy the whole world because of it. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Again, he said, hey, these people over here in Babel, they're not glorifying me. They're not. My goodness. They're not doing what's right. They're trying to glorify themselves, trying to build something up to heaven to point out how great they are.
And we're going to confuse their language so that way they don't do that anymore. Yeah.
And we can look at aspects of our culture and we can go back to the garden and kind of make some comparisons. They were to have, of course, they were to be under God's authority and they were to bring creation under God's authority.
But they were the authority to do that. So there was there was government there where Adam was. And as we will see in this article, we're going to look at Eden was a picture, especially a temple where God dwelt.
And there was you know, there was an economy there of what they were to do and how they were to do things. And Adam was the priest. He was the authority over that. He was the protector, the guardian, the keeper of it.
And he was to to to go and take that and fill the earth with it. And then you have family. You have a husband. You have a wife. And they were to multiply. There was supposed to be children involved. So, yeah, you have family there.
Then you have. You have religion, the worship of God, communication with God. What am I leaving out? I think those were the three that I was thinking of religion, family and authority, government. So so that was, you know, a culture in comparison to what we see.
I just wanted to make a connection so that we weren't. We weren't having a disconnect in our discussion so that so that everybody understood when we when we talk about culture, you know, they had a culture as well.
And, you know, we can relate it to what we see where you have government, we have religion, we have family. And he had authority over the animals. He was supposed to work. I left one out work. He was to attend the garden.
He was to take care of the animals, to name them, have authority over them. And then you look at the word, you know, a deeper study on this would help us out a whole lot, too. But the word subdue, you know, one of the one of the meanings for that is to bring into bondage.
And so, you know, that that was part of their duty was to to bring into bondage, bring a submission, all things, you know, unto the Lord for his glory. Like you were talking about music, art, science, everything.
And and and it has happened, you know, over time. I was just listening to a clip from a conference that's going on right now. And one of the speakers, he was talking about how things have always been here, but how to do things we've discovered over time.
Simple examples have been you had to someone had to figure out that you could milk a cow and the milk was good for consumption. And then someone had to figure out that you could take sugar cane and make it into granules and let it dissolve into the milk and then take cocoa beans and figure out how to grind it up and mix it with the sugar cane and mix it with the milk and make it cold.
And together, somehow you get ice cream out of it. It's just a simple example. But all these things have always been present. But the idea was to bring them under bondage, put them together, subdue it for God's glory.
And another example that he gave was the idea of taking this massive hunk of metal that we call an airplane. And I don't I do not know anything about aerodynamics, but he was talking about just the curvature of the wings and the certain angle that, you know, all these years.
We the Wright brothers finally come along and figured out you have a certain curvature that you've got to have these wings that that lifts this big, you know, multi thousand pound machine can lift up into the air and float in the air because of a certain curvature of a wing.
Right. And, you know, we are taking creation and put it together and subduing it for God's glory.
Right. There was even a certain amount of of expectation on God's part that we would have. Oh, I'm about to get it. There was some sort of expectation on God's part that that we would have that level of dominance in certain areas because he instituted the Lord's Supper with bread, which is a process of taking yeast and adding it with grain flour and water and having it rise in bread and with wine, which is basically the same process with grapes, with grapes and yeast and the fermentation and bringing about something that that's that's pleasant to do.
To drink, to eat and drink both of those things. I think the common thread with all of this is there's there's an idea which we'll probably have to do a whole nother session on. But as a concept of sphere sovereignty, a very broad overview of that, there are many different areas or spheres within the world that God has instituted where they kind of run themselves, one being the family, the civil government, the church.
Just go with those three for right now. But what is the one authority over all of those things? And that is God. Now, when any of those spheres of authority go wonky, they go haywire. The root cause of that is always them trying to take that authority of God away and place something else in its place.
Sometimes it's trying to elevate themselves, as we're seeing in America. Our country is trying to take over for God, trying to describe or dictate to us what is good, what is evil, what we should accept, what we shouldn't accept.
Almost Levitical laws were wash this, wear this, don't wear that, stay here, don't do that. It's not in their sphere, but they have tried to take over there. So the idea of the redemption of culture is a replacing of the ultimate authority for each sphere of life with God, as it was in creation at the initial part of creation.
Now, Adam and Eve decided to, they said, no, we can make the decisions on what is right and wrong. That was their first sin. When they looked at the fruit, they decided they're going to eat. They made the decision.
They didn't listen to God. They pushed him out and they tried to change the culture. We're going to have all knowledge by eating this fruit and gaining the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of remembering that it was God who placed everything the way it was.
As we look at culture, the redemption of culture is a teaching of the nations that the ultimate authority in every area of life is God. That's right.
Run from there. You're absolutely right. And we want to get to the point here and move toward what is our role in it. We want to get there. And then why we call it the eschatology of hope, because what you're describing is very pessimistic.
And the other eschatology, the other positions of eschatology on eschatology hold a pessimistic position. They say that we're just going downhill. And what you described is evidence of why their eschatology is true and why post-millennialism is not.
And so we want to get to the point where why we believe the Bible teaches post-millennialism and why it's the eschatology of hope and why we hold to it and not the other ones. And so to do that, I'm going to move on to this next section and you can continue to fill in the blanks.
The Lord has been teaching me and making connections, connecting the dots for me in different places, different times, and just going to share with you how he's done that. If you look in the last video that I did was in Matthew.
I've been going through Matthew and some of the videos. And we were in Matthew chapter 3, verse 17, where Jesus was baptized. And as he's coming up out of the water, God speaks and he says, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
And we're familiar with that language in the New Testament where God refers to Jesus as his son or Jesus is known as God's son. We're familiar with that terminology and we just read it even in Colossians where he is the firstborn of all creation.
He is the son of God. But God uses that language other places and other people are called the son of God. And we go to places like at my church, Hosea is being preached through. And Hosea chapter 11 where God is talking about how he raised Israel.
He took care of Israel as a child, as a young individual. And you go back to Exodus 4 .22, speaking of God and his relationship with Israel. Moses is told by the Lord to go to Pharaoh and to tell him that Israel is my son, my firstborn.
And we can even go further than that. If you look in Luke chapter 3, verse 38, if you look at the genealogy there and you go to the very end in Luke 3 .38, the last person you have, which is actually the first person created is Adam.
And he is referred to as the son of God. So why is all that important? Dan's already taken us to Genesis, the beginning of all this. And that leads us to this article by G .K. Bill, Eden the Temple and the Church's Mission in the New Creation.
And what I want to do is share with you some insights that he brings out in this article that kind of ties all this together. So we have this creation mandate that Dan was talking about in Genesis. And Adam and Eve, they failed at it and they disobeyed God.
Sin was brought into the world. Curse was brought into the world. And so it has affected all of the universe, their disobedience. But the mandate continued, as Dan alluded to. It continued. And what G .K. Bill does is he is looking at the Eden and the Garden.
And he's looking at the Temple and he's making a comparison between the two. And he starts off looking at that comparison. He says the same Hebrew verbal form of this Hebrew word used for God's walking back and forth in the Garden, Genesis 3 .8, also describes God's presence in the tabernacle, Leviticus 26 .12, Deuteronomy 23 .14.
And then he says that in Genesis 2 .15, God placed Adam in the Garden to cultivate it and to keep it. He says the two Hebrew words for cultivate and keep respectively can easily be and usually are translated as serve and guard.
When these two words occur together later in the Old Testament, without exception, they have this meaning and refer either to Israelites serving and guarding, obeying God's word. More often, the priests who serve God in the Temple and guard the Temple from unclean things, entering Numbers chapter 3, chapter 8, chapter 18, 1 Chronicles 23 is equal 44.
Adam loses his priestly role, Bill says, and the two cherubim take over the responsibility of guarding the Garden and Temple. So you have the Ark of the Covenant, you have the angels. Thank you for the question, Roger.
We'll get to that shortly. The river, we've talked about this in a different video. Bill brings out another comparison that the river flowed out from Eden, Genesis 2 .10. And then the post-exilic Temple and the eschatological Temple in both Ezekiel and Revelation, you have a river flowing out from the Temple.
The source of life, Psalm 36, 8 speaks of that. They drink their fill of abundance of your house, the Temple, and they'll just give them to drink of the river of thy delights. So you have this idea of the river comparing Eden as a Temple.
It was the first Temple, Adam being the first priest, and he was to guard and keep it, to subdue it. Jeremiah 17, 7 -8 also compares those who trust in the Lord to a tree planted by the water. And so you also have that imagery in Ezekiel and Revelation.
So he begins his article with this comparison of Eden and the Temple. And he goes on to further show greater examples comparing the two and how they relate. But the garden was the place where God was able to walk back and forth, was to dwell.
They lost that when sin entered the world. So God created this Temple. First it was the tabernacle, and then it was the Temple in Jerusalem. But it was a picture of what was supposed to be in the garden.
I think that's the whole point here. It's a picture of what was supposed to be in the garden. And what was supposed to be in the garden? And what was the mandate given? Which we've already discussed. One of it was be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.
And rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and over every living thing that creeps on the surface. So there you have that mandate. And this is where it begins to get really interesting.
The intention seems to be that Adam was to widen the boundaries of the garden in every increasing circles by extending the order of the garden. There we have that culture, that economy that was going on in the garden.
He was to extend it. Extending the order of the garden sanctuary into the inhospitable outer spaces. He was supposed to do that and fill the earth with it. It wasn't some paradise where they were supposed to just remain there and enjoy it.
They had a job and it was to take it out to fill the earth with it. Then you have Adam's failure. But with Adam's failure comes the continuation of the mandate and Bill brings that out. And I'd like to share that with you.
As we will see after Adam's failure to fulfill God's mandate, God raises up other Adam-like figures to whom his commission is passed on. And he gives these references. Genesis 1 -28. And God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, so do it.
We just read that verse. Then Genesis 9 -1 and then verses 6 -7. God blessed Noah and his sons and he said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Does that sound familiar? Genesis 12 -2.
And I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. And so be a blessing. So you have this idea of becoming a nation and being blessed. Genesis 12 -3. And I will bless those who bless you.
And the one who curses you, I will curse you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. There's that mandate again that this was supposed to be for the whole earth. Genesis 17 -2, 6 and 8.
And I will establish my covenant between me and you. And I will multiply you exceedingly. And I will make you exceedingly fruitful. And I will give you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings.
All the land of Canaan. Genesis 22, 17 -18. Indeed, I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven. The sand which is on the seashore. Genesis 26 -3. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you and your descendants.
And I will give these lands and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. So, and this goes on and on and on. It went from Adam, started with Adam. He failed. It went to Noah and his family.
They failed. It went to Abraham and his family. He will give them land. He will give them lands. He will bless them. He will, through him, he will bless all the nations of the earth. So, you have this continued mandate going through.
And Bill says, like Adam, Noah and his children also failed to perform this commission. God then gave the essence of the commission of Genesis 1 -28 to Abraham. Genesis 12, 17, 16 -22. Then he gave it to Isaac.
Chapter 26. Chapter 24. Then he gave it to Jacob. Chapter 28. Chapter 14. Chapter 35. Chapter 48. And to the nation of Israel itself. Deuteronomy 7. Genesis 47. Exodus 1. Psalm 107. Isaiah 51. The later four of which state the beginning fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and Israel.
The commission, Genesis 1 -28, involved the following elements. God bless them. Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. Subdue it. Subdue the earth. Rule over all the earth. And so, I'll leave the article at this point.
But making these connections is that there was this creation mandate. It was intended for Adam to be... What in the world? I've got a mess here. Adam was to obey God in this mandate. To fill the earth, have authority over the earth, subdue the earth.
And then he failed at it. And that mandate continued through Noah and his family. They failed. Then through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And then through the nation of Israel. Same mandate. So you have the same terminology of Adam being called God's son.
You have Israel being called God's son. The people, the nation itself, being God's children. And they all failed. But then comes the one who is called God's son. He is now the first fruits. The firstborn of all creation.
That he may have first place in everything. And he does not fail. He did not fail. And he won't fail. He won't ever fail. His kingdom is forever. And it will increase. And then you have... Where do I see that mandate continue?
If Jesus is the fulfillment. Adam failed. We have scripture saying that you have the first Adam, which was Adam. The second Adam, which is Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment. Jesus is the one who accomplishes what they could never accomplish.
He's the reason our sins can be forgiven. But where does this mandate come in? This mandate continues. And I see it continuing in Acts chapter 1, verse 8. And this is Jesus speaking to them right before his ascension.
Which is kind of an extension of Matthew 28. But in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, he says,. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.
God's plan has not changed from the beginning, from Genesis. That's why we say that this is the most consistent eschatology of all the positions. Because it fits right in from the beginning and is consistent all the way to the end.
That God gave man a mandate. And it was to subdue the earth, to guard it, to keep it protected, to fill it, and to bring it under submission for God's glory. And that mission in Christ continues.
How can you help me out there, Dan? Sometimes your kids are really hard to get them to understand what you're talking about. And to get them to do what you want them to do. We are kind of like little children in comparison to God.
In order for us to figure out what is our cultural mandate for today, he gave us explicit instructions. He just laid it out for us. Like, hey guys, I know you're slow. Let me break it down for you. And in the end of Matthew, he tells us to disciple the nations.
Go into the nations, make disciples. Because, in verse 18, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. So think of the Lord's prayer. He says, Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Why is that? Because Christ has all authority in heaven as well as on earth, as we see from Matthew 28. So he tells us that. And how do we make disciples?
He says, number one, we baptize people. Number two, we teach them to obey everything that God has commanded. And that in doing those two things, Christ will be with us. Christ who is God will be with us until the end of time.
When he comes and takes the kingdom and gives it to the Father. So what do we do? We go into every sphere that we exist in. In our families, in government, in the church, in the business sphere. Every place that we find ourselves, we bring to bear the words of God in every situation.
It doesn't matter what that does to us. Because in the end, Christ is with us to the end of the age. We have the promise of him. As the world around us looks around and says, I don't want to do that. I think I'm going to kill you instead.
We're not seeing that in America. But there are places in the world where if you tell someone that they need to come under the authority of Christ, they will kill you. Who cares? We do it anyway. Not because it's easy, but because Christ is worth it.
And here's the thing. A lot of folks will think that this is a sort of top-down authoritarian. How is this any different from Sharia law? That you would impose laws on people. That you would say, everybody needs to follow these commands.
Because that's completely backwards from the way that Christ has called us to do it. We go out proclaiming the gospel. We go out baptizing people. We go out commanding them to believe in Christ first and foremost.
Because the idea of a cultural mandate for today. The idea of cultural redemption doesn't happen apart from the redemption of Christ and individual regeneration. The idea of cultural redemption is that as we as Christians preach the gospel, God uses that to save a people to himself.
And as people are saved to God, we are faithful to teach and to live in a way that is consistent with God's character and with God's law. So that way it's not some sort of top-down authoritarian law-based system of cramming Christianity down someone's throat.
It is a grace-filled, loving, proclaiming and pleading with the people to come to Christ. To find forgiveness of their sins and to live accordingly. Because we don't save folks. Christ saved folks. We don't undo the works of darkness.
Christ undoes the works of darkness. He's called us to preach the gospel because, like Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.
So we preach the gospel because it has power to save people. And we expect that that salvation will change culture as it changes individual lives. Right.
And we're not the arbiter of submission. We're not the enforcers of submission to Christ and his law or whatever else. First of all, the Lord says, vengeance is mine. I will repay. So he has judgment.
He's in charge of all that. We are the presenters of the message. And we say, Jesus is king. Submit. And then there's between them and the Lord after that. We are to bring everything into submission. Everything that we have control over.
But as far as other nations, other individuals, we are to present the gospel. We are to present Christ's authority. That's the truth of the gospel that he is reigning as king right now. Submit to that authority.
All right. Now, at that point, we don't force them to submit. That's between them and the Lord. Right.
Is that consistent? Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. If we find people in sin, it is not our job to punish them. God has given the job of punishing criminals to the state. Now, it is our job when we see the state acting in a way inconsistent to Christ's commands, that we speak to those people with the authority of Christ.
We say, you're doing things that God hates. You need to stop, repent, and do things as Christ would have you to do them. But that doesn't give us the right or the responsibility to take up arms against the state.
I want to be careful because we are to defend our families. I'm not saying just roll over. But we're not to take up arms to force them to hear our message. We're to allow the two-edged sword of Christ's word that has the power to pierce in between the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow to do its work.
We're to allow Christ's message to permeate into the world and have its intended effect. So that way, when we see family and education, when we see business and government, we tell each of them how they are to act in accordance with God's word.
But it is not our job to force those things upon someone because the true change of a heart only comes from the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. It only comes from Christ making alive through His blood sacrifice.
It doesn't come through our anything. It comes through the power of God. We just expect to see that happen because we know that God has all authority in heaven and on earth. And He's called us to go out and to do a work.
We don't think He's going to fail at it. We don't think that He called us to make disciples in order to have us go out there and not make disciples while we're trying. We believe that He's going to accomplish exactly what He has called us to do.
And that's a good place to point out or meet that goal of wanting to remind everyone why we call it the eschatology of hope. It's because Scripture teaches us that it, like we read in Isaiah, it began and it will increase and it will never end.
And He is reigning. We learned that from Scripture. He is reigning. And He is putting His enemies under His feet. And that will continue until the last enemy is defeated, which is dead. And so this idea of continuing victory, continuing hope, that's our present hope, right?
That He is going to continue this work, continue this defeating all His enemies until the last one's gone. And so that's why we call it eschatology of hope because that's our present hope. We look forward to victory over all things.
And we learn from Scripture that that process is going on right now because Isaiah told us it had a beginning. And that beginning was in Christ. Right.
It is a process. Some people may think, hey, we're backtracking a little bit. You may be right in this little window, but Christ's purposes are moving forward throughout all of history. Sometimes it fits and spurts, but it moves forward.
That's right. Sometimes He allows the sin of the Amorites to fill up before He does away with them. Sometimes He allows America to fill up their sin before He moves on. But Christ's people are always there.
They're always protected. It doesn't matter what happens to a nation. Christ's people are preserved. His kingdom is forever and is eternal and is always growing.
So what do we do at this point? And this is going to be my answer to that. We've got to shake up ourselves and those things that are holding on to us so tightly that we don't want to let go of. It may be for fear of rejection.
It may be fear that I've believed this for so long. Whatever those fears are, we need to shake ourselves up to where we shake those things loose a little bit. To where we can open up scripture, read it for ourselves, study these things to see if those things that we're held on to are true.
Like this concept of looking at culture now, looking at the news, and seeing how bad everything is and being so pessimistic. We think, how can post-millennialism be right? I mean, everything is so bad and everything is getting worse.
It's because we have blinders on, we're looking through a cylinder, and we have a narrow view of things. We read the newspaper, we watch the news, and we get our theology from that. Instead of backing up, looking at it from a wide-angle lens, and seeing all of history.
And when you look at all of history, you'll see that we're not much different than other times in history. And you'll see where there was gospel forwarding, and then you'll see where there were periods where there was evil in the land.
And then you'll see some ups and you'll see some downs. We can't look at our situation through a cylinder, we have to look at the whole. And if you look at the whole, you will see a trajectory, though there are downs, it looks like a stock market chart.
There'll be ups and downs, but the trajectory is moving forward. And you can look at the gospel. There are more Christians today than there ever were. You have breakthroughs in science. We can put wings on a big metal machine and fly across the world.
That's unbelievable that we have been able to subdue God's creation, put it together, and make it work like that.
Here's one that just blew my mind. To see an overall picture, there are more Christians in the world today than there were people in the world at the time of Christ. So while it fits and spurts and moving here and there, and Christ's subduing of the earth through his gospel and through what he's doing in the world, is actually filling the world and bringing people to himself in a way that we're in process.
If you take a biscuit out when it's half done, it looks disgusting. You want to cook that biscuit all the way and put some butter on top of it. That's what we're waiting for is that glorious end. Along the way, it looks weird, but we know that God is working and that his purposes will be fulfilled.
So I thought that was crazy. There are more Christians in the world today than there were people in the world at the time of Christ.
That's right, and it shows that upward movement. The other thing that I think we need to shake loose is this idea, this singular aspect of our mission work, which is the individual evangelism. Our eschatology says we're waiting to escape, and while we're waiting to escape, our mission is individual evangelism.
We need to reconsider that and say that's only part of it. You look at Matthew 28. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. We're not evangelizing in heaven. Why does he even bring it up?
Because he has all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. He doesn't say individuals. He says nations. There's an aspect of more than just the individual. And then like I read in Acts, where are we to go?
The earth mandate continues from Genesis until now, from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth. And then why do we say culture? Why are we talking about redeeming the culture?
Because what we read in Colossians, that for by him all things were created, both in heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities. This is more than just individual salvation.
All things have been created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. So we would ask that you would consider widening your view a little bit to expand it for more than just this individual.
Our mission, our work is more than just individual evangelism, but God is working to redeem individuals. He's working to redeem creation, and he is working to redeem culture, and he has called us to be his ambassadors.
And we need Christian doctors. We need Christians in the laboratory who are going to say Jesus is Lord over science. Jesus is Lord over medicine. Jesus is Lord over the medical field. Jesus is Lord over politics.
Jesus is Lord over my family. Jesus is Lord over the church. Jesus is Lord over whatever you do, whatever your career is. Jesus is Lord, and I'm going to bring it into submission. I'm going to bring my work into submission under Christ, and we will see the greed from pharmaceutical, from politics.
We will see all those things begin to dissipate as Christ is bringing all or crushing all those enemies under his feet. As those whom he saves begin to bring Christ as Lord in all those areas of life.
Anything last you want to add, Dan? Yeah.
One of the ways that we could aid ourselves is thinking about entering into... I got a whole thought in there somewhere. Let me put it together. Because God is eternal, because God is everlasting, he is going to be here long after we die.
Yeah. As long as his creation is here, he will be Lord over that. So one of the ways that we can start to think about how can we make an effect in culture that will be lasting, would be how can I ensure that a gospel witness, that a Christ-like government, that a godly education comes to those who are going to be living 100 years from now?
Right. Because I won't be here in 100 years. That would make me 130 something. I'm not going to be around then. Yeah. But what am I doing today that is going to make a positive godly gospel impact then?
Whether those people know who I am or not. Right. Hopefully not. Hopefully they just know who Christ is and him crucified and looking on for the 100 years past them. Yeah. But if we begin to think in those terms, if we begin to think of our great-grandchildren and our great-great-grandchildren, what are we leaving for them?
What are we building that they will be able to benefit from? How can I preach the gospel to those people down my genealogy that I will never meet? Yeah. Because I know I want my kids to know the Lord.
That's right. I want my grandchildren to know the Lord. Right. And I know I want my great-grandchildren to know the Lord, but I'm never going to meet my great-great-grandchildren. That's just too far out.
So how am I going to have the opportunity to preach the gospel to them? Yeah. I'll have the opportunity by building good, godly things into their culture today. Be it school, government, a culture of family worship in the home, an understanding of godly business practices that leave father and mother to raise the family instead of pawning their kids off on people.
I know that one's going to step on some toes, but let your toes hurt. We'll be okay. We all need to think differently about how we're doing life. Even if we come to say, okay, what I'm doing is absolutely the best thing, we need to be willing to look at absolutely everything that we're doing and tear it down if it doesn't honor Christ to the fourth and fifth generation.
That's right.
Let's answer Roger's question real quick, and then we'll get off here because we've been on here a while. Roger says, does post-mill or post-millennialism believe in a time of apostasy?
Would you like me to answer that? Sure, absolutely. The answer is yes and no. I will now explain. A lot of times what's understood when that question is asked is, will there be a future time of apostasy?
This gets into some questions of Bible interpretation. There's some things that in my answer, you're going to want to check up on, make sure what I'm telling you is right. In the New Testament, what you have is a transition period.
You have a period between what they would call the one age and then a future age. The last days and the next period of time after that. I'm drawing a blank on exactly what that's called. What you see a lot of times in the New Testament is an understanding that that phrase last days is referring to the last days of the old covenant.
When we look at 1 Timothy 4, it tells us, Now the Spirit expressly says in the latter times, Some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.
They will forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving. There's another passage that talks about in the last days, People will be haters of God, haters of men, greedy.
They'll be talking out against their... Here, 2 Timothy 3. You must understand this, that in the last days, distressing times will come, for people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhumane, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, haters of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power avoid them.
I believe that since this is talking about the last days of the old covenant. He's talking to Timothy, who's going to see a lot of his old Jewish folks who are rejecting Christ, and he's going to see them fall into greater and greater sin as their time of judgment is drawing nearer and nearer, which I believe happened in 70 A .D. at the destruction of Jerusalem.
Now that's also another huge topic. That whole date could take weeks and weeks, but there's a place to start now. I understand that there's also a place in the book of Revelation that also seems to talk about the same thing.
If we look at Revelation 19, starting in verse 19, it says that I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against the rider on the horse and against his army. That would be Christ and his army.
And the beast was captured, and it was with the false prophet who had performed in its presence the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image.
These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur, and the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth, and the birds were gorged with their flesh.
There's in the very next chapter, it also says, when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations from the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle.
There is numerous of the sands of the sea. They marched up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and consumed them. The devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they're going to be there forever and ever.
Now, what some people want to say is that there's going to be a time of great apostasy. Now, apostasy is someone who believes and yet falls away. What post-millennialists teach is that through the work of the Spirit, through the belief in the gospel, there'll be a time where the world will become Christianized or will look Christian.
That does not mean that everyone on the planet will be a Christian. It doesn't mean that everyone will believe. It means that governments will act with God's law as their standard, that they will act and judge righteously, that the church will act and function as it's supposed to, that families will act as they want to.
But it doesn't mean that everyone will be a believer. And what I believe this is saying that at the end, Satan is released for a small time. Those who do not believe are going to kind of get a big head about them and try to stage a one last revolt to take down the world around them.
They are not actually going to enter into a battle, though. If you notice, this passage says that they gather, they come out, they look like they're going to fight, and then the end comes and God places judgment upon them.
So to sum all that up into one answer, I believe there was a great apostasy of the Jewish nation at the end of the old covenant, as the new covenant was taking over, as that transition period was taking place.
But I do not believe there's going to be a final apostasy, even though I do believe that at the end, those who are around in the very last end of the new covenant area will be deceived into trying to stage a revolt, but they'll never actually, they'll aim the gun, but never pull the trigger.
That is something that post-millennialists, that is something that they disagree on and that they debate and argue about. So you're going to find some who are going to say that there is a final apostasy, some who say that there's not at all, some that fall in between, but that's why I fall on it.
I think that's a good explanation of all the data. I really appreciate that. I didn't give you all the data, but I said, I didn't give all the data, but I think all the data considered, that's what I think to be the best explanation.
Well, I appreciate that answer.
And Roger says, thanks. And I want to end this on making one more connection for everyone who watches, one more connection for you to chew on. So post-millennialism believes that now you're in Revelation chapter 20 and that's where we see the thousand years, right?
And so when is that thousand years taking place? We believe we're in it right now, right? Yep. Okay. And so when was Satan thrown into the abyss? Oh, you're asking. He was thrown into the abyss at the end.
He was.
Thrown into the bottomless pit. He was thrown into at the time of Christ, his resurrection.
So the beginning of the millennium, right? Right. Okay. And it's interesting that he says, so that he should not deceive the nations any longer. Right. Interesting word there. And that's going to take us right back to our verse in Matthew chapter 28, go ye into all the world.
And Jesus came upon and spoke them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. So that's something for you to chew on. He can no longer deceive the nations right now while we're in this millennial kingdom.
And Jesus has given us the command to go and make disciples of all the nations. So if you do not know him, we want you to know him. We've all sinned. We've all missed the mark. Put your faith and trust in him, repent of your sins, put your faith and trust in him, join his kingdom and be living your life.
And if you're a believer, be living your life for his glory in a way that will benefit, as Dan was saying, the generations to come for his glory. Let's bring all creation, all culture, and as many individuals that we can into submission to his authority, that we don't want to see any come under his wrath.
We want to see as many forgiven as we can because we love him and we love people. So Dan, would you mind to close us in prayer? Sure.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your gospel. We thank you for your son who came and died on the cross, who laid in the grave, rose from it victorious, and now sits at the right hand in heaven. God, we pray for holiness among your people.
Pray for holiness in the world. Pray that your word would go out and hit the ears of people all over the place, that you would save a people to yourself and be glorified in the process. Thank you. We love you.
In Jesus' name,.
We pray. Amen. Amen. If you have any questions, please reach out to us. Hope you guys have a great rest of your day. Remember that Jesus is king. Go live in that victory, and let's continue to go out there and preach the gospel together.
Hope to see you soon.
