Postmillennialism Defended

This is apologetics live to answer your questions your host from striving for eternity ministries

Psych it is not Andrew Rappaport. It is drew flying solo tonight

Although not really because I have a couple guests that are backstage that are going to join us But before we get there welcome back to apologetics live

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I don't know is a perfectly acceptable answer Now tonight we are going to be discussing the dreaded topic of post -millennialism

So we are going to address some questions that that you have maybe some myths about post -millennialism, but we're going to be looking at that particular view of eschatology and With one of my guests.

We will also be hitting on the topic of theonomy as well But now before I get to the actual topic

I Want to say that this episode is only happening Because Andrew gave the go -ahead and I just want to throw that out there because if you're a regular

Listener and a regular viewer of the show then, you know that Andrew and the other members of striving for eternity

They hold to the view of dispensational premillennialism and when given the opportunity to host

I never want to give the appearance that I am in any way attempting to undermine their teaching

So with that I will bring in my first guest. Mr. Jeremy Collins Jeremy welcome to the show brother.

Thanks for having me on So for people who don't know you Which I feel like that's probably everyone in probably in this in our chat anyone that That watches this show they probably don't know you tell people who you are

Yeah, so my name is Jeremy. I I have the Theonomy under my name there.

That's a podcast. I do that talks about Economics from a more theonomic standpoint now granted with that a lot of it is just biblical economics

So I think most of what I say is people who even disagree with theonomy will still agree with what

I have to say about economics That's a little bit about that word theonomy underneath there

Theonomony So that's the podcast you can find on an Apple podcast Spotify all that stuff I Am married and I have one kid right now.

She is almost eight months old. She'll be eight months old next week so hopefully many more to come in the future and Yeah, I've met

Not I'm at Rappaport Andrew Rappaport and dr. Silvestro a couple of times each now and I really love them and Enjoy talking with dr.

Silvestro about health stuff. I'm sure he's talked about that on at least a few occasions and past episodes

Yeah, it's always funny because whenever I if I post something on Facebook, right that's kind of health related or a question anything like that Dr.

Silvestro will call me Me and then he'll call me and then he'll want to talk about it And it always turns into you know

Like a an hour -long conversation which is great because he gives me all this knowledge and all this wisdom That I need and he just gives me a bunch of stuff that I never thought about before you know about what's in our things that are in our food and Things that we consume that we just don't think about that That has an effect on our health, so I love talking to dr.

Silvestro about that stuff But it looks like we have a comment for you. It says what's up Collins.

This is haps haps Addison, so You know haps. Yeah, I know happy happy stayed at my house before it's been a while since I've seen him so So there you go.

Someone does recognize you yeah, and you know we

You and I we are also a part of cruciform cruciform media cruciform ministries

Which is actually how you and I got acquainted because I was coming on as a part of cruciform and you were a part of There so we've just been you know, keeping in touch ever since But I'd actually listen to an episode of your podcast before then although I don't think you were on that episode

That was Chris and a guest. I think the one on reckless love reckless worship. Oh, no, that was that.

Oh, you were on that one Okay. Yeah, that was that one and then like four months later. We met through Brandon. It was like, oh

I listen to your podcast Yep So that's that's pretty funny that you that you listen to it before before you actually met me

That's yeah, Bethel Church in Christianity that Facebook page shared it. Oh That's right.

That's right. I remember that now, but we do have some comments that have come that actually came in pre show

And that are pretty funny So, let's see brother John Elving the one who always sends me post meal questions every time

I'm on here. Love you, brother He says post millennialism defended. Sorry. I find that is so funny looking forward to the show

Well, I hope that we can deliver brother. I Hope that we can deliver

What else do we have? Let's see. I Gotta explain one of the comments there the he's a

Zelda warrior comment is in relating to this My legend of Zelda master sword.

Oh nice. Okay There you go. So he must have he must have remembered that from when he stayed at your house

Yeah, there's a meme that shows up every once in a while of me holding that Okay, okay

We have bond servant for Jesus Melissa and at some point I'm actually going to be on Melissa's podcast

We just haven't been able to to work out a time I was supposed to be on there this past Sunday and then my family decided that well

Hey, we're gonna go have Father's Day dinner at 630 and I was supposed to be on at 7 So it didn't quite work out, but we're gonna work out a time for sure

But she says I used to be preacher Brapture now. I'm all millennial. Well, you're headed in the right direction

So not quite there yet, but headed in the right direction Yeah, I myself went from dispensational pre -meal to I'm not sure what

I am Postmill seems really cool and I want to be that but like I don't know if there's enough scripture to support it and after like A few years being there.

I landed on post mill solidly. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yep And so Bible care and share fellowship says

I'm so pre I don't eat post toasties Man no love for the post mill guys, you know, no love at all

Brother John again. He says I am 100 % Premillennial maybe drew can change my mind.

That's the goal. That's the goal. I'm just kidding. That's actually not the goal That's not the goal at all we just want to present the position answer any questions that people have about it

That that's that's really what we're here for To that. I think I gotta say though.

I think a big reason of why I'm post millennial is that I'm 26, which means

I'm not millennial. I'm Gen Z. So I literally am post millennial See I'm technically a millennial

Because I was I was born in 86 So I'm technically a millennial my parents are

Gen Xers So I was raised by Gen Xers and at my entire life was everything

Gen X So I think I should be an honorary generation Xer Rather than a millennial, but I do have this this kind of goes with something you were saying

Jeremy Question for drew. How long have you been post meaning post mill? I have been post mill for I think about the last five years or so and It came about just you know,

I really I never really Looked into eschatology. I never really looked into it at all.

And then I was hearing some podcasts, of course by Apologia They turned me on to some

Greg Bonson and then Gary DeMar which that's a whole different subject nowadays

But I was listening to some of their arguments their biblical presentations and It just struck me as this is the most consistent view in Scripture so so that's how

I Landed how I landed there and I just had a lot of questions about the dispensational pre -mill camp and and to be fair my

My criticisms of the the dispensational pre -mill was more about regarding the left -behind aspect that kind of group of people

So so I had a lot of questions about them and I and What they were saying just didn't quite sit right with what what scripture was saying

And so I really bypassed all mill and went straight to post mill and that's kind of how

I how I ended up there So Jeremy what? What about your how did you end up in post mill?

Yeah, so I grew up being taught Dispensational pre -trib pre -mill like to me the pre versus post debate was pre -trib versus post -trib not pre -mill versus post -mill

I Grew up in the Baptist Bible Fellowship International. I don't know if a lot of people know what that is, but it's

It's somewhere towards the direction of a kind of IFB it's not like Steven Anderson or anything like that It's not like extreme

IFB, but it's in that direction, you know and then I went to the

College of the BBFI and it was at the dispensational pre -mill college that I stopped being dispensational pre -mill and I If you had me explain my eschatology when

I left I would probably explain something more or less post mill But it would probably be about another year or so after I graduated before I would actually like say that's where I stand but um, yeah

I remember like listening to or reading John MacArthur why every Calvinist should be a Premillennial list and like at the time thinking that was really good and then like a year later

Listening to some people like Jeff Durbin starting to realize like okay post mill wasn't as crazy as MacArthur made it sound like it is

I'm Leaving dispensationalism was like I was listening to the dividing line with James White or Theologians with James White's daughter summer and joy and starting to question dispensationalism there

But I was still thinking Israel in the church were two separate peoples of God Not basically different terms for the same thing.

And then it was actually Reading a book to help explain Romans.

I was like reading through this two volume book going through the book of Romans It wasn't exactly a commentary. It wasn't that in depth and it focused a lot more on application but when

I got to Romans 11 and that that the second volume of that book, I was just looking at Romans 11 like There is one olive tree how can these be two separate peoples of God if the church is grafted into the same olive tree as Israel and that kind of just did it for me and then

I remember the next time I read Ephesians after that Especially in Ephesians 2 you see that word 1 over and over again and I'm looking at this thinking

How did I never notice this before when I read Ephesians before this it was like it just opened my eyes to how many times

You are one group now as in the book of Ephesians. Yeah Yeah. Yeah, that was a thing that always kind of struck me the idea of the the the church in Israel as two separate entities

And of course like you're talking about the being grafted in it's like well They can't be two separate and they can't be dealt with two separate ways if you're grafted in to the same tree

And then one one argument I heard from dr. Ken Gentry was

When we look at the result of AD 70 this the the destruction of the temple and he said he related that to Israel as we see in the

Old Testament is always portrayed as the adulterous rule the adulterous wife, right? Mm -hmm and so the stoning of the or the destruction of the temple was the symbolic stoning and putting to death of the adulterous wife

Whereas now you have the church that is the bride of Christ, right?

And then we see what do we see in Revelation we see The then the the bride coming or the

The church coming down from heaven adorned as a bride And so that it just started to make sense with me and I was like that it just it just fits together too

Well for it to not be you know For that to not be the case, but we did

I do see a comment here that that I think is really good Melissa Owens She says the left -behind series does not represent genuine pre -mill

Dispies and I highly recommend Michael block, you know, I would actually highly recommend

Michael block, too I've heard a lot of good things about his teaching even his

His book. What's it? What's it dispensational hermeneutics? I'm sure something like that I know

Darren has read it or he's read parts of it and he said it's actually, you know, a pretty pretty decently written book

He liked it. But yeah, thank you. Melissa. I would agree. It doesn't represent

True pre dispensational pre -millennial ism I have a friend who's dispensational and he once told me even just from a fiction standpoint left behind.

Is it very good, right? Right, but you know really I think we've really gotten ahead of ourselves a little bit because Let's explain kind of and we've done it here before on the show kind of the different views right now when we say pre -mill all mill post mill

What we're discussing is the return of Christ. When will Christ return? Will it be?

Before the Millennium pre and the Millennium is what we see in Revelation 21 22,

I'm just going off the top of my head But It mentions the thousand year the the thousand years and the question is

When is Christ going to return? Is it going to be before the Millennium? Is it going to be after post the

Millennium or? As all mills would say there there is no literal

Millennium. It's figurative It's it's a it's a great span of time and that we are actually in that span of time so really all millennialists would technically be post millennialists because Jesus returns at the end of that Millennium what they call the

Millennium But I see our other guest is here Darren Post -millennial day

We can hear you Good. Yes, I can. I'm having one of those days where everything is just not working even right now

My camera's not working very well my microphones all of my microphones. I have five of them. They all won't work.

So But the Lord is good and here we are so praise God, that's right So our listeners and viewers you should know pastor

Darren stood And I like how you have Jeremy pointed it out pre -show.

You have Operation Save America under your name Tell us what you do with Operation Save America.

What is it? What do you do with it? Yeah, so I'm the assistant national director of Operation Save America Operation Save America is a gospel of the kingdom

Organization, so what we're about is bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ and his kingdom in the conflict with the wickedness that exists in our culture and So right now the bulk of what that revolves around is opposing the slaughter of innocent children.

So we do a lot of Abortion mill ministry we raise up Christians all around the country to get active

Coming out of the four walls of the church and going to the streets with the gospel And then we do some political stuff and we're basically working among the church the family and the state

Striving to bring about an end of the shedding of innocent blood. So but very gospel centric

We believe the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is the answer to the problem. So awesome. Awesome And I do have an announcement now that you you have explained that I have an announcement that Andrew wanted me to say

I was gonna save it for the end, but he says next week Mark Spence is going to be on the show to discuss the new

Living Waters film What is it? And it's a it's a film on abortion Nice, and so Mark They they did a film on abortion.

What was it called? 180 180 and that was one of the best things that's ever been released

Yeah, and so I'm excited to see I'm excited to see that it's gonna be called.

What is it? That's exciting. That's awesome Yeah, so Darren your post mill

I Am yeah, Darren's also my pastor. I wanted to get that in there before we got too far away from his body.

Yes So now Darren, where do you pastor? Harmony Baptist Church, so we're about an hour north of Indianapolis in Frankfurt, Indiana.

That's where I'm at right now Which I believe that is part of the reason I'm having so many problems because this office seems to have

The prince of the power of the air seems to have extra Ability in this office, you know none of the technology

Callie a guy named Callie and I used to do a podcast and I would try to do live from this office and it would

Never work. I'd always have to go somewhere else. So But uh, so yeah, Harmony Baptist Church about an hour north of Indianapolis and Jeremy is a member here

We're reformed Baptist 1689 Congregation and I would say

I would not say that our church is post -millennial There are a lot of post -millennial people in our church

But there are people in our church that are not post -millennial as well So and then there are frankly a lot of people in our church that just don't care.

So yeah Yeah, that seems to be the case a lot of times they're those pan millennialists, you know

It'll just pan out in the end and I'm not gonna worry about it But but Jeremy and I were also talking we're you are also a part of cruciform ministries

With us. So basically this is a cruciform takeover of driving for you

It is so We we kind of talked about our journey how we arrived at post -millennialism.

How did you arrive at the the view of post -millennialism? Well, so I started so a couple different things happen

I've been post -millennial for about seven years now And I I have some friends who were

Post -millennial a guy named James McDonald not the one that everybody's heard of but he's popular up in Peoria, Illinois And a good brother that I love and he started talking to me about Post -millennialism maybe ten years ago, and I thought he was nuts and so but he would share

Doug Wilson books and different things like that with me and so I started reading up on it and The thing that actually

Ultimately changed my mind though. And this is again it's been about seven years ago as I was reading through the Gospel of Matthew and I kept noticing this discussion about the kingdom of God in the

Gospel of Matthew and the thing that really The day I still remember the day

I became post -millennial. I was reading the the Lord's Prayer and there in Matthew chapter 6 and I was thinking through this so we're

Baptists So we don't repeat the Lord's Prayer all the time Right, maybe some of that's your more high church folks that have one of those types of liturgies

If you don't know a lot about Baptist history Baptists are very against Vain repetition and so but I was thinking about the

Lord's Prayer This is the pattern Jesus has given us for prayer and I was reading through it in Matthew chapter I think it's chapter 6 there and you know, so I was going through it, you know, our

Father who art in heaven I haven't memorized in the King's English because I'm spiritual You're more holy our

Father. Yeah, who are in heaven. Hallowed be thy name and Then what's that's the first there's six petitions in the

Lord's Prayer the second petition is thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

And I was reading through it and that phrase Stung me At that point

I was pre -mill. I was what they call historical pre -mill, which is just to say that I believe that there was

There was still a great tribulation coming and then the rapture after that and I believe the church would be here for the tribulation

And so my my theology was always, you know that things are just gonna get worse and worse and then you know, praise

God You know, Jesus is gonna come back and you know Then he'll have victory at the very end, but not in time space in history

And I look at Matthew chapter 6 in the Lord's Prayer thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

And this is the pattern that Jesus has given us for prayer and those words stung me and I began to think to myself if my theology is true,

I can't pray that I Can't pray that as a historical pre -mill.

I can't pray thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven today I can pray that maybe that might happen someday, but I can't pray that today because in my theology

That's not going to happen It may happen eventually, but it's not going to happen and really quite honestly

That was the thing that I literally I became very convinced at least at my pre -millennial ism and I became a millennial for about Four days and then after that I became

I as I was continuing to read through the Gospel of Matthew and what it says there So much of what the Gospel of Matthew says about the kingdom of God And then

I became I became post -millennial and then at that point I began to devour everything that I could find from Bonson And Doug Wilson and some of those guys

About post -millennial ism, but it was funny after I went through that journey. I still would say

I've read many books About post -millennial ism now stacks of them Ken Gentry and so forth

I think the book that offers the best defense of post -millennial ism is the Gospel of Matthew and I think it is very very hard to read the

Gospel of Matthew and not to see From my perspective.

I know there are men that do it and I'm not trying to take anything away from those men But from my perspective,

I think that the the post post -millennial theology is all through the Gospel of Matthew, so That's sort of the thing that brought me to the dark side.

So to speak Yeah We definitely are the minority. That's right.

Yeah, but minority right now, but we weren't in the minority a couple hundred years ago That's right.

That's right. I was gonna say we're on the rise That's right. Yeah, so so we've got a we've got a couple of questions

And let's just jump into it because this you know, this episode was going to be one of Answering questions and then you know, maybe dispelling some myths about post -millennial ism.

So let's get into our first one This is D. She says do post mill folks think that the book of Revelation already happened?

Oh man, uh You want me to take a shot at that first?

Yeah It's kind of a complicated question because the answer is both yes and no

Post -millennials people are like every other theological camp. So if you think about pre -millennial ism

There's about 500 different versions of pre -millennial ism, right? There's historic pre -mill there's dispensational pre -millennial ism

And then there's all the variety of different places that people put the rapture. It's the same thing with post -millennial ism

So there are many there are many post mill scholars that believe that the entirety of the book of Revelation Already happened.

I am NOT one of them I do not believe that the last two chapters of the book of Revelation have already taken place

I believe those things are still future Having said that one of the things that post -millennial ism do not believe and this is very important to understand

Post -millennial ism do not believe that all of the prophecies in the New Testament have been fulfilled

That is heresy that's called full preterism and we do not believe full preterism

We do believe that there is a still yet to come a future resurrection From the dead and a future physical body bodily return of Christ there are some that there are some post mills that don't believe that those passages at the end of the book of Revelation are

Talking about those events, but they still believe those events are coming going to come to pass in the future

Anybody who denies that those events are coming to pass are actually not post -millennial their full preterist and that's that's a radical but so some scholars do believe that those that the whole book of Revelation has been fulfilled and Some scholars do not and I wouldn't call myself a scholar

But I would say I land in the camp that I don't think those latter two chapters have been fulfilled yet I think they're talking about the future

Mm -hmm. Gotcha. Yeah, and you know, it's good that you you mentioned full preterism because Melissa Owen says the full preterism views seems to be on the rise

I wonder why that is and that's actually true, you know it's a the full preterist movement used to be kind of a fringe movement along the outskirts and Now it is gaining more traction and I just found this out about a month or so ago

Talking to my father -in -law and he said there's actually a group in our town that That is full preterist and I was

I was blown away because I had no clue that that was going on in our own town Crazy, man.

Yeah, you're right I mean it is and a lot of people want to attribute that to post -millennial ism that full preterism is on the rise because of Post -millennial ism, but if you ask any full preterist, they're not post millennial

Their view of the Millennium is completely different than the post millennial view of the

Millennium and so Post mills tend and especially the most prominent position among post mills in our day is the sort of partial preterist post mill position, which is the belief that Most of the prophecies in the scripture have been fulfilled though.

There are yet those there there are those that are yet to be fulfilled but full preterism

Denies the bodily return of Christ and denies the future resurrection of the dead and that's not post millennial ism, right?

That's a completely the opposite of what post millennialists believe and so full preterism is heresy

We all want the thing that all the other views have in common whether you're pre mill mill or post mill and whatever variety

Of any of those three things you want to call yourself The thing that we all agree about is the physical return of Christ and the future bodily resurrection

Those are the essential doctrines of the Christian faith with regard to the return of Christ and full preterist reject those and so that's the reason why we say and they would tell you they're not post millennial because they don't believe the same thing about the millennial reign of Christ that we

Yeah, and one thing with that I think even Todd Friel who's Dispensational pre mill and I believe a friend of Andrew Rappaport's said recently in his podcast

We're all to some extent partial preterist I was really surprised to hear him say that but he said that recently in his podcast because if nothing else you think

Most of the Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled because most of them were just about Jesus and his death and resurrection

Yeah, that's a so popular position among the Historical pre mill at this point is this concept of the multiple fulfillment?

It's the multiple fulfillment view of prophecy. And so all of those guys actually would say well, yeah

I mean, I'm a partial preterist in some sense You know that and and you have to there's some sense in which you have to believe that because there are some prophecies

In the Old Testament that have an immediate and a future fulfillment And so like, you know,

Isaiah prophesying about the birth of his son, right? And then of course, we know that that's ultimately about Jesus.

We find out in the Gospels with Matthew and Luke That's partial preterism. That prophecy was both fulfilled at an immediate and had a future fulfillment.

It's been fulfilled twice now but and so there are some that would take that and say well the same thing can happen with current prophecy and while there are

Issues and shrinks to that but in that sense everybody in some sense believes in in a form of preterism

Yeah. All right. Now let's get into a question that People love to ask the post -millennialists

Brother John Elving question. What are your thoughts on replacement theology? Well, I guess you want me to take that one first Jeremy Both of y 'all are my my distinguished guest.

I can say something and then Darren can correct me if I'm wrong. Oh Yeah, so on replacement theology

I Don't like that terminology because now this is a question more on covenant theology not necessarily post mill

So this might be something where on mill and post mill would both agree Replacement theology. Like I said,

I don't like the term because I'm not saying we don't believe that God basically kicked

Israel to the side and then just replace them with the church But rather the church in Israel always have been the same

Israel and the old when you're looking the Old Testament You're looking at the Old Testament Church And when you're looking at the New Testament, you're looking at the

New Testament Israel that they are just one in the same one Didn't replace the other

Yeah, I agree with that. I think the church was I Don't think the church was God's plan

B I think God's plan was always to bring about the coming of the church through Israel And the scripture says that all of God's promises find their yes in Christ Scripture says on the book of Hebrews So all of the promises that God gave to Abraham all of the promises that God gave to Moses all of the promises

God gave to David all of those promises find their yes in Christ and we are attached to those promises

Through Christ and so in that sense, I don't like the term replacement theology instead

I just think that there is There are these series of covenants that God has had

With the nation of Israel coming up to the New Covenant and each one of those covenants looks back to the first covenant the covenant of works where Adam failed in the garden and then looks forward to the

New Covenant where Christ is going to do that which Adam was unable to do and So each one of those covenants with Israel is an intermediary

Covenant that looked back to Christ or look back to Adam and look forward to Christ And so I wouldn't agree with the idea that the church replaced

Israel But instead I would just say that the church is the fulfillment of all of the promises that God gave to all of those patriarchs whether it be

Abraham whether it be Moses or whether it be David Yeah and some passages of scripture that Kind of support what pastor

Darren I were just saying I would point to Romans 9 and Romans 11 Romans 11 I mentioned already a little bit ago and Romans 9 talks about like the spiritual seed of Abraham the true

Israel that would be Believers as opposed to someone who is ethnically Jewish whether or not they're a believer

Yeah, I think I think I heard it from dr. Bonson one of his lectures where he he says also

Don't like the term replacement theology a better term would be continuity. It's a continuation of the covenant

That continues on and I would agree with that I would agree with everything that you gentlemen said now we have this this question here

This also comes up in talking about postmill all the time Did Christ come back in 70

AD Yes, he did I Think this comes to our interpretation of Matthew 24.

Mm -hmm I think much of what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 24 is his coming return in 70

AD and There are actually many pre -millennial theologians that agree with that as well

And so that's that multiple fulfillment idea that I've talked about already, but I think it's hard actually to avoid the idea that Jesus came back in 70

AD because He says if you start in Matthew 23, you really get that when you when you read what

I would encourage everybody That's listening right now to sit down with the gospel of Matthew take two hours

Okay, and sit down with the gospel of Matthew and read it from beginning to end in one sitting

Okay, regardless of your millennial perspective and that is not just going to enrich your theology or in times theology

But that will enrich your whole theology of the kingdom of God if you do that but one of the things you see when you do that is in Matthew Jesus begins to Bring his condemnation on the

Jews and by the Jews here It means the Pharisees the Sadducees and all of the

Jewish religious leaders that are coming against him He begins to bring his condemnation of them all the way back in Matthew 23 and he tells them that he is going to bring judgment upon them and that the judgment is going to come upon the nation of Israel and then when you come to Matthew 24 and you look at the

Olivet discourse people say well Jesus have come back in 70 AD. We didn't see him come in riding on the clouds

We didn't see the moon turn blood -red and so on and so forth And what I would say to that is that is apocalyptic language what we're reading when we read

Matthew 24 is we're reading apocalyptic language It's the same thing. We read when we read the book of Revelation.

It's apocalyptic language Daniel has apocalyptic language. Isaiah has apocalyptic language

But apocalyptic language that one of the misunderstandings about apocalyptic language is that it only points to the end times

That's not true in the Bible The Bible has apocalyptic language that does not point to the end times but points to a different coming or a different judgment of God And we see this in particular in the book of Isaiah This language is used previously in the scripture the moon turning blood -red

God coming in the clouds and so on and so forth Not to describe his future coming at the end

But to describe his coming in judgment against either a nation or against the nation of Israel And so what

Jesus is talking about there in Matthew 24 when he's using that apocalyptic language I believe is now there are parts of Matthew 24.

I also still don't believe are fulfilled That's a debated topic also among post -millennialists whether you follow a guy like Like a

Ken Gentry or or a Gary North and I remember which side Greg Bonson came down to on that But I don't think everything there in Matthew 24 has been fulfilled

But when he's talking about coming on the clouds and he's talking about the moon turning blood -red and all that sort of thing what he's talking about is his coming in judgment in 70

AD and Jesus did come in 70 AD and he brought great judgment on the nation of Israel and Much of what

Jesus describes there in Matthew chapter 24 we see fulfilled when you look at the

When you look at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Yeah. Well You also have to consider one

The apocalyptic language yes Because all of that can be taken back to the Old Testament where you see the same language and it always represents a military destruction or a military

Army coming against Israel, right? It's the same exact language that you see but when you go to Matthew 24, if you just look at verse 1, right?

Well, no, let's go. Let's do what you mentioned go begin in 23. Where are they? They're inside the temple and what does

Jesus say your house will be left to you desolate? They go outside the temple then in Matthew 24.

And what do the disciples say? They say look at this temple and Jesus says yes get a good look now because it's going to be destroyed

Not one stone will be left on another so the context of Matthew 24 lends itself to saying

That the that it was gonna it it means the destruction of the temple that happened 80 70

Yeah, yep. Absolutely. Amen. That's what and that's why I tell people and it's such a tremendous value

So I'll say it again here take two hours Sit down in Matthew chapter 1 and read it from Matthew 1 all the way through the end of the book of Matthew all the way to Matthew 28 and you see

Matthew 22 23 24 25 you see the development of this theme begin

You can't just read Matthew 24 as though it comes up in a vacuum It doesn't

Jesus is in the middle of a discussion The Olivet Discourse is a discussion with the disciples about a bunch of things that Jesus has already been talking about in the previous two chapters and so I think that's a very important aspect of Interpreting the

Olivet Discourse, right? So so to answer the question did Jesus come back in 70

AD? Yes, he came back in judgment, but this wasn't what we would refer to as his second coming

Yes, right He is still coming in the future his physical return Right, and we can we can turn over to 1st

Corinthians 15 and see what that's going to be like, right? Yes, and I think most theologians agree that those verses in 1st

Corinthians 15 Those are future like what what in fact? Just about all

Orthodox theologians agree that what's being discussed there in 1st Corinthians 15 is a future resurrection

It begins with the resurrection of Jesus as the firstfruits, right? and then carries forward as he makes his defense of a resurrection and Ends up with our resurrection of the future at the time of the return of Christ and that's very important So when we say

Jesus came back in 70 AD, we don't mean his bodily return in which he is going to Have his ultimate victory, right so to speak we don't believe that not the ultimate judgment and all those things

That's in the future when we say Christ came back in 70 AD He came in judgment and some people say well you have now you have multiple you have multiple comings

It's like well dispensationalist have multiple comings to yeah We've got

Jesus coming to rapture the church, you know, and that's a partial coming and then you got

Jesus coming again You know later on after the And then yeah, yeah, so you have multiple comings there as well

So that's actually a prominent view among multiple of the different positions that Jesus is coming back

Not just the one time but multiple times, but also look in the Old Testament as well.

You see the coming of the Lord it It's always in reference to judgment Israel we see that as well

So the coming of the Lord We can also say Yes, did

Jesus come back? Yes in judgment because we see it all over the place in in Scripture We see it in the Old Testament Yeah, I think with that is where it can be helpful to use the terminology first and second

Advent of Christ Instead of first and second coming of Christ because then it can easily get confused with the comings and judgment and Old Testament and new

Yes, that's a good point I like the way you said that to Jeremy when we do not believe that 70

AD was the second Advent of Christ The second Advent of Christ is yet to come in the future and that is a very important distinction

The reason it's important is because there's a difference between a heresy and not here It's right if you believe

Jesus came in 70 AD and that was the end that was his Advent That was the second Advent and there is no future coming and I keep coming back to this point because as a previous question noted

There is a great falling away happening right now of people embracing This idea of full preterism and I just so every time

I discuss this topic publicly I just hit this point over and over and over and over again Yes, we believe

Jesus came in 70 AD But that is not his second That's not the second Advent the second Advent the second coming in that sense is yet to happen still in the future

Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a good point of clarity Jeremy thank you for saying that along the same lines

I think this is haps still When Jesus returned in 70

AD did that fulfill when Jesus said not a generation will pass away

Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons that you have to conclude that that's what Jesus is talking about there

I know that there are men that I have tremendous love and respect for that say that that's talking about the generation that would see the re -establishment of Israel In our day, so that generation that saw the re -establishment of Israel in 1940s

But the problem with that is that that phrase this generation is used multiple times again

I'm going to go back to you have to read Matthew 24 in a unit with Matthew 23, and then also

Jesus uses this phrase this generation multiple times in the book of Matthew Every time

Jesus uses the phrase of this generation in the book of Matthew It is referring to the present group of people that he is talking to so that's one thing the the literary

Context within the writing of Matthew. The second thing is the immediate context of the usage of the phrase exegetically, there is nothing other than us imposing our interpret our

Homiletical principle which there is a sense in which we all do that But there's nothing in the context of that passage that would cause us to think that Jesus means anything other than That he's speaking with the people that he's presently talking to and as a matter of fact, you have to do what

I would call Ecclesiastical gymnastics to get around the idea Ecclesiastical Not Ecclesiastical Hermeneutical yes, thank you.

You have to do hermeneutical gymnastics. Sorry brain injury moment there You have to do hermeneutical gymnastics to get around that and now

I want to be I always want to be fair to the other side There are people that there are some verses in the Bible that post mills have to do hermeneutical

Gymnastics to get around as well and I just I want to say I readily admit that but here in Matthew 24

To get around the idea that Jesus is talking about anything other than the generation of people that are presently talking to him in Matthew Chapter 24

You got to deal with the fact that Matthew uses that phrase multiple times in the same way and you got to deal with the immediate

Context which indicates it dictates that he's talking about the present generation that they're in Yeah, and I've heard this semantic domain basically meaning all of the possible meanings of that Greek word if that scares anyone

English has semantic domains as well I've heard someone explain this before by saying the word trunk has 17 possible meanings

So if you say put the trunk in the trunk, there are technically 289 different things You could be referring to but in the semantic domain of that word generation can also mean race so some people try to say oh, well

Jesus meant that race as in like the Jewish ethnicity will not pass away until all these things come to pass and I think

Darren already explained why Though people respond with that. That's not a very good argument, right?

Because I've heard that as well and what I usually tell people is there's a different word right between race and and generation now they have the same root word, but it's guinea versus gnos and One of the one of the things we see in In Scripture is that Scripture never speaks of people in terms of race?

They speak of them in terms of ethnicity So the term that would have been used if that was the case was is ethnos.

Yeah, not not guinea and But another thing we can look at in that passage is the utilization of the second person pronouns

When you see these things when you see these things head for the hills when you see these things don't go back to your home

Right, you know It's very specific who he's talking to Yeah, and I think you know you talk about semantic domain which we always when we get into these passages

We always end up in discussion about semantic domain There are things I would appoint to toward the end of Matthew 24 where I'm gonna deal with the issue of semantic domain and say

This word is translated this man, but it could mean this How do we determine which of those words to use all words have a semantic domain all words have a range of meanings, right?

my wife Came I sent a message to my wife asking her if she needed me to pick anything up on the way home and she said

Get some coke That can mean a couple different things, you know And you know, it could mean get some coke

Or I mean get some coke, right and The context, you know,

I know in the context of the conversation, you know, my wife's talking about get some coke, right? And how do we determine which one of those meanings to pick that's one of the things that Andrew does a lot on the show

That I think is important is this kind of teaching ministry that you do the context Dictates which one of those words that we pick and when you look there and you see the pronouns which were used there

They're all first -person pronouns There's a reason that every Bible now I'm gonna argue against myself probably in a little while here when we go to Matthew 24 and I realized

That there's a certain way in which I'm talking out both sides of my mouth here So I just readily admit that because later on I'm gonna say well that word could mean this, you know and so forth

But when it comes to this generation that phrase this generation There's a reason why there is no

Bible translation not one that translates that this race and the reason why is because that particular meaning of that word

Does not make any sense in the interpretation of that passage based on what said there in the context and that's very important from an

Apologetical standpoint and the reason I'm taking all the time to talk about this. We talked about doing apologetics on apologetics live, right?

That's very important from love apologetics standpoint because the cults often will do that They'll say this word has a range of semantic domain

It has a large range and you guys say it could mean this but really it could mean this over here as well

And you see false teachers do that with any time you run into a person that a lot of their theology rests upon Semantic domain a variety different words in the

New Testament and the scholars always translated it wrong and so forth Always be suspect of that person that they think they understand the

Greek better Than the thousands and thousands of scholars that have been involved in translating the translations that we have in the

English today Yes, there is a semantic domain, but don't fall into the trap of the cults There's a semantic domain, but we choose the word that fits the context and that's how we go about doing that and an important principle with that and an important principle in hermeneutics in general is cross -referencing letting scripture interpret scripture and if you're at a passage that's really difficult or the semantic domains of some of the words can make it a little bit vague

Start with the easier Passages that address similar topics or use similar words and try to use those easier passages to help you understand the more difficult ones

Yeah, that's good. That's a good word, brother. So that's just good Bible study methods

Yeah, so here brother John Elving Question do all post mill believe

Jesus already returned in 70 AD other than Matthew 24 Do you have any other scriptures that say

Jesus already returned? Well first, you know We do want to clarify we believe that this was just a coming in judgment

This wasn't his second advent his bodily return Which is going to take place at the end.

This this was a coming in judgment. So But So do all post mills believe

Jesus returned in judgment in 80 70 yes, that is a sort of a central tenet of postmillennialism,

I got my MacArthur preachers Bible here. Are you allowed to use that?

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to use it for this discussion or not, but I would say in What I would reference

Brother John if it's okay, if I call you brother John I would the other passage I would look at is actually in the book of Revelation If you look at Revelation 1 if you look at what it says in verse 1 there

It says the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his bondservant the things which must soon take place

He sent and communicated it by angels to his bondservant John now verse 2

Who testified to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ even to all who saw

I'm sorry verse 3 blessed is he who reads and Those who hear the words of the prophecy and he

The things which are written in it for the time is near now. You see that there.

What is what is being described? John is saying Here we see in the preamble or the introduction of the book of Revelation The things that I'm getting ready to write about here.

The bulk of them are going to be things that are Coming they're going to soon take place.

It says the time is near I also would point to then you come to the end of the book of Revelation.

I don't know if I underline these words I did Revelation 22 verse 12 coming to the end of the book of Revelation.

It says behold. I am coming quickly My reward is with me. The book of Revelation is written to be an encouragement to the church that's going through persecution right now you see that in the preamble and you see it in the conclusion and The encouragement is that Christ is coming back to judge the people that are persecuting them right now and so my question is

How is the book of Revelation an encouragement to a persecuted church if it's talking about things that aren't going to happen for another 2 ,000 years?

Instead I think a better interpretation of the book of Revelation is that the overwhelming majority of these things are referring to stuff that already happened and then there's room in Apocalyptic literature.

This happens actually a lot in apocalyptic literature The prophecies are mixed together, right?

and so there's room to interpret Revelation 21 as not having happened yet and 22 as not having happened yet while you also realize that there's a transition to the proscript here in verses 11 and 12 and Acknowledged that these are the overwhelming majority of what

Revelation is about is about a coming of Christ That's going to happen very soon Not very far and so that would be the other passage that I would point to there are others

But those would be my main two would be Matthew 24 and all of that discourse Which I don't think you can get out of interpreting that that is talking about the immediate

Generation that he's talking to and then the second would be those the use of those time

That time language in Revelation is all near none of it is ever far You don't read anything in the book of Revelation that talks about something happening years down the road it's always immediate

Jeremy do you have anything to add I Think right there. We should not use

Aslan as a defense and say all time is soon So it can be 2 ,000 years later Yeah Thank you for the laugh.

That would have been disappointing Kind of niche, but it was a good joke

You know, let's so people's view of the Millennium Really goes back to how they view the dating of the book of Revelation Yes, so so you have an early dating

Which would be around? 68 ad and Then you have the late dating which would be around 90 to 95 ad and so most people who are

Historic premillennial dispensational premillennial would hold to that late 90 to 95 ad now

Why do do they believe what why do most of them believe that the book of Revelation was written that late?

Okay, so I'm gonna reference a book here Which I think is a better thing to do in this type of discussion because this is a complicated topic

It's hard to cover something like this in a short discussion, I would point people to the book called when

Jerusalem fell By Kenneth Gentry, it's a pretty long book. It's his doctoral dissertation is actually what it is

And he offers his defense in there. It's not just post -millennials that I believe the early date many reformed scholars over the course of recent church history have

Attested to even some that were on millennial and a few that were premillennial Have attested to the latter or to the earlier date of the book of Revelation whereas many

Interpreted as later because they believe that John was on the island of Tatmos Later, and so there's that that's part of the interpretive aspect of it

And then many believe that it was written after 70 AD and There are some different reasons for that, which

I don't have the brainpower I'm just being honest to get into in this podcast. What if one of you guys want to get into that you can't

But they believe that it happened after 70 AD because they believe that it references some things that happened in 70

AD and so Gentry makes a strong case that no

There's all kinds of internal evidence the book of Revelation that actually demonstrates the earlier date rather than later date

But I have not spent as much time studying that as other post mill guys have so there's a lot to discuss here

And I have certain areas I put in a lot of time For me personally, that's just not one. I put a lot of time into it is important though So I probably should put more time into it

There might be other arguments But I think the main argument for the later date in the 90s comes from Eusebius's church history and I might be missing something here, but I think it was

Eusebius said Irenaeus said it was written in the 90s and Irenaeus was mentored and discipled by The Apostle John so that's where that comes from What you he was discipled by Polycarp.

Polycarp was discipled by John Okay, and now that is a kind of a Eusebius said

Irenaeus said so like there's a little bit of a weak argument there But also when we're talking about early church history so many works just didn't survive the time until now for archaeologists to find them and also when

Christians are getting persecuted and Parchment was really expensive. They weren't writing a ton of stuff So there are times with things in church history

The only evidence we have for something is this one guy said that another guy said this So if we had no other arguments

Against an earth a later date of Revelation and that would be the only only argument we have for any date of it

But like Darren said I think we have some arguments in Revelation for an earlier date I don't remember all the details off top my head.

But at one point it's talking about like the Seven Caesars or I think it's using some metaphorical language, but it's referring to seven

Caesars yeah, and it's talking about a sixth one which looking at you know, the seven

Caesars after like you know Julius Caesar dies and then you get like the three people rolling together and Was it

Antony that kind of was the first Caesar of all of Rome and then counting from there?

And that's kind of how we get that data when the sixth Caesar was reigning in the 60s Yeah. Yeah, so there

You're you're absolutely right talking about Eusebius Quoting Irenaeus and then the quote from Irenaeus is just such an obscure quote that It's even hard to translate itself as to what it means

But whenever we're referencing Irenaeus, you also have to be careful now. We wouldn't say

Irenaeus was a heretic we you know by any stretch, but he also taught some things that he said were apostolic teachings as well like Christ had a 15 -year ministry and lived to be 50 years old.

Well, we would never agree with that, right? But like Darren was talking about the internal evidences of Revelation, I think lend themselves to a earlier dating maybe 67 68

AD because One of the things that we see in the book of Revelation is that the temple is still standing

John is told to rise and go measure the temple So if the temple is still standing that means it hasn't been destroyed yet So this can only have been written before 70

AD and there are that's a good example of there's a whole laundry list of internal evidences to the book of Revelation that you look at you think

It's hard to there's there's a few things in the book of Revelation that are actually very hard to interpret if it was written post 70

AD that's one of them and a lot of people look at that and they say well That's just metaphorical and it's easy to do that with the book of Revelation Because there is so much in the book of Revelation that is written in the form of word pictures and so on and so forth

Well, there's a reason for that, you know, and in Kenneth Gentry has talked about this It's because John is writing using

Old Testament imagery, right? Exactly. And that's why it's important to understand that the temple likely was still standing and that there's much reference to the temple in the

In the in the book of Revelation and if the temple was not standing there are some important aspects of the book of Revelation Actually make very very little sense

So and that the temple was destroyed in 70 AD Which by the way, if you go back to Matthew 24 is exactly what

Jesus said was going to happen when judgment came upon the nation of Israel That's right

We have this one here by Kathy She says but all the Apostles taught

Christ was coming in their time even as Paul wrote in these last days

Yeah Well, I don't know There's a prominent teaching in the church today that the

Apostles all thought that Jesus was coming in their time in Particular because of some of the things that are written in the book of first Thessalonians Um But I don't actually know if that's the right interpretation of some of those passages

Now I do when you talk about these last days or these latter days there's this idea in the

New Testament of the previous age and the age to come and We have been

I think all Bible scholars actually would agree whether you're pre mill post Miller on them All scholars would agree that we have been in what are called the last days

Since the resurrection of Jesus so this time post resurrection of Jesus is the last days and I think if you want to if you want to interpret those passages that talk about us being in these last days as These must mean that the there is an imminent return to Christ and my question to that is what is the what?

Do you mean when you say imminent? Because you're using those passages to assert a point that Jesus is going to come back any day now 2 ,000 years after they were written and you're making the case that they were written as though the return of Christ was imminent then

That's not a good That's not a great hermeneutical method and a lot of pre mill folks hang their hat on that argument

But if that's talking about if those passages are talking about the imminent the immediate return of Christ to that time

The immediate and when I'm talking about the immediate return of Christ here, I'm not talking about his coming in 17

AD but the immediate advent of Christ the immediate bodily return of Christ if they if that's what those passages are talking about That's actually a big or bigger hurdle for you than it is for me

Because it's been 2 ,000 years since those words were written and Jesus hasn't come back yet And so I don't think that that's what though I don't think that's what that phrase means when it talks about the last days

I think what the phrase means is that we've come into this new covenant. We're in the final covenant

We are in that we're under the new covenant. We're under the covenant of grace Christ has come he's died he's risen from the dead and these are the last days and the last days have been everything since the resurrection of Jesus and They will be until the return until the ultimate return of Christ That's my understanding of the meaning of that phrase

Yeah, I've heard Vodie explain it as there's a difference between the last days and the last day, right?

So we are in the last days which are leading up to the last day, which is

Christ Yeah Yep, absolutely. And and I think it's hard to interpret that phrase last days as the to insist upon To insist upon the idea that homiletically we must come to the conclusion hermeneutically

We must come to the conclusion That this phrase means that the return of Christ is imminent because then you have to ask the question

We're gonna be in an election. I'm honest imminent to what it wasn't imminent to them

Mm -hmm 2 ,000 years since those words were written So why would it be imminent to us when it wasn't imminent to them?

I think that's a important question to consider or to discuss with regard to that And if last days refers to the time immediately preceding the rapture then we really don't know if we're in the last time until After the fact if when the rapture happens if dispensational premial is true

I mean, you know people might point to kovat a few years ago and say look at this Worldwide plague like that means the

Rapture's gotta happen because things are so bad, but like Hope this doesn't get this kicked off YouTube. Kovat was not that bad

Look at the bubonic plague 800 years ago where literally a third of the continent of Europe died

Like they had way more of a reason to think they were living in the last days than we do and here we are 800 years later

Yeah, I said that actually several times when kovat was happening and there were a few people that got mad at me

I don't mean to be flippant about it because people did die and of course we want to extend Compassion toward those people that lost loved ones and so forth

But there's a very real sense in which kovat was a very post -millennial plague You know people were talking about what

I mean when I say that is people were complaining about the problems with kovat While they were sitting in their air -conditioned houses typing on their

Computers posting on the internet, you know, we here we have all this technology. We have all this Ability to protect ourselves from the element

We have all this ability to hide from whatever this plague may be and so on and so forth and in that sense

It's like even our plague our light in that sense, I don't know if that makes sense or not, but Comparatively speaking in comparison to What people were facing prior to having clean running water

Air conditioning and shelter and so on and so forth Or even more recently when we were starting to get some of those things the

Spanish flu immediately following World War one Yeah Yeah, well,

I mean that that idea can take us into to another Question that people usually have for the post -millennialist, which is

Sorry, I'm gonna be here. I got to plug my phone and it's dying In very a post mill what's happening with my technology?

I'm gonna be here. I'm just gonna take my camera away, but I'll be right back. I'm listening All right

So that takes us into another question that people have for post -millennialist and that's

Shouldn't things in the world be getting better and better But when we look out at the world, it seems that things get worse and worse and they people will always say well

We've had two world wars right the Holocaust, you know, we've had all these things

Shouldn't the world be getting better and better Yeah, there are two ways I like to generally go about responding that one is this idea that the world is getting worse and worse and Things are so much worse than they used to be is a very

American centric way of looking at things Cuz like sure in America things are getting worse and worse because we are casting aside our

Christian heritage and going headlong into Everything Paul talks about in Romans 1 and then some and So if you're looking just at the

United States and the last 250 years or a little bit further back going into the colonies, too

Then sure things look like they're getting a lot worse But if we look at the world as a whole over the last 2 ,000 years

I don't think you can really make an argument things are getting worse and worse now. Sure There are up and down times like you look at the stock market.

This is the other way I like to take this look at the stock market You have a lot of up and downs but generally things are up, you know you have a this stock is worth $50 a share today, but then

Some bad publicity really hits that company hard and their stock drops 20 %

But then 10 years later, it's worth $100 twice of what it started at like the general trajectory is up And I think that's kind of how we should look at world history through a post -millennial lens is there are dark times

There are times where things do look pretty bleak and for a short period of time do get worse

But the general trend is upward Yeah, I agree with what

I Agree with what Jeremy just said. I would say two things in response to that one is no as a from a hermeneutical perspective

From our understanding of the teaching of Bible and why we became post -millennial and so on and so forth.

No Post -millennialism does not teach that the world is always going to get better and better and That is the reason that that's a misunderstanding is because post -millennialist actually quite frankly often are not very careful about our rhetoric

We talked about these sorts of things when we're on social media and the like Post -millennialism teaches that the kingdom of God is ebbing and flowing in the earth and as the kingdom of God Advances things get better But sometimes the kingdom of God seeks to advance and goes backwards and then things get worse but when you look over the trajectory of thousands of years not dozens of years

Then you see that as the kingdom of God advances ultimately the trajectory is better Right, the trajectory is going in a better direction over the course of thousands of years

But there are times in Which a nation that was previously a

Christian nation goes into rebellion against God and God brings judgment upon that nation

That does not mean that post -millennialism is not true That's post -millennialist that post -millennialism does not teach that there's going to be a direct

March from the resurrection of Christ To the conquering of the world through the gospel and it's just gonna be this big victorious thing from beginning to end

That's not what post -millennialism teaches the church is going to be to a certain extent more or less

Victorious over the course of the time between now and when Christ ultimately returns, right?

But the trajectory is going to be toward more when you look at it over the course of thousands of years

Rather than hundreds or tens of years But it does not teach that it's things are always going to constantly get better all the time and never ever ever get worse

That's not what post -millennialism teaches one So then two if you take sort of along the lines of what

Jeremy just said there if you take that framework that I just laid Out and you say okay, so we're saying that things are going to get better over the course of thousands of years

But not necessarily over the course of dozens of years and then we put that framework on it

We say well are things getting better over the course of thousands of years and the answer to that question is heck

Yeah, they are getting better over the course of thousands of years You know and and people who say that it's not have a very narrow View of they say there are things happening in America that have never happened in the world before that's hogwash

They don't they didn't look at what happened to Rome when Rome finally fell, you know They didn't look at what was happening in Greece during the time when

Rome was falling There have been many times that were very dark and bleak and even in this dark bleak time that we're in right now

You can go post and complain about how terrible things are from your air -conditioned house and your keyboard

On your social media platform and nobody's gonna come take you and behead you

You know, nobody's gonna drag you off and throw you into the Emperor's dungeon, you know

Whatever else the case may be doubt there may be some that want to do that but they're not able to do that right why because over the course of Thousands of years not hundreds of years necessarily but over the course of thousands of years even our tyranny today is

Lighter than the tyranny that has existed at previous times in the world And so the idea that things are getting worse and worse

Doesn't check out historically and the idea that things are not getting better and better when you look over the course of thousands of years

Not hundreds of years Actually ultimately does check out when you think about it historically, you know

I've said this to people before About what you said about technology, right you just referenced a whole bunch of technology and I've said

I said yeah, you know even John MacArthur a dispensational premillennialist can preach from his pulpit in California on Dispensational premillennial eschatology give the gospel and it can broadcast throughout the entire world and People can come to know the saving grace of Christ, right?

What a treasure that is, you know What a great getting better of society we have with with just the utilization of technology

Where someone as who we whom we all respect John MacArthur can can broadcast the gospel to to the four corners of the world

Yeah, and I would say that one of the things that I'll say about that is that I'm thankful for a blessed inconsistency there

And I don't know really that it is an inconsistency actually to be honest You know John MacArthur and the guys at grace to you have a desire to get the gospel to the nation

Which we all should regardless of our eschatological perspective We all should have a desire to get the gospel to the nation's because that's what we're committed to do

And so here with the technology that we have The guys at grace to you can put

MacArthur sermons in an app and in that app You can listen to his sermons translated into I don't even know how many different languages there are on There now and then you can project that out.

You can broadcast that out to the whole world many many places in the world and Man what a tremendous blessing that is because there was a time when the only way you could get the gospel to those places where MacArthur sermons can go now is

To get on a plane and fly and then there was a time before that the only way you could get the gospel of those places was to get on a boat and brave the sea and all that comes with braving the sea and spend

You know months worth of your life Traveling by sea to get to that faraway land so that you could get off of that boat

Hope that you don't die of scurvy in the process the stories of missionaries dying on the way to the mission field is vast in the course of church history and that was the only way to get the gospel of those places that now pastor

MacArthur sermons can go to With just a click of a button and that is

I mean, I think I don't think that's evidence of post -mortem I don't think we should do theology reading the newspaper, right?

I don't think that's evidence of post -millennial ism But I do think that it's evidence that it's really hard to make the case that things are harder for Christians now

Than they were a hundred years ago or 200 years ago or 500 years ago.

I think that's a very historically Questionable position to try to make and honestly,

I'd like to see somebody defend that position In a debate where they have to answer questions by an opponent

Because I think that's actually a relatively indefensible position. Well, here's we've got a couple comments

Well, can I say two more things with that real quick drew? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah One thing this is something

I said to a friend Before I officially claimed post mill and about three times I was explaining it I go but I'm not post mill and at the end

He goes that sounded really post mill But um, look at the development of farming like what did

Adam have maybe a stick or something at some point people invent a hoe And over centuries there are improvements on the hoe and then eventually someone that's a plow

You know again, eventually someone has the idea of oh, hey, let's have animals pull the plow

That'll be a lot easier than us trying to pull it ourselves and then you know fast forward you eventually get the tractor invented and now we have like Air conditioned to GPS tractors where the farmer can sit in his tractor reading a book and he just grabs the wheel in case the

GPS Gets messed up Yeah, now that's like what Darren said. We don't want to do newspaper exegesis

Yeah, and then I'm trying to remember the oh, yeah, that's the other thing I was gonna say when it comes to persecution

I'm gonna say something maybe a little bit shocking but like what's going on in China right now in a certain sense

That's what it looks like when the gospel is winning Yeah, I pause there for people to kind of take what

I just said. Let's let it sink in. Yeah, look at pastor Wang He he's been in prison for like three or four years.

Hopefully he's still alive But the reason he's in prison is because a few centuries ago

It was said Mary Queen of Scots fears the public prayers of John Knox more than 10 ,000 troops of the

British Xi Jinping Believes that statement today about Wang Yi and that's why young Wang Yi is in prison the communist dictatorship leadership of China is

Afraid of Christians and that's why they're doing what they're doing and Christianity is soaring there and give it a century or two and Christianity Will take over China Like Jesus death and resurrection saves us but God also uses little pictures of death and resurrection like stories throughout the world, you know all of the

Insects that are caterpillars then become like a moth or a butterfly or something and then in church history When things look really bad for the church persecution is horrible and then through the faithfulness the blood of the martyrs being the seat of the church that nation that was

Murdering the Christians ends up being one for faith in Christ like with Jim Elliot Yeah, I agree with everything you just said there.

I think that was a powerful comment that you made there Jeremy So, let me put up this comment as you're saying that brother

John says over 360 million Christians suffering persecution in the world right now

Yeah, so I don't want to belittle that Persecution in any way shape or form and I don't think any of us are trying to do that But and in the places where most of the places not all of them

Especially there are exceptions in some places like the Middle East certain places in the Middle East Many of the places that those

Christians are facing persecution the gospel is advancing. We don't consider

Persecution to be evidence that the kingdom of Christ is not being victorious In fact, the

Bible teaches us just the opposite of that It teaches us that when the kingdom of Christ is being victorious that Babel is

Always the Babylon is always going to be coming against the kingdom of Christ And so persecuted

Christians is not evidence that the gospel is not advancing or that the gospel is not being victorious

My answer to that if we were in a debate is I would say I don't accept that as evidence Because I don't think that's what the

Bible teaches it doesn't teach that persecuted Christians is evidence that the gospel is not being victorious and the interesting thing about that is

Guys like MacArthur we keep going back to MacArthur. I think because we all have so much love and respect for him Guys like MacArthur would agree with us about that Actually, you know that guys say things like, you know that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the gospel, right?

It's the seed of the church. And so the the way that this is gonna happen It though I think it was

Doug Wilson. I heard say it but I want to say was quoting somebody else I don't remember who ultimately said it but he said, you know the way the gospel

Advances as that unfolds over the course of history. Is it it's a series of events that look like Losses in the beginning but ultimately turn out to be victories

And so we don't want to belittle the suffering of those 360 million Christians that are being persecuted worldwide in fact

What we want to do is want to praise God for their faithfulness And we also want to assert that their suffering is not meaningless

But it's meaningful and one of the ways in which it's meaningful is that the gospel is being

Advanced through their suffering and so we don't we don't count Suffering Christians as evidence that the gospel is not big

Yeah, yeah, Jason said praise the Lord Melissa says amen and bond servant for Jesus says

I think it usually thrives meaning the church in persecution and you know, that's something we we teach it about persecution is that Nothing grows the church more than persecution

Yeah Yeah, right And I think to go back to what the previous brother said he may have been responding to something

I was saying when I was talking about Christians being carried off into dungeons and that sort of thing and he's probably he made to be fair to him

He may be saying well, there are Christians being carried off into dungeons places and to that I would say yes, you're right

I that point I grant But what I would say to that point is that that is still not evidence the

Kingdom of Christ is not Advancing so we see the Kingdom of Christ advancing in two ways.

We see it advancing in cultures like the West where the Christian principles and Christian worldview have taken a foothold and A Christian way of life at least previously among the ruins of Western civilization

There's evidence of a previous way of life that still Has Meaning today in some sense, although they're doing everything they can to take that away right now

But it still has meaning today in some sense such that Even amidst persecution the persecution that we're facing in the

West is very light That's what I meant to say When I was talking about that and part of the reason it is is because the gospel has so advanced in this culture on the other side the other way that the gospel is advancing is through the

Persecution of the church and persecuted Christians and people say people might hear that they might say well you want to have your cake and eat

It and I would say yes That is the way the gospel advances and advances both of those two ways

And what I mean to say when I say that in this part of what makes me post -millennial is that whether there's peace or whether there's?

Persecution the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is always advancing and that's actually one of the core tenets of our theological

It's always at the center of that. Yeah. Yeah, right Go ahead.

Go ahead. One thing on all of this. Dr. James. Why he hasn't been post -millennial for very long But when he first became post -millennial, he said something that is stuck with me and I've recited it

I don't know how many times since then there are more people today who profess faith in Christ whether genuine converts or Unfortunately some false converts.

There are more people alive today who profess faith in Christ Than there were people on the planet in the days of the

Apostles That's right, that's right, it's a good point

Kathy says Yes in John MacArthur One book he writes evangelism and persecution preserves the church

Yeah, that's right. Amen. That's it. Now. I want to go to a comment that D made

To be more exact John MacArthur calls himself a leaky Dispensationalist and I always have a joke about that because I've worked in plumbing and I say anytime you find something that's leaking.

It's probably broken With that I do I'd have to say with that I Much prefer

John MacArthur's leaky dispensationalism over a lot of the classic dispensationalism you get from guys like Ryrie Yes MacArthur's version of dispensationalism versus the

Dallas seminary guys and then it gets even worse than that right because then you got the John Hagee's of the world and I do think it's valuable to say on this podcast that we as post -millennialists

We do want to be careful and fair to make a distinction between those different groups.

Yeah Dispensationalist we don't lump John MacArthur in with John Hagee. Hey heavens.

No, you know And we actually don't love Charles Ryrie in with John Hagee either There are some things in the more charismatic although there are many solid brothers that are charismatic

That have more of a John MacArthur type dispensationalism I still wouldn't agree with their view there some of their theology of the

Holy Spirit, but we're talking about in times theology here but when we're talking about dispensationalism there are streams and there's

Less there's error that we don't just that we don't agree with but it's secondary or tertiary and then there's

Severe error and so I would say among those that hold to the severe error would be the idea that the temple is going to Be re -erected there's going to be a third temple and that there'll be sacrifices made at that temple

I think that is very dangerous theology versus with like John MacArthur's sort of leaky dispensationalism

He doesn't believe anything like that and so Given the choice between a

MacArthur and a Ryrie MacArthur's dispensationalism to me is far more agreeable Than then like a

Charles Ryrie Or worse than that like a John Hagee Melissa says the view of the world getting better tends to come from the

New Apostolic Reformation and their seven mountain mandate I think post mills mistakenly get lumped into that group and I would

I would absolutely agree on This show. I know I have Discussed the seven mountain mandate and how it's actually not post millennial post millennials would we would reject the seven mountain mandate and If you look at where the seven mountain mandate comes from it it began in the with the

Kansas City Prophets Mike Bickle Bob Joyner I think

No, Bob, I can't remember the guy's name But anyway,

Kansas City Prophets Mike Bickle which now has bled into Bethel because Bill Johnson and Mike Bickle our homeboys and If you look at their teaching of eschatology in their schools

It is the the vast majority of the diet of their eschatology is dispensational premillennialism

That's what they teach in their schools. That's what they the books that they sell in their bookstores That that's actually what they teach

So yes, post mills do get lumped in with the seven mountain mandate and we wholeheartedly reject that idea

Yeah, some of those many are go ahead Darren. No, you go ahead You go ahead Jim some of those

NAR people you even hear them make comments they probably don't say this as much because it sounds so bad, but I've at least seen one quote from one of their big teachers saying like evangelism isn't necessary to Their optimistic view of the future

That's completely against post mill because post move doesn't say things get better because they just get better We say things get better because there will be a larger and larger percentage of the world

Population who are believers and as those believers are sanctified it is as if the world itself is being sanctified

Yeah, I agree The gospel is the thing that's going to make things better.

So to speak not There's two streams in the Charisma, so a lot of people don't know this but there's a whole stream of charismatics that were discipled by Gary North That are post millennial and they often get lumped in with the seven mountain mandate folks as well seven mountain

Dominism so to speak Dominion ism and post millennial ism I think drew gave a talk at cruciform about this, which

I would incur never bits on I didn't I think Jared Jared Jared Ebert gave a talk about it.

It's on the cruciform YouTube channel I'd encourage you guys to go check that out. It's a great talk Jared's a great preachers young guy here in Indiana that does a lot of stuff with cruciform

I would encourage you to go give that talk a listen on the YouTube channel The distinction between the two but drawing that distinction is very important We are not dominionists in the same sense that they are dominionists

We do believe that we should take Dominion in creation we should fulfill the

Dominion mandate which is The Great Commission is included with the

Dominion mandate But our Dominion ism is very different than their Dominion ism because of what

Jeremy just said we have a different worldview The gospel is at the center of our

Dominion ism And the gospel is not at the center of their Dominion ism and that is a very very very important Distinction And so I would say

No, we're not seven mountain mandate people. I haven't just I haven't really

I haven't really done a lot of research into it But anything that's associated with a new apostolic

Reformation is obviously deeply flawed and deeply problematic they're also very top -down like take the top structures and Then by kind of force it and one of their seven mountains,

I believe is like news and entertainment I don't watch Fox News, but I hear that there are a lot of NAR people on Fox News lately

But as post mills, we're very bottom -up now occasionally there might be something like Nineveh where like the king repents and says like Everyone put on sackcloth and ashes, but that was kind of top and bottom at the same time as Jonah preached to the whole city

Yeah, it was the people that went to the king first. So you have two things happening there And I think that's a

I think that's an important distinction the guys that are really quote -unquote rocking the boat or moving the discussion with regards to Postmillennialism right now are pastors

Jeff Durbin Doug Wilson and you may agree more or less with either one of those two guys

And there are several other people also that we can point to those are probably like two of the more like bigger name

People but you can agree more or less with different aspects of their theology and so forth. But those are pastors

They're not political leaders. They're not You know, they're not platform builders.

I actually know both of those men. They often get accused of building platforms But I don't think actually either one of them are quote -unquote platform builders

I think they're just gifted men that God is using to spread this theology But this is the local church grassroots movement as Jeremy was talking about and I think that is an important distinction

We're not trying to build something top -down where we are trying to build institutions and so forth, but as a grassroots movement

We're trying to build institutions So it's not the church is not building these societal institutions in the sense that we're talking about the local church

The church is building these institutions in the sense that it's like you and your family go start that business, right?

You and your family go start that school you and your family go start that Fill in the blank and the church will cheer you on and come alongside you and support you as you do it

And that's very different than what the folks in the seven -mountain dominism believe that should be happening, right?

All right. Let's uh, let's for a moment take a break and recognize our sponsors

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But so back to back to our discussion on post -millennialism now

One of the things one of the arguments I have made a couple years ago.

I did a matter of theology Episode where I was actually responding to an apologetics live

Episode and one of the arguments I made was one that says there's actually no place and the reason

I say this because brother John Jokingly said I'm even more pre -trib now

But But so one of the arguments

I made was that there's no place to insert a 1 ,000 year reign on earth after Christ returns and So the argument

I made for that is what Greg Bonson calls the unity of the eschatological complex

Yeah, and so what that means is that the eschatological events that we are anticipating they're unified in the

Bible so the resurrection of the Saints happens at the same time as the resurrection of the

Wicked the judgment of the Saints happens at the same time as the judgment of the wicked. And so the reason

I say that We have a general Resurrection and we can see this in John chapter 5 verses 28 through 29

Which reads do not marvel at this for an hour is coming in Which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth those who did good deeds to a resurrection of life those who committed evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment and So, you know verse 28 says all who are in the tombs

Right. And so so we see a general resurrection we see this in Acts 24 verse 15 a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked and We also see the general judgment

Matthew 25 verses 32 and verse 46 all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them

One from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats They will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life

So so I think those are The I don't know how the how would the

Premillennialists refute the idea of the general resurrection and the general

Judgment, and we can also go to first Corinthians 15 as well verse Which is talking about the resurrection of the wicked and of the

Saints and then in verse 24 It says then comes the end When Jesus Hands over the

Millennium to the father or not hands over the Millennium but hands over the kingdom to the father

Yeah, yeah, I agree with everything that you just said Well, I think there's two things

There is so this is I'll talk just for a briefly about this and I encourage people to go look into it a lot of people don't know this but There are actually multiple.

So I mentioned earlier. There are multiple streams within post -millennialism There actually is a stream of post -millennialism that does believe in a little thousand -year reign so if that's your thing

That's your big thing, right? There has to be a literal thousand -year reign in your interpretation of Scripture There could be a place for it, but it's very important that you understand everything that drew just said

There could be a place for it and this is the version in post -millennialism that the Puritans actually believe it's called historical post -millennialism

And if you actually look right above my head this one white three books that's the revelation commentary of James Durham Which is which he had he believes the that this historical

Post -millennial view that you're about to yeah If you're so if you're historical pre mill this and you thinking through post -millennialism

This would actually be the quick it would be a quick jump for you Because there's a lot of correlation between historic post -mill and historic pre -mill but in the historic and the historical post -millennial perspective there is there's going to be a there's the the church will continue to be victorious in the earth as it ebbs and flows over time and Then usher in a literal

Thousand -year reign at the end of which there will be the judgment that you were talking about and so forth

And so that is a stream I wanted to mention that on the tail ends of what you were just talking about that there is a stream of post -millennialism

I've actually considered it myself and thought and read about it and so forth because I do think there's a lot of good arguments for that position

But it's not the prominent position today like the Bonson post -millennialism tends to be more of a partial preterist type

Post -millennialism and that also has a lot of good arguments for it as well But some of you guys that like your big thing is that that it says a thousand years in the book of Revelation So there has to be a thousand year reign

Which I don't really understand that from a hermeneutical standpoint because there's so many things that everybody agrees are figurative in the book of Revelation But if it's your perspective there has to be everything drew just said you can kind of understand it

But in your mind, there's just got to be a thousand year reign and you just can't get around that There can be a thousand year reign within post -millennialism.

It's a different version of post -millennialism, but there's actually a lot of Merit to it as well.

Jonathan Edwards held this view of post -millennialism. I want to say John Owen held this view

I don't remember that for sure though. So don't quote me on that but What's his name?

My brain just went blank the best Bible commentary that there is. What's the guy's name? Calvin Henry Matthew Henry believes this version of post -millennialism and on and on so I just want to throw that out there as a point of discussion

All right, let's This will get right into kind of Jeremy's wheelhouse

Melissa says do any of you gentlemen in your post mill view ascribe to theonomy?

I'm actually interested to hear how you answer this question Jeremy Yeah, um, so I talked a little bit about Fianna money at the beginning and it's from a theonomic standpoint some episodes of the

Podcast don't really address economics at all. They're more just focused on theonomy. Some episodes don't really address theonomy there's folks on economics and as much as I can

I like to try to do both at the same time looking at something from a theonomic standpoint or just from a Biblical standpoint like I'm some of the beginning for people maybe tuned in partway through I think a lot of what

I would call biblical or theonomic economics is just Biblical economics and Christians of all stripes would agree with it, but I am a theonomist

I think a lot of post mills are I don't think Theonomy means you have to be post mill or vice versa that being post mill means you have to be a theonomist

There are a lot of people that hold to one or the other Like I think there are a lot of all mill people who hold to a theonomy and There are probably a lot of post mill people who do not hold to theonomy like going each way with that but I do think that Holding the two at the same time

Helps it out. I've called post mill the engine of theonomy because you know If I'm theonomic if I think that like Psalm 2 is a reality nations that disobey

Christ will be crushed like not just at an individual level on the Day of Judgment if they're not saved but on a national level

Christ will judge and crush nations that disagree with him if I'm not post mill

What's my hope that will ever actually happen more than just it's the ideal that will never happen until eternity

So that's why I call post mill the engine of theonomy. It makes it possible. It makes us able to get there and so, you know,

I think there's a lot of You know kind of merit to taking both ideas together and Possibly a big reason why a lot of people hold to both is because a lot of the big teachers of the two views held to both

Jeff Durbin holds to both Greg Bonson held to both Doug Wilson holds to both and So, I think those are some of the reasons why the two get held together also

Andrew Rappaport might not like this because he's presuppositional But I think that theonomy is the presuppositional approach to politics

What presuppositional apologetics is to apologetics? I think theonomy is to politics and A lot of post mills do also happen to be presuppositional

I don't think being presupposed means you have to be post mill or vice versa Well, once again,

Greg Bonson and Jeff Durbin are both presupposed as well But I think if that makes sense for people who are presupposed to hold to theonomy and so those three things

Presupposed mill and theonomy kind of go hand in hand though I don't think just because you hold to one means you have to hold to the other two

It's a good answer. I agree. There's a lot of post -millennialists out there, especially more early or more

Like one of the first books I ever read on post -millennialism was by a guy named Lorraine Boatner who a lot of guys today

I've never even heard of but he was a great theologian. He wrote in the 1940s

Brilliant scholar and I would encourage you some of his works are coming back into publication I would strongly encourage you to get his book.

He was not a theonomist, but he was a great brilliant theologian That wrote about post -millennialism and there are guys like that out there for me

It's Complicated Is what I tell people when they ask me if I'm a theonomist.

I say it's complicated. I'm a 1689 I ascribe to the 1689

Confession and Technically speaking by the strictest letter of the law It's the 1689

Confession does not jive with theonomy the full -blown theonomy So the question we're talking about theonomy is the law of God and Jeremy made a good point when he talked about the second

Psalm and Christ ruling among the nations and you have to ask yourself the question What would it look like for Christ to do that?

And one of the things that would look like is the establishment of God's law in Politics not and I want to clarify a few things here

We're not saying the church should govern over the state the concept of separate separation church and state is actually a theonomic concept

It is consistent with God's law. God made a distinction between the priests and The Levites and the

Kings and the the governing authorities and so there's nothing There's nothing about that whole idea in theonomy that the church.

We're not talking about an ecclesiocracy or anything like that But the one the thing you have to deal with when you're talking about theonomy is what do we mean when we say the law?

Of God, okay Some people say the law of God has no place in politics and profess to be

Christians I don't know how you get there from Boko Haram some people say well the decalogue or the natural law should govern over politics, but not the

Not the case law in the Levitical and Deuteronical law not the case law and others say no the whole law

Should be considered so I am a what I would call what people would call it general equity

Theonomist theonomist hate it when you use that phrase because they say all theonomist or general equity

But what I mean when I say that is something very specific Most people would call me a theonomist

But I'm not technically a theonomist in the classic sense I believe that the case law should be considered in the establishment of what constitutes moral law in civil society and What I mean when

I say considered is that the moral principle in the case law should be extrapolated and applied to civil society

But I would argue that that is sometimes going to look very different in our culture today than it would back when the

Levitical law was originally given and when the civil law was originally given and the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy And so I am a theonomist in some sense.

I'm getting off into the weeds here I am a theonomist in some sense because I do believe the law of God.

I believe that both The church and the state have a duty to submit themselves to the

Lordship of Christ and then their own Jurisdictions to govern their jurisdictions in a way that honors

Christ and I think every Christian should agree with that That's a basic tenet of having a biblical worldview

Okay The question that needs to be debated and a lot of people don't understand this Question needs to be debated is what does it look like for the civil sphere to honor

Christ? And I would argue you for the civil sphere to honor Christ you must look at the law of God because that is the the law of God is the

Exposition of God's moral character and God's moral character does not change So you may not bring it over and apply it 100 % exactly the way that it was in the

Old Testament But you would bring it over and you would consider it in the institution and the structuring of the civil laws

In our society today and the reason that that ties in with post -millennialism is because we would say in Germany I think explain this point very well, and I just want to put a finer point on it

We would say what does it look like for Christ to reign in the civil government? Well, it looks like the establishment of laws that are consistent with his law word that recognize and exalt his

Lordship and the only Black and white standard we have for what that would look like is found in the law word of God Yeah, there's

Jason right here says the whole basis of law and morals and ethics all comes from from God's Holy Word and how we

Were created in his image Yeah And then

Jason also sends a question in he says in a post mill view When is

Satan bound for the thousand years? What do you think

Jeremy so I would I hold to the more modern view of post mill that Kind of takes the thousand years as metaphorical for everything

For like all of church history, you know when it says I think it's Psalm 52 that God owns the cattle in a thousand hills

It means all of them not he doesn't own the cattle in the thousand and first hill So I don't think it's bad to take the thousand as metaphorical

So I think and when it says Satan's bound for a thousand years, it's referring to all of church history now you might say okay, but um,

I think it's first Peter 5 where it describes Satan as Active like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour and I say yes

Satan is bound But he's also active and how is it not contradictory? Because of how

I understand the word bound it says Satan is bound that he can no longer deceive the nations It's not

I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think in Scripture says Satan is bound that he can't do anything So Satan is bound in a sense that he doesn't have the power he had in the

Old Testament and the New Testament Jesus has bound the strong man and is now plundering his house and so now

Satan still has a lot of power like Satan can still wreck any single

Christian He wants to because he has a lot more power than a human does right now in our non glorified bodies

But he is bound so that way he can't deceive the entire world Christianity can't be limited to One small nation that's apostate half the time like it was with Israel in the

Old Testament Because Jesus is on his victory march across the whole world over the course of thousands of years

And so Satan is bound in a sense that he's limited more than he was in the Old Testament But he is still active to some degree just not as much as before And generally speaking

I agree with what you just said there Jeremy like I don't think that what the scripture means when it says that Satan is bound that it means that he's inactive.

I think there's still a great spiritual battle happening in the world I would point people to my sermon audio page for Harmony Baptist Church.

I just preached a series of sermons about this going through Ephesians 6 When we talked about spiritual warfare,

I think spiritual warfare is still a very real thing I think the enemy wants to oppose the advancement of the kingdom of Christ and as What the

Puritans believed is that in as much as the church the kingdom of Christ is advancing in the church that Satan is more and more bound because Jesus is as Jeremy said

Jesus is bonding the strongman. He's he's plundering the strongman and then Sometimes it ebbs.

It doesn't flow sometimes it ebbs and as it ebbs Satan is less bound and he's more able to Accomplish certain things in given cultures because the strongman is not being bound as much

Because the kingdom of Christ is not advancing in that way And so in as much as the kingdom of Christ is advancing the strongman is being bound

In his house to being plundered and as much as the kingdom is not advancing Then the strongman is less bound and his kingdom is in his household is less being plundered

That's the way that I would understand that. So what that means is that when the kingdom advances The enemy is pushed back the gates of the enemy are pushed back as the light advances into the darkness

She pushed back the camp of the enemy and so the Satan was bound at the resurrection of Christ and The strongman has been bound and his house is being plundered

But that as I keep going back to this because I think it's so important people don't understand it about post -millennialism That ebbs and flows over the course of history with a trajectory toward victory but it still ebbs and flows and as that the kingdom ebbs and flows the

There's a sense in which his Is his house is being plundered more in a sense in which is being plundered less we're seeing in America today

It's ebbing not flowing and the enemy is able to do more and he's able to hide in plain sight

Because the church is not advancing the kingdom of Christ in the earth And so you always have to look at that but that doesn't mean the bind man the strongman hasn't been bound

I don't know if that makes sense to you guys or not, but that's the way I would explain that Brother John says a lot of metaphorical scriptures in the post mill camp.

Very interesting. I Think all of the major views of eschatology have passages.

They take metaphorically I think Amel does the most taking things metaphorically and I think post mill

Does a lot of taking things literally perhaps even more than the pre mills do I mean does a

Brother John Elving does he think that you know when the rapture or when the tribulation is going on?

There will be a literal whore riding a literal dragon around if not, he's taking that metaphorically

Yeah, I mean I agree with what Jeremy said there I think that it's dispensationalist oftentimes I'd like to accuse all mills and post mills of being too medical metaphorical and that's because they're hermeneutic is so the synchronon of dispensationalism according to Charles Ryrie is a historical grammatical hermeneutic a hard and fast distinction between Israel and the church and a pre -millennial pre -tribulational view of end times theology court in his book dispensationalism

He said that's the synchronon of dispensationalism And a lot of times because since that is such an important part of dispensationalism

Dispensationalists hang their hat on the historical grammatical interpretation of Scripture But the reality is we all believe in historical grammatical interpretation of Scripture Now we in the post mill camp also tend to also tend a lot toward a historical

Redemptive interpretation of Scripture, but historical grammatical is a part of historical redemptive.

They go hand -in -hand with one another So we believe in a historical grammatical interpretation of Scripture, but what do we mean when we say grammatical?

We mean that when we look at the passage, there are some passages in the Bible that are meant to be taken

Figuratively some are poetry some are some are some are history

Some are letters and how do we determine how we should read that passage? we consider the cues of the context and we determine what should be literal and what should be

What should be figurative or or poetic or whatever on the basis of the context that's what historical grammatical

Interpretation of Scripture would have us to do. We don't take everything. Literally. Nobody takes everything literally the literal meaning of a passage

We're talking about literal when it comes to Bible study methods The literal meaning of the passage is actually the meaning that the author meant when they wrote those words down That's the literal meaning of the passage so if Let's go to Revelation if for example

John meant for that and God by the power of his spirit through John meant for that discussion of a thousand -year reign to be an actual thousand years, then the literal interpretation would be a literal thousand years, but if John meant for that to be

Figurative then the literal interpretation would be what John originally meant That's what we mean when we say literal and we're talking about historical grammatical

The literal is not always the wooden literal definition or meaning It is the meaning that was originally intended by the author when they wrote the words down That's what we're trying to discern.

And so any place where the context Dictates that we should take the passage metaphorically we take it metaphorically and that's what everybody does.

We all do that It's just the dispensationalists choose to take other things metaphorically than we do and so on and so forth and we need to have that argument

Based on the context what should be metaphorical? What should not be metaphorical? But this idea that only the dispensationalists are the ones that take the scripture literally and the rest of us all constantly appeal to metaphor

It's just not the matter of fact. It's not the case of what actually happens when we approach the text

Yeah. Yeah, very good. I think that's a good answer Let's go to As we're wrapping up.

Let's go to one of brother John's other questions He does say

Question for Darren. Are you expecting the soon return of Jesus? Do you believe

Jesus will return soon? No Not in the sense that you're talking about there.

I think he did return soon I think he came in 70 AD and bought judgment on the nation of Israel Which was not what he says here a metaphorical return.

It was an actual return in judgment Yeah, and this is something that oftentimes our

Premillennial brothers will do is they'll try to accuse us of speaking metaphorically when we're not speaking metaphorically

When Jesus came in 70 AD, he did not come Metaphorically, he came literally he came in the sense that he said that he would come in Matthew 23

And he bought judgment upon the nation of Israel and I would Challenge brother

John I would just challenge brother John back and say When you you read the words this generation in Matthew 24

Does that mean this generation or does it mean something else? Are you expecting did you expect that Jesus will return in that generation?

Do you take those words literally or do you take them metaphorically? That's the question that I would ask back to that Do I am

I expecting Jesus to return soon in his? We're talking about the second advent of Christ No because I think when

Jesus was talking about I am coming soon in the book of Revelation and The students of his turn in Matthew 24 was talking about the coming judgment that he was

He was talking about with regard to the nation of Israel that already happened and I hang my hat on that I think that's the most consistent interpretation of Scripture Yeah, and I would ask brother

John if we were having a debate right now. I would ask him What do the words this generation mean because we can both do that right we can both we can both have we can both discuss

The topic in that way and we should that's the way we should actually have the discussion. So I actually appreciate the question

I think that's a good way to proceed with the discussion Yeah, yeah John asked a lot of he brings a lot of good questions and he's thinking about these things a lot, you know

Yeah, it seems very sharp and a lot of the questions. He's asking are I think good questions and they make for good discussion.

So right and that's the way I'm receiving I mean, I think they're good questions. I mean if we could go for another two hours

I'm sure I'm sure I guarantee John would have a lot more things to add just to keep the conversation going because He does ask a lot of good questions of bringing a lot of points to talk about for sure

I want to give a little bit of pushback on him talking about literalism there and the return of Christ being soon

I think it was him who asked that question if we take a very literal understanding of several passages in the

Old Testament most if not all of them and The Pentateuch the Torah then we have to think that the second coming of Christ is more than 30 ,000 years away

Where do I get at that? Because we see I think about two or three times

Through like Exodus and Deuteronomy around there that it says

God is faithful to a thousand generations The biblical definition of a generation is 40 years

And so if we're gonna take that literally then we have to see a thousand generations from the time of Moses 40 ,000 years in order to See God be faithful to a thousand generations.

So I think Moses was around what 1 ,400 BC were 2 ,000 years since Christ 34 ish hundred years.

So the second coming of Christ must be over 36 ,000 years away If we're gonna take that thousand generations literally there from Exodus and Deuteronomy This was an interesting so I was

One of the things would be good for the audience to know about me is that I went to a dispensational

Bible College So I was trained in dispensationalism.

I've read Stacks of books by Charles Ryrie. That's the form of dispensationalism.

I was trained in And there's a lot actually that I love and appreciate about our dispensational brothers most being

I would say that it was the fundamentalist dispensationalist that rescued the

Southern Baptist Convention from progressivism in the 80s and rescued evangelicalism from progressivism in the 80s broadly

And so I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to our to our dispensational brothers

And I want to be clear about that. I don't want to we don't want to write them off or anything else whatever else the case may be but this idea that one of the things

I learned when I was in Bible College was this idea that really only the Dispensationalists take the scripture literally everybody else is always appealing to metaphor and so on and so forth

This is a big arguing point in Charles Ryrie's book on dispensational. It was just called dispensationalism

He also comes back to this point in his systematic theology Which I thought actually was a fairly good theology in a lot of ways

Very simple to understand and so forth that it has problems in my opinion and so this is one of the things that he appeals to constantly with regards to Amillennialism and post -millennialism that anybody who is not dispensational is just constantly appealing to metaphor all the time

What's the problem with this whole way of thinking is that we he only brings this up when we're talking about in times?

Theology when you go to other aspects of his theology He appeals to metaphor and why does he do that because there are certain passages in the scripture that are metaphorical?

And the literal interpretation of those passages is that they're metaphorical When it talks about the trees dancing and clapping their hands in the

Psalms, that's poetic That's not literal in the in the hollow wooden literal sense

And so I think Post -millennialist have their bad arguments when it comes to dispensationalist.

There are certain things. We should be more intellectually honest about and I think Dispensationalist have their bad arguments when it comes to post -millennialist

One of the bad arguments dispensationalist have is that they're the only ones that take scripture literally and everybody else always appeals to metaphor

That is just simply not true And I think if you read Broadly among dispensationalist and you read brought broadly among the other two camps.

You're gonna see they both take certain things Hollow literally and they both take certain things metaphorically and it's because of our hermeneutics that we have to do that because there are some things clearly that are metaphorical and some things clearly that aren't and so when

I Say that Jesus came back in 70 AD. I that's not a metaphor

I believe that's literally what Jesus meant in Matthew 25 or Matthew 24 when he said he would be that he was

Coming on the clouds. I think that's literally what Jesus meant in the book of Revelation when he said behold,

I'm returning soon It's not metaphorical. I think that's the literal interpretation of what's being used there

This is part of what we should get at as we're having this discussion Let's look at these passages and work through is it metaphorical?

Is it literal and the way that we do that is by context clues? But one of the things we have to acknowledge for the sake of discussion is that everybody

Believes certain things are metaphorical and everybody believes certain things are literal the dispensationalists

Do not have the corner of the market when it comes to taking scripture literally by any means

Yeah, yeah, did you have something you need to add Jeremy I'll say this you can see some books behind me.

I need to turn the other way Those are on the top some Calvin commentaries and then after that you can see a little bit of the start of my

MacArthur Commentaries that go on but my chair is blocking some of the others. So I like MacArthur I have most of his

New Testament commentaries. Hopefully in the future. I'll get the last handful I'm missing to have the complete set and as much as I disagree with him on some of his

Eschatology and of some of his political theology and although the last few years I disagree with MacArthur and less of that I think if Tomorrow 90 % of the

American Church became MacArthurites We would be in a spiritually healthier place than we are right now So I want to say that to say

I I think guys like MacArthur are very solid in many areas and I've learned a lot from MacArthur myself

Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that too. There's a lot of guys out there that are not post post millennial

Those guys at g3. There's been a lot of discussion about Christian nationalism and all that I want to express my love and appreciation of the guys at g3, even though they're not post millennial.

They're not the economic Most of most of my favorite theologians are not people that agree with me on this topic

So I believe in things like infant baptism and stuff. There's that. Yeah, right

But and then of course, you know, we appreciate guys like Jeff Durbin But we should work together and have burly affection toward one another and appreciate one another this is a tertiary issue that we're talking about It's not even a secondary issue

What I mean when I say that this is not worth dividing even in a local church context over its tertiary

There's room for disagreement and discussion. No, absolutely Melissa says it

Anthony time. Yeah I Said we went in the

Anthony time We did go into Anthony time, but we're about to wrap up so I don't want to I don't want to get your hopes too high

Can I wrap up with one thing before you close? Yeah, I think we should as important as eschatology is

Like do ministry together go to evangelism together with your friends that disagree on eschatology and then over lunch afterwards you can fight on that like as long as y 'all are willing to fight then that's more important than having blood feuds over small issues of eschatology

Darren and I pastor Darren and I we have a friend named a pastor Kip Ferrar he's actually my father -in -law's co -pastor and he's the man that didn't mind of my wife's wedding and he's a historic pre male, but he's also

Very optimistic and his outlook on the future as a historic pre male and very willing to fight You would be hard -pressed to find someone more willing to fight and go to evangelism than this guy he and I and a bunch of other people were recently doing evangelism at a sodomy pride festival and John Jacob was there too.

Some of the listeners may have heard of John Jacob because he's a pretty well -known guy. Oh We lose

Darren Hey My hair. Yeah, where's me? I don't know where I'm at if I'm here or not.

I'm having a anyway, go ahead You said something right as you blinked out. I don't know if you're just saying something about Kip or John Jacob is also a historical pre no.

Mm -hmm. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. That was it. That was all I wanted to say Yeah, I think one of the things that we're big on here in Indiana is we fight together

And then we argue with one another after that's over we go to the streets we go to the abortion mills

And we preach the gospel together and then we debate theology over lunch afterwards and both of those things are important It's not like we're pretending like we don't disagree about anything.

We're men So let's talk like men, you know, we can have our disagreements and that's good one of the things

I want to say along the lines of what Jeremy said that I think it was a good way to wrap up this show is to just express my gratitude to Andrew because You know,

Andrew is a dispensationalist. He's pretty mill. He's dispensational and much of his audience is pretty mill and dispensational and so the fact that he let us come on here and have this show

I think speaks of his generosity and you know his desire to genuinely allow this discussion to Progress, there's a lot of people that wouldn't have done that and so I just want to express my gratitude and appreciation to Andrew for letting us have this podcast because or have this episode because And I mean, you know drew he's got you on here every week and you guys are discussing this despite your disagreements

If we're going to be victorious Apologetic if we're gonna if we're gonna do good apologetics and good evangelism in the culture we're gonna have to be able to debate these issues and love toward one another and then still take the gospel to the world and And I think

Andrew is a good example of that. So I really appreciate him Absolutely, one of the things

I've in I try to do Intentionally is Surround myself with people who are true believers, but also believe differently about Different differently than I do because it forces me to continue to go to the scriptures and it also makes for a good conversation right that's

Bible centered and But what you what you guys have said is absolutely right

It's oh, this isn't something to divide over Yeah, this is something that is a is not a secondary issue

Darren I would agree it's a tertiary issue and we can lock arms with one another whether you be

Dispensational pre -meal historical pre -meal all male as long as you're not a full preterist

Right, then we're gonna have to have we're gonna have to give you the gospel, right? We're gonna have to bring you into the kingdom first But we can lock arms with one another and we can go proclaim

Christ to a lost and dying world Because out there they need to know

Christ Right. It it's fun to have the conversations and and Darren I love what you said we go fight together and then we have lunch and debate with one another

But first we must fight out there It does feel good to fight within one another and then attempt to separate from one another because someone doesn't hold to my specific eschatological view or Or my view of theonomy or or whatever the case may may be

We must unite around the gospel and we must take the gospel to the world because the world needs the gospel

Christ must be proclaimed and that's one of the things I love about People like Andrew, right?

Yeah, he goes out to evangelize Anthony goes out evangelizes pastor.

Justin Pierce goes out evangelize. I mean Andrew speaking at the living waters Conference that's going on right now, right and what is living waters?

They're all about evangelism going out street preaching Giving the gospel to the lost and dying world

This is not something to divide over And I also I do want to Extend thanks to to Andrew.

I the more I get to know Andrew the more I love Andrew He's just one of those guys and some people

I don't understand why people there are people who don't like him I don't know why I don't get it.

I Love that brother And so what I would encourage all of our listeners to do is take the gospel of Christ to the lost and dying world link arms with with your brothers and sisters who

Believe differently than you about eschatology because that's not something to divide over go preach about the death the life death birth or the life death resurrection and ascension of Christ That order of events is important it is it really

But that virgin birth is important like don't throw that right You can tell how tired

I am Call them to repentance and faith in Christ and then celebrate together

When they come into the kingdom So now we have we do have a couple comments that I do want to close on a

Lot of them are from the same people. Let's see Bond servant for Jesus says this is a good show.

I learned a lot so far. That's excellent Whoops I already asked that question.

I should have taken that one away. I don't know why I didn't But Melissa says even though I am pre male.

I appreciate you guys giving us clarification on your views I never want to be guilty of misrepresenting someone else's theological views

Absolutely Yeah, that's why that's one of the reasons why Andrew brings in different views to discuss

Because he doesn't want to misrepresent anyone. He just like we wouldn't want anyone to misrepresent us

Yeah, that that's very important. Melissa also says Thank you for answering all my questions brothers

This is exactly why I brought these two guys on here Because I knew it was going to be a very informative show

John says great show learned a lot. You guys sound very convinced in your interpretation of the

Bible. Thank you Thank you for all your questions John. I really appreciated those questions.

That was it helped the show a lot I think the question we're asking. Yeah, he also says thanks again blessings from Canada.

Love my American friends. We love you, too, brother Melissa again, this dis be appreciates all of you gentlemen.

Thank you. We appreciate you, especially We you know apologetics live striving for eternity.

We appreciate all of our faithful listeners and if you're if you Tune in regularly if you if you're just in the comments, right, you'll notice there's everyone in there is almost like family

They're talking to one another if they have prayer requests for one another they'll put it in there and or they'll give resources for one another

It's a I've just noticed that you know in being a part of this show Kathy says good show.

I have studied all three views and I'm convinced of pre mill yet. Appreciate hearing all

Thank you for all the comments And I think this was a this was a very great show very informative

I think at least I hope it helped cleared up a lot of maybe confusion about Postmillennialism maybe some some myths people have have heard and now they can go.

Oh, wait a minute. That's not that's actually not post mill And and this can actually be a resource that people can give out to say, okay, you're calling this post mill

It's really not here. Listen to this. Listen to these guys Kind of talk about these topics in these subjects.

So I want to thank my guests for coming on pastor. Darren Jeremy And like I said before Mark Spence is going to be on next week.

Andrew should be back next week And he's going to be talking about the Living Waters film.

What is it which is on abortion? And so we will see you right back here same time same place on Apologetics live and as Andrew likes to say strive to make each day an eternal one for the glory of God and we are actually going to end with a work with a gospel presentation from Andrew All the religious systems are based on system of morality of good works what makes

Christianity unique It is not a system of morality. It is about Jesus Christ Buddha is dead

Muhammad is dead. Joseph Smith is dead Mary Baker Eddie is dead But Jesus Christ rose from the dead if Jesus Christ was not both fully man and fully

God there would be no payment This was the debate in the first century Jesus Christ was fully man.

It's important to note that he did not have a human father Therefore he did not inherit a sin nature

Jesus Christ not only had to be fully man But he also had to be without sin never breaking any part of God's law

If if Jesus was not a man, then people would have no payment of sins, but Jesus Christ is also fully