Dale Partridge - Part 1： An Introduction to Eschatology

00:00:00.000 So, eschatology, does it really matter? You might ask if this topic is worth us talking about.

00:00:10.620 Should we really spend time talking about complicated issues? Is this something that we

00:00:17.680 should be spending our mind's energy discussing? Shouldn't we just focus on the gospel? Shouldn't

00:00:25.860 we proclaim the cross of Christ and not worry about those things that are so difficult to

00:00:32.000 understand? That's one of the common challenges around eschatology, and it's why the vast majority

00:00:39.540 of Christians don't want to have these harder discussions. We like to kind of sit in the

00:00:45.860 shallow end of the pool when it comes to theology rather than going into the deep end,

00:00:50.640 talking about difficult categories of the scriptures.

00:00:56.420 Now, I wanted to make something really clear.

00:00:59.980 Eschatology will impact you far more than you realize.

00:01:05.220 It actually shapes the way that you live and the way that you think. 0.61

00:01:09.920 It shapes the way you view family and future.

00:01:13.580 I told you just a little bit ago that we had a family in our church

00:01:18.960 who at one point in their life made the decision to not have children based on their eschatology.

00:01:26.160 They had a pessimistic eschatology that told them that the world is only going to get worse

00:01:30.920 and that the Antichrist is coming, the tribulation is before us.

00:01:34.180 Let's be loving and not bring a child into this.

00:01:38.760 See, eschatology shapes the way that you live.

00:01:41.700 That family has come on their own to repentance and has informed us last year

00:01:48.780 that they had come to that conclusion and conviction, and they had come to a different

00:01:52.920 eschatology. But it was a painful mistake based off of what they believed. And so eschatology

00:02:03.200 will, again, shape the way you view family and legacy and ministry and cultural and political

00:02:08.400 engagement and the way that you talk about law and the way that you think about media and business

00:02:14.440 and all the things that are going on in the economics, the geopolitical world.

00:02:19.640 It affects how you spend your time, how you invest your money, the view you have of future.

00:02:27.580 And again, I want to make it clear, you have an eschatology.

00:02:31.720 This isn't something that you don't have.

00:02:34.120 I'm not giving you something that you don't have right now. 0.96

00:02:37.160 Now, you already have a developed or underdeveloped or uninformed or ignorant eschatology.

00:02:50.660 Now today, what I want to discuss is an introduction to the concept, to theology, the doctrine, the discussions of eschatology.

00:03:02.600 and there's really three views historic premillennialism amillennialism and

00:03:10.360 postmillennialism now most teaching series on eschatology are going to be somewhere between

00:03:14.640 three and 24 months i'm going to try to do a brief introduction in about six weeks

00:03:21.820 and so we're not going to be getting to some of the more complex issues but my hope is threefold

00:03:29.700 today. I want to offer a basic lay of the land, a basic lay of the land that will help you

00:03:38.380 understand the fundamentals of all three views. And again, I've made you this diagram to assist

00:03:43.100 that. I want you to not be ignorant about what each particular view believes and that you could

00:03:51.000 make an informed decision based on your interpretation of Scripture. Number two,

00:03:57.540 I'd like to introduce to our congregation the eschatological view that we hold as pastors

00:04:03.620 here at Kingsway. And number three, I want to demonstrate the difference between pessimistic

00:04:13.100 eschatology and optimistic eschatology, because I believe that impacts us more than you know.

00:04:22.240 And so, the three views. Let's start this off. You might notice that all three views center

00:04:29.940 around this term millennium. Millennium, which revolves around this passage of Scripture in

00:04:37.800 Revelation 20, verses 1 through 7. We had just read that prior to this sermon. Now, the word

00:04:45.140 millennium is made up of two Latin words, mille and enum. Mille means a thousand, and enum means

00:04:52.020 year. So it literally means a thousand year. Now, it's used six times in the Bible, and all of those

00:05:00.600 six times are in the first seven verses of chapter 20 in the book of Revelation. That word is never

00:05:06.640 used anywhere else. Now that passage is referring to the millennial reign of Christ, which is a

00:05:17.240 period of Christ's sovereign rule where he's going to be reigning on earth, his kingdom is going to

00:05:26.500 be expanding, and it results in the ultimate defeat of evil and the closing of the redemptive

00:05:33.460 era of history. So the question becomes, and this is key, when and how does the millennial reign of

00:05:43.080 Christ occur? When and how does the millennial reign of Christ occur? Does Christ return before

00:05:54.620 his millennial reign in his temporal body, his physical body, that's premillennial,

00:06:03.460 If Christ returns before the millennium, that's pre-millennium, pre-millennial.

00:06:12.080 Or does Christ return after his millennial reign, which occurs through his body, the church, not his temporal body, but his body, the church on earth?

00:06:26.460 That is post-millennial.

00:06:29.880 He returns after the millennium.

00:06:33.460 That is, will Christ come in his physical body, which we all agree, by the way, he'll eventually come in his physical body.

00:06:42.140 But as it pertains to the millennium, will Christ come in his physical body to fully inaugurate, start his kingdom for a literal 1,000 year reign on the earth?

00:06:56.700 or will Christ come to consummate an already existing kingdom

00:07:04.560 that he inaugurated at the cross

00:07:06.780 and has been building on earth through his body, the church?

00:07:13.400 Those are key discussions.

00:07:17.260 Those are the two distinctions between premillennialists and postmillennialists.

00:07:24.540 Now, there's a third option.

00:07:26.700 which is called amillennialism, which teaches that the millennium is not a future physical

00:07:34.380 reign of Christ on earth, either in his physical body, nor in his body, the church,

00:07:41.420 reigning on earth, but a present spiritual reign from heaven, that God is reigning in the hearts

00:07:50.740 of believers, but it's not really his body operating his kingdom on earth. Now, in this view,

00:08:00.860 the millennial reign, the amillennial view, refers to Christ's rule over his church during the current

00:08:09.520 church age. They don't want to call it the millennium, though they might call it a symbolic

00:08:13.520 millennium, which began at his resurrection and will continue until his final return at the end

00:08:22.420 of history. That's kind of, you can see that on the chart there. In amillennialism, there is no

00:08:28.660 expectation of a literal 1,000-year earthly reign, but rather it's a symbolic period where Satan is

00:08:39.240 bound. Jesus says that he has bound the strong man. This period is where the gospel will spread

00:08:47.740 and Christ reigns spiritually through his people. They would view it almost as what's called a two

00:08:55.560 kingdom theology. There is the spiritual kingdom and there is the kingdom of the world. And

00:09:02.240 amillennialists don't believe that our job is to affect the kingdom of the world, but just focus

00:09:09.600 on the spiritual kingdom. That's 2K, sometimes what it's called, or R2K theology. And it's kind

00:09:18.120 of an impotent theology. It doesn't affect the physical world much at all. Now, the key differences

00:09:27.320 are that post-millennialists do not view Christ's reign as merely spiritual. It's not just a

00:09:34.600 spiritual thing. They view Christ ruling the earth through his body, the church. And we believe,

00:09:44.260 as a post-millennialist, that it will impact every area of life, including the geopolitical

00:09:50.100 realities of the world. Try to let your Christianity not affect anything else.

00:09:57.320 It's not going to happen.

00:09:59.360 It's impossible, in fact, unless you're unfaithful. 0.99

00:10:04.620 Christianity will come out of your fingers. 0.94

00:10:08.140 It'll come out of your mouth. 0.58

00:10:11.420 It will affect everything that you do.

00:10:15.640 Now, most importantly, post-millennialists believe Christ's reign through the church

00:10:24.580 will result in the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Christianization of the world.

00:10:33.520 Ultimately, amillennialism and post-millennialism are actually very similar. 0.92

00:10:38.340 You can see them on the chart.

00:10:40.000 They're very similar.

00:10:42.240 They're very similar.

00:10:43.280 they're much different than premillennialism, the structure and framework for premillennialism.

00:10:48.700 But amillennialism and postmillennialism are very similar. In fact, I would argue that

00:10:55.360 amillennialism is the seed which the full-grown tree of postmillennialism came. So postmillennialism

00:11:05.180 comes out of amillennialism. It is like the version of it that has bite. It takes the promises

00:11:14.040 of scripture and it makes them stick. Postmillennialism is kind of a stronger and

00:11:20.700 potent version of amillennialism. Now, to be clear, all three views, pre, ah, and post,

00:11:30.320 all Christian Orthodox. They all believe the gospel. They all trust in Christ. They all

00:11:37.940 believe that Christ will return in a future visible bodily form and that there will be a

00:11:45.660 resurrection of the dead, saints and sinners out of their graves, great judgment, beam a seat,

00:11:51.280 great white throne, the restoration of the new heavens and the new earth, and the eternal state.

00:11:56.220 Every group views those three things equally.

00:12:02.600 All three of those positions are considered to be orthodox.

00:12:09.080 Now, where they differ is on four central points.

00:12:16.440 Number one, when the millennial reign occurs.

00:12:22.060 number two whether Christ's kingdom is already established or still to come

00:12:31.080 number three how Christ's millennial reign is exercised on earth either through his body the

00:12:40.100 church or his temporal body and four if the world will get better through the advancement of the

00:12:48.540 gospel, or worse, through the influence of the devil. Okay, that is where the fight around

00:12:56.940 eschatology is hot, those four areas. So again, the three views, premillennialism, amillennialism,

00:13:06.900 and postmillennialism, I want to look at each of them briefly, and then we will move into optimistic

00:13:13.800 and pessimistic eschatology. So, pre-millennialism. Christ returns before

00:13:21.920 his physical earthly millennial reign on earth for a thousand years.

00:13:30.520 Now, with pre-millennialism, you have two camps. You have historic pre-millennialism,

00:13:37.800 and you have what is called dispensational premillennialism, which I believe to be an error.

00:13:46.100 In fact, I would say most theologians today believe it to be an error. Now, it's hard to

00:13:52.360 say in America because we have a lot of dispensational theologians in America. But I'm

00:13:57.940 going to break down both of them and tell you why I think that dispensationalism is not within

00:14:04.160 orthodoxy, but I think that historic premillennialism is. Now, historic premillennialism

00:14:11.760 teaches that Christ will return before the establishment of a literal 1,000-year reign

00:14:17.440 on earth. In this view, Christ's second coming marks the beginning of the millennium,

00:14:26.640 during which he will physically reign in a restored kingdom. And in this view,

00:14:33.140 the church will endure the great tribulation.

00:14:36.280 They don't get raptured out before.

00:14:40.100 They endure the great tribulation

00:14:42.500 mentioned in Matthew 24,

00:14:44.180 if you interpret it that way.

00:14:47.880 They believe that there is one resurrection

00:14:51.040 of the righteous at Christ's return

00:14:55.340 where Christians are gonna reign with Christ

00:14:58.860 for a thousand years. 0.87

00:15:00.940 After that 1,000 years,

00:15:03.140 there is a resurrection of the damned, which they will be resurrected to judgment and then cast into

00:15:11.240 hell. That's the difference between the Bema seat judgment of the righteous and the white throne 1.00

00:15:17.760 judgment of the wicked. This was the prominent view of the early church, probably for the first 0.92

00:15:27.580 three or four hundred years of the early church, historic

00:15:31.480 premillennialism was the view.

00:15:35.140 And it was held by Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian,

00:15:40.060 Martin Butzer during the Reformation,

00:15:43.500 John Gill, who was the

00:15:47.280 predecessor to Charles Spurgeon.

00:15:51.220 We have men like modern era, John Piper, Wayne Grudem,

00:15:55.440 that will hold to historic premillennialism. Now, it's called historic because it aims to

00:16:03.020 differentiate itself from dispensational premillennialism. Now, again, I believe that

00:16:10.020 dispensationalism is a perversion of premillennialism, and we'll talk about that in a second.

00:16:15.420 different. Dispensationalism was birthed in the 19th century. You never heard that doctrine

00:16:24.940 prior to the 19th century. And it was through the teachings of a man named John Nelson Darby.

00:16:33.720 And it was popularized in the Schofield Study Bible that became basically America's Bible.

00:16:41.340 and is the theology that is held by Calvary Chapel, by, you know, even John MacArthur on eschatology,

00:16:53.660 by most of the megachurches who hold this position.

00:16:59.120 And John Nelson Darby was a part of what's called the Plymouth Brethren movement.

00:17:06.020 Now, if you don't know your church history, in the mid to late 1800s is the birth of all the cults.

00:17:12.960 So Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Church of Christ, Seventh-day Adventists, all of that, and I would include dispensationalism,

00:17:21.660 came out of this cultic movement in the mid to late 1800s.

00:17:27.160 Now, the way it distinguishes itself between historic premillennialism is several ways.

00:17:34.680 And I'm going to talk about, I think, four of them.

00:17:38.160 Number one, it has a wooden manner of interpretation.

00:17:46.120 Dispensationalists emphasize this really hard, literal interpretation of apocalyptic literature.

00:17:54.700 Apocalyptic literature is like prophetic end times literature.

00:17:58.900 Now, this poses a problem when you're interpreting passages like Daniel 4 through 19, or Matthew 24, or the book of Revelation.

00:18:09.240 Historic premillennialists, as well as amillennialists and postmillennialists,

00:18:13.440 they allow for a more symbolic or figurative form of interpretation of biblical prophecy because of the particular genre that it's in.

00:18:22.220 For example, you do not interpret poetry in the same way that you interpret law.

00:18:27.080 it would be very difficult to do so. And that's the kind of claim that people make against

00:18:32.920 dispensationalists, is that they are using a wooden type of interpretation on a poetic or

00:18:40.460 apocalyptic or prophetic form of literature. Number two, dispensationalists believe in a

00:18:48.240 distinct separation between ethnic Israel and the church. Now, they view Israel and the church as

00:18:57.240 having separate covenants, fulfillments, and destinies. Okay, this is a totally different

00:19:05.620 framework than anything you've ever seen in church history. They, again, historic pre-millennialism

00:19:15.020 and the other views see the church as being included or continuing the fulfillment of God's

00:19:23.700 promises to Israel. Now, here's the real divide. Dispensationalists view the church age as a

00:19:32.300 parenthetical period. Pay attention here. A parenthetical period in God's plan that kind of

00:19:38.600 postponed the original intention of the Jewish or Davidic kingdom. So there's a kingdom that's 0.81

00:19:48.080 promised to David. From your line will be birthed an everlasting kingdom of the line of Judah. 0.91

00:19:56.940 Well, Jesus comes and he's born and he is this Davidic king. Well, dispensationalism believes 0.70

00:20:04.880 that because the Jews rejected the Davidic king, that Jesus essentially took a temporary detour

00:20:14.960 to rescue the Gentiles. It was this kind of parenthetical eschatological plan. It was 0.54

00:20:23.840 supposed to go just to the Jews, but because they were rejected, Jesus as this Davidic king, 0.87

00:20:31.200 We're going to go and focus on the Gentiles, which is called the church age. 0.82

00:20:36.040 And then we will resume that plan of the Davidic Jewish kingdom at the millennium. 0.93

00:20:44.920 That's basically dispensationalism. 0.94

00:20:48.140 It disconnects the church and Israel into two separate peoples of God. 0.84

00:20:55.300 And as a result, dispensationalists hold that ethnic Jews will remain distinct, not just now on earth, but into eternity. 0.73

00:21:10.880 And that they will hold some degree of prominence, some would even argue superiority, over the church. 0.63

00:21:19.640 and this is the eschatology of america unfortunately it did not used to be but for the

00:21:28.880 last hundred years this has been the prominent eschatology of the united states and it's why

00:21:36.380 america is so oddly obsessed with israel we are obsessed with israel more than any other nation

00:21:42.460 on earth, by the way. It's why we created terms like Judeo-Christian. That term was never used

00:21:51.180 before. Think about that term, Judeo-Christian. It's almost as strange as something like

00:21:58.500 Muslim-Christian. Okay, Judaism hates Christ. Go to a Talmudic Jew and ask him what he thinks of 0.99

00:22:10.280 Jesus. I just saw a rabbi that converted to Christianity, and he posted out, I have

00:22:18.600 Jews that have converted to Buddhism. Nobody cares. I know Jews that have converted to New 0.98

00:22:25.640 Ageism. Nobody cares. I have Jews that have become atheists. Nobody cares. But I become a 1.00

00:22:33.500 Christian, he says to Yeshua, and my family tears their clothes and have funerals for me. 0.93

00:22:40.280 No, Judaism hates Christianity, true Judaism. 0.96

00:22:46.940 It rejects Christianity.

00:22:49.120 Jesus would never approve of the term Judeo-Christian.

00:22:54.640 It makes no sense. 0.87

00:22:57.720 Jesus talks about the Jews. 0.62

00:22:59.920 Now, you go, well, isn't Jesus a Jew? 0.96

00:23:02.380 Well, yes, Jesus is a true Jew. 0.92

00:23:06.280 He, you know, Paul talks about this idea of true Jews. 0.85

00:23:08.840 He talks about this idea of true Israel, that there are people who are in Israel that are not 0.62

00:23:15.720 of Israel. Jesus is a true Israelite. In fact, you know what? In a spiritual sense,

00:23:24.140 we who believe are also Israelites, true Israelites. We are those that have inherited

00:23:32.140 the faith of Abraham.

00:23:35.340 We are the true sons and daughters

00:23:37.220 of Abraham by faith.

00:23:43.360 But the most troubling part,

00:23:48.020 oh, actually, I skipped something

00:23:49.960 I want to talk about.

00:23:53.100 Galatians 3.28 says,

00:23:54.640 there is neither Jew nor Greek.

00:23:57.340 There is neither slave nor free. 0.96

00:23:59.000 There is neither male nor female,

00:24:00.360 for you are all one.

00:24:02.140 In Christ Jesus.

00:24:04.220 There's not two groups.

00:24:06.660 There's one.

00:24:08.560 In Christ Jesus.

00:24:09.820 There isn't no Judeo-Christian world. 0.52

00:24:12.620 There is just Christian. 0.97

00:24:15.080 There is just Christian.

00:24:19.420 The most troubling part about dispensationalism is the implication that God has two brides. 0.98

00:24:26.360 Israel is the bride of God in the Old Testament.

00:24:32.140 If the church is not the fulfillment of Israel, and there are two groups, then God, theologically, in the dispensational framework, is a polygamist. 0.70

00:24:44.120 He has two brides, the church and the nation of Israel.

00:24:50.580 this is just touching the surface of the systematic incoherency of the dispensational

00:25:02.340 framework number three dispensationalists believe in a secret pre-tribulation rapture

00:25:08.640 this is kind of the left behind doctrine that teaches that a secret pre-tribulation rapture

00:25:16.320 of the church, which, again, has no clear support in Scripture and was virtually an unknown idea

00:25:22.360 prior to the 19th century. There is no two-stage coming of Christ in the Bible. There's not one

00:25:31.460 secret coming and grabbing for Jesus, grabbing the church, taking him up out of the seven-year

00:25:37.780 tribulation, and then bringing them back with him to reign on the earth. That takes some interesting

00:25:45.560 interpretive gymnastics to arrive at that conclusion. Secondly, nowhere does the Bible

00:25:54.780 promise believers are going to escape tribulation, but rather it promises that the Christians will

00:26:02.080 endure it by the power of the Holy Spirit. Number four, dispensationalists believe in

00:26:09.680 multiple dispensations and reject covenant theology. Okay, dispensationalism fractures

00:26:17.380 the redemptive history of the Old Testament and New Testament into seven distinct dispensations.

00:26:25.300 And they're each marked by a distinct way that God relates to humanity.

00:26:29.680 it's a completely new and novel framework and it again isolates israel from the church

00:26:40.580 with two separate destinies

00:26:43.380 now this framework conflicts with the long-standing covenantal framework

00:26:54.620 that everybody in church history has held to.

00:27:00.520 And that there is essentially one plan

00:27:03.920 throughout Old Testament and the New Testament

00:27:07.200 and one people of God that are all saved by grace

00:27:10.920 through faith in Christ.

00:27:13.580 Either the Christ to come from the Old Testament

00:27:15.600 or the Christ who came in the New Testament.

00:27:18.860 It totally fractures that.

00:27:20.780 now amillennialism so we have understand premillennialism has historic premillennialism

00:27:31.140 and dispensational premillennialism one historic premillennialism will align

00:27:38.000 with the general systematics of amillennialism and postmillennialism

00:27:43.040 dispensationalism is kind of in its own category it's very different from history

00:27:50.500 of the church and from the systematic nature of covenant theology and the gospel.

00:27:58.740 Now, amillennialism is that there is no literal 1,000-year reign on the earth.

00:28:06.940 The name amillennial gets its name because it uses the prefix a, a.

00:28:14.180 The prefix a means to negate something.

00:28:17.580 So if you believe in God and you believe there's a God, you are a theist.

00:28:22.320 If you don't believe in God and there is no God, you are called an atheist, an atheist.

00:28:30.300 Same thing.

00:28:31.440 You might call it an amillennial.

00:28:32.900 You might call yourself an amillennial.

00:28:34.540 It means that you do not believe that there is a physical, literal 1,000-year reign.

00:28:40.840 now amillennialists like post-millennialists do not believe in this literal 1000 year millennium

00:28:51.140 reign but rather they interpret it as a symbolic uh symbolic language for a long period of time

00:29:00.600 now you might go well should we take the scripture literally well yes if we're reading

00:29:08.480 law or epistles or history, but we're reading prophetic language. You cannot

00:29:18.340 read it literally. Try to read it literally, and you're going to have all types of weird conclusions.

00:29:27.660 For example, in the Old Testament, it says that God is the God of the cattle of a thousand hills.

00:29:34.160 Does that mean that God is not the God of the cattle on a thousand and one hills?

00:29:41.180 No, of course he's the God of all the cattle on all the hills.

00:29:49.180 No, that term expresses a poetic way of saying all of them.

00:29:55.540 Countless hills, countless cattle.

00:29:57.640 in the same way amillennialists understand the thousand years in revelation 20

00:30:04.500 not as a precise time frame but as a figurative description for a long period of time we might

00:30:14.920 even say in our own life it's been going on for millennia right well it could be used as a

00:30:22.840 framework it's just been going on forever for a long time specifically that reference is between

00:30:33.240 the crucifixion resurrection and his final return to earth that period is where

00:30:42.020 amillennialists and post-millennialists will go oh that's just the symbolic millennium

00:30:46.440 the church age the gospel era whatever you want to call it there is no literal 1,000 year reign

00:30:54.500 now there is a group of post-millennials that do believe in about a thousand year thing I'll tell

00:30:58.500 you about that in a minute now amillennialists really became popular in about the year three

00:31:08.680 or 400 under the teachings of Augustine. Augustine started interpreting Revelation

00:31:16.640 with a, I think, a fair, symbolic, hermeneutic, and interpretive principles. And he wrote a book

00:31:27.580 called The City of God. And that book became extremely influential. And it ended up becoming

00:31:35.780 the most widely held position in church history. So there has been vastly more

00:31:43.440 amillennials than premillennials or post-millennials.

00:31:49.960 You know, an amillennial would say, well, if the premillennials are pessimistic

00:31:55.020 and the post-millennials are optimistic, then the amillennials are realistic, right? That's what

00:32:00.820 they would say, right? Oh, we're the middle ground. We're the balanced ones. We're there,

00:32:06.100 you know? And so, but amillennialism is where the vast majority of church history finds itself.

00:32:12.780 Both the Roman Catholic Church is amillennial in their framework, and even reformers who I would

00:32:20.420 argue are optimistic amillennials, like Calvin or Luther, would hold those positions as well.

00:32:29.480 There's lots of great theologians today that are amillennial.

00:32:33.440 Votie Bauckham is amillennial.

00:32:35.900 Sam Storms is amillennial.

00:32:37.760 But again, I would call them, well, I'd call Votie optimistic amillennial.

00:32:46.980 Now, because amillennialism is similar to postmillennialism,

00:32:51.820 I want to just give you a few distinct features about amillennialism.

00:33:01.960 Unlike postmillennialism, amillennialism does not expect a future age of worldwide gospel prosperity or a Christianized world.

00:33:13.300 It doesn't expect that before Christ returns.

00:33:18.160 They believe that the church will continue its mission amid triumphs and trials.

00:33:24.540 History will generally decline with greater and greater opposition as the gospel spreads, which is super weird to me.

00:33:31.620 And apostasy, the great apostasy will come as the end approaches and that essentially it's going to get worse.

00:33:41.720 Generally, that's what an amillennial would believe.

00:33:43.640 They have still what I would call a pessimistic eschatology. 0.94

00:33:50.980 Now, number two is amillennials believe Christ's reign is present, but it's spiritual.

00:34:00.440 It's a spiritual reign.

00:34:03.040 They believe that Christ is reigning now, that there is a kingdom now,

00:34:06.180 unlike the premillennials who don't believe there is a kingdom now.

00:34:10.580 There's a pending kingdom, but not a real kingdom.

00:34:13.640 All millennials believe that Christ is reigning from heaven in the hearts of believers, spiritually.

00:34:24.660 And it's invisible, it's exercised through the word and the sacraments and the church,

00:34:30.340 but it's not focused on the other kingdoms of the world.

00:34:34.020 It doesn't permeate into the other kingdoms.

00:34:36.660 It's one kingdom, again, it's the two-kingdom theology,

00:34:40.640 but they're focusing only on the spiritual kingdom.

00:34:43.100 it doesn't actually manifest itself in the world in any way it's post-millennialism without teeth

00:34:51.100 it's impotent post-millennialism that's what i always say is that it's it doesn't actually

00:34:57.540 say that it doesn't think that your theology will affect your life in any way

00:35:02.680 so again you can see that both pre-millennialists and the classic amillennial amillennialists not

00:35:16.220 that not the optimistic type they expect cultural defeat they believe that we as the church will

00:35:24.840 lose down here now you guys know because i say it all the time that there is no paradigm

00:35:29.960 in which the church can lose? One, all authority has been given to Christ in heaven and on earth

00:35:36.840 and the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Those things have to be false

00:35:41.520 if the church loses. The second thing is that if Jesus is the head and we are the body,

00:35:49.100 we rise and fall together. You cannot have a defeated losing church and a winning Christ

00:35:57.040 as the head no if the church loses you are a christ loses if your wife loses you lose

00:36:06.380 you're one so there is no paradigm in which we can lose unless christ loses with us

00:36:16.020 which doesn't make any sense with any of the passages of scripture in the new testament

00:36:21.740 we do not lose down here as John MacArthur said a couple years ago and I love John MacArthur

00:36:29.140 man he's an incredible man but I think he gets this wrong

00:36:34.120 so pre-millennialists and classic amillennialists have pessimistic eschatology that's why you see

00:36:46.320 the down arrow on that diagram there. And as I said earlier, I believe amillennialism

00:36:52.760 and postmillennialism are similar. They're very similar in their structure.

00:36:58.300 I think, again, that people that are optimistic amillennial are actually postmillennial.

00:37:05.920 They just don't want to say the word. It's like the people who are hard complementarians.

00:37:10.020 They're just biblical patriarchs. Just say the word. You're just afraid to identify yourself

00:37:14.200 that way because of the cultural context of it. No. Abigail Adams once said, the middle way

00:37:21.840 is no way. And I really believe that is true. We love these middle places. That's where the 1.00

00:37:28.300 vast majority of people sit. And so you have egalitarianism, you have complementarianism,

00:37:34.160 and then you have biblical patriarchy. And where does the vast majority of the church go?

00:37:38.320 Right in the middle. It's convenient because I can kind of touch hands over here when it's

00:37:42.940 convenient, and I can touch hands over here when it's convenient. And the same with eschatology.

00:37:48.740 You have premillennialism. You have amillennialism, which gets to kind of go, oh, I'm kind of a little

00:37:54.460 pessimistic today. I'm going to go kind of with my premill buddies. Oh, you know what? Roe v. Way

00:37:59.440 got overturned. I'm going to be a little optimistic right now. I'm going to go hang with my postmill

00:38:04.160 friends. Okay, it's the middle. Just be postmill if you're optimistic. If you're optimistic about 0.71

00:38:11.460 just the fact that the gospel is going to actually convert people all of us believe that but how are

00:38:17.180 you optimistic are you optimistic in the sense that it'll actually affect the culture well then

00:38:22.540 you're just a mild post mill and so that's the difference there between these positions now i

00:38:29.340 want to talk about post-millennialism christ returns after the millennium now what we don't

00:38:37.760 believe in a millennium. Well, we do. We believe in a symbolic millennium that Christ is ruling

00:38:43.740 for that millennium, but he's ruling in his body, which is the church. And so there really is an

00:38:51.640 earthly reign, a millennial reign. It's earthly. It's just happening through his church, the body

00:39:00.080 of Christ. So post-millennialism, in my opinion, is the most potent, culturally engaged,

00:39:07.760 Jewish evangelistic view because it expects the gospel to triumph in history. It expects it

00:39:15.020 because we have a victorious Christ. We will have a victorious eschatology.

00:39:21.060 You know who could have been, you know, you had every reason to be pessimistic prior to Christ.

00:39:26.720 Okay, before the cross, you had every reason to be pessimistic. You want to go be a pessimistic

00:39:32.300 eschatology, 300 BC, totally expected. Without Christ coming, it's going to get worse.

00:39:43.080 But this side of the cross, Christ conquering the grave, it is extremely strange for Christians to

00:39:51.860 be pessimistic. We have a victorious Christ who conquered everything. All authority has been given

00:39:58.460 to him in heaven and on earth. How does, how do you lose? How does Christ lose?

00:40:08.860 I think that post-millennialism compels believers to disciple the nations.

00:40:17.100 It views every sphere of life is subject to the lordship of Christ, and it's working

00:40:25.520 to build the kingdom because we are in the millennium and we are doing kingdom work

00:40:33.260 that Christ is accomplishing through us. Now, as I said, post-millennialism finds its roots

00:40:39.460 in amillennialism. But the term post-mill and kind of the defined framework didn't really come

00:40:48.300 into play until about the 1600s. And I say that because it was about the same time that everybody

00:40:55.420 had their own Bible. You could finally start reading the scriptures in your own language

00:40:59.540 and you go, oh, there's actually this amillennial view. Maybe there's actually more optimism that

00:41:07.240 we should give it. The vast majority of the Puritans were post-millennial. Most of the 0.97

00:41:17.420 Reformed theologians, including John Owen, Jonathan Edwards. Almost every early American

00:41:26.720 colonist and settler is post-mill. I mean, if you want to know why we have the country we have, 0.85

00:41:32.280 it's because of post-millennial eschatology. Why is America a Christian nation? It's because of 0.99

00:41:37.500 their eschatology. Why do they even come here? It's because of their eschatology. If you read

00:41:42.520 anything from the 16, 17, or 1800s from American pastors, you're going to see post-millennial,

00:41:49.300 post-millennial, post-millennial. Now, the reason it shifted is because John Nelson Darby's influence

00:41:56.020 and you had the Civil War, and that felt like, wow, it's just going to get worse.

00:42:01.560 And then you had World War I, and then you had the Great Depression, and then you had World War II,

00:42:08.140 and then you had the Korean War

00:42:10.460 and then you had Vietnam War

00:42:12.380 and it just became hit after hit after hit

00:42:16.680 and it was almost impossible for anybody to say,

00:42:20.520 well, it's going to get better.

00:42:21.660 In fact, it's getting better.

00:42:25.040 But again, if you just zoom out for a bit

00:42:26.920 and you start looking at history in about 500-year chunks

00:42:30.780 and not myopically in around an 80-year period,

00:42:34.380 you start to see that those little dips

00:42:36.540 think about it like the stock market if you look at the stock market in the last couple weeks it's

00:42:43.300 not good but if you zoom out and you look at it over the last 10 years it's trending upward

00:42:51.660 and that's very similar to church history if you go into 1943 world history you go wow

00:43:02.880 the Antichrist must be around the corner man

00:43:06.520 because this is getting worse

00:43:08.040 but if you zoom out

00:43:11.360 and you realize

00:43:13.180 the absolute prosperity

00:43:16.440 and the

00:43:17.780 furthering and advancement of the gospel

00:43:21.360 that has occurred in the last 500 years

00:43:23.040 the world has actually gotten better 0.96

00:43:25.540 and more Christian 0.77

00:43:26.940 over the last 500 years 0.98

00:43:28.400 and I expect

00:43:30.140 in the next 500 years

00:43:31.580 It will follow the same pattern that it has followed for 2,000 years. 0.90

00:43:35.420 It will get more and more and more Christianized. 0.97

00:43:40.620 Why? 0.95

00:43:41.480 Because the Great Commission will be fulfilled.

00:43:43.720 Is it by our strength?

00:43:45.060 No.

00:43:45.760 It's by the strength of the Holy Spirit, by the head who is Christ, and by the power of the gospel.

00:43:53.180 Okay.

00:43:54.360 I know this is a long sermon.

00:43:56.340 Stay with me.

00:43:56.900 optimistic this is a distinction of post-millennialism they have an optimistic

00:44:02.560 view of history post-millennialists believe the gospel will advance through the world

00:44:08.540 gradually transforming individuals cultures and nations we believe that will happen

00:44:17.360 this confidence is rooted in christ's present authority in heaven and on earth in the great

00:44:23.700 commission. The promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. The nature

00:44:28.060 of the kingdom described in Matthew 13, that it is like a mustard seed that starts out small

00:44:33.380 and that it'll grow incrementally over and become eventually the biggest plant in the garden or the

00:44:42.060 biggest kingdom of all the kingdoms. Or that the kingdom of God is like leaven, it says in Matthew

00:44:48.020 13 and that it will leaven the whole lump it will leaven the whole lump in other words

00:44:58.140 post-millennial people see God slowly sanctifying and redeeming the world gradually as he does with

00:45:10.560 you and me how does God sanctify his people does he do it cataclysmically and all of a sudden

00:45:17.940 that went from terrible to kingdom.

00:45:22.060 No.

00:45:23.820 It's a slow, sanctifying gradualism

00:45:27.840 that occurs in your life,

00:45:31.320 in the church life,

00:45:32.980 and in the world.

00:45:35.180 God is saving the world.

00:45:37.800 It puts new meaning to John 3.17

00:45:40.220 that says,

00:45:41.180 for God did not send his son into the world

00:45:42.880 to condemn the world,

00:45:43.680 but in order that the world might be saved through him.

00:45:48.680 I believe truly that Jesus is going to save the world.

00:45:54.880 Now, do I believe that Jesus is going to save every single person?

00:45:59.040 No, I don't think so. 0.80

00:46:00.880 I think that the vast majority of the world will be Christian when Jesus returns.

00:46:06.140 Now, when will Jesus return?

00:46:08.580 Now, the premillennialists often hold to this doctrine called the imminent return of Christ.

00:46:14.480 Now, I don't think that doctrine is orthodox 0.95

00:46:17.140 because for it to be true, it had to always be true.

00:46:22.640 Okay?

00:46:24.140 So that means if the imminent return of Christ, 0.52

00:46:27.760 that means you should have been able to preach that

00:46:29.620 25 minutes after Jesus ascended into heaven.

00:46:33.320 But that'd be ridiculous because he just told you,

00:46:36.100 go get the nations.

00:46:37.940 All authority has been given to me. 0.99

00:46:40.480 Baptize them.

00:46:41.680 Teach them everything that I obeyed you.

00:46:43.300 You're like, well, I can't do that in my lifetime.

00:46:46.220 This is a huge commission.

00:46:49.280 So, is Christ coming back soon?

00:46:56.620 I don't think so.

00:46:59.020 I think that there is a vast majority of the nation that needs to, or the world, that needs to be converted to Christ.

00:47:05.360 Now, let's just say that Christ did come back early.

00:47:08.220 That's a pleasant surprise.

00:47:09.800 Praise the Lord.

00:47:11.440 Okay?

00:47:11.760 I'm not going to argue if Christ comes back, hey, you know what, hey, I got work to do, you know.

00:47:17.400 You came back a little earlier, I didn't expect you here so soon.

00:47:20.400 No, I'm not going to say that at all.

00:47:21.740 No, the reality is that we should have a long-term view.

00:47:23.780 It's just a better way to view history.

00:47:26.400 Now, if you view that Jesus is coming back in the next 60 years, which is like,

00:47:32.600 actually, I did a poll on Twitter maybe a year ago, 0.95

00:47:36.100 and I was shocked how many people, it was the majority,

00:47:40.460 and I had maybe over 1,000 votes,

00:47:43.060 believe that Jesus is coming back within the next 200 years.

00:47:47.580 And then I said, how many people do you think in the next 500 years?

00:47:50.500 How many people do you believe in the next 2,000 years?

00:47:53.720 Very few people voted for 2,000 years.

00:47:56.980 But I really believe that it's going to be thousands of years before Christ returns.

00:48:03.380 I believe there's that much work to do.

00:48:05.340 I believe it's the tendency of every generation, which is proven in church history, to believe

00:48:14.620 that Jesus is coming back in their generation.

00:48:17.560 There has been more predictions of the return of Christ than any other weird prediction

00:48:25.560 or false doctrine that's been out there.

00:48:27.920 If you actually, I can't remember, but I think there was almost 2,000 predictions of the

00:48:32.880 return of Christ between the year 1600 to now. A lot of them have been documented. Now, the reality

00:48:40.200 is that let's just believe that Christ will come back. Nobody knows the hour or the day. Let's just

00:48:47.340 be found faithful, and let's work in a way that expects long-term work. Now, I'm going to give

00:48:55.900 you another example real quick. Think about how the Christians used to build churches. 0.94

00:49:02.480 Okay? And think about how we build churches.

00:49:06.560 I use this metaphor a lot because I think, or illustration a lot because it's helpful.

00:49:10.620 The churches that we used to build took between three and 600 years to build.

00:49:17.740 Now, how do you even start a project like that

00:49:20.500 where the foundation is going to take you 60 years?

00:49:25.900 if you think that Christ is coming back in the next hundred.

00:49:31.340 No, they built cathedral after cathedral after cathedral,

00:49:36.120 Catholic and Protestant,

00:49:38.440 that took centuries to build

00:49:41.560 because they did not view that Christ was going to be returning at any time soon.

00:49:45.900 They viewed that Christ is going to be returning many, many centuries ahead.

00:49:52.360 It also gives us passages like Psalm 22.7.

00:49:55.560 it says, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the

00:50:00.800 nations shall worship before you. Just look at that passage of scripture. What do you do with that?

00:50:05.620 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord.

00:50:10.960 I believe that there will be a day where we have the vast majority of nations,

00:50:15.280 families of the earth, turning to the Lord. Number two, the golden era. Post-millennialists

00:50:21.020 believe that in time, the advancing of the gospel will lead to what theologians call

00:50:25.080 a golden era, a golden era. You can actually see it on the post-millennial sheet. Some interpret

00:50:34.760 that as a 1,000-year period. That's kind of a Puritan view of post-millennialism.

00:50:42.600 And this is including a time of world peace. There will be a revival of Jews in Israel that will be

00:50:54.260 part of the church and you get the expectation from passages of scripture like Isaiah 2. I want

00:51:03.940 you to turn there for a second. Isaiah 2. We're going to read verses 2 through 4. Isaiah 2 verses

00:51:12.360 2 through 4. And I'm going to read it to you here. It says, it shall come to pass

00:51:20.240 in the latter days okay latter days this is talking about a period of time prior to christ's

00:51:31.420 final return it shall come to pass in history is what it's saying it shall come to pass in the

00:51:39.520 latter days that the mountain of the house of the lord shall be established as the highest of the

00:51:46.780 mountains now again we're reading prophecy here so you can't just think that we're we can't use

00:51:52.620 that wooden literal interpretation this is prophetic hermeneutics that the mountain of

00:51:58.840 the house of the lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and i'm i'm thinking

00:52:04.440 about this as kingdom okay and shall be lifted above the hills and all the nations shall flow

00:52:12.580 to it. Ooh, when will this happen? When in history, before the return of Christ, shall all

00:52:23.400 the nations flow to the house of the Lord? And it says in verse 3, and many peoples shall come and

00:52:32.440 say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob,

00:52:38.560 that he may teach us his ways the world is streaming to the kingdom of god wanting to know

00:52:47.500 the ways of god and it says that we and that we may walk in his paths oof okay it says for out of

00:52:58.880 zion shall go forth the law now what is the law the law is the word of god for out of zion out of

00:53:07.940 God's people, the word of God, will come out.

00:53:12.980 And it says, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

00:53:17.100 Okay, now he says in verse 4, he shall judge.

00:53:21.700 How is he going to judge?

00:53:22.600 Well, look at the end of verse 3.

00:53:24.080 He's going to judge through his law. 0.59

00:53:27.300 He says, for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 0.54

00:53:30.560 He shall judge through his law between the nations.

00:53:34.660 The word of the Lord will judge between the nations and shall decide disputes for many people.

00:53:40.120 The word of God will start to inform many people and it will start to fix problems in society.

00:53:48.920 And then it says, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

00:53:58.140 Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.

00:54:02.240 Neither shall they learn war anymore.

00:54:06.640 What do you do with that?

00:54:09.860 This is a prophecy talking about there will be a time

00:54:14.900 where nations stop fighting

00:54:18.160 because of the word of God has brought conviction and clarity

00:54:24.400 and settled disputes.

00:54:29.700 This is the golden era.

00:54:31.740 As the gospel goes for the next centuries and millennia,

00:54:36.980 there will be a time of peace.

00:54:40.560 It goes on to say even that this will extend to nature.

00:54:45.600 It talks about in Isaiah about the golden era

00:54:50.800 that people will look down on the man that died at 100.

00:54:57.500 That as people are living to be the age of 200 or 300,

00:55:00.960 that we will go, oh, what a shame that he died so young.

00:55:05.660 There will be an advancement because of the Christian faith.

00:55:09.540 And we were shocked by that. 0.97

00:55:10.680 And you go, no, people used to live a long time, by the way,

00:55:14.560 before sin.

00:55:16.960 and as God reverses the curse

00:55:19.960 through the proclamation of the gospel

00:55:21.400 there is a reversal of the curse of the fall

00:55:24.820 through the death and resurrection

00:55:26.960 and the gospel of Jesus

00:55:28.040 the effects of the world

00:55:29.900 the kingdom is being built

00:55:31.140 the world's actually improving

00:55:33.080 and Jesus comes back and consummates the kingdom

00:55:36.260 that he has been building for millennia

00:55:38.300 on the earth

00:55:39.500 that's a post-millennial optimistic reality

00:55:42.960 and it makes you go

00:55:43.540 I want to run

00:55:44.680 let's start building

00:55:46.380 I want my great-grandchildren to be better off than we are.

00:55:51.220 See, the dispensational framework and even the premillennial and amillennial framework says,

00:55:55.380 my great-grandchildren are going to have it way worse than me.

00:56:00.340 I can't give you any hope, son.

00:56:02.540 It's just going to get worse and worse, darker and darker, hopeless and more hopeless.

00:56:10.880 Because you know what? Antichrist is coming.

00:56:12.740 The tribulation is right on the heels, guys.

00:56:16.380 But when you view it with an optimistic framework, it changes everything.

00:56:20.620 B.B. Warfield once said,

00:56:23.060 The vision of a world progressively conquered by the word of God implies a coming age deserving at least the relative name golden,

00:56:32.280 a hope that stands in stark contrast to the gloom of other eschatologies, end quote.

00:56:39.700 This is a long sermon, guys. Stay with me.

00:56:42.280 Number three, Christ is reigning through his body, the church.

00:56:47.100 Like amillennials, post-millennials believe that Christ is reigning now from heaven,

00:56:52.660 but we believe his kingdom is advancing on earth through the church.

00:56:57.420 You're actually contributing to the kingdom, your work.

00:57:01.320 So again, unlike pre-millennialists, post-millennialists do not believe

00:57:05.040 or do not wait for Christ's physical return to build the kingdom.

00:57:09.280 We're not waiting for him to come back to start doing kingdom work.

00:57:13.240 It's already underway.

00:57:16.300 It's growing like that mustard seed.

00:57:18.820 And it's becoming bigger than all the other kingdoms of the world.

00:57:21.380 You have work to do.

00:57:23.880 Charles Hodge says,

00:57:25.560 The kingdom of Christ is to extend over all the earth,

00:57:29.960 and the gospel will subdue the nations,

00:57:32.420 not by sudden cataclysm,

00:57:35.020 but by the steady advancement of truth,

00:57:37.780 a prospect far brighter than the defeatism of other views.

00:57:45.120 And fourth, post-millennials have what's called a partial preteristic view of prophecy.

00:57:55.940 This is critical. I'm going to do an entire sermon on this.

00:57:59.760 Many post-millennialists hold to what is called partial preterism,

00:58:04.580 which is very different than full preterism.

00:58:06.840 Partial preterism, which teaches that key prophetic passages like Matthew 24, much of Revelation, were fulfilled in the first century.

00:58:18.680 That those texts are speaking to the future of the audiences that they were written to, but they are in our past.

00:58:29.800 so Matthew 24 when it was written and Revelation when it was written was speaking of the future

00:58:37.700 but it has been fulfilled in our past specifically it's speaking to the events revolving around

00:58:47.700 the destruction of the old covenant era and the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD this is the position

00:58:56.420 that R.C. Sproul holds. This is the position that Doug Wilson holds, the position that I hold,

00:59:02.180 the position that most of the Puritans held. We interpret these texts, Matthew 24, Revelation are

00:59:09.320 great examples, as referring to these events like the Mark of the Beast would be referring to Nero

00:59:17.400 or seeing the Antichrist not as a future global tyrant but as a figure or a system that was in

00:59:25.120 the early church now this framework also allows and this is really the crux of the matter okay

00:59:31.960 why partial preterism is so important it allows post-millennialists to see the intense

00:59:39.420 apocalyptic events as already fulfilled in the past which frees us up the contemporary church

00:59:49.740 to focus not on surviving the end times chaos that's in our future,

00:59:55.620 but on advancing the gospel and building the kingdom of Christ over the generations.

01:00:02.720 That's key, very important.

01:00:05.740 So if I could sum up these three views of the kingdom,

01:00:09.480 I would say premillennialists believe the kingdom is pending, but not yet.

01:00:15.180 amillennialists believe the kingdom is already but not really and post-millennialists believe

01:00:23.540 the kingdom is already but not fully not fully we are building it not us christ in us christ

01:00:34.140 through us through our faithfulness this is why we can get behind the missions movement this is

01:00:41.300 why we can get behind giving to the church and building things that last.

01:00:46.260 If we have a long view of history, we stop building things that only last for a generation.

01:00:57.180 What you believe will inform how you behave.

01:01:00.820 What you believe will inform how you behave.

01:01:04.840 Imagine that you're on a team preparing for the championship game.

01:01:09.260 if you believe victory is certain if you're confident that you're going to win

01:01:15.500 you're going to play with that confidence you're going to play with focus you're going to play

01:01:21.240 with determination but if you believe that you are destined to lose if you are predestined to lose

01:01:30.980 you will play with fear with doubt with anticipation of failure in other words

01:01:39.220 how you view the future, whether you expect victory or defeat, will actually affect how you

01:01:44.760 live today. That's why this conversation is so important. Post-millennialism is truly the only

01:01:52.040 victorious and optimistic way to live as a Christian. Doug Wilson once wrote,

01:02:00.340 post-millennialism is the only eschatology that actually believes in the power of the gospel to

01:02:06.380 transform the world. The other views either retreat into pessimism or wait for a divine

01:02:13.340 rescue mission. Ours expects victory because Christ is victorious. R.J. Rushduni added on,

01:02:22.420 he says, quote, only post-millennialism offers a vision of triumph that motivates Christians to

01:02:29.700 conquer the world for Christ, while other eschatologies surrender to the devil or await

01:02:36.220 the world's destruction. That is exactly what we have done in America since the infection

01:02:43.200 of pessimistic eschatology. We have handed over all of our institutions to the world.

01:02:52.160 We have treated evangelism as an invitation to come to the losing team. In fact, we are all about

01:02:58.020 losing because the faster we lose the sooner Christ comes back we are quote rapture ready

01:03:04.640 there's literally companies that sell rapture insurance for your pets

01:03:09.400 not kidding okay we have been consumed and saturated with defeatism

01:03:17.760 and we have lost almost every particular area of society because we have checked out we say you

01:03:25.500 you know, the world's going to hell in a handbasket. We can't save it. Why would we engage in it?

01:03:29.900 We're going to lose. It's just going to get worse. Why would I go in and try to save the media?

01:03:34.920 Why would I try to go in and save the medical system? Why would I try to go in and save the

01:03:40.020 economic system? We're just going to lose. So what do you do? You check out, you hand over the system

01:03:47.440 to the world, and you get the results that we've had in this nation for the last hundred years.

01:03:52.440 but if you treated it like a post-millennial we would have had the nation that we had in the 16

01:04:01.100 and 17 and early 1800s it wasn't perfect it still had problems it was still a war there's still sin

01:04:07.900 there's still the devil and there's still the flesh but it's victorious and it's conquering

01:04:13.480 and it's christian and our leaders were rulers that ruled according to the word of god

01:04:19.620 i'll close with this greg bonson said the thing that distinguishes biblical post-millennialists

01:04:27.620 from amillennialists and premillennialists is his belief that scripture teaches the success

01:04:34.300 of the great commission optimism rooted in christ's authority not human effort

01:04:40.840 we have been given as corbin said jesus is david okay when david and goliath are fighting

01:04:55.980 jesus is pictured typographically as david the enemy of god's people is goliath

01:05:06.320 Jesus comes

01:05:08.760 and the same way 0.97

01:05:09.900 that he's going to crush 0.67

01:05:10.680 the head of the serpent 0.99

01:05:11.440 takes the head off

01:05:12.900 the enemy of God's people

01:05:14.220 and what do God's people do?

01:05:17.380 if you've read the story

01:05:18.480 of David and Goliath

01:05:19.440 they don't sit back

01:05:21.520 and go

01:05:22.600 oh you know what

01:05:23.220 we're just going to lose now

01:05:24.120 now that we killed Goliath

01:05:25.280 we're just going to lose

01:05:26.420 we might as well run away

01:05:28.160 no it says 0.87

01:05:29.460 the armies of Israel

01:05:31.200 were enlivened

01:05:32.280 and they chased the armies

01:05:34.080 all the way out

01:05:35.340 to the other city 0.82

01:05:36.060 so think about it jesus has decapitated through the cross satan his head's been cut off

01:05:47.300 and what are you doing as the armies of the lord are you just going you know what

01:05:54.140 just wait for jesus to come back and rescue us it's all kind of the armies are going to kill

01:06:00.260 us anyway so no no the reality is we should be going and following and running after christ

01:06:07.880 building the kingdom letting the entire world know christ won by the way your old ruler has

01:06:14.360 been defeated submit to christ it's like walking into the jungles after the war has been over for

01:06:21.440 two years and letting people know hey the war is over we won

01:06:24.660 this is the posture that will create what i believe is a potent masculine masculine christianity

01:06:35.100 a conquering christianity amen amen this series will include five more sermons

01:06:48.360 Part two will be, is Christ's kingdom now or in the future?

01:06:52.680 Where I'm going to argue that the kingdom is now

01:06:56.020 and we're not waiting for the kingdom to be inaugurated.

01:06:59.500 That'll defeat, Lord willing, the premillennial view.

01:07:03.440 That's my aim.

01:07:05.580 Part three will be an introduction to partial preterism.

01:07:09.040 How we believe that Revelation and Matthew 24

01:07:12.280 are talking about events that happened in 70 AD.

01:07:14.960 and number four part four and five and six will be a three-part biblical defense for

01:07:21.960 post-millennialism using scripture amen okay let's pray father we thank you lord for

01:07:31.120 the victory of the cross for the work that you have done in the world lord we ask that you would

01:07:41.180 give us clarity on the scriptures over these next couple weeks that we would see

01:07:46.980 the counterintuitive kingdom the kingdom that is conquering its enemies through the cross

01:07:55.220 lord that you would show us in in spite of all of the propaganda for a defeatist mentality in

01:08:04.140 our culture, that you are winning because you have already won. And Lord, we ask that you would give

01:08:12.540 us wisdom, that you would teach us the truth, and that you would be with us in this fight.

01:08:19.960 We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Dale Partridge - May 07, 2025

Part 1： An Introduction to Eschatology

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