Lewis’ “Prophecies,” Cosmic Reconciliation, the Beauty of Creation

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It's a Monday and it's a holiday week. As Jeff Durbin described it last evening at church, this is first Christmas and then second

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Christmas is next month and then third Christmas is January 1st. I'm not sure if there's a fourth

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Christmas. Maybe that would be January 6th, something like that. I'm not sure. I really wasn't able to quite follow the reasoning there.

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But anyway, it is a holiday week and it is Thanksgiving week and so everybody and their third cousin will be doing some type of a program about Eucharist and Thanksgiving in the

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New Testament and all of those things are very good and proper and appropriate to be doing and I might do some of that as well.

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Our plan right now is to do today and tomorrow and Friday, maybe

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Friday. That's supposed to be Black Friday, isn't it? Isn't it?

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Yeah, you know, because Thanksgiving is so late this year, I think they've tried to do it last week or something.

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At least my email box seemed to indicate that was what was going on. But I think,

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I don't know, I think everybody's just sort of sitting around waiting for space aliens or something because it's 2020 and there's just,

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I mean, who's really looking forward to going, Happy New Year?

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Because everybody wants to go, man, 2020, finally.

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But I think most of us are sitting there going, what are the chances that 2021 is going to somehow turn all this around?

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None, especially given the results of the election.

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Yeah, zero, actually. I think most of us are sitting going,

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January 21st, huh? Okay, well, what's going to happen

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January 21st? Well, there's going to be a flood of executive orders and every little patch and every little encumbrance that has been granted over the past four years.

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For example, you know, not suing the sisters, the poor, the little nuns for providing contraceptive coverage.

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You know, the brakes come off on that, you go back after the nuns. And freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, protections for doctors and pharmacists, that all goes.

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And yeah, all the defunding of any kind whatsoever for Planned Parenthood, I can guarantee that all goes.

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And yeah, it's, of course, between now and the 21st, you have January 5th, that's a pretty important date there in Georgia, where the

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Senate is determined by that one election. And if those two seats go blue, which given how everything else has gone,

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I wouldn't be shocked at that at all. Then, wow, what a time period we are looking forward to.

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So it's a strange time of the year. Normally focused upon preparations, and there is that, there is that, we're having,

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I don't care if Gavin Newsom knows this, because I don't live in California yet, in the sense of Arizona is moving that direction very, very quickly.

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Unfortunately, that river over there, Colorado River used to be a nice border, but it's gotten quite leaky over the past number of decades.

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And way too many Californians now live in Arizona. And of course, thank you to all the Californians who moved from Arizona, who then vote the same idiotic policies here that you did in California, make this state stink as bad as California does.

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So we appreciate that very much, those of us who've been here for many, many decades.

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But anyway, we're going to have folks over for Thanksgiving.

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And not just our family, which would be big enough with the grandkids and stuff, but some folks from church as well.

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And so yeah, and no, there will not be any masks whatsoever.

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And there'll be no social distancing, there will be lots of hugging. And even amongst, the

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William Wallace in me says, who cares, we should hug now.

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Because Scottish people are natural social distancers already. I mean, it's just sort of like, keep your distance.

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But hey, if someone then tells you to do that, it's like, yeah, I'm gonna hug you now. But so there's still that going on.

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But it's all got this cloud cover over it. You know, it's you, you're, you can't help but thinking about what's, what's down the road and, and making plans, wise plans, you hope.

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But yeah, that's, that's where we all are. So just a couple things at the top in events.

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And then I want to get into, into some of the scriptures with you today on the program.

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It's actually only supposed to be in what, like 78 or something here today. And I'm actually seeing some 60s next week.

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Only need another 30 degrees before we can get snow. It's just been that, that year here in, in Phoenix.

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And, and has it rained almost at all? Yeah, I, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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I mean, I'm gonna tell you, the cacti are dying in Phoenix right now.

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They really are. I had one, there was one survivor from all those cactuses, cacti that we put back there and it, it gave up the ghost a few, few weeks ago.

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And because it just, it just hasn't rained. It's, I think it may,

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I think maybe in 2020, it may have rained for 10 minutes, grand total, the whole year in, in my backyard.

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So that's, that's all there is to it. So it's pretty dusty. I'm not sure how

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I got onto that. Oh, but still, I'm still, I'm still sporting a Coogee today just because it's my way of rebelling.

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I'll sweat through it and try to have some sense of normalcy in the midst of all this stuff.

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I have a, an article up here that I, I think we all need to be thinking about.

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I was, I was reading some quotes actually to, to Rich earlier. And some of you may have seen some of the articles.

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There've been a number of articles recently. Dwight Longenecker published an article and other people have seen a number of them on the, the prophecies of C .S.

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Lewis. You have to be careful utilizing that kind of terminology, obviously, but the prophecies of C .S. Lewis. And Lewis lives in the same time period as Orwell and hence is seeing a lot of the same things, especially over in the

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UK. And some of the things that he wrote were fascinating.

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Let me, let me read a couple of them to you. I think you'll find them very, very interesting. I dread the government in the name of science.

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That is how tyrannies come in. In every age, the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension, which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent.

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They cash in. It has been magic. It has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science.

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He's right. I mean in every age, the men who want us under their thumb, and there are people whose greatest desire in life is not their own ease, their own fulfillment as far as money and homes.

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And there are men and women whose greatest desire in life is power over others, control over other people.

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And you have the real crass people who, because they got a lot of money, just tell this person to do that and that person to do that.

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But then you have the more dangerous people who are willing to give all that up to have ultimate power over the largest number possible of people.

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And so in every age, the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension, which the hopes and fears that age render most potent.

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And so what are the hopes and fears of this age? What has proven the most potent? Well, sadly, we have proven, the world has proven, we just want to be safe.

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We just want to be safe. And we are willing to give up everything just to, just the promise.

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It can be a completely empty promise too, but the promise of safety. And we'll turn in our neighbors, everybody just keep me safe.

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I'm good. I'm good. They cash in. The magic worldview did it. Christianity certainly was used to do it during the

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Middle Ages. Now it will certainly be science. He also said, we have on the one hand, a desperate need, hunger, sickness, the dread of war.

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We have on the other, the conception of something that might meet it. Omni -competent global technocracy.

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Now this is written back in the fifties, I think. So think about what technocracy would have meant then.

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And then think about it now. I mean, think about the ubiquitous dependence we have upon this.

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Most of us don't even have a landline anymore. If you turn this thing off, you're cut off from the world. I mean, you can't find your, who has a map anymore?

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You'd have to be digging out, here in Phoenix, you'd have to dig out stuff that we used to use back at North Phoenix to go out on outreach visits and think how much those would have changed.

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And I mean, there'd be whole parts of the valley wouldn't even be covered. Yep. So the omni -competent global technocracy.

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And here's where it really, quote, is this not the ideal opportunity for enslavement?

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This is how it has entered before, a desperate need in one party, a power to relieve it in the other. In the ancient world, individuals sold themselves as slaves in order to eat.

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Perhaps the terrible bargain would made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to, yet we can hardly bear that they should.

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So you have the technocracy that comes along and offers the ultimate answers.

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And all it wants is your soul, your freedom, your liberty, your responsibility.

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And I am seeing a large portion of the modern population that is simply willing to say, okay.

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And interesting, like I said, I've been reading some of these dystopian novels just to see what people have been saying, because most of us, look, most of us in the 1980s read 1984, and we read

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Brave New World, and a few people read Fahrenheit 454. That was about it. What, 451?

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Oh, yeah. Okay. But that was about it.

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You know, I mean, and you've sat around English class and discussed it, and why it could never happen here, that kind of thing.

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And thought, wow, why do people even think of such things, that type of thing. But there are a number of others of them.

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And as you dig into them, you run across the exact same things over and over and over and over and over again.

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And the role of technology, the role of computers, the role of some type of medical treatment, you know, soma, equilibriums, dose, and all that.

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It's almost in every single one of these. That wasn't in 1984.

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But it wasn't Brave New World. I don't recall it being in the Fahrenheit one, whatever the last number is.

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The temperature at which paper burns or whatever that was. But it is in all of it.

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And here Lewis is talking exactly about this idea.

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This 70 years ago, 70 years ago, C .S. Lewis saw the threat of an omnicompetent global technocracy 70 years ago.

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He also saw the threat to human freedom that such a global technocracy presented. I guess we could sit around and go, glad we got 70 years.

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Because we did. Because we did. So, huh?

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Right. Right. Yep. I didn't enjoy that one.

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That one didn't do anything for me. But anyway,

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Rich is talking to me. Sometimes you can hear that. Sometimes you can't. I don't know. There you go.

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But C .S. Lewis, and again, this isn't some spiritual capacity.

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It is an observation of what's going on in the world. And it sort of kicks in with this,

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I suppose. Let me, this has been all over the place. So I want to go ahead and take a look at it.

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Evidently, HBO has put out a documentary on transhood.

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You know, you got childhood, and now we got transhood. And I have mentioned a number of times, a number of you have taken my suggestion and have read

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Irreversible Damage by Abigail Schreier. Again, I tell you, it's not a

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Christian book. But it's a well -researched book, well -written book. You can come to your own conclusions on things.

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And that's obviously something you need to do. But it is a well -written warning about the craze.

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And it is a craze. It is. These people weren't born that way. In fact, she goes through and she documents how many videos you can find online of people coaching you on how to get testosterone injections, and coaching you on how to say, oh,

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I've always felt that I was this way, even though there's zero evidence they did. It's a lie. And a lot of these people who have gone through it, they're now ruined for life physically, mentally, sexually, saying, this started when

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I started seeing it on the internet. I told the doctors

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I had always felt this way. It was a lie. It was a lie. And so this is a part, again, of this worldview that is at the center of the

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Great Reset. We need a much better term than the Great Reset. I mean, it's social, it's global, socialist, techno -totalitarianism.

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But you can't even say that three times slow, let alone fast. So Big Brother is probably copyrighted somewhere.

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And besides, that's so sexist. Anyways, so I mean, they wouldn't even want to use that. But this global movement that is enshrined in the

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Green Deal, and the most radical of the environmentalist initiatives, the destruction of economies, transportation, and of course, the radical diminishment of the human population of the earth.

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These folks want to stop reproduction, or at least minimize it and limit it.

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Their eugenicists to the core, they want to limit it to the right kind of people.

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The children of the elites, not us hoi polloi out here that would dare to have more than two children, or really more than one child.

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And so this whole worldview that is out there, destroying young girls, having them inject themselves with testosterone, so as to neuter themselves, as to destroy their ability to reproduce.

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This is their dream come true. I mean, they want to encourage this crazy. And that's why now, around the world, in the vast majority of countries now, except for Africa, if you dare say something against transgenderism, you can literally face criminal prosecution.

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You can say anything you want against Christianity. That's fine. That's okay. But if you say this is unnatural, this is improper, this is destructive, this leads to these kinds of medical complications, and there's no need for this,

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I can't do it anymore. So this documentary, which

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I have not seen on HBO, a clip of it has come out. I just want you to look at it.

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It's only a minute long. This is a clip from obviously some kind of apostate church.

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And you'll notice that everyone running this alleged service is a woman.

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It's one of the clearest, obvious signs that it's apostate from the beginning. But what are they doing?

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And what does this tell us? Well, most of you have already seen this. Let's take a look at it and comment on it.

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Good morning. Today we choose to recognize, honor, love, and celebrate anyone here who would claim their identity publicly as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning, intersex, pansexual, asexual, or any category that I've left out.

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This is Phoenix. You're a little shy.

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Do you want to tell your family if you're a boy or a girl? Okay, you can tell them that.

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Phoenix would like you to know that she's a girl and she prefers she and her pronouns. May you be well, safe, and whole.

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We honor you exactly as you are. So here you have probably, you know, it looks like, you know,

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ELCA, United Methodist, PCUSA, who knows, some type of ultra -leftist, liberal type, quote -unquote, church.

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And they are celebrating the violation of, rejection of God's created order. And Jesus is teaching in Math Chapter 19 that God created men and women and that this is a good thing.

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The abuse here, of course, is being promulgated by the parents, by the mother who is abusing the children.

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These children have no earthly idea whatsoever of what sexuality, gender, anything else is.

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And they are being used to affirm the perversions of their parents is what they're, what they're doing.

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And then you add to it the affirmation of an apostate

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Christian group, and you have what we are seeing on HBO. There was another picture.

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Yeah, here, here, here, Matt Walsh put this out, and I think it's same woman.

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It looks, looks the same. But here, a mother puts her four -year -old son in a dress and reads him

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LGBT propaganda. You're literally watching her brainwash the child into thinking she's a girl.

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It's no mystery how children end up trans. This is it right here. And it's true. There's no question about it.

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This is, this is child abuse in its fullest sense, in its complete sense.

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And every single person watching this right now knows that we are risking very much the posting of this program and the posting in the future of this program by daring to say that, but these children are worth it.

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The truth is worth it. No society that promotes this kind of thing on a wide scale basis can, can long survive and will not long survive.

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There is no question about it. You'll notice they're not doing this in China because the

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Chinese know that's not going to fly. That's not going to, that's not going to give you an army that you can then predominate, you can dominate everybody else with.

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And, but they certainly are giving lots of money to promote it being done here because that's much more efficient to destroy your enemy from within than to have to try to destroy them from without.

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And they are, they have succeeded. They succeeded only a few weeks ago here in the

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United States. They really did. I mean, the, the, the Chinese communist party is absolutely ecstatic, absolutely ecstatic, ecstatic as well with their evangelical cohorts and the people that worked with them to bring that about.

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They are so, so, so, so, so happy. But this, this transgender ideology, again,

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I just highly recommend to everybody that book. And there are others that, that are likewise very helpful in understanding what in the world is going on with this transgender movement.

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It is, it is truly astonishing and what's, what's happening there. Okay. Let's, let's put aside some of that stuff, which is just,

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I don't know. We have to warn our children. We have to, we certainly have to be doing what previous generations have not done.

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And that is affirming in our children,

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God's creative role in having made them as they are.

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Parents, you need to communicate with such clarity and force and repetition, the fact that God has made each one of your children the way that they are, given them the gifts that they have, and calls them to serve him with those gifts in the capacities that they can find to honor and glorify him.

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And that to seek to avoid and rebel against his providence in their life will result not in their happiness, but in their fundamental disappointment.

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That is the way to not ever experience true fulfillment. The only true fulfillment is going to be found in seeing exactly what

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God would have us to do in light of the gifts we were given. That was a given when I was a kid. When I was young, that was, you know, even in the

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Southern Baptist Church that I was in, there was a tremendous amount of discussion about, well, what's God's will for my life?

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And of course, that frequently became, who is God's will for my life? But before the who, there really was a serious discussion of what is

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God's will for my life? And the question was never, you've missed the boat because you're a boy or a girl.

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That never even crossed anybody's mind. The idea was in light of who I am, where I am, what my gifts are, what is

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God's will for my life in seeking to serve him? There was a healthy emphasis upon that.

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It was an appropriate emphasis upon that. Well, now it needs to be done, not just on the side as a little thing to help the has to start earlier and has to start, has to be done so much more firmly.

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And while we still have this brief window to be the primary sources of instruction,

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I truly am. I hope and pray that I'm wrong.

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I hope and pray that I'm wrong. But given what's going on elsewhere, like I was going to say,

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I'm sorry, I started something there and I stopped. I apologize. There is a trial going on in Bremen, Germany.

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Pastor Olaf Latzl has been charged with sedition by the prosecutors representing the government of the nation of Germany.

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Sedition, that sounds pretty serious. Well, it is. It is a serious charge.

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What did he do? He did a family and marriage conference in Germany, in German.

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And in the course of his teaching, he made reference, for example, to something that is called the,

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I think it was called, well, wait a minute, I've got to get the German up here. There it is.

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He made reference to the,

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I will find it here eventually. There it is, Christopher Street Day.

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And I didn't know what Christopher Street Day was. I had to look it up. It is the equivalent of a gay pride day.

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It's based on Stonewall. America has exported this. We bear the brunt of the guilt of this.

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There's no question about it. But it is a day, and I don't suggest that you do this, but if you absolutely have to document this, search on Christopher Street Day and turn the safe filter off, and you will find public nudity, public sexual activity, debauchery of every kind parading down the streets of Europe.

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Hide your children. This is what Christopher Street Day is. And in commenting on this,

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Pastor Olaf Lotzel described this as gender garbage, as destructive.

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Believe me, I've heard much stronger language that would be perfectly appropriate to describe this kind of behavior and the worldview that's driving this kind of stuff.

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Well, he might have gotten away with it if he had just done it in his church, but he posted it to YouTube.

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And it wasn't YouTube that even took it down, but it was the government of Germany that utilizing hate crimes legislation.

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And what's hate crimes? Well, as we all know, in Europe, under the EU, any member of any minority that is made to feel any kind of discomfort, by your words, that's sufficient to bring the hammer down on your head.

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Now, we all know that a lot of this stuff parades under the name of social justice, but that it actually promotes social injustice.

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And this is a social injustice. This is a situation where the state gets to determine who is the protected minority and who is the unprotected minority.

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Believing Christians are a small minority in Germany. Germany is one of the most secular states in the world, especially the

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Eastern portion, the former East Germany. And so, the state gets to say, hey, you can't say anything about these people that might hurt their feelings.

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We all know how this works. We know that in Islamic countries, all you got to do, you know, if your

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Christian neighbor is working harder than you and hence is making more money than you, and you want to destroy them and take their business, just accuse them of having said something against Muhammad or burning a

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Quran or whatever, and you take them out. Everybody knows exactly how that works.

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That's how this is working under these regimes. So, it should be mentioned that Olaf Lotzel is part of the state church, which is highly unusual.

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The state church just goes on with the state. That's what probably also got him in trouble is he's in the state church, and he's really outside the norm.

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And of course, state church is now coming after him for what he said. Of course, they got to get rid of him. But his church loves him and supports him.

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And so, you don't expect this from the state churches, whether it's in Denmark or Belgium or the

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Nordic countries, whatever. I mean, those state churches have been apostate for generations and generations.

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They left the faith long, long, long ago. So, they just go along with everything, and they're the same people doing the same sex stuff that we just saw in that apostate church we just showed on the screen.

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So, this is what's out there.

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And we look at the EU, and we rejoiced briefly when

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Brexit took place, because a lot of the people in the United Kingdom were like, we're sick and tired of having bureaucrats that live far, far away from us determining everything we do in our life.

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Well, that's what the EU is all about. And basically, the result of the

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American election is going to be a global EU, because that's where Biden and Harris are.

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And national sovereignty is simply going to be sacrificed, and very, very quickly, especially if those two

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Senate seats are stolen up, go blue. The national sovereignty will be sacrificed very, very quickly.

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But one other thing is, I don't know if you noticed, but the people pulling Biden's strings,

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I'm not going to say Biden, because I'm sorry, he doesn't know what day of the week it is where he is. But the people writing stuff for him as president -elect had him attack

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Poland and Hungary and liken them to totalitarian regimes.

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Why? Because they resist the totalitarian regime that is the EU. You always project on somebody else what you yourself are doing.

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And so here you have totalitarians accusing people who want to keep their borders and want to keep their national identity and want to resist the global sexual revolution of being totalitarians, when they're simply trying to protect who they are and what they are, instead of just going along and just capitulating and becoming just a nameless, faceless blob, along with all the other nameless, faceless blobs that used to be nations with histories and stories and morals and ethics and things like that.

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So the global reset cabal that runs

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Joe Biden is already using him to attack those who would dare stand against the coming rise of the global big brother, whatever he's going to call himself.

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I'm not sure what he's going to call himself, but there will be a name eventually. I just hope it's not something like Google or something.

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I mean, that's just... Skynet was sort of cool, but Google, man, who came up with that?

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It does not make any sense to me at all. Okay. All right. Now let us turn to a subject that I have said over and over again.

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I'm going to minimize Twitter there so I don't see what's going on there. Back to a subject that I have said

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I was going to get to. I will try to leave the discussion of Colossians 1.

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Why is it doing that? I don't know. Oh, it's looking for the word confusion. I don't want the word confusion as the only...

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It'd be really interesting to try to do a Bible study where the only verses you could possibly bring up in your Bible program contained the word confusion.

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That would be very confusing, actually. We'll look a little bit more,

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I promise, tomorrow at the subject of Thanksgiving. It is, in my opinion,

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I've said this many times before, probably if you were to ask me what

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Christian character trait would be the most important to cultivate so as to produce contentment, peace, and godliness in a

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Christian's life, I would say it would be Thanksgiving. I would say it would be thankfulness,

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I think. And I'll be honest with you, we'll wait for tomorrow on this, but let me just throw this out there.

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We've talked many times in years past about how secularists struggle to even begin to contemplate what a real

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Thanksgiving attitude is because they have no one to be thankful to. When you're a meatbag, when you're an ugly bag of mostly water, when you're stardust, when you're chemicals fizzing, whatever naturalistic explanation of mankind you want to come up with,

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Thanksgiving has no meaning because Thanksgiving has to have an object.

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You're giving thanks to someone. Trying to give thanks to some thing doesn't make any sense.

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And so we've talked about this. This is the one holiday per year that is so distinctly

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Christian that the secularists just can't even begin to grasp it.

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And of course, the secularists therefore would be like, and that's why if we ask you to give it up just for one year, haha, you really think it's just for one year?

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You really think it is? You hearing the people talking about even after vaccines, continue masking well into late 2021, you've heard that by now?

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And you think they're ever going to give that up? Once you hand them the power, do you think they're going to give it back?

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Come on. Wake up. Hello. Anyway, this is the one that they're like, well, there really isn't any reason for it.

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And just think of the turkeys that will be saved. It's just something you like to do, but you can do without it because there's no foundation to it.

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There's no way of understanding it. And so it is a very, very, very, very important topic for Christians, I think, to give consideration to.

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And certainly when I think of the most godly people that I've known in my life,

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Thanksgiving was a constant characteristic of their lives, of their speech, of their interaction with others.

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And when you think about the people who have caused the most division and dissension in churches, are they ever people that are marked by being thankful?

41:21

Nope. Nope. Nope. Never. Never. So we'll think about that. And that's certainly something to be thinking about But can we wind the clock back?

41:32

I hate doing this because I know it's not the efficient way of doing it.

41:38

But remember, what was it, three weeks ago? A month ago now? I listened to the debate back...

41:54

I should have brought it up. I wasn't gonna be playing it. But anyways, it was on limited atonement.

42:01

And our brother from CARM was debating Sam Shamoon, and it was one of those online affairs where you have a lengthy period of time where they started going back and forth.

42:20

And I didn't finish listening to it.

42:26

I didn't finish listening to it because it was just becoming repetitive. And there's talking over and the same question was being asked over and over again.

42:33

And the same answer to a different question was being given. And it just... I never even got to the audience questions because those end up normally providing even more cover in the sense of getting things way off topic as it is.

42:54

What I was trying to do is I was trying to explain, because the big subject, the big takeaway that came out of it was everybody was saying, did you hear that Sam Shamoon believes that Christ died for Satan?

43:12

And that sounds pretty creepy, obviously. And so that was what

43:20

I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear what the context was. And so I was trying to explain and go into the scriptures to explain what the argument was.

43:33

And hopefully, I've accurately represented it to you. And that is that Sam Shamoon is looking at Colossians chapter 1, verse 20, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace with the blood of his cross.

43:46

Through him I say, where are things on earth are things in heaven. And so in the context of Colossians chapter 1, what he's saying is there is a seamless context between 1 .15

44:00

through, well, 19 into verse 20.

44:06

So that the tapanta that is created by Christ in verse 16 is the exact same tapanta that is reconciled having made peace with the blood of his cross in verse 20.

44:23

Therefore, if the cross in and of itself accomplishes anything, then you're stuck with universalism.

44:35

But since we know universalism isn't true, then the cross is a part of a system that requires faith and repentance to be actuated in essence.

44:50

Or there may be more than faith repentance, we don't really know where Sam is these days, as to his views of these things, moving toward a

45:01

Catholic, a Syrian Catholic type of a perspective in his understanding.

45:08

And so, but the idea was that since tapanta in Colossians chapter 1 is all things, that has to include

45:19

Satan because Satan's a creature. And so, there has to be a sense in which

45:25

Satan is reconciled according to Colossians 1 .20. So, the pushback was an appropriate pushback to what

45:37

Sam said because it pointed out the nature of the kinsman -redeemer, the reality of the hypostatic union, and hence the nature of the atoning sacrifice because there has to be an appropriate connection, correspondence between the life that is given and the penalty that is being paid.

46:07

So, on so many levels, the position that Sam has taken violates so many different categories of what atonement actually is.

46:18

And it requires a naturalistic or mechanistic understanding of what reconciliation means in verse 20.

46:27

And so, what we did is we walked through Colossians 1, we jumped over to Ephesians 2 and 3, the only other place where you have in this correspondence.

46:37

And remember, we said at the time, Colossians and Ephesians are parallel texts. They're written at the same period of time, sent to the same area, they have a lot of the same type of language and topics.

46:47

There's parallels between the two of them. Less conservative scholars do not accept their

46:53

Pauline authorship because of that. I think that their argumentation is circular. There is certainly no physical evidence, manuscript evidence that would in any way point to a later origination as soon as the

47:09

Pauline epistles appear in history. These are right there.

47:14

There's nothing from that time period that is reflected in a later time period to where there would be a basis for saying these are written after Romans, Galatians, things like that.

47:31

And so, we looked at the fact that there is a transition, there is a shift in Colossians 1, beginning of verse 18.

47:41

He is also head of the body, the church. He's the beginning, the firstborn of the dead.

47:46

So, he will come to have first place in everything. And of course, what it would mean to have first place in everything is something that should be considered, especially in light of the fact that this same author preaches on Mars Hill that someday this is the one who will judge the living and the dead, the one who was raised from the dead by the operation of the

48:11

Father. So, he would have first place in judgment, but also we see that it was the

48:23

Father's good pleasure for all fullness to dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to himself.

48:28

And so, the key issue to get to, I'm not going to revisit everything that we said in the previous programs, the key issue to get to is this.

48:38

What does reconciliation mean? And we saw that this is a

48:47

Pauline term. We've seen that, for example, it's used in the

48:52

Corinthian correspondence to be reconciled to God, and that's in the context of the church.

48:59

We see it used here. We see it used in Ephesians of the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile one body.

49:08

So, we see it being used in a lot of different ways. And one of the great dangers that we have here is the same danger that we face when we look at hagiadzo, the term to sanctify.

49:25

Most Christians are aware of the fact that when we talk about sanctification, we are talking about two different aspects of a divine action.

49:39

There is a positional sanctification. There are uses of that term where we have been sanctified.

49:47

We have been made holy. There is an accomplished, this already exists aspect to that term.

49:58

But then, this is the will of God for you, your sanctification. Well, but if we've already been sanctified, how can the will of God be our sanctification?

50:08

And so, it's not just the now and the not yet, which is always present in Paul's discussion.

50:17

But there is the positional and the experiential, a recognition that in Paul, for example, we've already been seated in heavenly places.

50:27

And yet, what are we doing? We are awaiting the redemption of the body. So, we're seated in heavenly places, but we're not seated in heavenly places.

50:39

Positional, experiential. Sanctification, we've been sanctified, set apart.

50:47

We are being sanctified. We are being set apart experientially as this body of flesh fights against the new man, and there is that conflict that exists.

51:01

And we read about it in Romans 7, and that's the situation that we find ourselves.

51:09

That's why we need an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he pleads before the throne, and so on and so forth.

51:17

So, we have that type of aspect with sanctification. But no one ever talks about reconciliation, and the key is really right in front of us, if we would just step back a second.

51:29

You never read about sanctification outside of a personal context.

51:36

Oh, you can talk about in the temple, things being set apart as holy in the sense that they're being used only in the worship of God.

51:46

But in the sense of reconciliation,

51:56

I started to get to this, and I have a recollection.

52:03

I know I had on my screen here, that's the hard thing. When you start a topic, and then you try to pick it back up.

52:11

Did I have it queued up, have it sitting there ready to go, and did

52:16

I talk about it or not? That's the hard part. Some people with big budgets would have people, hey, go find out if I actually talked about that.

52:25

But Rich just looks at me and goes, when I ask him to do that. And appropriately so,

52:33

I might say. I'm supposed to do my own work. Keeps me humble that way.

52:40

Anyway, so I think I mentioned, but I'll mention it again briefly.

52:47

One of the most interesting references I found in looking at the use of the reconciliation semantic, the semantic domain of the terms that come together in the term reconciliation, was the description of Alexander the

53:17

Great. I'm looking at Rich. Ringing no bells?

53:26

A little bit, actually, but it's been a long time. There is a reference utilizing that terminology, calling

53:37

Alexander the Great the great, the reconciler of the world. And while I mentioned this in a sermon over the summer too, and I think it may have been a sermon up north, so there may have been part of that too.

53:56

How was Alexander the Great, who conquered a massive portion of the known world, before age 33, how could he be called the reconciler of the world?

54:12

He killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in his military campaigns, enslaved millions, certainly laid the foundation for Rome's later expansion with the spread of Greek culture and language into those areas.

54:39

Though Rome never got as big. Well, Rome went farther west, obviously, but not nearly as far east as Alexander did.

54:48

Anyway, how can he be called a reconciler? Well, I think that's where we start to realize that reconciliation likewise needs to have the same range of categories applied to it as something like sanctification does.

55:05

Because we assume, because we're using English, that to reconcile takes two parties that are being brought back into appropriate relationship.

55:22

As far as a basic meaning, that's perfectly fine. But plainly, even in Paul's usage, he has ethnicities being reconciled, he has individuals being reconciled to God, God being reconciled to individuals, and then you have the reconciliation of creation.

55:53

Now, how can the cross bring about all these kinds of reconciliation?

56:08

My suggestion to you is what was missed in the debate, honestly, it was touched on once, but was not expanded upon in the part that I heard.

56:20

Maybe it became the big topic later on, I don't know. But in the first hour and a half, hour 45 minutes, whenever it was,

56:29

I mentioned, I think it was an hour and 40 minutes in or something when I started, I forgot what it was. Anyway, it's just when it just started, they started going around like this and talking over each other and going nowhere.

56:44

Here's what's missed. There are plainly cosmic implications when the creator of all things gives his life having entered into his creation.

57:01

There's obviously, you can't say, well, that's just about that one little planet down there. When the creator enters into his own creation, there are cosmic implications that come from that, and I think that's what

57:14

Colossians is talking about. At the same time, the distinction that exists between personal reconciliation and natural reconciliation should be obvious.

57:31

And what do I mean by personal and natural? You can't reconcile a planet in the way that you reconcile an image bearer of God.

57:44

Do you understand that? Does that make sense? I can't reconcile a rock.

57:49

A rock is part of the fallen creation. Adam is the federal head of all of creation.

57:57

That's God's doing. And so all of creation groans, Romans 8.

58:06

So there is a cosmic aspect of sin. And so there would have to be a cosmic aspect of the creator entering into his creation and becoming the new

58:22

Adam, clearly. But the mechanism and the meaning of the reconciliation of a planet, the reconciliation of the created order, and the reconciliation of the elect has to be different.

58:43

Why? Because the mechanism is the giving of a perfect human life. It's substitutionary.

58:50

Substitutionary atonement is not a non -reformed belief.

58:59

Those who are not reformed don't have any reason to believe it. That's a reformed concept.

59:06

It's only consistent with a personal atonement. That is that there is a specific people who are united to Christ in His death so that His death is personally in behalf of them.

59:21

True substitution, not fill in the blank substitution impersonally later on, where you have a nameless, faceless group that could be bigger or smaller that is atoned for, and it's up to us to fill that in.

59:40

No, that's not the same thing as saying that when we sing that hymn, which isn't scripture, but I would suggest you shouldn't sing it if you don't believe it, my name was written on His hand, graven on His heart.

59:55

That's substitutionary atonement. That's personal substitutionary atonement. And that cannot be the blood of His cross of Colossians 1 20 because there is no substitutionary union of the created order with Jesus.

01:00:13

Jesus does not become incarnate for planets. Planets are not represented in His incarnation.

01:00:22

Image bearers of God are. And so that was what, you know,

01:00:28

I'm thinking through listening to the debate again, where I was, the ride I was on and stuff, and that's what was coming across my mind so many times was they'd get close to really touching on the issue and then would move away again by repeating something that's already been said.

01:00:53

But the idea really here is that you cannot stretch the

01:00:59

Pauline doctrine of atonement, hilasmos, of the high priest and the golden chain of redemption in Romans 8 and Hebrews, and you can't stretch that out and find a basis in that for a salvific reconciliation of tapanta in Colossians 1.

01:01:28

What the atonement does do is provide the foundation upon which true judgment and final disposition of all of the creation can be made justly by the triune

01:01:49

God. So, God in Christ, the

01:01:57

Father in Christ, not in Christ spatially, but by means of Christ, creates all things.

01:02:06

And the Father through Christ then reconciles all things, not through atonement, substitutionary atonement, but because of the incarnation and the death upon the cross,

01:02:23

God's justice is fulfilled. And what He's done with all the rest creation in subjecting creation to futility is seen to be right and proper because of the result that God brings about in His creation.

01:02:40

That's where the connection to the Alexander usage is, because Alexander unifies the world by his power and hence is called the reconciler of the world.

01:02:53

Because of the death of Christ, because of the accomplishment of the central purpose of creation, if you see the incarnation and the cross as the center point of history, then the wisdom of God is demonstrated in the summing up of all things in Christ.

01:03:14

But if you don't make the distinction between laying that foundation and then the personal reconciliation through atonement, substitutionary atonement, forgiveness of sins that takes place to the elect, you end up with a much more serious problem in regards to even having, if you try, as Sam Shimon did, and I, again,

01:03:43

I don't know where Sam is. I don't. And I don't understand the journey he's been on and all the rest of that stuff.

01:03:56

And all I can do is pray like I have all along. But it would seem to me that Sam should have thought of this.

01:04:11

Atonement requires the appropriate nature of the object that is given as a sacrifice.

01:04:24

Why didn't the blood of bulls and goats ever actually provide final and complete forgiveness?

01:04:32

Why was that? Because there was not a direct correspondence. It was a representation.

01:04:39

It was a shadow. It was a picture of what was yet to come.

01:04:46

Why did Jesus have to be the God -man? Why did he have to be the Theanthropos? Why did the

01:04:53

Logos have to become Sarx? Why couldn't the Logos just look like Sarx, just look like flesh?

01:05:04

Why did there actually have to be a hypostatic union? Why, if you have

01:05:11

Eutychianism, do you not have atonement? Why, if you have Nestorianism, do you not have atonement?

01:05:18

Why, if you have Apollinarianism, do you not have atonement? Why do all those Christological errors fundamentally strike at the atonement itself?

01:05:30

Because there has to be that correspondence. There has to be a true human nature that is given.

01:05:40

So, all those Christological errors deprecate that aspect in some way or another.

01:05:51

A true and proper Christology is foundational to a true and proper understanding of what the

01:06:00

God -man did in giving himself. The union of the elect with Christ means that his death is their death, his resurrection is their resurrection.

01:06:17

And this is very fearful to many people. Remember when we were responding to David Allen, one of the quotations in there was the dismissive idea of a decretal atonement.

01:06:32

Yes, it is a decretal atonement. The central point of the decree of creation was the giving of Christ in atonement.

01:06:39

That's exactly right. No question about it. None whatsoever. You cannot tear these things apart.

01:06:45

And that's what every attempt to formulate

01:06:53

Christianity that rebels against the complete freedom of God to act in time according to his eternal decree.

01:07:08

That's what they're all rebelling against. They're all trying to find a way for man to control what only God can control.

01:07:14

And the result is the disharmony that you see. So, there is a harmonious understanding of what reconciliation is that recognizes that the created order subjected in the

01:07:33

Father's wisdom to the headship of Adam is reconciled by the death of the second

01:07:42

Adam. That likewise sees that reconciliation then provides

01:07:48

God the basis for his judgment but does not mean bringing two persons because the creation is not personal in and of itself back into proper relationship with one another soteriologically.

01:08:03

So, there you might call it a forensic or a legal or a naturalistic, naturalistic as in nature concept of reconciliation that comes about because of the cross.

01:08:15

But that's not the same thing as the soteriological, intentional, redemptive purpose of the

01:08:26

Son and the union of the elect with him in his death.

01:08:31

That's what has to be, once you have the synergistic concept given entrance into your system, then the coherence of always having the decree of God giving consistency to what

01:08:48

God does. It's gone because that's the one thing you're taking out. You're now putting man in charge.

01:08:55

It may only be of that much, but that's the whole point. That's where you're putting man's will and the coherence, the consistency comes apart.

01:09:08

And so, when you, if you ask, is there any sense in which you could agree with what

01:09:22

Sam Shemoon was saying, this is the only sense in which you can say it. The demonstration that is made in the death of the

01:09:31

God man upon the cross, reconciling all things to God, provides the just foundation for the judgment and condemnation of Satan and the demons.

01:09:46

The idea and the very creation of it, because what's the objection atheists have all the time?

01:09:52

Well, why did God even bother to create all these people? The reality is that the ultimate goal is the demonstration of the character of God in the

01:10:04

God man and the salvation of a unique people. And everything else that God creates is necessary to the full demonstration of his character and is hence reconciled when that demonstration is fully accomplished in the incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, the ministry of the life of Jesus Christ.

01:10:32

So, the existence of Satan is part of God's wisdom in the demonstration of who he is, what his character is, what his power and justice is, and what his love and mercy is.

01:10:50

That's the level of reconciliation where the huge error comes in is saying, and that means if Satan had just believed, no, no atonement had been made for Satan because the assumption that Sam's making is reconciliation means atonement was made because he's not made the proper distinctions, doesn't see the different uses of reconciliation, even in Paul's own vocabulary.

01:11:17

And there was no basis for Satan to be offered anything because there is no corresponding offering that has been made for Satan and angels.

01:11:32

And that point was made by the way, um, at least once, maybe twice, but once you get into that back and forth time, it can get lost.

01:11:41

But it was made. It was made. Matt did say that. So, aside from the fact that the debate did not get into the key issues, the real key issues, the nature of the high priesthood of Christ and those texts that really lay all of that out, what it did get into this particular area, um,

01:12:09

I wanted people to understand. And I think as much as Sam seems to be back on the anti -James

01:12:20

White trail that he's been on more than once before, um, my hope is that as Sam listens to this, he'll go, okay, he tried to, he did accurately explain to people what

01:12:33

I was saying, went to the text, said what I was saying, accurately represented it.

01:12:41

And at least in responding to the people who are going, I can't believe someone would say that, at least you understand where he was coming from.

01:12:49

And hopefully by unpacking it, have a better idea of why

01:12:54

I think he's still wrong. But you want to, you want to say someone's wrong about what they're actually wrong about, even if they don't know what they're actually wrong about, uh, rather than just simply a, oh, that sounds, that sounds terrible.

01:13:08

Well, yeah, it sounds terrible, but there, there, there are a number of truths that sound terrible depending on how you express it initially.

01:13:17

And so let's, let's be careful in, in how we go those, those particular directions. So, um, like I said, it was, um, there were numerous other points that I wanted to comment on that I, well, let's put it this way.

01:13:34

I remember thinking, boy, there's so many things we could talk about here, but having had so much time now pass,

01:13:40

I had to focus upon the, uh, the primary issue, uh, that is found here, but it is hopefully helpful to everyone to recognize that when you are exegeting

01:13:53

Colossians and Ephesians, always, always, always see them in parallel with one another.

01:14:04

Always check usage in, in Ephesians when you're in Colossians and vice versa, because no one, well, okay.

01:14:13

No one should think about looking at an incident in Mark that's also found in Matthew and Luke without looking at Matthew and Luke.

01:14:25

Very same situation when you're looking at Colossians. If you're, if you're, if you do not have them both open at the same time, did any of you see, um, oh, that, that reminds me, this is cool.

01:14:37

Um, did any of you see, I posted the, um, awesome video that was posted last week about Mars.

01:14:49

Did you, did you do that? You're the one that said, I was trying to get you to have a headache. Wasn't it? You didn't get to work.

01:14:58

Did you? There's a stereogram video that someone did because Mars is pretty much an app, uh, uh, uh, apposition right now.

01:15:11

The closest it's going to be for like 30 some odd years or something or 16 years. I forget, but anyways, it's real close. And so even smaller telescopes are getting really good views of Mars right now.

01:15:22

I haven't, haven't gotten mine out and I'll, I probably won't. And it's, I feel terrible and guilty and stuff like that.

01:15:28

But anyway, um, it's 2020, uh, they put out this awesome video where if you, when

01:15:36

I first looked at it, I didn't understand what I was looking at, but then I put my finger in front of my nose and it helped me to sort of put my, and you can, if you cross your eyes and bring them together as one, it's 3d.

01:15:50

And so you're literally watching this high resolution, uh, globe of Mars that looks 3d, um, rotating in front of your eyes.

01:16:01

And I said, you know, if you find this really cool, thank me, unless your eyes stick, like my mom always said they would.

01:16:07

And then don't blame me. Um, Oh, Oh, okay.

01:16:19

Anyway. Uh, a lot of people found it to be really, really cool. Um, if you haven't seen it, uh, check it out.

01:16:27

Cause it is at least have your kids check it out. Cause it's really, really, really neat.

01:16:33

And what that reminded me of was just today on the very rim of the sun, a rather massive, as in probably three times the size of the earth sunspot has appeared.

01:16:51

And why should I tell you about that? Because that means the sun is definitely into its next cycle.

01:17:00

And that is a, well, this is a strange way of putting it. Good thing. It's a good thing in the sense that when the sun's at a solar minimum, and it has been for quite some time, a very deep solar minimum, um, we actually end up with more radiation, uh, harmful radiation coming through our atmosphere than when it's active.

01:17:24

It has to do with solar winds and interaction with our atmosphere. And it's incredibly complex.

01:17:30

I think someday, honestly, this is total speculation.

01:17:37

Don't please don't write articles about how I'm a heretic or something, but you're going to do it anyways.

01:17:44

But, um, I think that one of the glories of glory of heaven is going to be seeing the glory of our

01:17:59

God in how this creation actually works. I think we see so little of it. I'll bet you dollars donuts.

01:18:05

And that's a, that's an old phrase. I'll bet you dollars donuts that Jason Lyle agrees with me on this.

01:18:15

We have had some conversations about it. Um, but, uh, I, I just have a feeling that as we discover things, we're, we're just, we're at the stick and rock stage.

01:18:33

I mean, we're just starting to see some of the complexities of the universe around us and, and stuff like that.

01:18:42

And I just, I can't see why there would be such a vast universe with such incredible interactions.

01:18:53

If it wasn't going to eventually result in the glorification of God and in eternity, what's that going to involve his self -revelation to his people.

01:19:05

So, um, you know, that that's, I don't know if you're following me or not.

01:19:12

I'm just, I'm just speculating, but I, when I think of the complexity of the interaction of, for example, solar wind with our atmosphere and its various levels and the magnetic poles and, and all of that going on out there and how, if we were just a little bit closer, the solar wind would blow our atmosphere away and the balances that are found.

01:19:43

Um, I, and we're finding all these exoplanets. We're finding all these planets out there because we've now launched these awesome satellites that are just cataloging planets.

01:19:55

And we, we hadn't didn't even know of any just a few years ago, but now we know of all sorts of planets and we can calculate their, their orbits around their stars and how big their stars are.

01:20:08

And you can have these planets that are just too close to the sun. They're right on the edge of the

01:20:13

Goldilocks zone and they have no atmosphere because it's been blown away by that, by that star.

01:20:21

And I just wonder if part of what will come will be the demonstration of that perfection of the balance of God's creative power that is seen in this earth and maybe in many other planets.

01:20:41

I mean, this is, this universe is vast and I am certain there is life in the rest of this universe.

01:20:49

That's different than intelligent life. That's different than spiritual life. Okay. For example, you know, we're, remember,

01:21:00

I'm going to go ahead and say this. We've talked about one thing, we've talked about two other things in depth on the program today.

01:21:07

Here's third one. It would not for a second impact me to find microbes on Mars.

01:21:17

Not for a second. Okay. From a naturalistic perspective, given naturalistic presuppositions, then you go, aha, life can just simply arise.

01:21:31

Well, no, it can't. That's closing your eyes to the complexity of what actually creates life.

01:21:38

But what's one of the ways, um, have you ever seen one of those calendars? Well, not a calendar, but even a screensaver.

01:21:45

I have this really cool screensaver. I don't have it on this computer because this computer is old and doesn't have the power to do it.

01:21:50

But my, my main computer has all this ridiculous computing power.

01:21:56

So I can have these live wallpapers, um, on three screens and they move not fast.

01:22:04

I keep it. And if you have them moving fast, then any computer is going to be huffing and puffing to do that. But, uh, it's called magic, magic, something.

01:22:15

Yeah. Look up magic, something in it. It's really, it's really beautiful. There's some beautiful scenes, you know, storms coming in us.

01:22:21

It's gorgeous. Um, but you ever seen one of those, uh, it's especially pretty on something like this, where you're looking down into some of these lagoons and the color, the depth of the green and the blue in the water is just, you just sit there like, wow, it's gorgeous.

01:22:43

Well, you know, it creates a lot of that is bacteria and plankton and all sorts of very relatively simple from our perspective, um, life organic compounds and, but reproducing creatures produce so much that beautiful color.

01:23:07

And so I wouldn't have, if there's a, if there's a planet on a star light years away from here that someday we get to see, or even visit, uh, that is filled with beautiful life and color.

01:23:25

What does that, how does that in any way, shape or form, uh, impact what the scripture says?

01:23:32

I realize that the scriptural authors in of themselves had no idea how vast this universe is.

01:23:40

We did not have any idea how vast this universe is as a species until the past 80 years.

01:23:52

We had no idea. Um, and you gotta, gotta realize if they study these things anymore, my grandchildren will grow up.

01:24:04

I don't know that they know this yet. I think I told them about it, but my grandchildren will grow up with a very firm documented amount of evidence demonstrating there is a massive black hole at the center of this galaxy.

01:24:20

We've only known that, uh, now since the early two thousands, so less than 20 years, but their whole lives will be spent knowing an amazing truth that I wouldn't have even known how to express at their age when

01:24:43

I was younger. So the beauty of Christianity is not that advancing knowledge does away with it.

01:24:51

Advancing knowledge only allows us to see the glory of the creator more and more.

01:24:59

That's, that's where I think we've, we need to focus the need to be presenting the

01:25:06

Christian worldview as the beautiful, positive, attractive thing is.

01:25:12

It's not beautiful and positive to rebels. I get it. It's a spiritual thing, but as we teach, we need to be saying to the world that secular worldview of yours, first of all, it can't explain almost anything.

01:25:29

It, it arose as a perversion of our worldview. Um, the science that you worship came into existence from our worldview that gave you the regularity of nature and gave you the foundations to be able to do the studies you're doing.

01:25:50

And as you, as you seek to create a world formed by your worldview, and as it destroys life, as it empties life of all meaning, we're going to, we're going to be out here on the margins of society, maybe living on an

01:26:13

Island someplace saying, there's, there's, there's, there's a better way.

01:26:19

And you all know what it is, but you're holding it down and let us explain to you how to pry those fingers up.

01:26:27

And, um, that's something that is worth holding out for and working toward.

01:26:36

And it starts by communicating it to the next generation with passion and a depth of fervor.

01:26:47

And that's why they want your children. That's why they want your children.

01:26:57

And man, they have tools to do it now. And man, I do not have all the answers as to how to get around all the tools they have right now, but I remain confident of one thing.

01:27:11

They'll always be made in the image of God. And it's always tiring to be involved in the suppression of the knowledge of God, holding that down, holding that down.

01:27:22

One last thing. I, I, I posted some tweets last week and some people found them.

01:27:29

So I sat back and went, hmm, hmm. That's, uh, that's interesting. Um, in fact, let me, uh, let me read them to you real quickly.

01:27:40

Assuming my computer will, uh, allow me to grab them, uh, quickly enough.

01:27:46

Um, here's what I wrote, man, that font's small. I said the old man, uh, how can

01:27:55

I have confidence? Excuse me on the, um, what date was this? Uh, it doesn't show the date.

01:28:01

I hate when it does that. Um, how can I have confidence at this time when darkness is advancing rapidly, that light will be victorious because the darkness laughed when the stone was rolled in front of the tomb, they could not extinguish the light.

01:28:15

The secular worldview producing this darkness is empty. It is false in that it is inconsistent with the real world

01:28:21

God has created. It can enslave, it can kill, but only for as long as God allows it to.

01:28:28

It contains within itself its own seeds of destruction. Might God allow darkness to deepen and spread for a time, even to us a very long time?

01:28:38

Yes. Why? So that in the bright future to come the example of this darkness and its causes and defeat will be used to advance the cause of truth.

01:28:48

That last one, that last one is what I want to leave you with today. There have been already very dark times in the history of the church.

01:29:03

Um, it was really dark between the crucifixion and the resurrection, but it was a brief period of time, but don't, don't question how dark it was.

01:29:12

How long was that day in the minds of the disciples, the confusion, the despair, the empire wide persecution of Christians in the

01:29:25

Roman empire lasted for 60 years, between 250 and 313, over 60 years, almost, almost seven decades.

01:29:35

That's a lifetime. There were people born at the beginning of that persecution. That's all they ever knew.

01:29:42

What would the world have looked like to them? What would the future have looked like to them? And yet we live in the light of their faithfulness.

01:29:52

They didn't give up and the Christian faith survived. It was really dark during the plague.

01:30:01

There were times during the medieval feudal system that things look really bad. And there were times, can you imagine what it was like to be born say 1935 in Eastern Europe and to experience world war

01:30:19

II and then to experience Soviet domination and the rise of atheism.

01:30:25

And there were people who died under those systems who would have found it very hard to believe that Christ would be victorious.

01:30:41

So, whatever you do with eschatology, you cannot use your limited experience or any of our, any of our limited experiences, even our lifelong experiences as a foundation of doing it because we don't live that long.

01:30:58

And there have been times throughout the history of the church that have been very dark. Could we be entering an extremely dark time that might last for a lot longer than it ever has in the past?

01:31:12

Yeah. Could that become the watchword, the example in the future to say, never ever again will that happen?

01:31:26

We need to see to it. Evidently, 120 million dead in one century under communism wasn't enough to get it through our collectively thick heads because we're doing it again only a few decades later.

01:31:52

What's it going to take before we get it figured out? Well, fundamentally, it's a spiritual thing, isn't it?

01:32:00

It is. But keep it in mind because I know a lot of friends, a lot of others that are going, why, why could, why would

01:32:10

God ever allow something like this? Have a historical perspective and you might see that judging by where we are right now is not the way to judge what

01:32:23

God's doing in time. So anyways, thanks for listening to the program today.