108. BONUS Episode - Answering Objections to Postmillennialism with Martin Selbrede

The PRODCAST

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:04

Hello and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 108 answering the objections to post -millennialism

00:26

Well, hello again and welcome back to the podcast we have a very special episode for you today

00:33

For about three hours almost three hours Myself and Martin Sobredi sat down and had a third conversation

00:42

Now if you remember there's already been two conversations There was one that was primarily focused on the Old Testament One that was primarily focused on the

00:49

New Testament and now we sat down a final time to talk about what are the objections to post -millennialism and We couldn't obviously cover all of them

00:59

But we did try to cover the majority of them and as you will see the interview went on in great depth for some time

01:06

I'm putting this out because I want to enrich the community's understanding of what post -millennialism is

01:12

I want us to dive deeply into the text and I want us to understand the full Orbed robust picture of the victory that Christ has won for us.

01:22

So that's why we did this now I will say this you probably won't agree with everything that Martin says or maybe you will because there's

01:31

Nuance in post -millennialism, there's different streams in different camps and post -millennialism for instance in the interview

01:37

You will notice that Martin takes a view of the book of Revelation called idealism

01:43

Typically in the book of Revelation, there's four ways to interpret the timing of the prophecies

01:50

There's the Preterist view which says that the prophecies of Revelation happened in the past There's the historist view which says that they happen progressively over history there's the futurist view which says that they happen in the future and then there's the

02:03

Idealist view that says that these are truths that happen across all time periods for all believers

02:10

And it's more of a spiritual fulfillment. I don't take the idealist view in the book of Revelation Martin does and yet we're both

02:18

Post -millennialist, so I share that as an example that you may hear things in the interview that you're like, huh?

02:26

I've never heard that before. Let me dig deeper or That's not exactly what I think but great

02:32

I'm adding this to the conversation because I want to enrich our understanding of post -millennialism

02:37

It is a deep robust and wonderful view and Martin is an excellent representative of it

02:43

He's been doing this kind of study for decades And I'm so thankful that he sat down with me for so long to contribute this episode to the broadcast

02:53

So without further ado Enjoy the show. God bless you You Welcome back to the broadcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf we are in round three

03:21

Nobody said we were gonna go this far and yet we're still standing strong. We're like Rocky We're taking the punches and today we're gonna throw some punches back.

03:29

I'm back with Not doctor. I'm back with Martin Selbretti. He was a Bible scholar. He's vice president of the

03:35

Calcedon Foundation He is a post -millennial thinker and he's written tons of articles on this brother

03:41

Thank you for being back on the show where we cover really objections to post -millennialism

03:47

Well, once again, thanks for inviting me. Appreciate the opportunity Absolutely. Well, I just want to jump right in There are so many different in the comment threads which the comment threads can be dangerous.

03:59

I don't recommend people live there but There's been a lot of questions about what we're talking about and that's not new.

04:08

I've been having that now for the last several weeks Verses that have been brought up friends of mine who are texting me and asking me questions and I just thought maybe we compile a list of these objections and We go through them and answer them once and for all maybe

04:25

Very good. Should we should we be so lucky we once and for all right. All right, so it needs to be done Yes, sir.

04:31

Well, I guess I've organized these questions in three categories the Bible biblical questions questions from personal experience, which they might be the same answer to every one of these but But many answer these objections with a personal experience and then questions from church history.

04:48

So let's jump into Bible great reformed theologian, his name is

04:54

Louis Burkhoff wrote a pretty standard systematic theology for the Reformed world for a long time

05:01

It was a mainstay in seminary bookshelves He said this the fundamental idea of the doctrine this post -millennialism

05:08

That the whole world will gradually be one to Christ that the life of the nations will in course of time be transformed by the gospel that righteousness and peace will reign supreme that the blessing of the

05:20

Spirit will be poured out in richer abundance than before so that the church will experience a season of unexampled prosperity just before the coming of the

05:28

Lord is Not in harmony with the picture of the end of the ages that we find in Scripture.

05:34

I know we don't have Brother Burkhoff with us anymore. But if he were here, what would you say to him?

05:40

Well, we need to look at the text that he wants to bring forward. He actually does bring some text forward

05:45

I should point out that I respect dr. Burkhoff. I've read through his entire systematic

05:52

It follows the heels of three other systematics that were produced by Hodge By strong and by shed and all those three systematics were post -millennial and held to this position of the victory so Now we have three versus one.

06:09

We don't want to have a war of numbers Of course, it's gonna be the quality of the argument that's being made But I would say that the text that he believes apply to the end of time do not

06:19

They apply to some other event entirely. I see this in the all -millennialist

06:25

Hendrickson his Commentary on second Thessalonians. He notes that he says

06:31

I think what words like this for once here I cannot agree with dr. Benjamin Warfield staunch defender of the faith whose views on matters theological generally command the utmost respect

06:42

So that's interesting. He already first he prepares the poison pill right because he's gonna say this is one of the great theologians of all

06:48

Time in church history, dr. Warfield. I'm going to differ with him I'm going to say that the man of sin of second

06:53

Thessalonians 2 is an eschatological Figure and not someone who lived in the first century name of the

06:59

Roman Emperor as dr Warfield argues for and defends quite well But we don't get to hear a true one -on -one comparison of Warfield's and Hendrickson's positions.

07:09

We simply have Hendrickson saying He's a great guy, but in this he's not a reliable guide

07:15

And this is kind of like what? Burkoff is doing here to all of his arguments can be dealt with and in fact have been so he's he's basically

07:24

Preaching to his own choir. He's playing the room that he's in. Yeah, he knows what his audience is

07:30

It's going to be primarily Dutch Calvinists Most of whom landed in Grand Rapids for some reason have but yes may

07:36

Good people who have a very strong History and tradition of being serious

07:43

Bible scholars so it's not as if they're being aloof or careless, but it doesn't mean they cannot make a misstep and the nature of the misstep is that there's an unawareness of how the

07:53

Old Testament deals with many of the Collapses of Empire back then and how that plays out when the same language is utilized in the

08:03

New Testament And so we have a problem do we have a continuity of the language or do we have brand new discontinuities

08:09

That need to be brought in. So you have to go on a verse -by -verse basis what dr Bonson would say he called it hand -to -hand exegetical combat is necessary on individual passages

08:19

And we don't have the benefit of that we get his position We don't have a true set of responses to Warfield's position

08:26

And what we really need is a second set of counter rebuttals and counter counter rebuttals So oftentimes the conversation is so heated we don't get the benefit of the iron sharpening iron here

08:36

So I can tell you I believe that work up is wrong And I believe there's better evidence on the side that opposes this you know you actually dig deeper

08:43

We start to see oh here's some of the problems that Are entailed in his position he does not believe the

08:49

Holy Spirit is capable of doing this for example He sees that there's a very different situation with the world and he

08:56

Extracts this from scriptures that he believes are eschatological that is deal with the very end of time versus say the end of the

09:03

Old Testament dispensation and the destruction of Jerusalem So that's basically where we stand verses that he sees as future to us today

09:13

I think the vast majority of them deal much more reliably and Contextually in Scripture especially in terms of the analogy of Scripture from the

09:21

Old Testament deal with what happened with the first century in Palestine Yeah, just as a follow -up to that Is there any treatment that you know of maybe it doesn't involve dr.

09:35

Burkhoff But is there any treatment where there is a laying out of the the four main views a millennial post -millennial?

09:43

Dispensational historic pre -mill and then each of those authors Getting a chance to rebut the other person then counter rebuttal is there any example of a volume that does that I think

09:54

I read one in seminary, but Is there one that does it really well that you would recommend? I'm not aware of any that do it.

10:01

Well, the very first attempt was called the millennium for abuse That's the one

10:06

I read. Yeah, Bettner was the chosen and he was already an older gentleman at the time and he basically did not realize it was going to be a

10:14

No holds barred you know throat throat choking situation with some of the folks in there

10:23

The critique of George Eldon Ladd the historic pre -mill against Bettner was kind of shocking

10:28

It was about two paragraphs saying well, there's so little appeal to scripture. There's nothing for me to actually to criticize here.

10:34

And so It was brutal as it were so we didn't did not have say

10:40

Bonson or rest uni proposing the post -mill position We had someone who was in it for like a more of a

10:46

Sunday walk in the park sharing blessings of the Holy Spirit's dispensation and Getting trashed in the process so he didn't do so Well, even then the verses that he brought forward people didn't really have a strong answers for it

11:00

But he was out of his league in that battle and I think I've seen similar things with subsequent attempts to revisit that Forward that format now this nice format, you know, you present something and the other three guys can comment on it and vice versa so you're going to do three critiques and you're going to present your position and We really need to have better exponents of all these positions and we should repeat that today and maybe do it a little bit more rigorously, not only say

11:28

Have an account but also have a counter rebuttal and perhaps even a counter counter rebuttal So so that we can actually dig deeper

11:35

I think that's needful because some of these things don't lend themselves to a quick facile easy

11:41

One, two, three and we're done Sometimes you have to really grapple with the Word of God. You might have to get down to textual issues

11:49

And suddenly say okay, you know I'll give an example. There's passages in 2nd

11:54

Peter 3 verses 10 and 12 where it talks about the earth Being destroyed. Well that actually word is to loosen and it's not saying it's going to be it says it's being loosened

12:03

It's present tense present participle. The melting of the elements is a present participle saying they are being melting right now

12:09

Certainly present reality on fire melting while Peter is talking So this is a very very different story than it's a future event that we have to dread coming at us

12:19

Versus a present reality. So that's why I'm saying you need to actually realize that Rastuni had a reason for saying, you know

12:25

The word translator sometimes is at the root from it is traitor being someone being a traitor to the

12:31

Word of God in transforming it into our language Whereas the Greek actually has these things and the translators feel that they have a reason to override the text

12:40

I think in last talk talk we had we talked about massive theological override of the text that was a different context but the same thing happens here when translators get a hold of something and they they bend it or twist it and And usually in favor of their own pet theory

12:56

So I say that the Word of God teach what actually says in all of its naked glory because guess what?

13:03

It's like the silver refined seven times in fire and there's no reason to fix it So that's our position and so I'm going to look at a passage and they the other side saying

13:12

I'm a little premil says this speaks about a future destruction of the world of fire coming down from heaven and destroying everyone in the future saying that's not what the text says is the fires been already in progress for Now 21 centuries if not longer than that Based on as a

13:27

Zechariah 5 3 which says it was already on the word was already on fire back then And is being purged etc, etc.

13:34

So That's the problem is that we have to have all these things in motion and People might be sensitive to the fact.

13:42

Well, if I go in in this battle, what if I I'm ahead of the game today It's all mine to lose so maybe

13:49

I should decline and lots of times people say now I'm not going to decline because I'm going to dignify the position of Those who oppose me and so this is what happened in that very debate that you read right because Herman Hoyt Was criticized by Eldon Ladd again,

14:04

George Eldon Ladd saying we're not gonna get anywhere because he keeps defining his position as the biblical position

14:09

Which by implication means the rest of us are not biblical and we're and we're heretics So he said so that kind of discourse is already

14:17

Terminates discourse right? It's a conversation killer so until we actually are charitable toward one another and say, okay, that's let's open up our minds to the scripture and And be led only by what the text says then we might get somewhere but until that time we're actually going to be arguing prejudices and Biases that are generated by a theological construct that's on top of the scripture

14:37

Which may or may not do justice to the scripture it is doing justice to a particular approach to the scripture

14:42

But is that the biblical one? Is that that's the one that's open for question and a lot of people are not open to Considering that they might be wrong.

14:49

I'll give an example of this two examples. The first one would be G Morgan Campbell great commentary on Jeremiah, for example

14:57

Well, he was just teaching dispensationally for years and lo and behold He suddenly comes to the realization as he was wrong and then but then he finds out now it's too late, right?

15:07

He says all my books are in print 40 years worth of writing and I'm not convinced everything I wrote out that was dispensational in orientation is was wrong

15:15

But it's too late time to take them back, right? The rights already there and the publishing contracts and they're still gonna sell the books with what he regards as an improper position

15:23

I think John Murray with some justice could be said something similar. We don't get much of his post -millennial thinking

15:29

It only showed up in the classroom, but his other books weren't so strong on it. And I know of hello Charles McElhaney's father who said

15:36

I've been teaching dispensationalism for so long. I Don't see myself ready to change even though my son is a pastor who teaches post -millennialism

15:46

So so he may be right, but I can't change I've been doing it too long So he'll have all these reasons for not going back to the scripture and I think that's hazardous to our theological health especially if it changes our conduct and our sense of duty and responsibility that that point that we should not accept the

16:02

Mess of pottage we should be more serious about our birthright and protecting that legacy That's good analogy speaking of another sort of linguistic critique this comes from it not directly, but this is

16:18

From a man named Scott Annie all he compared the term until in 1st Corinthians 11, which has us

16:25

Participating in the Lord's Supper until he returns with the until of 1st Corinthians 15 25

16:31

He must reign until he's put all of his enemies under his feet And he argues that the one in 1st

16:37

Corinthians 11 does not imply immediacy and because it's the same word in the same context He's saying or doesn't imply progressive

16:45

Kingdom -building, but it implies immediate kingdom revelation. He's saying that this is not 1st

16:50

Corinthians 15 25 is not about a Progressive long period of time where Jesus builds his kingdom until all his enemies under her under his feet

16:57

This is an immediate ushering in of the kingdom. That's already either happened or but certainly doesn't prove post -millennialism

17:04

Is he just is he quibbling over? Something that's not there in the text. Is he forcing something in to that word?

17:12

That they are that until in both of those passages. What do you know? Have you heard this critique before? Well, of course

17:19

What's happening? Here is a quotation in effect in a dad adaptation of Psalm 110

17:24

Sit thou at my right hand until I've made your enemies your footstool, which is Hebrew Yeah And then we have the parallel instruction in Hebrews 10 13

17:35

That he seated in the right hand of the father henceforth expecting until all his enemies be made his footstool so that that means that if We can treat these other texts as a guide and these all should be coinciding in terms of their meaning

17:50

And that's always dicey to take the word until and force it into any given now

17:57

I can understand the rationale behind it because if in Chapter 11 of this epistle we had the word until used a certain way

18:06

Then perhaps it casts some light on how to use a few chapters over In chapter 15, so I'm not objecting to the attempt

18:14

I think the every plausible objection should be raised and presumably answered but you're not going to be able to get there from here if we're also saying and the analogy of scripture has to be brought in because the unclear has to be

18:30

Have light shed on from the more clear passages As we interpret the complicated passages in light of the more simple passages because Because it was not a matter of progressive or not progressive as a matter that there's a command that the son may not leave the right hand of the father

18:47

Until all his enemies are made his footstool and his last enemy is death See, this is where 1st Corinthians 15 comes and adds another detail

18:53

That is not in Psalm 110 and that says that death itself must be destroyed prior Because we didn't have the identification as of death as a last enemy

19:03

Yeah in Isaiah, it's kind of alluded to in some passages in Isaiah 56 I think in other places or 57 but the

19:11

And of course the conquest of death is in earlier section of Isaiah 25 or 24 25 26 in there that passage so it's not as if it's not dealt with but it's not dealt with as early as The passage that we were speaking of in Psalm 110

19:27

So in all these cases we have to take a look at the what's happening in Corinthians We're told the last enemy to be destroyed is death

19:34

And so that tells us something about what it means for all the enemies to be destroyed and that Christ must sit

19:41

He would break God's commands to leave that place seated at the father until such time as he has

19:50

Destroyed all the enemies including death itself and death is destroyed when it loosens its hold on Christ's children the men then living cannot die

19:56

That is what the conquest of death is all about that's depicted So you can't just pick out one word you have to say okay

20:02

This is a part of a passage from 23 up to 28 It ends with the father being all in all when

20:08

Christ delivers up the entire Completed kingdom to the so that he he himself is subjected

20:15

Mediatorially to the father not substantially in his own essence, but rather Economically as we say there's a difference between the economic

20:24

Trinity here and the ontological Trinity as the origins put it But yeah But Scott Daniel is saying it's a legitimate thing to look at but also we have to look at every other part of the passage

20:33

That's in because let's say yeah, he's right that word until contributes to the context

20:39

We can't ignore it, but we also cannot ignore the context either So it's a to you know when a lot of people say well check the context week everything has a context

20:48

So you can overuse that maxim as a theologian But it's there for as a safety valve and here the safety valve is we get some extra information that wasn't in Psalm 110 which is being quoted and appealed to here and someone 10 is the most quoted passage in all of Old Testament passage in the new and so we should take seriously each time it appears and Therefore the extra information that's given is is going to be death itself will be destroyed and only then will

21:15

Christ then be permitted to no longer sit by the way by his sitting this brings us to mind the

21:22

Prediction in Malachi 3 he will sit and he will refine you Melt the sons of Levi and purify them

21:30

This is an activity that's going on now This is something that we talked about last session about he's going to baptize you with fire and with the

21:39

Spirit He's going to thoroughly purge the threshing floor. All these things are active realities and processes that God has set in motion

21:46

And they are being supervised by who the man who has death and Hades in his hands. That's the guy capital

21:53

G guy right Jesus, so It's not as if sitting is an inactive situation.

22:00

He is also Purging the world of wickedness and evil in the long term

22:06

It's a like I said last week. We're talking about the church being the primitive church by this picture so I've also seen efforts efforts like by John MacArthur to say well like my kingdom come in Matthew 6 all this error is therefore it's an explosive sudden coming as opposed to a progressive coming

22:26

But that defies the growth variables in Matthew 13 And the other problem is that sometimes there was a grammatical rules don't fly

22:35

I think DA Carson has done a tremendous service with a book called exegetical family fallacies exegetical fallacies

22:42

Which came out I think originally in 84 and has been reprinted at least once and maybe twice Showing the kind of mistakes that you can make doing biblical exegesis and therefore these are cautionary tales for us today

22:53

It's very easy to say. Oh, here's my list of attacks and this is gonna be slam dunk Well, guess what? I'll at least slam dunks into or I'll use the baseball medicine metaphor this time

23:02

You're kind of fouling out into the stands and I actually getting on to the on to base with them

23:07

You kind of surprised that happens, but that's what it is. There's surprises in our theological libraries

23:12

We have 21 centuries of sanctified scholarship here. And most of the times we have a tremendous tunnel vision

23:18

We put on the blinkers and only look at a certain Subset and then draw our conclusions you need to have a much broader grasp of where we've been going all this time

23:26

That's why I think some of these are historical questions that are gonna be raised in our talk today And I think that's important to realize that there is conflict inside the received wisdom

23:36

And therefore we need to be workmen approved and not ashamed as we said last session Amen, amen, that's good.

23:44

I've also heard the heiress is the laziest tent. So don't base your entire theological system on it

23:50

I don't remember who said that I maybe it was the Lord in seminary There's some of those rules don't actually work and that's what da

23:56

Carson Carson pointed out he says there are times when it doesn't sense when it doesn't so if you you

24:01

And he goes through a whole bunch of different at the Granville this rule and it turns out that Koine Greek is not necessarily

24:08

As easily codified, you know, that's the rules and grammar is one might think it's a village of philological and linguistic treasure house and That's it's a great language to preach in And it's very precise

24:24

But we also have the fact that it's intended for a claimant to get to get so and fishermen's good some of it

24:31

So you go? That is good. All right, so coming down off of the super linguistic philological mountain for a moment wheat and tares the

24:43

Bible says that the church is Represented by this field the field has both wheat both tares and both remain until the end if that's true, and the wheat represents the

24:53

Christians and the tares represent the Reprobate, how is it that post -millennialism says that the world will end with a field filled with wheat?

25:03

We actually answered this before and so I will Appeal to that and I'll just give you the nutshell answer this time

25:10

Is that you have to look at the exact reason given to the angels why they are not allowed to touch the tares they're not allowed to touch a tear because when they pull up a tear they will pull up wheat and the explanation for this is that the tares

25:25

Have in their loins Future generations of wheat and I use the example of Tira the father of Abraham.

25:31

He was a tear He was a pagan in living in or the Caldes But he had Abraham in his loins

25:37

Abraham and by the same token had Levi in his loins and this is in Actually used as an argument in Hebrew 7 as to why

25:45

Abraham was supposed to pay tithes And why the Abraham Melchizedek in pray appears priesthood had priority because when

25:53

Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek Levi was paying the tithes through his grandfather So that that is very very intriguing to realize that You don't pull up a tear because it'll have elect offspring

26:06

And we even quoted Augustine to this fact to this effect that he even saw this in the scriptures, too

26:11

And there's other and there's only two possibilities for a tear It'll either have its posterity cut off which is taught in Psalm 109 and Psalm 37

26:19

You know the posterity will be cut off and in the generation to come their name will be blotted out Arrangements and marital arrangements so called today that will not yield children.

26:28

Naturally. They have to be adopted just because that's a dead -end Genealogically and there is no blessing of fruit of the loom of the womb there in those situations

26:39

So in all these cases the wicked have the posterity cut off and they'll name in the next generation Or they lead to elect offspring.

26:47

So they exist for God's purpose either way either there in terms of Proverbs 16 for the week everything has been made for a reason even the wicked for the day of destruction so to hear and Or they become the birthing place for future generations of wheat

27:02

So if the reason is always true that we don't pull up any tears at any time is because you will always be having wheat

27:08

Offspring or their posterity will be driven out You'll eventually although tears will eventually die out over time as we're talking about centuries and centuries of this process happening but we continue to bring offspring that are elect into play then the engine of the conversion of the world is what election itself

27:25

God's election determines what happens and so the Parable here is looking at the world not the church, by the way

27:33

So that's already incorrect there and since they come about the church No, it even says the parable is the world We have to take

27:38

Christ at his word And when he explains because it was the only parable that he actually gave it extended explanation for it, but each thing meant

27:46

But he made it very clear That it's the world and this world will is seen through time from beginning to end

27:53

Right, so it's not just the world has existed the moment that he said it Because all those tears and wheat are long dead.

28:01

Nobody from the first century is alive today except Christ They were all been gathered to their fathers, right?

28:08

They're gone But the world is continuing and the world is continuing and in continuing we still have the angels having to be held back and saying don't pull up any tears because there's wheat coming and Yeah, that that fact no matter how you cut it means that the final generations if you don't stop this process will be all wheat

28:26

Because we're simply having a purging out of the genealogical dead ends

28:31

You know, it's a spur of the train ends up going nowhere Finally and ends up stopped or the train yields

28:38

Regenerate offspring and that's what we're saying. It's all about Would you say that it's characteristic of how the kingdom grows?

28:48

Over time that there's the wheat that is is Christ and belongs to him there's the tears that the angels won't pull out because it'll rip up the wheat does so that's characteristic of how the kingdom grows the nature of the kingdom and not representative of a

29:03

Percentage a 50 -50 split as some amillennials will say that the world increasingly becomes more

29:08

Christian and more secular at the same time Because you know, there's wheat and tears right the wheat the wheat and tear issue parallels what's going on with the leaven parallel parables

29:16

How about that thing? There's there's a tongue twister for you there Kendall. So what's going on there?

29:21

I was field is filled earlier. So I get it. Yeah, I understand the problem. Yes, I get it So here we have three whole measures of meal that is completely unleavened unleavened, right?

29:30

So it's kind of like all tear but you put the hide some Leaven in it and it would last at the end of the process

29:37

It's all leavened and so the same thing any given time as Warfield points out in Between the beginning and the end you always have a partial result by definition

29:45

It's in progress going from the initial state to the final state and so the but the

29:51

Mechanism by which has happening is either the leavening power or it's the growth of the mustard seed into the largest tree and under heaven or is the tears bringing forth more and more wheat generation after generation, but the process is the leavening of the lump and The complete the field is going to be all over time become all we so you have to kind of look if you were to look

30:13

At the time you would have like a dead diagonal shape. You'd say at the bottom of the diagonal of this Trap, you take a rectangle here.

30:20

You divide it and you'd be all tears at the beginning, right? You know, we only start with C12 disciples

30:27

Just throwing that out there and then 503 ,000 and they have children and they might have some bad offspring too but the again that the rule is don't pull up tears because You're gonna pull up wheat and this process continues and continues and the leaven continues to flow

30:44

And that's what we get by the way our wheat from if you the wheat has to come from wheat. We got a problem

30:50

Now in fact you already already falsified by scripture. Where did Abraham come from his for dad was a crummy pagan so you couldn't have gotten a wheat out of a

30:59

Tear at that point except the scripture says it was the case and so all of us who have Unelected parents are in the position of being the first generation of wheat and we have an obligation to see that the subsequent

31:10

Generations that we father and bring into the world are trained up in the way that they should go, etc

31:16

Etc and harbor the hope that that arises, but really we have to see that the parable of wheat and tears is not static

31:23

It's a vision through time and when you take time into the and include time in the picture the world not only extensively

31:30

But protensively in time That's the whole world is going to exist In God's eye who sees the whole thing from the beginning the beginning and from the beginning and the beginning from the end for that matter

31:40

Then we get somewhere then we can understand what the parable is all about and then it makes sense and so at the time that the

31:48

There is a separation. There are no tears left Therefore there's no necessity to pull them up because now it's

31:54

All an all wheat world and then we are await for the destruction of the last enemy death at that point And then the angels become very very active in separating those on either side of the great white throne

32:05

Then they have a task to play because history is completed its process and the entire field is widened to harvest

32:13

And that's the thing we need to be harvesting it Amen I like how you combined that parable which could be a little less clear

32:22

I like how you combine that with the parable of 11 because that one is just It's it's abundantly clear what

32:28

Christ is talking about and both are saying the same things I think the parable 11 might be a little easier to understand and and less

32:37

Construed by many others. So I thought it was brilliant the way that you paired that together. All right I'm just gonna cheerlead you brother. That's what

32:42

I'm gonna do here The dating of Revelation, that's the next question There's many who will say and I've heard it all my

32:51

Adult life until I read Ken Gentry's book on the dating of Revelation, which

32:56

I thought was quite good But I've heard many say, you know Revelation is written in the 90s

33:02

And if it was written in the 90s Then then the book itself is not talking about things that are soon to take place

33:08

Which is what the first chapter says I'm gonna come quickly chapter 22 these things must happen soon all that that that this this

33:19

That clearly that must be metaphorical that that that gives us license to view Everything that happens within Revelation as a future oriented prophecy.

33:28

That's soon is relative to mean Maybe soon he's gonna come within a generation

33:33

He's gonna come quickly in the generation that he's gonna come in or whatever But the dating of Revelation seems to me to be an important issue when it comes to what eschatological position you hold so maybe help us understand why that's the case and What view you hold on the dating of the book?

33:49

Sure. Well, I happen in today and have been since a long time I guess to believe it was probably written in 95 or 96

33:56

AD. I do not share. Dr. Gentry's position, but I'm a very Sort of sympathetic critic of his position in fact

34:05

Chalcedon went ahead and co -published his commentary in Revelation, which is being released just now

34:11

I think yeah, I'm gonna press and I wrote the forward 10 years of waiting. Well, it's worth the wait

34:16

You know, yeah, we need to have it and I remember I said we always have to the best scholarship presenting in each of the positions And so we have the advantage of dr.

34:23

Kent Gentry's work finally coming Into play and so I write it in my forward not holding to his position and and Not quite convinced by the case.

34:34

He presents so it's better than it has been in the past So it's there for everyone to consider And it deserves serious consideration as a very perhaps a likely interpretation of these events

34:46

It doesn't mean he's resolved every problem that arises in terms of handling the book of Revelation But it's a step in the right direction.

34:53

In fact quite a few major steps in the right direction Advances the ball down the field. I like to say Theologically now that doesn't mean that the opposing positions don't have something to say for themselves.

35:03

They've not been just sitting on their hands, right? so I am there's several ways to take book of Revelation either to say the proper home for its prophecies is

35:13

The past first century primarily, which is dr. Gentry's position and that of dr. View right.

35:19

It's called a partial preterist view Or just preterist if you want to be picky about it but if you say if you say partial preterist

35:28

And you say it's essentially the vast majority of the book was fulfilled in the first century and speaks about Israel's divorce from God or God's divorce of Israel and therefore we take all the images imagery of it and See in it for example

35:43

Nero is the beast and things on this order and various events related to the temple standing in Revelation 11

35:50

So there are all sorts of reasons why and his job of course is to make the best case for these and not let any loose ends

35:57

Not get dealt with in his commentary. That's why it's a two -volume monster but then again, so was the one by His name let it go for a moment

36:09

Stewart Moses Stewart This was a two -volume monster preterist commentary from the 18th.

36:15

Also also had the same position Is that J Stewart Russell? No, no. No, it's

36:20

Moses Stewart ST. Okay. Yeah, and he held to a

36:26

Preterist approach to Revelation that all of the passages dealt with the first century and therefore was written probably before 70

36:35

AD Necessarily and we have all sorts of Explanations why that works, etc, etc

36:41

So it's not that he's alone in producing preterist books and there and Chilton's work was along the same lines

36:48

Also a preterist book the days of engines Well known predecessor and Bonson's book is going to be recovered from the galley proofs that were found

36:57

And put out there in addition to the audio lectures at Bonson did so he has three major Contemporary thinkers who are serious exegetes and presenting work in this area one was still alive.

37:07

Dr. Gentry And so they should be examined further and they don't all agree on every detail But they do agree on this that the book was written

37:15

And deals with the divorce of Israel So that means that's one place where the prophecies

37:21

Proper home is another one is the futurist which says the proper home of all of our relations prophecies is the future has none of It's happened yet And so that's occupied by the historic premill and the dispensational thinkers they say the proper home is the future

37:36

There's two schools of thought that say it actually applies to the space between the advent. So it's 21 centuries and running there's the historicist view which believes that that's true, but we can take the prophecies in the book the visions of the book in fairly sequential order that's what the historicist is and a modern historicist would be to say the late dr.

38:01

Lee Francis Lee and His book his commentary a revelation unveiled is available for free online

38:09

It's a big monster PDF as you can walk through that and say okay. Here's someone who accounts for the whole book is applying between the first century and today and beyond and sees the prophecies the visions in sequential and the other the

38:23

The other version which says it's between the advent So it's called the idealist position which says the visions are not sequential.

38:29

They actually repeat So there's like six or seven visions or passages that basically start again at the beginning and then work their way back through So they're different aspects of looking at the same span of time the interadvent period of time

38:40

But they're not sequential in the sense that you can go from beginning to end and get all of history It's basically saying we're seeing different aspects of the war between Christ and the devil between light and darkness

38:51

And from and therefore we have different visions and from the post -millennial point of view There was each of those visions ends in a victory one such victory is in point would be in Revelation 11 15

39:04

Where the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of the Lord and his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever that would be one of the ends of the passages

39:10

That is taken dead serious by an idealist. He says at this point in time, which is that we in the future still for us

39:17

But the end of that particular vision after all the other things that happened We will have all the nations being

39:22

Christ's nations and serving him faithfully and completely and totally That's what the passage actually says on the face of it

39:28

We just spent a lot of time saying well How did that happen in the first century for the preterist and how did that happen for how does it happen for the?

39:35

Premal people who say and of course the beast has to come after that point. Well, that's not that's pretty grim Christ says all the nations are all his and now they follow the beast instead

39:43

That's a quick turnaround, you know easy come easy go Jesus so and we have a lot of that now in the premillennial of the position

39:51

I'm being a little bit a little bit flippant here But because I have an issue with some of the problems that are not faced with forthrightly by the premillennialist

39:59

But in the idealist position we would say that it happens toward the end of time When all the nations become

40:05

Christ's and that and the Great Commission is actually we've actually discipled all the nations And that's what's depicted there in 11 five.

40:12

And so the question is well, what are you good? So you would say just real quick that Revelation is a series of the same the same

40:20

Future event or the same event over history repeated several times in a row So it starts the same way and ends the same way starts in sort of Chaos and ends in victory six or seven times in a row.

40:33

You're saying that the book of Revelation is presenting this cyclical theme Yeah, for example, one of the passages ends at 8 1 now what a horrible place to end a chapter, right?

40:42

It looks like its first verse of chapter 8 starting a new section It's not it's ending the previous section and it ends with a half power of silence

40:50

I want you to know how significant that is Actually did this when I was teaching to a bunch of pastors in Mexico that were gathered there for Hear about these interesting ideas, but actually had them walk through this

41:04

Visually and in person I said now we're gonna have everyone bow their heads and not say anything for just a few minutes

41:11

Three minutes and just three minutes of silence was really stunning to everybody to have it quiet I said now imagine that was 30 minutes long in the middle of your one day on Patmos when you're supposed to get a vision

41:22

For entire 30 minutes nothing happened on the Patmos day the day he received a vision It was just pure silence in heaven

41:28

Heaven is normally very noisy because all God's wrath is being Thundered and lightning down on the earth and fire and brimstone of what -have -you but half an hour of peace

41:38

Why because there was no cause for war and remember the song I say 5721 says there is no peace

41:44

Say it the Lord to the wicked. Yeah, they're like the mire of the sea that's caught up. So the fact that there's peace in heaven

41:51

Where there and which mean can only mean is peace on earth And there's no wrath from God being exercised and is symbolized by half -hour during that day when nothing happened during the vision reception

42:00

By John, that's the end of the vision and Tonstad and some other scholars have seen he said this is astonishing Fact that people miss because they just read right over it and say well, it's just preparatory to the next vision

42:09

This is a prayer preparation, right? Let's get ready for a prepared for so spiritually for the next passage. No. No, this is the conclusion this is the glorious conclusion that there's no noise in heaven because Christ's wrath has already been all the wrath has been poured out and there's no wrath to be put up because there's no more

42:25

Tears out there to pour the wrath out on there's no more purging of chaff out of the world because it no longer Encumbers the ground etc.

42:31

It's we have the same thing in chapter 17 where the Ten nations attend horns.

42:36

We want to call them. They turn and hate the whore and destroy her. In other words, they actually Enforced the first table of the law against false religion.

42:45

That's how it's seen by idealists So there's there's each of these passages in Revelation in in a victory

42:51

There's a harvest in chapter 14 right after the winepress of wrath comes the harvest of the righteous another passage

42:58

Which is like that so no matter where we look we have a victory the victory by the way is not in Revelation 20

43:05

That's a big mistake You know The only only thing place where there's a victory in Revelation is at seven to nine which talks about fire from heaven

43:11

Coming down and destroying the wicked and that's not a end time event that stretches throughout the entire period of time from between the advents

43:20

People look for what they said this way by Milligan he says what people look for in a thousand years is actually to be found in the little season and so the idealist is the only one who takes the book of Revelation and says

43:32

Let's take a look where the word micro chronon is used in the little season here We have it in Revelation 20, but it was also used over here in Revelation 6 verse 19 and 11

43:41

Right where we have the souls of them that being beheaded and under the altar and say they cried how long O Lord before?

43:46

You avenge us and they were given white robes and they told that it were to wait for a little season during which time their brethren

43:52

Would run their race basically It's a very interesting word they were to be fulfilled or complete their race and not complete their number

43:58

But rather to complete their lives and it's during the little season that people run their lives

44:03

The human lifespan is a very brief vapor of breath, right? And it's over that's called a little season and that's why

44:10

Paul says I do not compare the current troubles ready to be compared Or consider the present troubles to be really compared to the exceeding weight of glory to come

44:18

He says this twice in different language. So here on earth. It's a brief season of trouble

44:23

But in heaven, it's glorious and a lengthy piece of time of peace and joy and fellowship

44:30

When we're with the Lord proper prior to the second coming so we have this passage where?

44:35

Paul is distinguishing between our short lives and that period of time and that's really the difference between the little season and The little season therefore means the same thing in Revelation 6 as it means in Revelation 20 and 12 12

44:49

What's distinctive about 12 12 is is the devil has come down unto you having great wrath Because he knows he only has a short time basically a little season a little different wording

44:58

But the exact same idea that means that he is limited to the earth He can only deal with what's on land here in the oceans, right?

45:06

He's dealing with the world because he's been kicked out of heaven wasn't true before in job one He's marching around the earth and in zechariah 3.

45:13

He's accusing joshua the high priest of being having wearing dirty clothes And so he used to be in heaven

45:20

But not anymore. He is booted out and he's very ticked off about it and that because he now he's limited to the little season

45:26

He's limited to life on earth And it's life on earth, which is the earthly theater of events that's being discussed here

45:32

And so the saints in heaven under the altar, they're not going to be avenged until such time

45:38

As a little season has run its course and each of us are running our own little season Each of us has our own part to play in that and it's not until we've all run the city of the season

45:47

So the little season occurs between the first and second advents 21 centuries long and a thousand years

45:53

Which is only for souls by the way disembodied souls I saw the souls of them beheaded and they were in heaven seated on thrones that they occur over us.

46:00

So those are simultaneous Realities and that before and after Actually warfield points out the kind of in in and out interior and outside either inside the safe Penned in paradise if you will or you're outside The scope so outside with time symbols is represented by before and after And that's how that parses out and so you can look up some very very interesting analysis of this

46:23

By milligan warfield and some other scholars just to declay both the germans who first said hey

46:28

We need to take seriously what's being described here The millennium is not about people who are alive and breathing air. Yeah, the thousand years is only for those who died already

46:36

Uh, and so it's dealing with souls of them that had been intense about not not them But souls of them so we have to take all the words as their stand reading

46:44

So the millennium would properly be properly be referred to not as an earthly time of peace

46:49

It has to do with the heavenly. Sorry a heavenly peace Entirely and the earthly time is a time during which fire is falling from heaven continually and as I said last recession what revelation 27 and 9 is talking about is what is spoken about in didactic terms by paul in romans 1 18 17 18 right for the wrath of god is being revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men

47:14

So that fire is always pouring out and says it's a symbol of god's providential judgment And that continues until the earth is completely purged

47:22

So that would be another view of revelation, which is the idealist view held by I for example rush to any

47:29

Warfield Myself for that matter. But as again since the last word has not been said on any of these models calcine went ahead and co -published the work by gentry because we think it advances the ball down the field it improves scholarship and It's the appropriate thing to do.

47:46

We we don't squelch the other side We try to help amplify its best arguments so that everyone has their best arguments on the table

47:53

So that we can work back and forth have that hand -to -hand hand -to -hand as judicial combat

47:58

As bonson called it can't have it if you're suppressing positions and viewpoints or laughing or mocking them

48:04

Say, ah, that's not possible. That's an idiotic idea. Well, a lot of things might sound idiotic

48:10

They're actually quite biblical and the real idiot is the person criticizing it at that point, right? You know

48:15

That's good. It's very simple, right? I say 820 to the law in the testimony They do not speak according to these because there's no light in them

48:21

So we must speak according to what scripture is and we're trying to do their best to take into account What's going on?

48:27

So under that model? revelation's proper Home for its prophecies and visions would be the present and ongoing until such time as all those

48:37

Various visions have run their course to their completion which would then end with the discipling of all the nations

48:43

And peace on earth because the increase of peace and his government there shall be no end Upon the throne of david to establish it

48:51

From henceforth even forever the zeal of the lord host will perform this So there's your progressive element.

48:56

Unfortunately, it's laid out there that peace increases And the prince of peace brings it about well, let me say one more thing before you get to your next question

49:04

Matthew 10 34 jesus says did I come don't think or begin to think that I came to send the peace on the earth

49:11

It's interesting that the prince of peace says it but the word he uses not bring it's really Fling I don't come to fling suddenly cast

49:19

Same word used for casting pearls before swine. I didn't come to fling peace on the earth But rather a sword setting families apart and etc.

49:26

Etc As we know the passage talks about conflicts that are set in motion by christ's arrival But the ultimate goal is peace, but it's not through people simply

49:35

Um having peace on their terms but on christ's terms and that's what creates the adversity and hostility because we don't want peace on any terms, but our own and therefore man having a mind of his own is going to X himself out of the peace that christ gives which is beyond understanding

49:51

But it will become global. It'll be a global peace prior to his return. So maybe just a summary on that The dating of revelation does not dictate

50:01

Whether or not you can hold a post -millennial view, but it does dictate the the uh timing the hermeneutical principle by which you go by So if you're in a pre -ad70 revelation, you're probably going to fall into the preterist camp if you're uh,

50:15

If you're a 90 ad person, you're probably going to fall in the idealist camp and both of those can be consistently post mill

50:21

Yes, um, so this is not a real objection against post -millennialism It should be noted that the preterist position

50:27

Is adopted by some amillennialists jay adams wrote a book the time is at hand very short, but very easy to read book that basically takes that very

50:38

Sentence like phrase the time is at hand And expands on that and saying well, this is what that could well mean that this is about the first century

50:46

And so he's not post mill does not adopt the view that there's a victory for the holy spirit at all at the end of history

50:52

And yet he holds to a preterist dating of revelation So the preterist view can live with post mill or amill

51:00

People think well you adopt it because you want to get rid of Uh negative passages. Well, no, that's not true because jay adams has no truck with the post -millennialists other than some friendly conversation back and forth

51:12

But not he did not hold to it. So You cannot use that as a discriminant between the two positions.

51:18

So the hermeneutics will follow essentially the model Not the other way around right

51:25

And just for anyone listening Amillennialism post -millennialism pre -millennialism dispensationalism those four terms have to do with The nature of when the millennium comes in when this reign of peace by christ comes in uh, the other terms we're using preterism historism

51:41

Idealism and futurism those happen to do have to do with the nature of when the prophecies are fulfilled

51:47

Are they fulfilled in the past are they fulfilled in the future? are they fulfilled in an ongoing way throughout church history as evidence of us of struggle with light and darkness as As martin just pointed out and also historism, you know as they're laid out sequentially throughout history

52:02

So both of those if you're going to study revelation you need to really understand both of those categories You need to understand the millennial category and also the timing of the fulfillment of the prophecy.

52:12

So Seven terms for you to to put in a bag shake up and see what see what comes out

52:18

Yeah, by the way, it is worthwhile. Like I said, there's a pdf online for uh francis nigel lee's commentary on revelation called revelation unveiled

52:27

And worth worth reading just to see that the historicists are still around by the way The puritans were historicists and post -millennial by and large there were some amill

52:36

Puritans but most were post -mill and those who wrote on revelation tended to be post -millennial and thinking in terms of the victory of christ uh in time and history prior to the end of history

52:49

What's your next question then? next question is um, doesn't the bible promise that the world will go from bad to worse and then also does

52:58

Uh, doesn't paul promise timothy that perilous times are coming second timothy three one

53:03

Well, we're dealing with specific warnings here to timothy personally you're going to encounter these things

53:10

So this is something in timothy's immediate future This is coming up to the run -up to the destruction of jerusalem, right?

53:17

which is going to be a big bellwether between true and false christians and Shallow faith and deep faith, etc, etc

53:25

After all false brothers were a problem for paul himself let alone Timothy facing it

53:31

So these warnings are indicative indicative of what was going on prior to the destruction of jerusalem

53:36

If we took this at face value, we would never have thought that there would be any kind of thing like a reformation 16 centuries later

53:43

That's true, etc. So they don't actually apply across the board they deal with first century realities by the way, even if you uh

53:52

Were to take them at as at face value that passage doesn't end with these predictions It also makes the points he compares them to the magicians that moses had to contend with janice and jambres

54:04

And he makes the point says and like them They did not prevail. That'll be true for any of those who impede the boss gospel, too.

54:12

They won't prevail either so whatever Adversaries are arrayed against the gospel.

54:18

They will not prevail. They'll do no better than janice and jambres the magicians that moses dealt with so convincingly

54:24

You know, they could reproduce some of the miracles but not all of them right there's there's staffs got eaten by moses's staff as a snake and uh

54:34

So they had to realize what it's the finger of god And so that's going to be the same thing here. The finger of god is actually going to be the dictating

54:41

Determining factor and I think that has he has spoken what he has put in motion here

54:47

Is that there are times of refreshing going to be coming this right out of acts 3 19 to 21

54:52

And he says the heavens must contain him until the time of the restitution of all things when all things have been restituted and set, right

54:59

Then this heaven no longer contains him then he can come down from the right hand of all power and authority because he's committed

55:05

All his work everything has been Laid all the rebellion has been squashed extinguished by the way

55:12

Calvin even says that the whole point of praying in psalm in Matthew 6 10 talks about a period of time when god's will is done on earth as in heaven means that all rebellion and Depravity has been extinguished and all are doing god's will

55:28

Spontaneously and voluntarily out of the heart because the hearts have been transformed by god's spirit So we're talking about a supernatural thing shouldn't surprise us.

55:36

We have a supernatural god who came out of a grave That's just the beginning of things even greater things are supposed to be happening like the conversion of the world is a great big thing

55:44

You know, it's it's big enough that people seem to have trouble and stumble over it and say no It's not possible.

55:49

But we got to all things are impossible are possible and that includes this this point But yeah things were going to get worse and they did get worse

55:57

And then they got better Uh, you know, the church should not have been able to survive attack by the romans, you know

56:04

But guess what, you know, even julian the apostate he had to cry out at the end of his life He says oh galilean thou has conquered

56:12

Even though christ has been long gone. So from his point of view christianity has Held its way and influenced the kingdom

56:19

And all his attempts to squash it failed, right? Same thing happened with point. I always laugh at the uh, who was it voltaire?

56:27

If I got the name, right? Uh, he predicted that the bible would stop being printed and after his death

56:33

His house was turned into a printing facility to print bibles So god is loves has a huge sense of humor about these things what we would not think would ever happen happens

56:44

That's such a good point because if we assume that things go from bad to worse as a general rule for all history and not just as a

56:52

Uh paul giving a heads up to timothy about his history if we think that then well the the beheadings and the coliseum and the feeding the christians the lions and the in the

57:04

Persecutions because of uh refusal for nero or for emperor worship. That was bad.

57:10

I mean that was that was Incredibly horrific so Imagine 1900 years later how much worse it must be today

57:21

Than then and yet that's not the case of history. Oh, yeah, we can't even bring some of the horrible tortures into the conversation because people would

57:29

Throw up You know be nauseous hearing about it, but I think we should take a quick Glance back at revelation which talks about this problem

57:39

The beast revelation now you could follow dr. Gentry and he makes a case for which roman empire emperors represented the beast

57:46

Uh, and and that's one way to interpret it as a line of roman empires But the idealist view is very different.

57:54

It basically says that the beast is start the six heads That we know about the first six heads represent all the enemies of god's kingdom starting with egypt

58:05

Egypt and assyria are the first two heads followed by Babylon medo -persia Macedonia, which is alexander great and then rome rome is the sixth head which now is

58:15

And the seventh head has 10 horns on it means it's a it's a multiplicity of powers So after rome falls there is no one world government anymore

58:23

It's just a multiplicity of powers a whole bunch of them represented by the 10 horns And so we're living in that period of time of the 10 horns under this interpretation

58:32

And that period of time ends up with the horns eventually converting to christ But in the meantime, they're not and they are an enmity with god

58:40

Uh, and by and large in fact, they want to be god themselves. So This kind of is implied in the whole meaning of the the number of the beast in revelation 13 18 relates to the

58:53

Claim that the modern states are in fact god on earth walking as hegel put it So we're living in that period of time and those uh horns are subject to the great transformations that And transmutations, you know the mutation of all things the the transformation of all things that's being predicted uh in scripture and that is what

59:15

John, owen the great puritan drew tremendous attention to he says look There's a tremendous changing a shaking of all things.

59:22

So the only unshakable things remain And of that the the remaining nations of this world

59:28

Uh are going to be transformed over time By god's work and they will all be converted in the meantime.

59:33

We're dealing with The beast. Yeah, and pretty much its full glory and uh

59:39

So -called vicious glory of the beast In the form of the the 10 horns on the seventh head under this interpretation so far from being a future

59:47

Problem as in the dismissational view The beast is a present reality, but only its last head and its last head is going to be

59:56

Transformed over time to the gospel. It'll be converted to christ ultimately and destroy false religion

01:00:01

Which is one of the most fascinating passages that also john owen draws attention to good All right, so that leads us to antichrist

01:00:09

Antichrist and tribulations. What does post -millennialism do with the antichrist? What about the great apostasy the abomination of desolation the great tribulation seems like the world is leading towards a vital cataclysmic, uh

01:00:23

Worsening through through these particular, uh, you can throw a man of lawlessness in there as well Well, let's start with antichrist and work our way over to the other aspects

01:00:34

That term only occurs four times in all of scripture and only in the epistles of john, right?

01:00:40

And so he makes some interesting things. He says you've heard it said Antichrist is coming. So there's this statement floating around asia minor

01:00:48

Uh to the effect that antichrist a single antichrist because it's in the singular in the thing

01:00:54

He's coming. He's not here yet by the way The phrase is determined and put by john. He says you've heard this claim that antichrist is coming

01:01:02

But then he interestingly he openly corrects this he says even as you have heard antichrist coming

01:01:07

Or just as you've heard antichrist coming even so many antichrists have come already That word already in the greek is a giganoson

01:01:16

It's added at the very end for emphasis saying he's already here and he says many antichrists

01:01:21

So he when you use the construct just as even so it means whatever you heard the correct

01:01:27

Corresponding reality is this not one antichrist is coming but many antichrists have come already

01:01:33

And then he defines antichrist as the denial of the incarnation such as one is a liar and an antichrist

01:01:39

So yeah, and so we never it's a very very different thing There were antichrist aplenty floating around in that period of time deniers of the incarnation a lot of gnostics did that Uh other cults bart erman as a as antichrist

01:01:54

If you deny, yeah the incarnation you would be antichrist by that definition I went of a multitude and here's where you don't follow a multitude to go do evil or believe in an evil thing like that But yeah, the denial of the incarnation is the whole thing that sums up the matter of antichrist

01:02:10

So that's the reality is that we have many antichrists, but we don't always have antichrist. They will all be undeniably

01:02:18

Pulled out of history purged out of the world God's processes that god has set in motion because that's all chaff

01:02:25

The truth will actually win remember we talked about the passage that god shall lead justice to victory justice to truth

01:02:30

Yeah, it means that truth and victory are Correlates in when jesus deals with the prophecy about himself that comes from isaiah 42

01:02:40

That's what we have. So the antichrist is really Simply people who deny the christ is god in the flesh

01:02:47

And nothing more or less than that and there's no such thing as a single antichrist though People try to equate him with the man of sin of second thessalonians

01:02:56

All right, or the beast of revelation So let's talk about that this the let's talk about the pauline passage basically we have

01:03:03

The mystery of iniquity right that's being described there. And this is the man of sin And what we know is that the restrainer

01:03:11

Is currently at work. In other words when paul is writing the restrainer there was preventing The antichrist from being or that the the man of sin from being revealed

01:03:21

He was alive in that time period alive in that time period because you cannot have the restrainer alive 21 centuries ahead of the arrival

01:03:28

Of the person you don't need it. You don't need the restrainer because the man hasn't been born no, it's a contemporary of paul's that he has in mind one of the roman empire emperors and maybe even a string of them as a representation of statist evil, so that would be the proper interpretation

01:03:44

Based on the context and based on the fact that the restrainer is actively restraining actively restraining him now that restrain this uh now restraining him the the

01:03:54

Madison, so the question is Who is the restrainer then? Dispensationalism is famous for saying.

01:04:01

Oh, it's the holy spirit When the holy spirit is taken out of the world with all the christians and the antichrist the man of sin can be revealed

01:04:09

But that's not the correct interpretation at all The holy spirit isn't restraining any such thing, but is the correct interpretation is probably warfields once again

01:04:17

Where he says the restrainer on this hypothesis would be The jewish state of the middle of the first century

01:04:24

Because you have to remember christianity was confused with judaism from the outset They thought it was a jewish sect all these christians were jews essentially

01:04:32

And so long as the jewish state as long as israel stood as long as jerusalem was up and running functioning

01:04:38

That was a good hiding place a sheath if you will that protected the early church from persecution from rome

01:04:45

It received the protections that jews Received with the contract they had made but were going to violate with caesar.

01:04:52

So that was the the restrainer of the of The man of sin the roman emperor and when the jewish nation was taken out of the way

01:05:01

Then the persecutions against the christians went into high gear Because now they were persecuted literally as christians on a large scale massive scale

01:05:11

Much worse than they were even in nero's time Which was was still persecuting but now in a subsequent to that we have what you talked about the colosseum the circus maximus where The blood in the sand is like nine feet deep from christians who were killed there

01:05:29

These these were and there was entertainment to kill christians Uh that was yet to come and so we have subsequent persecutions of christians after that point and that became a reality once israel was

01:05:42

You know judaism was just taken away. So when that was taken out of the way And the agreement the peace treaty if you will was nullified

01:05:52

And oh these christians they claim that jesus is king and not caesar. We got a problem with them

01:05:57

What they won't put a little incense on the censor and say jesus caesar is lord. They must be traitors deserving of death no

01:06:06

They have been would they have been misrecognized by the romans as being a type of jewish, um sect

01:06:13

Or and why they were persecuted so severely because they were more staunchly committed to their position say the sadducees were

01:06:21

Well, they weren't willing to say We have no king but caesar so we know that the kyphus and the leaders were very pragmatic people to the foot to a fault

01:06:29

Willing to compromise on everything that god told them not to compromise on and the christians realize We won't compromise but it'll cost us our lives in all likelihood.

01:06:38

So yeah, that's why um There were those who were willing to lay their head Voluntarily down on the chopping block saying i'm not going to defy defy after he's done nothing wrong for me for my years so That would be

01:06:52

The issue with the man of sin. It's really a roman emperor But the first century and the restrainer was the jewish state and once the jewish state was destroyed

01:07:00

Then christianity had its the attack was open and even caesar Rather paul was killed by the sword of the man of sight.

01:07:09

So it was a personal problem for even for paul Uh, he dealt with the man of sin and faced him.

01:07:14

So it was a first century reality uh, and all the reality of it has since Occurred and is an ancient history.

01:07:22

It's just an unwillingness to grapple With it as a historic text as opposed to something some

01:07:28

Horrible thing looming in our own future and it gives us a sense of doom and hopelessness and desperation no, it was something that paul faced personally and was

01:07:37

Faced the sword was beheaded by the man of sin or at least his orders if not directly

01:07:43

Because he appealed to caesar and that was the mistake Well, not as much mistake was a strategic reason and he used it for what he could during the time that god gave him

01:07:50

But yeah, he was going to be sacrificed just as everyone else except apparently john the beloved disciple

01:07:57

I think we have one issue left. Is that the beast? I think i've I think i've said plenty about the beast except the number of the beast

01:08:03

So let me just talk about the number of the beast in the preterist interpretation. That generally is someone like nero

01:08:10

On the on the view that your own kaiser. Neuron kaiser is spelled in hebrew letters would yield the number six could also be latinos or Imitation or some other interpretations that also put it in the first century so My problem with the six six six is that the quiescent yode that should be appearing kaiser is missing

01:08:33

When you add it back in the number total 676 not six And I think that's a problem that needs to be dealt with so you have a variant that's in play

01:08:41

But it's not a majority variant. It's not an easy to find variant The vast majority of manuscripts where we have the word in your own teaser total 676.

01:08:49

So there's no reason to think it's He's the beast Um based on that problem. No, there's ways to try to get around it, but i'm not

01:08:57

I have not found them convincing yet but I do do and we also notice that mark, you know, dr martin luther that was six six six and Ronald wilson wagon reagan that was six six six and noriega was six six six somehow by some computation

01:09:11

So we have all sorts of folks that were in hitler supposed to be a an embodiment of six So everyone's looking for somewhere outside of scripture for the answer

01:09:18

You see so I think the right approach is to look inside scripture because really the very first Phrase in revelation 13 18 is let him who has wisdom reckon

01:09:30

The number of the beast is the number of a man It's a uh, erythmos anthropos.

01:09:35

The word says erythmos from a number anthropo from anthropology a man number of a man

01:09:41

Um, and his number is six. So where in scripture do we have? Six six six as a number

01:09:47

Associated with a man. Well, it occurs only in ezra. This is the sons sons of adonikon six

01:09:53

Now this is where it gets interesting is okay And an icon is the number and it's the name that that has 666 associated with it in scriptures

01:10:00

The only man with that number associated with scripture the only other example is not having to do with the man's number of his sons, but rather a number of talented weights of Precious metal that solomon received from some pagans, for example

01:10:15

But if you look for an association with the man That would be the passage in ezra and that's interesting because prior to this point in revelation.

01:10:23

We actually have a census Census of israel, right? This is the sons of izakar 12 000 of the sons of um, right?

01:10:31

Etc. Etc. 12 000 and that exact same syntax occurs in ezra Now we could have found another

01:10:38

Census because that doesn't always follow the ones in numbers don't follow that syntax But the one in ezra does match the one in revelation

01:10:44

So that's not such a hard call at that point So then we say all right ed and icon.

01:10:50

What does that mean? It means the lord rises up this is where it gets I think almost conclusive in my view now, it might just be a horrendous coincidence and i'm way out to lunch, but Look at revelation 13 one.

01:11:02

I stood on the sands of the sea And I saw a beast rise up Out of the sea with the names of blasphemy on his forehead.

01:11:10

Now. What's the name of blasphemy? It's a claim to be god's claim. I'm the lord And what's and what's he does he rises up out of the sea and what does that icon mean the lord who rises up?

01:11:19

Now here you have the predicate being rising up and the name adonai of the lord

01:11:25

Combined together matched to the name that goes 666 in the only place in scripture where 666 occurs So really it's a tautology

01:11:31

There's no new information here under this name simply means that the beast is the lord that rises up He claims to be god and by the way, this became very interesting the last couple of weeks

01:11:41

I don't know if you notice or months I guess a couple of months now because we've heard people say openly on The air saying well if you believe that your rights don't come from congress

01:11:52

And from government but from god, you're a christian nationalist and it's considered a pejorative So here we have it.

01:11:58

They really do believe that the state is god takes the place of god They believe that the state is the god that rises up out of the sea of the nations

01:12:07

And so it's interesting Uh, if it's coincidence science coincidence, but if it's a match because I tell you modern states behave like god they intend to Have omniscience with their surveillance programs omnipotence with all the power that they want but the one thing they cannot do is infinitely

01:12:26

Destroy the money supply by the way. That's one of the big issues in revelation 13 is the destruction of the money supply

01:12:31

You know, you cannot buy or sell in the empire if you actually follow god's laws God's laws don't allow you to use what we call the u .s

01:12:38

Dollars, which are federal reserve notes, which are diverse weights and measures They are abominations according to scripture going to proverbs 11 1 and passage in deuteronomy that speaks to this

01:12:47

You're not allowed to have them on your person because it means you intend to use them And when using them you defraud people because you will be paying back debts and cheaper dollars

01:12:56

And messing people over it's a crime defrauding people And so american money is set up to put everyone in the pocket of the beast and actually follow his policies

01:13:06

And so when you actually call it out and say no this needs to be gold and silver and not paper money That's uh devaluing and therefore it qualifies an abomination

01:13:15

Guess what? You're probably going to be in trouble. Actually. They threw the guy who started the liberty dollar in jail You know, he tried to create a silver dollar.

01:13:22

Um, and I guess they thought it was too close to american money Even though it was much better than american money because it was silver

01:13:28

But that was a crime because it made the american paper dollar look really bad in comparison So that's that's where you get all this interesting information

01:13:37

That the crimes committed by the beast are economic crimes You cannot buy or sell

01:13:43

Without adopting the notion that beast has the authority to to determine the value of money

01:13:49

And as you do the money devalues and you get these interesting depictions Of famine and and cheap cheap things like uh,

01:13:57

What is it dung of a cat of a dove? Cab of a dove's dung costing a lot of money

01:14:03

Well, I don't want to pay for bird poop much more than anything I don't even want it But there it is because it's very expensive in revelation actually depicted as a problem of shortages created by the government

01:14:14

Yes, sir. It was a hyperinflation So again, uh, we actually see some contemporary realities, but that was true by the way in the first century, too jesus was

01:14:25

They'd actually only had true gold and silver In the purse that the disciples took around which judas was in charge of he was a thief

01:14:34

But he's the one who helped himself to it, but he was in charge of the purse And so when the question was posed should we pay taxes or into caesar or not?

01:14:42

Jesus didn't have any of the coins That rome circulated on his person.

01:14:47

He had to have them bring one up Because it was a crime. It was a biblical crime of sin for him to have one of those

01:14:53

So the disciples didn't use them Because they were one not only just because of the of the face of caesar on it but and the inscription but also because it was a diverse weight and measure it was a

01:15:05

Inflated currency and therefore was an abomination whether or not it was a smooth coin or not

01:15:11

It was not truly the weight of pure silver that it was supposed to be so There you have it.

01:15:18

Jesus basically says, you know give back to caesar what belongs to him But the very fact that they're using it proved that they were a nation under judgment, you know

01:15:26

They were oppressed because they deserved it for their failure to honor god himself

01:15:31

And so the honored man and end up in a bad way because the way the transgressors is hard as we're informed in scripture

01:15:37

So I think that handles the gist of what I would say about revelation 13 and the beast

01:15:43

The beast extends back to ancient egypt. He was already attacking and killing moses's

01:15:49

Generation moses escaped on the river because his mom put him on the the reed river and uh, He's active today in in on the seventh head, which has the ten horns on it

01:15:57

So that'll be my read on this passage So it's it's a long -standing enmity between god and the beast and it'll end with the beast being converted to to christ that's an interesting perspective on ezra because um,

01:16:10

Uh, I hadn't I hadn't even looked underneath the the hebrew text to see what that word was

01:16:15

Uh, so that's that's fascinating and how paralleled it is with revelation is pretty cool.

01:16:21

So that's very very interesting yeah, you'll see the um between chapter 7 and chapter 13 and 14, you'll see

01:16:30

Wedged in there So it kind of uh caps all that off It's like we're revisiting some details and filling things in in revelation 13 that were

01:16:39

Not as explicit prior to that point in the book of revelation So it means that the enmity between man and god goes way back, you know

01:16:47

God's kingdom set up with abraham But guess who's there egypt and the pharaohs willing to ultimately say well, we don't know who joseph is we're going to kill your kids

01:16:56

And guess what? We're killing kids today too in the womb. We've even done one better than egypt So that the beast is still active as can be but his days are numbered he does he's not going to have all the runway, he imagines himself to have

01:17:10

Modern man and humanism as a Is a grim picture for them we're that's why we're still you would always say we're living in the last days of humanism

01:17:19

It's death gasps. It just sounds like it's powerful, but it's not Everything it does actually weakens it and makes it worse for itself.

01:17:26

Well, brother. Let's continue. We're running the gauntlet here Post -millennialism takes clear prophecies and none are cited here

01:17:33

But uh post -millennialism takes clear prophecies in isaiah and the prophets and makes them fit into the church age instead of the millennial reign

01:17:40

How is this biblical? Well, the question is when we talk about a millennial reign the thousand years the chileas

01:17:46

This is called only occurs in one passage in scripture and that's in revelation 20 and the only people who occupy it

01:17:52

Are souls that are disembodied That's why that picture fits so well with revelation 6 where we have disembodied souls under the altar

01:17:59

We had them again over here in revelation. The only way you enter the the millennium is by dying.

01:18:06

That's why jesus says Earlier in the book of revelation in the message to the churches. He was faithful unto me unto death

01:18:13

I will give with them to sit with me in my throne there. It's a singular throne It's multiple thrown on multiple thrones in revelation 20

01:18:20

But the same reality is you enter their millennium through death and it's located in heaven It's the realm of peace where you're no longer attacked by satan down here

01:18:28

You're attacked by satan because remember satan was cast out of the earth and is very upset about it Having great wrath because he has only a little season to operate in only the earth.

01:18:36

He's been ejected from heaven so heaven's a safe place and it's only in heaven where the millennium occurs

01:18:44

So i'm not even convinced that i would use this word church age because I don't think it's much of the church But the kingdom that's at stake here.

01:18:50

I think that the scriptures teach more of a ecclesiocentric Approach not i'm sorry more of a basilio centric kingdom centered as opposed to a

01:18:59

Church centered or ecclesiocentric approach. I think basilio centrism is the way to couch this

01:19:05

That the kingdom of god is not so much that it's about a church age Of course an age in which the church is active in the task that was given to it

01:19:13

But the kingdom is much bigger than the church In our millennium the queen kingdom tends to be associated and identified almost exclusively with the church

01:19:22

As opposed to most postmales would say that the church is an aspect Of the kingdom but is not does not exhaust the kingdom.

01:19:29

The kingdom is all sorts of other things that are described in scripture It's in our vocations, etc.

01:19:35

That the kingdom is Represented from one end of the creation to the other that it's represented

01:19:40

And is active and growing so also by the way when we use church age

01:19:45

That implies that that's all that's going on. I believe this is Again a mistake again

01:19:51

It's because of the the tendency to identify church and kingdom And I think the second we do that we have a very crabbed outlook of the kingdom because we become church centered and therefore

01:19:59

Institutional and the kingdom is not institutional. It's actually much bigger than that. It's a it starts inside the human heart and transforms nations

01:20:07

I guess the law of god speaks to children and it speaks to kings And everything in between so it's much bigger than the institutional church

01:20:16

And it also embodies those who have yet to be born Uh, psalm 22 points out when the christ is the governor among the nations.

01:20:23

He said they proclaim this to people not yet born so There's some exciting things that happen

01:20:30

Because he speaks peace to the nations And that's a process that's ongoing now The peace that's coming is one that grows because the government is upon christ's shoulders

01:20:40

And so this government is not just ecclesiastical government though. I hope it includes that but also church government or rather civil governments

01:20:48

Civil government would be very very small by the way under post -millennium I think we might have mentioned this in our first discussion

01:20:55

But uh, it's we'd be about 11 000 times smaller the size of our civil government under biblical law today

01:21:01

Than we currently enjoy in america So we're spending 11 000 times more than the bible allows for the civil government to be funded

01:21:08

Because most government is self -christian self -government. It's about the rule of the holy spirit through the man through the word of god

01:21:14

Guiding our steps right because that's the lamp unto our feet not the government and so the government's not the lamp

01:21:20

The word of god is a lamp and that's what guide us and prevents us from stumbling But right now we're regulated into not being able to stumble

01:21:28

I stumble. Well, oh man Your diesel engine here in volkswagen needs to be thrown out and we need to Find you a couple billion dollars for that so man's way is a very tough way of trying to force peace and Utopia what we always get with man is dystopia because we're not doing things god's way.

01:21:46

So, uh, just follow up on that. Um, Isaiah 2 you and i've talked about this before that, uh, they will learn war no longer micah 4

01:21:54

They'll beat their swords into plowshares uh Isaiah 7 Is uh, or is that isaiah 9 his kingdom of peace will no no end

01:22:03

Uh, eventually there's going to be peace on earth Um brought in and ushered in by christ where there is no more war and not only there is no more war

01:22:11

They don't even learn the art of war ever again, right and yet Critics will say that um at the end of the millennium, which

01:22:19

I know you've described as as being Um only applicable to those who've died who've entered into that state

01:22:26

Which may be the answer to this but they'll say that you know, satan is released at the end of the thousand years

01:22:31

He goes out and deceives the nations once again, and then in that world view, uh, the nations are deceived and they gather together

01:22:38

Um for war so satan there is bound with respect to the saints in heaven He is loose with respect to us so There are those who'll say well satan is bound

01:22:50

Now, but we won't be able to convert the world. I find this a very pessimistic outlook I think warfield is right is satan is unbound in the world and he still will not be able to stop the world from being

01:23:00

Converted there'll be a total right Repudiation of his principles god's disarmed the principalities and powers, right?

01:23:07

So the notion that there's an after of the millennium is where the mistake is made What happens is that the church triumphant which is in the millennium and the church militant which is in the little season?

01:23:17

the two of them together pass through the fiery trial of revelation 2011 where the White throne exists.

01:23:24

That's when the final judgment occurs and all the nations are lined up there So to inherit the kingdom of the father

01:23:32

Because then the son delivers everything up to him at that point and the final judgment occurs and eternity in its fullness

01:23:38

Arises, but there is no before and after between the millennium and the little season The little season is now here and you're in it

01:23:46

You're living in the period of time during which fire is falling from heaven and destroying all the enemies of god who try to surround the camp of the saints

01:23:55

There's a continual destruction of evil and of the wicked going on right now

01:24:00

No, I don't know why you cannot see it because it's laid out clearly Didactically in scripture.

01:24:05

It's also laid out in symbolically here in revelation several times It's also taught by peter because he says, you know, the world is actually currently on fire and is currently melting those words in second peter 3 12 our present participles are not future.

01:24:22

He says the world right now is on fire and is currently melting Therefore what kind of person should you be? You know the the reality is

01:24:29

All the things that are in other words christ is purifying things the oven the the smelting of all the reality

01:24:35

Is occurring now the fire is falling down upon us And isaiah saw it in the 33rd chapter in the very first talk that you and I had

01:24:42

You spent some time in isaiah 33 saying he's saying he's walking right through all that fire He sees it.

01:24:47

Nobody else can see it just like elisha could see the fiery chariots around but it's The kahazi couldn't see it

01:24:54

So, uh, but they're there and the same thing the fire is there and isaiah saw it and it's our lack of faith

01:24:59

That we refuse to believe there's fire falling now when the scriptures say That we are in fact being baptized by fire.

01:25:05

He will send the holy spirit in a fire and baptize you with both So there's fire falling It's depicted several times in book of revelation and it's a current reality here and now and it has a purpose

01:25:17

It's going to purge the world Uh, it's a purging process it cleans the world

01:25:22

And cleanses it if you will so it prepares it for the destruction of death so We have what's called god's active hostility toward evil as leupold calls it when he describes the same effect

01:25:35

In zechariah 5 verse 3 It's a it's a global of thing going on and If you can't see the kind of god in it

01:25:44

Then you're going to probably be struck by it right because we're warned elsewhere in micah Here are the rod and him who sends it, you know, you don't want it wants to start to go it falls on you

01:25:52

You're going to be in trouble. So it's time now to pay attention to what's coming your way. I think i'd make a the sixth chapter so All that to say that we are living

01:26:03

During the little season and the upshot of the little season is that all the wicked are being destroyed during this process

01:26:08

That the fire is falling and that's the symbol that Corresponds to the season it's being described in different terms throughout the book of revelation the visions take different like a like a

01:26:19

Diamond and you look at it turn it and see it in different facets each of these visions Again, it's a different picture of the interadvent period and one of the things that's occurring during it is god's

01:26:29

Wrath is being revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth, right? So that's what's going on and it's a current reality

01:26:37

And if your god is not big enough to pull that off, you might be worshiping something different than what scripture is describing

01:26:43

Because none of the prophets denied this fact. In fact, they were serious about The fiery and ocean and malachi ends the old testament with this depiction

01:26:53

Of the fire of god, you know, these are fire but he says but he will and it's interesting this fire and he says

01:26:58

But he will rise like the son of righteousness with healing in his wings So you have this notion of a purging from fire, but also a continual healing of the world that is concurrent with that So the world is and it's a refiner's fire.

01:27:11

It's a refiner's fire right like filter soap or launder soap So it's designed to clean things out Even the passage in zechariah 5 3

01:27:19

I talk about it talks about that flying scroll That's 10 by 20 cubits goes into the houses of those people who violate either one or the other sides of the

01:27:28

The law of god the the tablets it says it will clean out and purge their houses and Wipe them out.

01:27:36

There will be no more And like david says in psalm 37, you know looked for the wicked guy and couldn't find him anymore

01:27:42

And he saw him diligently and he was no more gone. So they don't have a future The wicked don't have a future

01:27:49

The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous That's not going to do much good in eternity But has some value here and god keeps his promise that eventually all the stuff that the wicked lay up for themselves

01:27:59

Um will actually be diverted to the use of his kingdom and of the righteous so That's where I would go with that.

01:28:07

The the this is totally uh consistent with Isaiah 2 4 and other passages that speak about the coming peace

01:28:15

Um now we're probably still centuries away from the fulfillment of it, but that doesn't mean it cannot come

01:28:23

Sometimes notice like what god did to abraham is you know, sarah's going to have a wife at the time that came Down the pike.

01:28:29

There's probably still possible under normal gynecological circumstances But is there and sir seem to fade away from hope because we can actually get approached 890, right?

01:28:38

But not in god's eyes. So what we think says, oh, there's no hope for this That's on you. That's got nothing with god because god's not slack concerning his promises

01:28:46

So this is true both for his return, you know the coming second coming But also for the reason for the return why is he slack concerning his promise?

01:28:55

He's not but he's long -suffering to yours because he doesn't want anyone to perish or the second coming would occur today

01:29:01

Many people would perish as a result of the second coming They'd be wiped out by it right as we understand the second coming would be incoming and fire and flaming vengeance as it were

01:29:11

But the point is that is deferred in still such times it occurs when no one perishes by his second coming

01:29:16

When he comes he comes to a completely converted world and that's the reason for the delay That none may perish because he comes to a completely converted world to a saved world

01:29:25

Where he's savior of the world in the full sense of these terms that scripture uses of him And I think that's an exciting prospect that he's advocate for the entire world too as john first john puts it

01:29:38

Uh, we need to not soft pedal these things. We need to take them seriously So that leads yeah good that leads to a sort of a follow -up that's not uh on our list of questions, but Um, some critics will say that post -millennialism opens the door to universalism um that That post -millennialism could and and there are different strains of post -millennialism, of course

01:30:02

But when you say that, uh, the entire world is going to be converted so that when christ returns

01:30:08

His refiner's fire doesn't break out in judgment against anyone. Everyone is a christian or everyone is in christ

01:30:15

What would you say to that objection? Is that true? Is that well, you know, there's a Phrase that you and i've thrown around a little bit, uh called eschatological universalism

01:30:23

Uh, you know, would you uh speak into that? Yeah I have the two -volume book by mcclymond about universalism

01:30:32

You know what called the redemption of the devil I believe or the devil's redemption one of those two terms It's a massive study on what universalism actually is and we don't fit the picture

01:30:41

In the remotest because we're not saying that we can go back and redeem the devil

01:30:46

You know, he's the lake of fire is a perpetual swim for such as him or the son of perdition

01:30:51

No son of perdition and or any other individuals So it's a matter of the great commission simply being completed now to say.

01:30:58

Oh, we have to have some Unregenerate at the end of history or else as a problem That is an artifact of a really abstract approach to scripture

01:31:07

It means that we've got our theories way out ahead of the exegetical evidence So we need to stand with the scripture on this point and saying the objection

01:31:16

Is based on a philosophical point, but not an exegetical or scriptural point and so And so there's a there is a heretical universalism

01:31:25

Uh, and I would say that warfield would probably call it in each and every universalism Each and every person who ever lived

01:31:32

Is to be saved including the demons and you know that god's love is so complete and total That includes this but that's not the way the god that uh scripture

01:31:41

Sees the world There's a difference between those who are alive and those who are not those who have left the scene of the world

01:31:46

Are not in the world anymore. So we're talking about what's only happening with those who are alive in the final air

01:31:52

Yeah, the final generation alone, but everyone who has already passed Into eternity unsaved and unregenerate stays in that way

01:32:01

They will be probably a small small percentage of the total mankind ultimately But they're there and god's justice is forever revealed in that Burning lake where they stay forever.

01:32:13

There's not a temporary swim, you know, it's not a weekend swim for them It's eternal

01:32:19

It's not annihilationism. No, and that would be also another point. So maclean's book is still probably the gold standard

01:32:25

It's like I said massive. I think it's like 1500 pages or something Um, you cannot find the position that we're describing or any of its proponents anywhere in the book

01:32:34

You could find I think john owen on one footnote. That's uh, that's about it and not in a negative sense

01:32:40

You had owen in a positive light But yeah, there's natural doctrine and was set in motion by origin about universalism

01:32:47

And it included, you know the notion that We can go back and fix things, you know purgatory style

01:32:54

We can purify and get them back in good graces and redeem hitler and judas and all these other things

01:33:00

So for all his faults looks like dante had it, right? That all these traitors are in the bottom circle of hell

01:33:07

I don't think it's in the circles that the roman catholics put up and as warfield or rather warfield rustini points out

01:33:13

Dante had a very statist view very humanistic view of hell but the reality is there is one and it's an eternal one and People that he placed in it deserved it

01:33:23

Van till very clear. He says those who are in there deserve it. So there's not grace involved.

01:33:28

There's justice So there's two aspects got you the god's grace or god's justice is going to be implemented upon you And which is going to be is going to be determined by god's election and That's the beginning and end of it, right because he will have mercy and all your roomie will have mercy

01:33:43

I'm saying it's the last generations. He has a hundred percent mercy on And that gives something that the reason that's the case is that perfects

01:33:50

The kingdom as far as it can go prior to being turned over to the father So what we say is that it's beautiful.

01:33:57

Yeah, bonson put it really well. He says providence is well orchestrated to subserve the needs of consummation

01:34:03

So in other words instead of being a downward dive and then all of a sudden consummations boom big discontinuous wonderful thing

01:34:11

So I heard that we're moving closer and closer Uh to the taking away of sin of the world until there's only one enemy left

01:34:18

Which is death so that's kind of a continuous set of victories So christ the victories of christ just get bigger and bigger over time and the holy spirit pours out more and more flesh until there's no more flesh and no one can even

01:34:30

Do the great commission anymore because no one needs to be told know the lord because they all know the lord from the least of The greatest yeah, and they all have god's law in them

01:34:37

So they're walking according to god's law because in their heart and therefore obtain spontaneous obedience So there's a very clear.

01:34:44

That's what your mind says. Yeah, it's right there in the first first, uh The new covenant definition it has is noted by a eschatological expectation that you don't need to preach anymore

01:34:56

That evangelism will be unaffected because there's no object to no no unregistered people to talk to Uh and to address and to evangelize

01:35:05

And you don't and everyone knows what god's law is and they observe it because it's built and written into their hearts

01:35:11

Uh, and that's a very very powerful and that's much better than the old covenant, right which did not end Well, it ended with israel israel basically saying we have no king but caesar.

01:35:20

So that's how the old covenant ended up Not not through any fault of the covenant, but rather finding fault in them

01:35:26

He sought a new covenant as hebrews 7 says so the fault was not in the covenant But rather in them and therefore a new covenant was sought that did not have the weakness

01:35:34

So they could actually deal with man's problem, which he needed to be delivered from his sin Right and he said you said earlier you said

01:35:42

You said at the end that the people who are in hell will be probably the vast minority of people

01:35:49

Who've who've lived and that the people in heaven will be the majority Um, there's a couple things there.

01:35:56

Um Number one, uh that probably runs so afoul of the average christian uh that I know or i've talked to uh of their expectation the expectation is that hell is the

01:36:09

Is the place where the majority of people go and only few find the way to life um

01:36:14

And and it it honestly does make sense if you think about the fact that the final generation i'm assuming that this is just me thinking in my head so you can correct me if i'm wrong here, but Uh food production is going to get better life expectancy is going to get longer

01:36:29

You're going to have uh more people filling the world. They're going to be fruitful They're going to be multiplying and they're going to be loving christ in increasing ways for generation after generation after generation after generation after generation until You go from 89 christian to 90 percent to 91 and these are generations that that are

01:36:48

That are at alive at the time with with much more people on earth At that time than there would have been in the first century

01:36:55

So if you were to add up all of the generations of christians versus all the generation of pagans um, it's astronomically

01:37:03

Uh different like one is much grander than the other. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, you can and also don't forget those who die in infancy even even hodge believed that the

01:37:14

There would be far more people saved than unsaved but he used the Statistics about death and infancy to support that that wasn't necessary to do um, but it's interesting that you should also take that into account because there's a reason to believe that the

01:37:30

Those who die in infancy are elect based on an argument raised in romans 9 22 23

01:37:37

He says what if god? To show his long Extreme extreme long suffering.

01:37:43

Yeah, you endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction So what we have here is

01:37:49

A notion of the distinction between a vessel of wrath and a vessel of mercy of grace the vessels of mercy are we have

01:37:58

We know they're saved but the distinction about a vessel of wrath is god endures them with much long suffering

01:38:05

So the idea that a god endures with much long suffering an aborted Baby or a baby who dies

01:38:13

At age six months or something like that It does not follow god's idea of long suffering and much long suffering by the way

01:38:21

Is Involves them actually walking in contrary to him and him having to put up with their continual attacks and viciousness and evil

01:38:31

So by the definitions laid out in romans 9 those who die in infancy do not qualify As a vessel of wrath because a vessel of wrath has been qualified by paul as those that That god has endured with much long suffering

01:38:44

And they don't qualify So therefore by definition, they must be vessels of mercy now They're still sinners.

01:38:50

They're right. They still are affected by Sin, so it's nice if they're sinless and therefore that's not their ticket in their ticket in is that they're a vessel of mercy

01:38:57

And god's mercy is poured out upon them As it is on us Because they're in adam's image so they need to be reborn

01:39:06

But they they don't qualify as a vessel of wrath vessels of wrath actually Get a lot a lot of rope to hang themselves with that's what it means when god says god endures

01:39:15

Their vessels of wrath with much long suffering so By that token, we would say yeah, even today.

01:39:23

They probably are more Saved and then unsaved simply from those who've died in infancy

01:39:29

But I think the world is not yet put by warfield the sands of time have not yet run out

01:39:36

And in fact, we're standing on the on the shore of a long haul yet to go And being in the primitive church as opposed to the last days church right, it changes your your perspective and you realize that we are

01:39:48

Have a lot to do to move god's kingdom forward where it needs to go because this day for him if Look at the stars of the sky or look at the sand on the seashore if you could count them

01:39:58

That's me. That's how many ancestors you're going to have how many how many are going to be in your camp like The the idea of a narrow way

01:40:06

Permanently, uh is just not in step with scripture. I think you would agree with that well, it's not so much remember the

01:40:12

If those haven't seen this it's worth looking at an article by warfield called are they few that be saved?

01:40:19

And there he's dealing with the the doctrine of the fewness of the saved It's not a doctrine that's settled in stone.

01:40:26

It's simply asserted even as a name the pausitis salvandorum the fewness of the saved It's got a latin name. So it must be official but it's not

01:40:33

It's it's argued by abraham kuiper that they're they're very very few and he brings out his verses for you know, uh from luke 18 and The passage you just described

01:40:45

It's a strange view coming from kuiper Yeah, you know he might have wanted to talk about every square inch but he didn't hold out a lot of hope for getting the job done so Wow, it was uh an ideal if you will but not a realistic one in his view

01:40:59

But set that aside the the issue is that warfield said the message in matthew 7 is not go with the few but Enter in by the narrow gate.

01:41:09

That's the message. So he said so to twist the message around is wrong because you essentially

01:41:16

Absolutize the fewness and the fewness was simply because at the time there were a few At that exact point in time in ministry in christ's ministry.

01:41:23

Heck it even reduced at one time We talked about when all but 12 were left. He said what about you guys leave me, too so Things going from bad to worse for christ

01:41:34

Entourage, but now it's in the millions and hundreds of millions Now, yes, I understand that there's a such thing as a nominal christian, which means a non -christian

01:41:43

Christian in name only Yeah, so or a cultural christian now, we're hearing this on the lips of famous evolutionists lately so But that's not what we're talking about we're talking about those who are truly saved

01:41:55

And that number god know himself knows how many of those who are in the church are really

01:42:03

In him in the lamb, but that number is a real number and it's growing all the time

01:42:09

It might have ups and downs in terms of what people see but the reality is on the long view

01:42:14

This way you can't use a short Perspective short -term perspectives do not work here long -term perspective is the only way that post -malayism, you know seems to have any basis and that's realistic because Uh, we're in it for a god who's faithful to a thousand generations

01:42:30

So that's the case. Was that just a throwaway number? Oh, just kidding. There's no such thing. There's a thousand generations

01:42:36

Well, maybe there is Which would be 40 000 years Years Maybe that corresponds to uh, the current time of the fire falling for 40 000 years when you think about it

01:42:48

Yeah, you have this in um Second peter, right? Where he says before there was a flood

01:42:56

And that wiped out everybody And what's what now is happening is everything's on a fire and you can make an interesting comparison between the two

01:43:05

Um, he says with god one day is like a thousand years Well, how many how many days was the flood waters running?

01:43:12

Rained for 40 yeah, well maybe for every day of a flood there's a day of Thousand thousand years of fire falling which is 40 000 years of fire

01:43:22

Yeah, a couple thousand years into that maybe we're one 20th of the way through. Yeah, that's why

01:43:27

I say primitive church might make sense Uh, and that means that we really are in for the long haul god's promises

01:43:35

Are stupendous and they describe amazing things particularly in the 11th chapter of isaiah 65th chapter of isaiah

01:43:43

Elsewhere in zechariah to amazing things are going to be coming our way And all because the holy spirit is is going to do the job

01:43:53

Converting the world and convicting it world righteousness and i've seen I think that's the strongest argument so far Like and and you've you've presented a lot but the holy spirit will do what he said

01:44:02

He's going to do and if we doubt that we doubt him like that I think that's just such an easy way to put it.

01:44:08

So you've you've presented a case I'm, not going to talk about the tribulation because I think we've already covered that And there was a tribulation that occurred in the first century at the lipsis, uh in the greek that that where they went through lots of trials and and if if someone is

01:44:24

Curious, you can look at uh shepherd's church blog. I wrote 13 reasons. The great tribulation has already happened

01:44:30

I recommend that to you. But one thing we haven't covered is the Astronomical perturbations, which is uh what our dear friend r .c.

01:44:39

Sproul would call it. Uh the sun Um going dark the moon turning to blood the stars refusing to give their light um this uh

01:44:48

Jesus says you'll see me coming in the clouds of heaven and then these Astronomical perturbations happen people will say well that hasn't happened yet.

01:44:56

So what gives well, of course This language is a syntax

01:45:02

That appears in the old. Yeah, you're saying tires destroyed that language is used And babylon in isaiah 13.

01:45:09

Yeah, we have the notion of the sun darkened in the moon And the stars falling from heaven we have to understand that what this is symbolic of is

01:45:16

Those who rule over men and men it's also used as trees versus grass stars and astronomical bodies versus the world

01:45:26

So it's merely is talking about political concussions and huge perturbations In the political scene and we've had that right in complete catastrophes

01:45:36

Where nations are overturned, right? And so that's what's being depicted is the destruction of jerusalem.

01:45:43

And by the way, there were other destructions coming for other nations Because which over nation shall not serve the lord shall be utterly wasted as the scripture makes out and Promises there's a covenantal problem here that god is actively opposing those that oppose him so yeah, this imagery is simply reproduced and so israel's fall is depicted in the exact same terminology as that of tire and Language used in ezekiel

01:46:09

Right as well as for babylon Yeah, the delphi of egypt god comes riding on a cloud to destroy them

01:46:16

That's exactly what jesus said he's going to do. So he's comparing judah to egypt Yeah, exactly, right.

01:46:22

So we we should not be surprised and say this is de novo Brand new use of these terms to really talk about the literal star suns and stars

01:46:32

Rather it's about what they represent and jews at the time would understand what he's talking about and they would have

01:46:38

Said he didn't would have liked it because they considered themselves the rulers of israel, right? Because they did right

01:46:44

They didn't have much countenance for the procurator Pontius pilate so they regarded as kyphus and annaeus to be the the big jesus annaeus

01:46:54

And so to say that the stars and sun wouldn't be dark and all this is basically saying you guys are being taken out

01:47:00

You know, it's going to be regime change like you haven't seen as and basically and god's going to send it

01:47:05

Because you're killing the god's son. I mean this therefore the promise of revelation Sorry, matthew 21 comes into play

01:47:12

They probably look at those men and says what will the lord of the vineyard do when they finds out what they did to his son

01:47:18

Oh, yeah, they discussed them out of the vineyard and destroy them These were in charge of the vineyard and that's what's going on.

01:47:24

The people in charge of israel are going to be taken out uh, and you say Just to bring it back to that language real quick Would you say that that god is depicting apocalyptically in the heavens what is going to happen physically on the earth?

01:47:37

because in genesis 1 Sun moon and stars are told to rule. So if the rulers are being wiped out in the heavens

01:47:45

Apocalyptically what's going to happen to the rulers who are living on earth? Is that sort of what you're saying?

01:47:51

their symbol of that which is over and above and Even comes up in what judges 9 the parable of the trees.

01:47:58

Yeah, it's a fascinating passage where They go to each of the productive trees have fig tree and olive tree.

01:48:04

Will you rule over us? No, i'm too busy being productive. No, I can't i'm too busy doing this that and the other so they go to the bramble bush

01:48:10

I call them the crab grass and says will you rule over us? Oh, yeah, and you guys will all stand in my shadow And uh fire will come out for me if you don't do what

01:48:17

I tell you So we uh, that's it's a parable about crummy government But also the notion that governors could see themselves as being high and mighty over and above us

01:48:26

There are the stars of heaven as it were You can even say that in revelation 12.

01:48:31

There's a depiction of similar things astronomically With the stars around the woman representing

01:48:38

The right testament church that birthed christ the messiah. Well, that's what I was thinking joseph's dream where Sun moon and stars are going to bow down and worship him

01:48:47

He's not he's not meaning that literally the sky is The sun's going to come down and bow down in front of him

01:48:52

He's talking about mom dad and my brothers are going to be under me as i'm elevated to the throne in egypt

01:48:58

He didn't know that at the time, but that's the interpretation Yeah, it's symbolic and christ is simply using the exact same language that he put in the mouths of isaiah and ezekiel

01:49:09

Right. Yeah, the scripture was all written by christ as we all know. So there's no reason for him not to Borrow language that everyone understood what it meant right the second they're hearing that they're saying oh, that's what happened to babylon and tyre and philistia and In egypt so that we're in trouble here

01:49:25

That's that's the proclamation coming out of christ's mouth right Right.

01:49:30

Yeah that no one would have thought that that this meant that the sun would go out of the sky Uh, this was the nation's going to be destroyed and if the sun did go out of the sky

01:49:39

There's like six occasions in the old testament where this happened. So Essentially be universe ending material like we couldn't survive six occasions of the sun just leaving right?

01:49:49

It's I can understand why someone would say I really wanted to go where our scripture points it but you know It's not that we want to be literal

01:49:56

We want to be biblical and if the bible establishes something as a symbol we should acknowledge it unless there is a

01:50:02

Serious reason to take it as a literal in a literal sense then we don't want to Hem and haw and be evasive about it or be embarrassed by scripture.

01:50:12

No, we should say. Yeah It might seem unlikely, but i'm going to hold to that But it's funny to me.

01:50:18

They'll They'll be willing to say that the literal sun is going to do this and literal stars will fall on the ground

01:50:24

But they're not willing to deal with have the same level of faith when the scripture talks about the conversion of the world

01:50:31

And I think that's unfortunate, you know, he will convert the forces of the gentiles to the in isaiah 66

01:50:37

So I think there's great promises there in scripture that we just walk right over them And they're not to be walked over.

01:50:44

They'll be taken seriously and there are heritage to have Yeah, so just uh, maybe a point to throw out there, uh, we can't really read every passage literalistically um, we can't read every passage figuratively

01:50:59

Uh, but as gary demar points out we must read them according to the literature.

01:51:05

That's what the word literally Originally meant is is to read them according to the literature Uh and literature is dynamic.

01:51:12

You've got law books that are written in one type of language. You've got poetry apocalyptic you've got um, you've got prose and historical narrative you've got

01:51:21

Proverbs, so if you're trying to If you're trying to force all of those genres into a rigid category called literalism

01:51:30

Well, you're going to have a flawed hermeneutic Yeah, you right off the bat bonson said the beast of revelation

01:51:37

Could be a literal monster, right? It was seven heads Uh coming out of the ocean, but obviously is not nobody acknowledges that it's a monster

01:51:46

Because we are at the beginning of revelation We read these are the things that were signified set forth in signs from the word semaphorea, right?

01:51:54

um to john While he was on the island, so they were set forth in a pictorial form

01:52:01

To embody the truth in a way that would be timeless Uh, and also it makes sense to those who understood the old testament

01:52:09

Because the old testament foundations of revelation are just extensive The gospel of john and the revelation are the two most old testament sort books you have in the new testament

01:52:20

It's just yeah more than hebrews more than anything else. Those two books. Yeah, really are tied back into the old testament

01:52:26

So if you don't know the old testament and many christians don't they're written by the same guy, right? Yeah, they're not going to get it

01:52:31

If uh, if you don't understand the old testament, you can have a hard time getting those two books, especially revelation So you'll be bringing all sorts of novel things to play in revelation

01:52:39

And things that seem right to a man, but actually lead to you know error And uh, sometimes error that might determine your actions you might say well because I believe this is going to happen next year

01:52:50

Um, we need to do this right away and it might be a big mistake All right. Um, very good brother.

01:52:56

Um, you knocked that one out of the park Um over realized eschatology some will accuse and and you're reformed.

01:53:02

Uh, you you Uh are a child of the reformation you come downstream of all that Uh, and yet some will say that post -millennialism over inflates the ability of man and runs afoul of our reformed heritage

01:53:13

Which says that uh, man is a worm and he's totally depraved. How would you respond?

01:53:19

Yeah, man is totally depraved So the question is not how depraved man is but how powerful the holy spirit is

01:53:25

And so when we talk about the ability of men i'm not over inflating the ability of men if it's up to men Be hopeless there's no basis for post -millennialism if men were the only things in the picture

01:53:34

But the holy spirit's in the picture And god's election is in the picture So you have an election you have a justification by the son and a sanctification by the spirit

01:53:43

So those things in conjunction the trinity which is omnipotent is at work here

01:53:49

So i'm not going to and that's why spurgeon noted the same thing. He says what we're doing is attacking the holy spirit

01:53:55

Using mass depravity as saying that man is so depraved. It's beyond god's power to fix it

01:54:02

But you know something, you know Elisha was able to take a poisoned pot of food right and put

01:54:08

And and make it clean and clear and an antidote to poisoning anybody Um, he made x float these things are not a problem for god.

01:54:16

They're a problem for people But they're not a problem for god So like we said the last time we talked is god's hand waxed or arm waxed short and the answer is no

01:54:25

God's arm is not waxed short um in fact That's kind of what the the problem is in isaiah 52, right?

01:54:32

The lord has made bare his holy arm on the sight of all the nations And all the kings of the earth shall come to the lord.

01:54:39

Let's look at the exact phrasing because it's fascinating to me Because it talks about a very universal thing going on and this is just prior to the depiction of christ's

01:54:48

Crucifixion in the 53rd chapter, but there's a run -up to it. That should not be missed In the 52nd chapter is it?

01:54:56

Yeah Yeah, the lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations and all the ends of the earth shall see

01:55:02

The salvation of our god. So this is a matter of god's arm being made bare So that nobody nobody makes any

01:55:09

Excuse who's doing it god bears his arm and on the side of all nations And he brings salvation to the all the ends of the earth and then verse 15 after talking about his horrible

01:55:22

Condition after being tortured by the romans So shall he sprinkle many nations the king shall shut their mouths at him

01:55:29

Um, which is a powerful thing It means that all kings all kings in the world will shut their mouths at him

01:55:34

They will defer to christ and say he speaks. I won't you know, so it's uh, he sprinkles many nations

01:55:43

Uh with his blood not just individuals, but all the nations are to be sprinkled with his blood Uh, it's uh, and then after the famous part of the crucifixion

01:55:53

We hear what it pleases the lord to brew to bruise him verse 10 of 73 To put in a grief when thou shall make a soul an offering for sin.

01:56:01

He shall see his seed He shall prolong his days the pleasure of the lord shall prosper He will see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge.

01:56:08

So my righteous servant Justify many for their quickness now divide with them a portion With the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because it poured out his soul

01:56:17

Unto death and he's numbered with the transgressors So these are the reward For his sacrifice for his saying not my will but thy will be done.

01:56:26

Oh lord So he he wins the world to himself Uh, and he earned it and he deserves it and for us to say no, he's not going to get any of that He's going to get to the pittance.

01:56:37

That's what abraham says. He says, you know the whole tree of the world He's just going to take a few burned branches and that's all he's going to get is some twigs at the end

01:56:44

As opposed to the notion that he brings, uh brings it home home as they say, right?

01:56:49

You're going to bring it home And that's our view is that god is a pedal to the metal when it comes to the great commission Well, but you by the way before I finish with that you talked about over realized eschatology

01:57:01

Now this is an interesting term because basically you can say any Any system eschatology is under realized

01:57:08

Just right or over realized. So it's the goldilocks. It's too hot too cold or just right So everyone thinks that they're in the goldilocks eschatology and that has to be determined not by a

01:57:19

Clever term like this. I believe there's such a thing as that that would be for example a full preterist Would have over realized because they have nothing left to look forward to Because they believe that evil still will exist perpetually

01:57:32

And it will not be not be ultimately defeated and we don't see it that way at all.

01:57:37

There's a literal Linear move in history toward a consummation right that Involves first the complete salvation of the entire world then the sanctification of the world and the destruction of death and then eternity and its fullness coming in after the final judgment, uh, and so Over realized is a term used as a distinction to say you're too literal.

01:58:01

You're not literal enough or you're just right so What would happen here is when you use this term you've already assumed that your position is correct

01:58:08

That anything more optimistic than you is over realized Right because you're saying you're just too hot.

01:58:14

Yeah Meredith klein used this kind of notion saying well, you know, the law was an intrusion of eternity

01:58:21

Ethics and intrusion ethics into the into current reality and that's not realistic We cannot have an intrusion of eternity because it's premature

01:58:28

But it's an over realized eschatology, too So we're having the the kind of righteousness that the law requires of us now, uh being taught and he says no

01:58:36

No, we don't want to do that. That's not for us not for now So all sorts of things are at stake once we start using these theological terms, by the way, you can't find it in scripture

01:58:45

So it's a result of certain theological, uh schools of thought going to the conclusion On the assumption which is a good starting assumption

01:58:52

But you have to test it by the scriptures that our view is right That we've got the goldilocks goldilocks eschatology and i'm telling you that that can only be determined exegetically

01:59:02

It should not be determined confessionally as much as we Love our secondary standards.

01:59:09

They are secondary There's a reason why we say they should be correctable from scripture And here's a point where I say they do need to be corrected from scripture if they're not acknowledging these truths because those scriptures are not going to go away just because Someone says well,

01:59:21

I hold to the confession That means that you've elevated the secondary standard over the law of god

01:59:28

And I don't think the confession writers intended that when they put them together. They're tremendous aids for study, but they're not

01:59:35

Canonical i'm sorry. They are not So we have to treat them as what they are and bless the hands that have prepared them because they've certainly

01:59:45

Provided tremendous guardrails to prevent people from going off the edge into error and heresy But that doesn't mean that they're perfect, you know, we have not yet attained that perfection in our confessions

01:59:56

But I don't think that the current generation is competent to do a better job than say a westminster or london confession

02:00:02

Our scholarship is miserable. So we're not the generation to fix it if it needs fixing It's going to be a much wiser sharper generation than our own.

02:00:10

So I take It very seriously when I question a confession because I realize we're not the ones to fix them

02:00:17

All right, but therefore we have to do the edge of the legwork to stay on their genetical grounds textual grounds of scripture

02:00:23

We believe this position is more correct than expressed in the confession and even the confessions don't agree

02:00:29

I mean the savoy confession is explicitly post -millennial But it's also it has a polity that's independent, right?

02:00:36

Congregational. Yeah, right. So the the independence supported that as opposed to presbyterian polity

02:00:42

Um, so you might like it in one area not in the other but the point is that there's some variety floating around there

02:00:48

Well be a little difference. All right, there must be divisions between us so that we can test the truth And that's good.

02:00:54

You know, no one has a monopoly on it Uh, and we're always trying to come to an answer the truth and we should not give up important ground

02:01:02

That's already been gained by previous generations except under extreme requirement that the scripture says

02:01:07

Absolutely this and boy, there's something really wrong with the confessions that missed it Uh, they stood on the shoulders of giants

02:01:14

But if we can stand on a higher point and get a better view on it and make a slight adjustment well and good

02:01:21

And that that that goes for translations of the scripture too, you know, the king james is a tremendous translation

02:01:26

Um haven't seen anything better than it But even those who defended it like bergen said it needed some work and we didn't get the right

02:01:34

Revision, we got a crappy one Essentially a horrible one out of uh, horton westcott.

02:01:40

So same problem here We need to do this work with care And uh, and the attention that it deserves because we're handling the word of god.

02:01:48

We should take that very seriously If you try to prevent the ark from falling you could get killed for it, right?

02:01:53

So handling the word of god in a um, unrightful unrighteous way Uh is a is a bad idea.

02:02:00

I think god is going to condemn us for that. Yeah Uh, let's enter let's enter into a bullet round Uh, I think

02:02:07

I think you will be able to knock these out of the park just as we as we go uh Curiosity question for my part.

02:02:13

Will denominationalism end before or in the final generation?

02:02:19

I think it's going to be probably More prevalent, but they're going to see doctrinally and work closely together the great presbyterian scotter warfield

02:02:29

Said this basically said all the polities work He said the papacy works politically

02:02:35

And presbyterianism works and congregationalism works. He said they all work. So the problem is not the system

02:02:41

It's the people inside each of the systems which introduce the problems in them now another great living

02:02:48

Presbyterian like joseph moorcraft dr Moorcraft will do a strong defense in his monster eight volume thing on authentic christianity to defend

02:02:56

Presbyterianism as the sole valid and biblical polity Well now I have to pick between Warfield's observation which takes into account 21 centuries of work of christians on this point versus the point made by uh moorcraft, so I I'm kind of torn here, but i'm saying

02:03:15

There's a interesting argument here because god is able to use our weaknesses and I guess Dominant nationalism might reflect weaknesses, but I believe that over time doctrine is going to straighten out and that ultimately, uh

02:03:27

Zion shall see eye to eye as it were To kind of misuse a phrase from isaiah, but it's it's in there because we shall come to a knowledge of the truth

02:03:36

And it might be that polity itself will also Align toward the end of history, but I don't think it has to I think that when we see those pictures in isaiah 19 about the egyptians and assyrians serving god

02:03:50

They cross each other's borders and serve at the altar of god In the sometime in the future, but they both remain egyptians and they're syrians and they do things the egyptian way in the assyrian way

02:04:00

And I think god is glorified in that and all these this flavors and variety the variety of fruit there

02:04:08

Is indicative of uh of god's This kind of a florid notion to it

02:04:14

And I think we're going to be less inclined to condemn As we do today. Oh, you have a horrible polity in your church.

02:04:20

Well, you have a horrible this There might be horrible things in churches, but i'm not sure it's the polity that's the fault

02:04:26

Because I can tell you you can have a great polity and evil doctrine from the pulpit

02:04:31

So probably you just fix everything right? There's something more important that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth

02:04:36

In terms of the propagation of the word of god to its people So if that takes priority,

02:04:42

I think other things probably will align right? Um, if you seek you first the kingdom of god, then all these other things will be added unto you

02:04:48

And I think even conviction over church polity might be added to that list Yeah, so i'm not hard -nosed about polity and I think warfield who had every opportunity to promote presbyterianism

02:05:01

Yeah as leading presbyterianism in america at the time didn't you know, he actually back

02:05:07

Back, but I think he was honest about the question Most people are actually going to be partisan about the question, but he was honest and I think

02:05:13

I'd like to say the honest man over the partisans Would you say that that final generation and and we don't know fully but would be more redeemed reformed

02:05:24

Nationalism as opposed to redeemed reform globalism Well, that's a good question.

02:05:30

I think the national I think what's going to be biggest in these Nations will be the families the families will be super strong And the state the civil governments will be very very small tiny microscopic

02:05:42

In fact, they might even not be necessary at all Except for certain things like contract law and whatnot to clarify things

02:05:51

So the functions are going to be as tiny as original israel had in terms of the levites

02:05:56

And the civil government that israel had in the past. So I think that's what we're going to be facing Is that that kind of situation?

02:06:04

it's it's hard to predict because it is so alien to us to have a situation where the

02:06:10

Sinfulness and the wickedness of man has been pushed back so far by work of god over the generations as he prepares

02:06:20

Things for the final stages of history. I just simply know that it's going to be

02:06:26

A smoother More peaceful time than we have today that conflict was going to ebb away that we will have that kind of half hour of silence

02:06:34

As I Forced the mexican pastors to actually put in that building for a few minutes so you could understand what john went through When god the wrath of god no longer was there if there's no wrath of god on the world.

02:06:47

You don't have to worry about Polity and things like that. I think god is pleased that there's peace between brethren

02:06:53

And that the the glories of that period of time Are manifest now. That's good. I present it as an ideal and it's going to be historic reality and and everything is on is right now on fire to prevent or to propagate or Promote that from occurring.

02:07:10

Everything's going to head in that direction so far as god's work is concerned So then we need to say what should we be doing to hasten the day of the lord because that's kind of what?

02:07:18

Peter's getting to What do we do to hasten the lord? He said well lead godly lives because the more godly lives we lead

02:07:24

The more it accelerates the coming of that day because that day is going to be notable that everyone's following god's law

02:07:30

Right and the righteousness is a part and parcel of the creation And that we see a liberation of creation that's talked about and predicted in romans 8 19 to 22

02:07:42

Everything is subject to futility, but that is temporary and as we move forward and forward There'll be a releasing of the bondage that has been inflicted on the creation for man's sake because man is changing that liberating the creation by The uh righteousness expanding and god's kingdom growing and growing

02:08:01

Toward the end so then part of that is going to be like the change in diets of bears and the lions and Tigers and whatnot to uh the vegetarian diet.

02:08:12

So they eat the same thing as an ox eat straw You know, these are all changes that are predicted and I believe they should be taken literally as did calvin as did rushtuni and other scholars

02:08:20

There are those who think they're all um Symbolic Oh, that's what happened when when saw became paul, you know, maybe

02:08:28

But sure, I find it very hard to believe that that's what happens when The knowledge of the lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea

02:08:35

That they shall neither hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain that holy mountain described earlier in chapter 2 by the way

02:08:41

Because all the nations flow together to form the holy mountain of god And they shall neither hurt nor destroy in all that holy mountain.

02:08:47

So very peaceful very harm free situation something that we have no

02:08:53

Personal experience of today in this world because we are in the primitive church And we have a long haul in front of us.

02:08:59

So what we can do is be wise stepping stones to the future I remember somebody saying um, and then we'll go back into bullet realm.

02:09:07

I remember somebody saying that uh, You know in the in the late church in the final generation

02:09:12

There will be uh homeschool students, uh who say you know, mom I just I keep getting augustine and van till mixed up.

02:09:21

Uh, they're just they're too close in time period to one another Yeah, that is funny Yeah, can you help me with my my greek exegesis here?

02:09:29

Well, that's your kindergarten teacher. Tell you that Yeah By the way, that's not a joke by the way if you look in isaiah 1918

02:09:37

It says the egyptians will speak the lip of canaan. They will all learn the hebrew language I believe and remember there's a time when hebrew was regarded as a dead language.

02:09:46

No one spoke it Right, and the scripture predicted that it would be universally known so that people would understand the word of god in the language

02:09:54

He delivered it in the old testament So I believe that a a global knowledge of hebrew and greek in some era may is almost certain

02:10:02

Because we certainly know egypt is going to know it and and the syrians are going to probably say we need to know that too

02:10:08

Because we want to worship god as well as you boys do So the enemies of god are going to become god's buds

02:10:14

So what you're saying is what you're saying is the question won't be new king james new american standard non -inspired.

02:10:21

I mean niv It's not going to be that it's going to be Where's your where's your hebrew copy of the bible brother?

02:10:27

Yeah yeah, they'll be talking about the original languages and that's going to be an exciting time because Uh, you don't need to have someone else mediate the word of god to you anymore

02:10:35

You can get it for yourself what we expected today of pastors to know the greek and hebrew would become part and parcel of the laity

02:10:42

So the laity will be lifted out of ignorance and reliance on others and become independent scholars

02:10:48

As they ought to be in the first place I hadn't thought about that before but that's a fascinating point because in the medieval scholarship

02:10:55

It was the professors who knew the languages and maybe not the professor and the pastors in every little town in hamlet

02:11:01

But you know now it's progressed to the point to where? Any pastor worth their salt should have some skill in the language

02:11:08

Um, but what you're saying is is that will continue to grow until the average person will will know that's that I like I mean, that's fascinating Yeah, I think it's very exciting.

02:11:19

So the fact that noah webster taught himself greek and hebrew will not be a one -off

02:11:24

It'll be kind of a very common thing. He says well, that's no big deal. We all do that I'm looking forward to that day. Yeah Yeah, amen

02:11:31

Okay, so if you had just a couple sentences to give to a person you meet them on a subway

02:11:38

And uh, they have these questions. They they know you're a post -millennial scholar, but they're getting ready to get off at their next exit um

02:11:46

What do you say about my kingdom is not of this world? It says it my kingdom is not from hence In other words, the source and origin of its power is not a human or worldly kingdom.

02:11:56

It's intruded from above It's the kingdom of god and it's not the kingdom of man Therefore it's very distinct and has a different source and origin and power

02:12:05

Behind it. So if it was of this world if there was another human kingdom, then it would my Disciples would fight and they grab swords, but it doesn't spread with the sword

02:12:14

It spreads with the sword out of the mouth, which is the word of god And that's a two -edged sword

02:12:21

And that's the very very different so christ is not asserting that his kingdom has no application to the world rather It's over the world and will in fact convert and transform the world

02:12:31

In fact, he claims the world as his own because he's going to give his life up for the entire for the world

02:12:37

And he becomes the savior of the world in the process But yeah, this whole notion that we shouldn't see the kingdom of god

02:12:44

In play is wrong because we have passages in scripture. So where is a says that the righteous of god

02:12:50

Justice of god will be seen in the earth And we don't see it hardly anywhere in the earth at this point in fact with less and less of it

02:12:57

It seems because god's law has been rejected by man because we substitute humanistic law So and so god's law will will not always be in this situation.

02:13:06

I can assure you Because the universe will pass away and it's still there as obviously we're told

02:13:12

So yeah, good. What would you say to the one who says hey world lies in the power of the devil He's the prince of power of the air.

02:13:18

He's the roaring lion. This world doesn't belong to king Jesus it belongs to the prince Uh satan, what would you say to that person?

02:13:25

John uses the word world as in a specific way every time he uses it. He's talking about the ethical realm

02:13:32

Of unbelief and disobedience. So it's an ethical sense of the world so in that sense

02:13:38

Satan is the ruler of all those who disobey god They are his rightful prey so to speak but those who are in christ are not so the

02:13:48

That world is actually going to be transformed It's not perpetually going to be because christ came to destroy the works of the devil.

02:13:55

So regardless of this the devil is Ruler over the ethical realm of disbelief. That's a shrinking domain, right?

02:14:02

The devil is losing ground every day. Believe it or not. One way is because his tears are dying and and or leaving elect offspring this really

02:14:12

Calls the devil that for some reason he should be making progress and is not that's because god has uh,

02:14:18

Tipped the chessboard in an interesting way You know to convert things his way But yeah, the devil.

02:14:25

Yeah, he's a roaring lion and I think that the the defeat of the devil is all the more stupendous because He's to be defeated by resisting him.

02:14:33

Yeah He must not be a very strong lion if he can be resisted and christians are capable of resisting the devil because he will flee from us

02:14:41

Yes, yeah Even martin luther drew attention to this. I threw an inkwell at him then he fled

02:14:47

Yeah, so bring inkwells back I guess is the message there um effective effective weapon against the devil, but the proper weapon is what jesus used during the

02:14:58

Temptation, right? He brought back the word of god each time the devil attempted to Tempt him

02:15:05

And so we need to be the same mindset naturally live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of god and doing that we shrink the domain of the devil

02:15:15

And so he's on a sinking ship he's on the titanic his world of disbelief Is going to be left in the grave ultimately this is depicted the very chapter final chapter of isaiah 66 says that World is only filled with converted people and all they do is see the graves of the

02:15:32

Unregenerate that's the only thing left of the unregenerate are their graves. So that's where we stand at the end of time

02:15:39

Because all the rest of god's promises have already been fulfilled So, yeah, the devil is not going to get anywhere

02:15:46

With his efforts and he will ultimately be destroyed too And rightfully so he loses down here

02:15:53

Exactly, and he's perpetually losing Now the funny thing is that the reason the only reason he wins is he wins by forfeit because christians don't show up To the fight and so that's on us.

02:16:05

That's not that the devil was strong. I said that we were weak Because we're told quote from yeah, that was a great quote from last episode, by the way,

02:16:13

I love that Yeah, because he's us in you is greater than he is in the world. So there's no reason for us to be losing

02:16:20

Uh any battles against the devil ultimately? Right. We we have the winning hand

02:16:26

But we have to use it wisely And not be trapped by his temptations because yeah, he knows how to get us to compromise

02:16:34

He said if one would compromise a little bit you would make you make so much more progress through christians And of course, that's the path that is the wide path that leads to destruction

02:16:42

So in so yeah, we can defeat the devil, uh through christ And his work in us and through the holy spirit

02:16:50

But not on your own steam. You can't do it in the flesh because at that point now you're Operating on satan's grounds.

02:16:57

I think it's very important. We do not adopt his viewpoint, you know, the humanistic viewpoint We don't come over to their side in order to argue or debate or discuss we must be absolutely firmly planted with our feet on the whole council of god

02:17:11

And not not budge, you know that sons of skiva Yeah, you cannot be exactly right.

02:17:17

We cannot stand on the sand and think we're going to prevail we must stand on the rock only and then We might have some but the victory comes from the fact that we're standing on the rock not being in us, right?

02:17:27

But god working through us can defeat the works of the devil and that's kind of you know So when he destroys the works of the devil as promised we are kind of working through us just like the final verses of romans 16 20 right god shall

02:17:43

Trample satan under your feet shortly. So God's the one doing the trampling but he uses our feet to do it

02:17:49

So we have a part to play but we shouldn't become Stupid about it, right? Jude 9 says, you know, don't be saying, you know

02:17:57

Rebuke the devil in your own strength rather say the lord rebuke thee So some level of that's the word we use judiciousness is required in dealing with evil

02:18:07

Not that we're compromising with evil, but that we have to acknowledge that we're out of our league But we have an advocate before the father who can help us get through the battle

02:18:17

Right. Yeah it it We you made that point really well We don't run into the battle with underwear on we put on the full armor of god and we do battle in the way that God has called us to Yeah, the captain underwear model doesn't work so well

02:18:33

That's great Um, here's an important question. Um, that's something we haven't gotten to and I haven't asked anyone.

02:18:39

So this is uh, Uh, you're the first person i've asked this to um, I hear post -millennialism.

02:18:44

This is the question I received I hear post -millennialism talking a lot about prosperity Um are talking a whole lot like the prosperity gospel preachers

02:18:52

In fact bethel and other charlatans have a seven mountain Post -millennial eschatology where everyone will be prosperous.

02:18:59

There will be long miraculous life. The curse will be Eliminated the whole world will be elevated on sickness disease and curse

02:19:07

How is biblical post -millennialism different than the garbage coming out of places like bethel california?

02:19:14

Well, the first thing I would say is that isaiah 2 kind of gives us our Marching orders that the law shall go forth

02:19:21

Out of zion, right? That's that's so important right out of the house of the lords And so that is critical because people you know

02:19:30

What's the real deal because as people come say to each other come let's go up to the house of the lord And he shall teach us of his ways out of his law.

02:19:37

We'll learn so when the law of god is involved Then different things are going to happen. First of all, you're going to be setting new institutions in place to overcome the old ones

02:19:47

I'm not hearing a lot of discussion about that on the side of the bethel folks They kind of want to co -opt all that's already there

02:19:55

But a lot of what's already there needs to be thrown in the dump heap We can't use the existing government because it's 11 000 times too large so what are you going to do about that if you simply think you're going to Co -op that and take over then you're simply you're going to be you're going to be part of the problem not the solution

02:20:12

And prosperity is not what we're talking about in the first place People a lot of post -millenniums were not interested in prosperity.

02:20:19

They simply realized that They have a job to do Um, and the great commission is a serious commission and we're not allowed to sit on our hands and not do that.

02:20:29

So I think what happens is too many times we Folks are saying well you we can make this

02:20:36

Put some lipstick on this pig because there is some suffering involved in post -millennial view Uh, it is not going to be pushed back for a long time um, but those who are

02:20:46

Found in christ and are faithful There are promises that are going to be made for them, you know that it's not in vain and their works will follow them

02:20:55

But those are works that are premised on what god requires uh, so The faith is not one in how much can

02:21:01

I get because remember david said I don't I wouldn't mind being a doorsman In the temple of god, you know that that even though it's a lowly position like that because I still would be with god and so if god is uh all in all if you will as he should be and Making seeking first the kingdom of god and his righteousness that part's very important Because in matthew 6 33 a lot of people say i'm seeking the god of god's kingdom

02:21:25

But is also his justice that word there is also translatable as justice god's justice must be what you're focused on right there in deuteronomy 16 20

02:21:34

The actual reading in the hebrew mishpat mishpat. It's justice justice shalt thou do now the translators

02:21:41

The king james had to whiff the ball there and they said well that which is altogether just shalt thou do instead of repeating justice twice like the hebrew has

02:21:49

They decided to put a more common validity phrase that which is altogether just shalt thou do

02:21:55

But really the emphasis is justice justice shalt thou do And this is comes back to matthew 6 to give first the kingdom of god and his justice don't seek prosperity

02:22:05

Don't be right pushing that the yachts and all this stuff that they do Because you know that means now i'm seeking the yacht i'm seeking the prosperity

02:22:13

But seek his kingdom and his justice And justice is something that is done and it is done to our fellow man.

02:22:20

It's a god word, too It involves us transforming a whole bunch of things a lot of these guys

02:22:26

I don't know to what extent they're homeschooling our christian schools but I know a lot of people who are in prosperity teaching by their kids in public schools and make all sorts of use of the state in a way that is not going to shrink the state as required and They have ideas on taxation that are in conflict with scripture

02:22:42

Right, that's not the path holiness and holiness to me It feels like easy believism taken to its absolute logical conclusions where where it's it's just like vending machine

02:22:54

It's new age mixed with christianity where I can actualize things and I can dream things and I can

02:23:01

I can you know have enough faith and then my My pig won't die like that. That's not at all what the scripture says

02:23:08

Big one Uh question about whether they would own pigs or not back in in the future But set that aside for the moment this the seven mounted thing.

02:23:16

It's appealing to man And I think this is already part of the problem. The truth Is going to have a price to pay for it

02:23:25

Because remember it's the narrow path that we're talking about And so I think the appeal needs to be the same one that christ sits for seek for you first And then the other things happen automatically

02:23:37

If you're actually putting justice justice first justice justice shall thou do Not just think about it or theorize about it

02:23:44

And the other thing that we're called to do is to take every thought captive to the beings of christ So it means we have a whole bunch of things not just seven mountains 7 000 mountains if you will would be closer to what the mission is

02:23:56

I made an interesting point and I think I might have mentioned it in our first discussion That if we had reconstructed and completely christianized and biblicized every discipline in the world except respiratory pharmacology

02:24:09

Then every humanist will become a respiratory pharmacologist just to avoid Confronting the lord god in his vocation.

02:24:16

So what happens is we can't leave man must be left without excuse and so There's a calling here to take all thought captive to the beings of christ so that every single discipline must be brought into Alignment with what god's law requires of it what god's law teaches what the scriptures teach should be no personal thought

02:24:36

No, no everything like the sciences the sciences mathematics all arts And method that's interesting because the earlier greek instruction is

02:24:46

Singled out mathematics is an area that needed reconstruction and they brought the books to prove it to show that reconstruct

02:24:51

Mathematics is not a neutral enterprise and that shouldn't surprise us because we read I think it's in proverbs 20 verse four even the plowing of the wicked

02:25:02

Is sin Which is interesting because plowing seems like a pretty neutral activity.

02:25:08

I'm just pushing the plow, right? No, I say 28. This is how to do plowing properly so so If plowing is not neutral And proverbs 20 says it's not because the wicked when they plow are sinning in how they're doing it

02:25:23

Then nothing is neutral and mathematics is not neutral so James nickel and dr Verne poitras has done some great work showing in detail at the phd mathematical level that mathematics depends on the

02:25:35

Preliminary assumptions that christianity brings to the table without it. You have very different In fact mathematical proofs have different answers depending on your world view

02:25:44

So it's not as if it's neutral and you get the same answer with god is there or not Not you don't get the same answer of god's there or not

02:25:50

So god is determined certain of these truths by his existence And the word of god having something to say about how the universe is formed

02:25:57

So we should be serious about all these areas because we can bring god glory To doing that and that's part of our job is to think god's thoughts after him as kepler said so until we do that if we

02:26:09

Write a lower things is i'm just in it for the mint juleps and the lounge chair That is not post -millennialism

02:26:16

That'd be a lot of other things but the post -millennialism is for a long hard Road home because he believes that his work's going to get somewhere.

02:26:23

In fact proverbs now zechariah 4 says, you know about not D uh, so what he finds don't do not despise the day of small beginnings

02:26:34

Right, and that's that's 4 10 because they're he's told that the hands that have laid the foundations of the temple

02:26:39

Which is the rebel's hands will also put the capstone in with shardings crying grace grace unto it So there's going to be a completion of this construction project and then what gets interesting is the end

02:26:49

When it says the seven eyes of god are on the plumb line the little piece of tin stone That's on the ground there.

02:26:55

It's just a piece of tin with a string tied to it, which determines vertical And though it's just the cheapest tool in the tool kit

02:27:03

Zechariah is informed that god's eyes all his intentions on that tool because it's being used to build his kingdom straight and true

02:27:11

So even the most medium Smallest tools in your tool kit if you're doing god's work with it god's in the midst of it

02:27:18

And that's a powerful promotion. That's not what a lot of the intelligent tossed out and humanism law replacing it

02:27:24

So we have a very different idea of how the world will be ruled But I think that's the point that I would like to break make on that Couple more questions and and we're we're done.

02:27:35

We've covered i've just looked over a lot of the ones that we have left and we've We've covered them uh, one is just a pastoral, uh moment to look at the person who's looking around at the world and they see evil human trafficking they see

02:27:51

Genocide systemic injustice. What do we say? uh as as men who hold to a theology that That uh that christ is going to have victory

02:28:00

How would you say Or how would you speak to a person like that right now? Who's who's overwhelmed by the evil that still exists in our culture?

02:28:08

well, that man is facing a Psalm 11 3 moment right if the foundations be destroyed

02:28:14

What did the righteous do the answer is in isaiah 58 12, which is you build new foundations and that's not easy.

02:28:19

You know, we're we're given the Teaspoons to excavate the building with and that's why i'm saying it's not going to be the glorious prosperity stuff

02:28:28

That some people might be talking about it's a difficult job But it's required. Yeah, and it made more difficult by the next verse in psalm 11 verse 4

02:28:37

It says god tests the son of men with his eyelids, which means we call out to god But it looks like he's closing his eyes.

02:28:43

That's why he how he tests us with his eyelids He closes them and we don't seem to be getting any answers from him. It's because the job is on us

02:28:49

To become like the good samaritan. We see a problem and we deal with it. We we dirty our hands we inconvenience ourselves

02:28:57

To do this. This is a from one end of scripture to the other. It says even if you see your uh, Your enemy's ox in trouble you do something about it, right?

02:29:06

So you get involved to the extent that you're able to and realizing you have limitations, you know, you cannot Sell everything that you have and throw yourself into a ministry, but you can certainly do something

02:29:17

And at every level that you do you're pushing back against the darkness because the mission of course is to drive the darkness back

02:29:22

With the light and we're told that the darkness is an actual process of passing away in first john 2 8 Because the true light is shining already

02:29:29

And we need to be part of that light increasing area of light and that deals with the injustices and evils in the world

02:29:35

You know, the world is very evil But the thing is that god's power is greater than the evil in the world

02:29:41

But we need to avail ourselves of it and to use it the way that he says we are to use it And so we have a ministry to make

02:29:48

And we need to be mindful of the fact that there are set asides in god's law For helping the needy there's the poor tie which would actually eradicate all poverty in any nation that applied it at about a rate of 3 .3

02:30:01

percent of uh, Income amortized and you would eradicate poverty.

02:30:06

We don't we have massive poverty still in the united states as it's measured by some And it's getting worse because we're we get man's way instead of god's way

02:30:14

But you can do it man's way and you can start the process and that Lights a candle and that candle it becomes a spreading flame as more people catch the vision

02:30:23

Say well look what he did and they they had a successful thing and it grew a little bit I can help it grow in my area

02:30:28

I have a burden for this or this group or this situation or these folks that could use uh,

02:30:35

So we're a scholarship for say christian schooling so they don't have to send their kid to a public school That's a good place to start is not putting our kids in molex hands in the public schools

02:30:43

So anything we can do to help that situation would be a big plus forward And so that'll multiply when you invest in the kingdom of god it multiplies 10 to 30 fold 100 fold

02:30:52

That's not true for humanism, which always returns less than what you put into it Because it's a losing proposition because they're on the side that can't win uh, because It's it's a doomed proposition to build on the sand.

02:31:07

Whatsoever thing the lord hath not planted shall be rooted up as matthew 15 13 So only things that god plants will stick around and have any longevity

02:31:15

So we need to plant things that god would have us to plant And I don't think that god has left us without guidance in this area

02:31:21

So ending the ending of one of my favorite poems you might know this by c .t Stud all things will soon be passed only what is done for christ will last

02:31:29

Yeah, I love that because it's so succinctly just says that you know Which is to say that only unshakable things will remain

02:31:37

Yes, amen, but but your works in christ labor in christ is never in vain And their works shall follow them as one of the promises in revelations so that we can grasp hold of that You had two more.

02:31:48

I think you said Yep, uh, this one is uh is about technology You said take we you you made a good case for taking every thought captive thought meaning every way of thinking um what do you think about the rise of ai and uh this technology there's a lot of um sort of speculation that it could be

02:32:10

Uh the end of humanity. There's there's There there's also other folks who on the other side who say no, this is a good thing this is just a new technology and we need christians who are in the computer science fields and and bringing uh christian uh law and christian

02:32:29

Gospel thinking to these areas. Where do you fall on that as far as uh post -millennial vision of technologies like ai so Baylor university in the computer school.

02:32:41

They actually assign a book called computer ethics Which I believe is one They're trying to take a stab at it, but there's very little tie to biblical ethics in it

02:32:50

It's still not anchored to scripture. And so until that happens, we're going to have Problems incumbent upon anything built on the raw on the on the sand

02:32:59

Which is ironic is almost literally because silicon is sand ironically So when you think about that coincidence

02:33:06

But let me tell you that technology can be very very useful The word of god would have been very very hard to propagate without printing presses

02:33:13

So gutenberg did a tremendous service to the world and then And that allowed german language to be codified through luther's translating the scripture which set that language in stone

02:33:23

And the king james language bible did the same thing for english Uh, I have an

02:33:28

I have an interest in the reconstruction of music And so was it if you wanted to be right for an orchestra, but then you had to Have a lot of money to be able to pay an orchestra, right?

02:33:38

to play your piece for you fifty thousand dollars to pay for a rehearsal hall and a You know and a full orchestra and maybe you get two hours of rehearsal and then you get your piece done and that's it

02:33:48

And that's a lot of money, but now technology is putting an orchestra inside a laptop like I have here

02:33:54

Uh, yeah where students can learn Using tools to compose like bach did or beethoven or others

02:34:01

So the tools allow us to extend our ability to work and frame things

02:34:08

With diligence, in other words, they're an extension of man's power You know, they should not be an end in themselves at that point.

02:34:15

Now. They become idola idols And they become what are known as idols of the mind As schlossberg put in his great book highly recommend if you don't own

02:34:24

Uh idols for destruction by schlossberg get a copy of it and it's worth every minute that you spend reading it but man is a

02:34:33

Someone who's prone to make idols about everything About history about time and about a technology and we need to see things as they are from god's point of view

02:34:43

From god's point of view. They're really tools And there may be that they may be a useful tool.

02:34:48

There may be a dangerous tool For example deep fakes are a big problem nowadays. You cannot trust your eyes back when uh

02:34:55

The book, you know, they're actually the movie Jurassic park came out in 93 I remember out of scottic calcine saying that's the end of being able to trust your eyes

02:35:03

Because this is the beginning of the end you videos can be made that are going to be almost impossible to parse

02:35:09

For some reason this I find this amusing most ai pictures of human hands. Sorry show five fingers and no thumb

02:35:17

You know, so they have a hard time with certain things but not other things So you can be fooled by it if you want to be

02:35:23

But that means we cannot trust trust our eyes which means that Again, we have to get ethics out in front of the area because they're being used for evil things

02:35:33

Yes, men have been doing this. We want a stronger bomb a more toxic poison gas um,

02:35:39

I can understand the pessimism that comes into play With pre -millennial and non -millennial thinking says boy man is on the edge of destroying himself, isn't he?

02:35:47

Yes, he is But that's exactly why the law of god has to come into play to alter that and that's why the holy spirit is so critical uh, we read in psalms 76 10

02:35:57

It says the wrath of man shall appraise thee in the residue of wrath thou shalt restrain so The wrath is something that is even under god's control man's wrath is under god's control for god's purposes

02:36:08

And so the good news is there's an end to what can be achieved through man's wrath it's a fool's errand to try to pursue things against god because God holds all the cards

02:36:19

It's simply the matter every you know, you cannot attack him without him upholding you while you're doing it right or as van till said, you know man is like the uh,

02:36:29

The kid on sitting on his dad's lap slapping him if he didn't the dad didn't let him sit on the lap

02:36:34

He couldn't slap god couldn't snap his dad and that's the same thing here. So god's ultimately in control of these things

02:36:40

And it's going to be that way. So even if there's a some nukes go off that's on man. That's not on god

02:36:45

You know post -malayism never promised a linear climb to perfection it basically says a very bumpy road and this is because um, we have a crooked path in front of us and the calling in isaiah 40s

02:37:00

And other passages is to cast out all the rocks in the way to make straight the pathway of the lord

02:37:05

But it's a crooked path So god's going to make all the crooked things straight john the baptist proclaimed the exact same thing

02:37:11

And that's what's going to have to happen with ai there are a lot of crooked things in the ai That ultimately we have to be made straight and ultimately will be made straight, but how quickly

02:37:20

I cannot tell you that But ultimately we're going to find some interesting limitations on ai

02:37:27

Because god is going to restrict what we can do god limits us In fact, that's the big problem is that people think they're god.

02:37:35

They don't have limits on them and they very much do right A friend of mine said a friend of mine said it this way that god he believes god will limit these technologies from reaching their full potential until christians with Uh with the law of god come in and use them righteously and and make them flourish.

02:37:53

Um, Which I thought was a fascinating point because it's not the tool that's that that's necessarily broken

02:38:00

It's the it's the one who's holding it Uh in the same way that I could use a hammer Uh to hammer in a nail and I could also use a hammer to hit another human being and It's it's in the hand of the one who's wielding it to whether it's used for evil or good.

02:38:14

So In ester, we have this very vivid picture a gallows is being erected to kill the righteous guy

02:38:21

Yeah, who actually gets hung on it the guy who? The wicked man who wanted to kill the righteous and so a lot of times the thing you in other words

02:38:29

You're hanging yourself with your steps with the measure you meet it out. It'll be meted out to you We're told in scripture.

02:38:35

So there's some built -in penalties in the creation That god can turn on and off at will

02:38:41

Sometimes he'll give someone more rope to hang themselves with you'll even give a nation more rope to hang themselves with But that's on that's in god's wisdom

02:38:50

And then we won't know why it was wise and how glorious it was till later after the effect We may not know in advance of it or while it's happening

02:38:58

But only afterward it will have the benefit of hindsight And those who declared ahead of time god is going to use this even though it doesn't look like he possibly can

02:39:05

They'll be proven right. We just won't know the way it's being proven, right? But that is going to happen that way all the creation is going to be bent to the purposes of god

02:39:14

And they're all a and amen and him and his promises will be fulfilled And he's not slow concerning his promises

02:39:21

But you know if we deserve a comeuppance it'll happen and we will deserve it.

02:39:26

We've got to the last question fantastic Yeah, thank you for running the gauntlet with me.

02:39:32

Uh, and thank you for for giving such detailed and just really good answers I pray that uh, anyone who watches this watches it multiple times so that uh, all of the stuff write down the verses be a berean look at these things yourself all that so um the last question

02:39:47

I wanted to ask is not one that's on our list, but If you wanted if someone wanted to do a deep dive or or a deeper study on these things um post -millennialism

02:39:58

Uh that what we've been talking about What are some books if you could give us just off the top of your head five or ten really good books

02:40:05

Uh that might uh, someone who wants to go deeper could go deeper I think post -millennialism in general

02:40:13

I like gentry's book Do you recall the title I think with dominions in the title he shall have dominion.

02:40:19

Yeah, he shall have dominion. That's it That is an excellent overview I only have a couple of disagreements with it, but it's a fantastic survey and very biblical

02:40:30

Goes into detail on a lot of things and cleans up some of the misconceptions that are brought Into the picture by opposing viewpoints handles them fairly

02:40:39

Well also interesting in this regard would be a polemical book a book of disputations

02:40:45

Called house divided that was co -authored by dr. Ponson and dr. Gentry Uh where we have an interaction both about the law of god and its relevance today and on the issue of post -millennialism

02:40:58

By two very good authors. They're interacting with the previous work by house and ice thomas house and wayne ice

02:41:06

Tommy ice and wayne house we get the names right from This one is from dallas theological seminary and the others have a well -known pre -trib scholar a dispensational thinker

02:41:18

Uh, so that is a very interesting book in its own right to to walk through And I think those would be helpful.

02:41:25

No, they're thicker books. Obviously then i'm not giving you thin paperbacks But they're meaty and you can get the message from them.

02:41:34

I think they're a great entry point and they're clearly written that's the other nice thing about them is that If I recommended books from the puritan era, they're going to be a difficult read

02:41:45

You know, I struck you out in the heavies there you're gonna say oh man martin I Takes me an hour to get through one page of So and so and this and that so i'm aware of that problem and some of the best scholarship

02:41:56

Unfortunately is prior to the 20th century I like warfield and other scholars exegetes from the 1800s not so much the 20th century because they were much better scholars back then then we have

02:42:10

Developed since that point we've gotten grown stupid. They will dumbed us down And it shows in our seminary works but those would be the first two that I would pop out of my my mind is to to get a feel for that and for the realization that the notion that we're

02:42:26

Have a really difficult we call it a hard road. Ho Is not necessarily true at all

02:42:33

That there's plenty of basis scripturally for a hope in both old and new testaments And I think both of these books are helpful in giving this and you get the ethical side of things in the house divided book

02:42:44

So that would be the first two there's a smaller book, um by keith matheson about I think it's called understanding post -millennialism

02:42:51

Um, not quite as long and also also a good as an introductory volume If you're interested in things about the great tribulation and its interpretation

02:43:01

You could do worse than to study the book by kick J. Marcellus kick wrote a book.

02:43:08

Um You know, it was originally called matthew 24 and then another one by on revelation 20. I don't agree with this thesis on 20

02:43:15

But his work on matthew 24 is very useful in walking through each of the verses that we just talked about including the astronomical signs and tying them back to the old testament exemplars as we say the original

02:43:29

Archetypes that occurred in isaiah and ezekiel that explained those passages so well

02:43:35

And give the context for what's happening in the olivet discourse And that can be found in a book called the eschatology of victory published by presbyterian reformed last

02:43:45

I heard And also has a couple of interesting earlier chapters by kick about millennialism and victory

02:43:55

So you get the benefit of his work on matthew 24, which is exemplary up through verse 35

02:44:00

And you get some additional meat on the whole idea of where the old testament Gets its ideas of victory for the the kingdom age which we're living in now

02:44:10

I know people say no, this isn't the kingdom age. No, this is the kingdom age We're living in the kingdom right now

02:44:16

But it's in a very primitive early form of it as it's continuing to grow And it is going to grow until it fills the entire earth.

02:44:24

And this is exactly what's predicted in isaiah 2 So those would be the the four books

02:44:29

I would probably start with They would get us some good traction If you've covered those books,

02:44:35

I think you will be in a good place to then pick out other things because they have bibliographies And you can source other materials the kind of things that I work with a little bit different orientation

02:44:48

We have two journals that you could probably get from calcedon At calcedon .edu

02:44:55

the pdfs I think are downloadable one is The journal of christian reconstruction the symposium on the millennium which has a very good article by bonson called the prima facie acceptability of post -millennialism where he walks through all the

02:45:08

Objections to post -millennialism one by one And knocks them out of the park is where it shows how they all fall flat biblically and logically and philosophically and historically

02:45:19

And then there's another one another issue from 1998 called the symposium on eschatology

02:45:27

Has a very good exposition of psalm 110 in it by ein vector and my article reconstructing post -millennialism which talks about the total victory of the gospel and how

02:45:36

One arrives at it in both old and new testaments But evenly divided between old and new testament and that'd be a little bit more technical work, but it's available there for free

02:45:45

On the calcedon website those pdfs are downloadable fantastic Brother, just looking at our at our clock.

02:45:52

I've spent uh, i've spent five hours and 20 minutes with you uh over the course of uh of our three interviews and I am supremely grateful for just the amount of time that you dedicated to this the amount of uh, just Uh grace and and love for me and for our audience that you dedicated uh, you're uh

02:46:16

You're a great man Uh, i've been very grateful to get to know you i'm thankful for you

02:46:22

And i'm thankful that you brought all of this, uh to us Uh, our audience will be enriched and blessed by you

02:46:27

By your hard work and I I thank you with from the bottom of my heart It was a pleasure walking through all this stuff

02:46:33

That's we may not have resolved every question, but I think we certainly put some bones on a few of the answers amen

02:46:39

Amen, amen. Well, um anything I can be praying for you about before we jump off calcedon's always

02:46:47

Trying to push the envelope forward on all fronts We believe that the word of god deals more with more than just social theory

02:46:55

We think like you said we need to deal with the mathematics and the sciences and the arts As well as the philosophy and the politics

02:47:02

All that has to come Be made subservient to christ And so that's our mission and pray that god gives us strength to continue to pursue it and That there'll be those who'll come alongside and support us in that work amen

02:47:17

And maybe someone uh will feel encouraged to check out the website check out the articles check out the journals that you mentioned

02:47:24

That'd be great. Yeah, let me just end with this, you know, I think it's in mark fourth chapter these were 28th verse uh

02:47:33

You know first the blade then the Year, then the full corn in the ear That's the way that the kingdom of god is going to grow because it's compared to this process very very slow process

02:47:44

And so my mission at calcedon is to make calcedon obsolete. We should not need

02:47:51

Parachurch ministries we should have christians across the globe each one pursuing these things

02:47:57

So what we're trying to do is set something in motion and then let it take off of its own Momentum Like the kingdom of god ought to grow spontaneously

02:48:06

Just like first the blade so we're at the first of the blade point But we want to get that in the ear and then the full corn in the ear and then

02:48:14

It's time for a harvest. So Let's pray that more people take up the gauntlet and say, you know something.

02:48:21

I have something to say about this area And it hasn't been touched by a christian yet. Perfect That's exactly what you need to pursue and that pushes the kingdom of god forward in that particular area and godspeed doing it

02:48:35

Amen god bless you brother. Thank you Thank you so much for watching this episode of the podcast if you made it all the way to the end if you made it

02:48:43

To where we're at right now. Thank you so much. Thank you for watching this show Thank you for learning along with me about the glorious truths of post -millennialism

02:48:52

And if you want to support this show even further Click the like button. I know I always forget to do that when i'm watching a video

02:48:59

I'll be like man that video is really good and then I forget to push the like button But if you do that, it actually helps get this content out to more people

02:49:06

The way that the youtube algorithm works is that when you push the like button Then they know that people like it and then they'll start populating it higher and higher and higher on the view list

02:49:16

So do that. That's a wonderful way that you can help the show also Click the subscribe button so that you don't miss new content

02:49:23

That's coming out click the bell icon so that you get alerted when it comes out That is a real good blessing

02:49:30

Now the final thing that I would say if you want to help this show is go to the shepherds dot church

02:49:35

It's t -h -e -s -h -e -p -h -e -r -d -s dot church Go there check out what we're doing at the shepherds church.

02:49:43

That's the church that i'm a pastor of And that's the church that i'm pouring my life out into in this season because I want to see the lord

02:49:51

Use this church in new england So go there check out what we're doing and if you want you can even give there on the giving tab

02:49:59

All the resources that are given to the shepherd church go to help us build christendom in new england