Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 285 ｜ Is The End Near？ End Times： Part 2

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Today we will have part two of my conversation with Jeff

00:00:16.020 Durbin about post-millennialism and his view of the end times. And today I will actually

00:00:22.220 get to that question, that burning question. Do you believe we are in the end times right

00:00:28.180 now? And you might be surprised by his answer. I was. So I'm really excited for you to hear the

00:00:34.600 rest of this conversation, which a lot of you have said has just really made you think. And

00:00:39.560 that's good. Whether or not you agree with him, whether or not I agree with him, it challenges

00:00:43.620 us to talk to someone who takes the word of God very seriously and may come to different

00:00:48.820 conclusions than we do about eschatology. And that's okay. That's a wonderful thing about having

00:00:54.220 the word of God and having fellowship and conversations with other believers is that we

00:00:58.480 are actually challenged in our views and we become either firmer in what we believe based

00:01:03.500 on the word of God, or we go a different direction to better align our views with the word of God.

00:01:09.880 And I will be talking in the near future to a pre-millennialist as I am. I'm post-trib,

00:01:16.640 pre-mill. I will be talking to a person who is pre-millennialist. And so you might feel,

00:01:21.360 are you just trying to confuse me, Allie? No, I'm not. I'm just trying to make sure

00:01:25.480 that we are looking at this from all sides. And a lot of you have commented on YouTube

00:01:29.720 about, don't forget about a millennialist. Yes. I'm very sympathetic to that perspective as well.

00:01:35.840 And so maybe we'll have someone on with the a millennialist perspective too. Did a whole

00:01:40.340 podcast called In Times. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back and listen to that from

00:01:44.380 about a year ago. Okay. I do want to remind you guys that it is Friday, which means I am just a few

00:01:51.000 days away from releasing my book. You're not enough and that's okay. Escaping the toxic culture

00:01:56.540 of self-love. So excited for you guys to get your hands on this. A lot of you have already pre-ordered.

00:02:01.920 You have sent your proof of purchase to Allie B. Stuckey at penguinrandomhouse.com.

00:02:06.060 You've gotten your excerpt, which I've gotten so much amazing feedback from. So thank you guys.

00:02:11.220 Some of you have even requested social media graphics so you have been able to promote and

00:02:17.880 share online. That means so much to me. Thank you so much for your support. For everyone who has

00:02:22.660 already joined Women's Book Club with Allie Stuckey on Facebook, if you haven't done that,

00:02:27.660 make sure you do. If you are in fact a woman, go to AllieBethStuckey.com book. That's where you can

00:02:34.720 find all the places that you can pre-order this book. And we will start to talk about it in Women's

00:02:40.260 Book Club with Allie Stuckey on Facebook a couple weeks after the release date to make sure that

00:02:45.800 everyone can get it and enough people can join so we can actually talk about it together. So again,

00:02:51.540 thank you so much to all of your support, to everyone who has pre-ordered. If you have not

00:02:55.140 done so, I encourage you to do so. Buy some for your family, for the people in your church,

00:02:59.480 for your Bible study. Maybe go through it together with a group of girls. We've got a study guide

00:03:04.840 coming out that will be available to you. So go out, AllieBethStuckey.com book or go to your

00:03:11.000 local Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore, your local library, and pick it up and read it. And

00:03:16.820 please feel free to let me know what you think. So again, AllieBethStuckey.com book. Now, before we

00:03:23.720 get into the conversation with Jeff, I want to let you know that we're going to do something a little

00:03:28.100 bit different. At the end of my conversation with Jeff, there's actually another shorter conversation

00:03:33.860 that I will be having with apologist and pastor Joel Webin. He is the head of Right Response Ministries.

00:03:40.100 He wrote a book called Am I Truly Saved? The book is an essential commentary on 1 John written in a

00:03:46.280 devotional style. Each chapter contains clear explanations of challenging biblical passages

00:03:51.820 that are concise, easy to understand. Also, Webin has offered reflection questions at the end of each

00:03:57.560 chapter that will energize your personal devotions and enable you to navigate your life with deeper

00:04:02.340 conviction. Am I Truly Saved? is forwarded by Kosti Hinn. You guys remember Kosti Hinn. He's the author of

00:04:08.240 God, Greed, the Prosperity Gospel. I've had him on my podcast, one of my most popular episodes ever.

00:04:13.960 He also was gracious enough to write a blurb for my book. Kosti Hinn is awesome. He wrote the forward

00:04:18.580 to this book by Joel Webin. The book was also promoted by my friends, Daryl Harrison and Virgil

00:04:24.720 Walker. You guys love them. I know on a recent episode of the Just Thinking podcast. So make sure

00:04:29.660 that you pick up a copy today. Go to rightresponse.com slash relatable. That is rightresponse.com. Oh,

00:04:37.860 sorry, rightresponseministries.com. Want to get that right? Rightresponseministries.com slash relatable.

00:04:44.540 Rightresponseministries.com slash relatable. In the midst of our current cancel culture and all the

00:04:48.900 craziness that's going on where anyone can be canceled for the smallest offense, Christians need

00:04:53.680 to firmly be rooted in the never-ending love of God. And at the end of this conversation, we are

00:04:59.600 going to talk with Joel about what that looks like, what that has looked like as he has pastored his

00:05:04.660 church and helped them navigate through not just the cultural changes that are happening, not just

00:05:09.180 cancel culture, but also the regulations that are affecting his church there in California and how he

00:05:16.460 has led bravely, according to scripture, his congregation and making sure that he is leading them in the

00:05:23.040 right response of worship to our God who is supreme over every earthly authority. So make sure you go to

00:05:30.080 rightresponseministries.com slash relatable. Again, that's rightresponseministries.com slash relatable.

00:05:36.700 Okay, that is our entire preamble, the moment you have all been waiting for it. Here again is Pastor Jeff Durbin.

00:05:43.300 So what do you do with something like 2 Timothy 3 then that talks about in the last days how things

00:05:54.540 will just be really bad? I mean, we've always seen lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant,

00:06:00.380 abusive, disobedient to parents. Those kind of people have always existed. But what does this mean that in

00:06:06.260 these in the last days there will come times of difficulty? I mean, obviously, from my perspective,

00:06:12.120 I would have taken that to mean that the world is going to get worse and worse and worse. So how do

00:06:16.860 you interpret that? Yes, that's such an important question because it gets to the question of like

00:06:23.340 last days, the end of the age, the constant discussion really you see throughout the New

00:06:30.920 Testament, the day of the Lord, he's coming quickly, those sorts of things. It's very, very important

00:06:35.480 and has everything to do with this discussion here. And I want to make sure I do this in a way that's

00:06:41.680 helpful to everybody. And I don't just do it as sort of like pot shot sort of thing, like a verse

00:06:47.520 here or there, but just sort of give an overarching thing that we can all challenge ourselves on and go

00:06:51.600 study. As you read the New Testament, one of the things that atheists will often use against us,

00:06:57.480 and this was actually demonstrated in the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson at

00:07:02.020 Westminster, atheists will have their fallback moment, their chestnut argument, and that's that

00:07:07.320 Jesus didn't know the time of his coming. Why? Well, because you Christians are saying that these

00:07:12.040 passages about him coming quickly and all the rest, all this stuff in this generation, you're saying

00:07:17.060 that's future to us, but clearly the text says it was supposed to happen in their day. So clearly he's

00:07:21.660 a false prophet. You guys are nuts. It's an important discussion because it is true. The New Testament is

00:07:28.120 filled. It is absolutely chocked full of passages that talk about last days coming quickly, ever I

00:07:37.960 will see him. You have his winnowing fork is in his hands. The axes are delayed at the root of the

00:07:46.120 trees. Some of you standing here will not die, will not taste death until you see the Son of Man coming in

00:07:51.800 his kingdom. You have passages like Matthew chapter 10. Jesus actually tells his disciples in Matthew 10,

00:07:58.900 the people who are in front of him, he says, you will not finish going to the cities of Israel before

00:08:04.660 the Son of Man comes. So these disciples in front of him, they won't even finish going through the

00:08:10.740 cities of Israel before he returns in judgment. This isn't the second coming. This is in judgment. It's a

00:08:16.260 common theme in the Old Testament. Yahweh coming in judgment. Day of the Lord concepts in the Old

00:08:20.980 Testament is all over the Old Testament. Day of the Lord is a day of judgment, by the way. So when we talk

00:08:26.640 about this concept in the New Testament of last days and end of the age, we're not talking about the last

00:08:34.100 days of human history. We're talking about the last days of the expectation of the destruction of the

00:08:41.860 Old Covenant people, sorry, I would say the covenant breakers of the Old Covenant order, and the New

00:08:49.540 Covenant, so it's Old Covenant, New Covenant themes. So they were expecting the last days of the Old

00:08:55.080 Covenant. They were expecting the end of the Old Covenant age. They knew they were in this transition

00:09:01.760 period because the Old Covenant is still hanging around with its remnants, but it's a defunct order. It's

00:09:07.340 over. It was finished. Well, Jesus says it is finished. The temple veil ripped in half. Access to God is

00:09:14.420 open up now to the people of God and to the Holy of Holies. It's a very big deal, but they're still

00:09:19.200 doing sacrifices. They're still performing sacrifices. There's still a priest who's going

00:09:23.720 in Yom Kippur and trying to offer sacrifices after the sacrifice of Jesus. This stuff is still hanging

00:09:29.160 out to the degree that the writer of Hebrews, before the destruction of Jerusalem, is warning those

00:09:35.240 Jewish Christians, don't go back. Do not go back because he's coming quickly. He's not going to

00:09:42.140 delay. He's about to come destroy these things which have been made so that that which has not

00:09:48.020 been made will remain forever. These remnants of the Old Covenant order are about to be destroyed.

00:09:54.440 They were in the death throes of that Old Covenant order about to be completely destroyed. Judgment was

00:10:00.740 coming. And so when we talk about in the last days, that's, I believe, the last days of the Old

00:10:06.100 Covenant. And what's interesting is we have to think about who's being talked to here. The Apostle Paul

00:10:12.160 is writing to a pastor, his son in the faith, and he's warning this pastor in his day that in the last

00:10:21.080 days will come times of difficulty for people who will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud,

00:10:27.060 arrogant, abusive, disobedient to the parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable,

00:10:30.520 slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with

00:10:35.060 conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but

00:10:39.380 denying its power. He says to Timothy, avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into

00:10:46.140 households and capture weak women, burdened with sins, and led astray by various passions,

00:10:50.500 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. And then he names people

00:10:54.780 just as Janice and John Bruce opposed Moses. So these men also oppose the truth. Men corrupted in mind

00:10:59.880 disqualified regarding the faith, but they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to

00:11:04.820 all, as was that of those two men. So they will not get very far, as was that of those men. He says,

00:11:12.300 you, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life. So I would say, in terms of reading

00:11:18.700 these texts, we have to think about audience, who's writing, what's the time period, and we think about

00:11:24.440 last days. I think it's important for us to recognize that the—I'm trying to make this as

00:11:30.000 simple as possible—the Old Testament tells you about the coming of the Messiah, the salvific elements

00:11:36.380 of it. It tells us about the salvation, the forgiveness, all the nations coming to God. But it's

00:11:41.740 really, really clear. In the Old Testament, verse after verse after verse tells us that when Messiah

00:11:46.680 comes, it's also going to be a time of judgment upon the covenant breakers. You read that in the

00:11:53.040 last book of the Old Testament, in Malachi chapter 3 and in 4, the promise is the Messiah is coming,

00:12:00.860 he's coming to his temple, and he's going to judge the covenant breakers. There's going to be a judgment

00:12:05.120 upon the covenant breakers. The promise, actually, in Isaiah 65 is that he is actually going to have

00:12:12.540 his servants, God's servants, are going to eat, but they are going to starve. They will drink, but they

00:12:18.440 will be thirsty. And God says he will call his people by a new name. So he's going to judge the

00:12:23.960 covenant breakers, and he is going to give his people a new name. But what's interesting here is

00:12:29.180 this theme is salvation and judgment. Old Testament is like this, salvation and judgment. Salvation to

00:12:35.920 the ends of the earth, judgment upon the covenant people. That's the theme. And as you get into the

00:12:40.680 New Testament, that's all you see. John the Baptist comes in in Matthew chapter 3, and he says the

00:12:46.780 kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, is at hand. He says his winnowing fork is in his hand. So judgment

00:12:53.340 isn't, it's not out there, it's in his hand. The axe is laid at the root of the trees, and he tells

00:12:59.860 those Jewish leaders, he says, to repent and bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And then Jesus

00:13:06.040 does the same thing throughout, say, Matthew. Just take Matthew. He gives you Matthew 10, the warning

00:13:11.340 that they won't even finish going through the cities of Israel before he returns in judgment.

00:13:15.260 Matthew 16, that some of them standing there wouldn't die until they saw the kingdom come.

00:13:20.180 You have, of course, Matthew 23, the promises of judgment given to them even by way of a picture

00:13:28.200 and story. He says, well, so there's a vineyard owner, and he keeps sending people to the vineyard.

00:13:34.200 And, you know, as he keeps sending people to the vineyard, you know, they beat one, they stone one,

00:13:39.140 and he says, okay, well, I'll send my son to the vineyard to get the fruit of the vineyard.

00:13:43.320 He says, and then he sends his son, and they see the son, and they say, oh, look, here's the heir.

00:13:47.680 Let's destroy him, and let's take his inheritance. And Jesus tells the Jewish leadership of his day

00:13:52.360 in Jerusalem, he says, what do you think the owner of the vineyard is going to do when he finds out

00:13:57.020 what they've done to his son? And they go, oh, he'll destroy those miserable wretches, and he'll

00:14:01.560 give it out to people who will give him the fruit of it. And he goes, yeah, that's you. And he says,

00:14:07.740 the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone, and he tells them that that's going

00:14:11.800 to be you. You're going to be destroyed. And then he gives the parable of the wedding invitation.

00:14:16.160 He says he asks the people who are supposed to come, and they don't want to come. And so then

00:14:20.980 he says, okay, well, then you start inviting everybody. And what's interesting there is he

00:14:24.720 gives a warning about judgment. He says he sends his armies, the king sends his armies, and destroys

00:14:29.280 their city. So there's this promise of judgment on the covenant breakers in the Old Testament.

00:14:35.220 You see the theme through the new, and the expectation is the last days, or the coming quickly

00:14:40.860 of the Lord Jesus. This coming judgment is going to happen in their time, in their generations.

00:14:46.840 They understood they were at the edge of the destruction of that Old Covenant order and the

00:14:52.740 end of the Old Covenant age. And so all of these promises throughout the New Testament—can I just

00:14:57.160 give you a couple here real fast, Allie? Yeah, go for it. Okay. Sorry, I know. I'm trying

00:15:01.520 to give you like this. That's okay. I do have a—I have a couple questions, but I'll go ahead and say

00:15:05.860 what you're going to say, because you might just answer my question. Okay. So in terms of the things

00:15:10.820 we have to contend with, I'm a Christian apologist, a philosopher, a Christian philosopher. I think it's

00:15:16.420 important for us to be able to defend our faith, and we have to be aware of what people are saying

00:15:20.460 about Jesus, about the Bible. And we need to come back with meaningful, true, biblical responses.

00:15:27.760 And this whole discussion of last days, end of the age, coming quickly, all those things that are

00:15:34.120 throughout, we have to have an answer that is meaningful and coherent and faithful to the

00:15:40.520 text. So just a couple things, just as some examples. So Matthew 3.2, the kingdom of heaven

00:15:46.120 is at hand. Matthew 3.7, who warned you to flee from the wrath about to come? The axe is already

00:15:52.260 laid at the root of the tree, is Matthew 3.10. His winnowing fork is in his hand, Matthew 3.12.

00:15:56.580 The kingdom of heaven is at hand, Matthew 10.7. Again, Matthew 10.23, you won't finish going

00:16:02.840 through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes. Matthew 12.23, the age about

00:16:08.800 to come. Matthew 16.27, the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of his Father with his

00:16:14.720 angels, and he will recompense every man according to his deeds. There are some standing here who

00:16:18.820 will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, 16.28. And as

00:16:24.980 you go throughout, I'm going to try to get some other books here, some other texts in the New

00:16:28.220 Testament to give you an idea here. Acts 2.16-17. This is the famous sermon or preaching of Peter

00:16:38.820 at Pentecost. Acts 2.16-17. I think this answers the question of last days. This is what was spoken

00:16:48.600 of through the prophet Joel, and it shall be in the last days. This is important. Everybody knows this

00:16:54.420 text. This is Pentecost. So this is a very big deal. As Peter's preaching, and everyone's seeing

00:17:01.060 all of the tongues and these miraculous gifts. They're speaking in other languages to the people.

00:17:06.240 They're understanding them in their own language. It's a pretty amazing thing. The Spirit of God's

00:17:09.860 poured out. What Peter does is he says, this—no, these people aren't drunk like you think. This

00:17:17.100 is that which Joel spoke about. And in Joel, Joel says, in the last days, I'll pour out my spirit.

00:17:25.860 He says, your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. And he says,

00:17:30.700 until what? Judgment. So it's supposed to be—they were supposed to see in Joel 2, the last days context

00:17:37.960 was going to be this time of miraculous events, and then judgment. Upon whom? The covenant breakers.

00:17:44.620 What the inspired apostle Peter says is what they're seeing is what Joel said. This is what

00:17:53.800 Joel said. So Joel's talking about the last days before the coming of judgment on the covenant

00:17:58.840 breakers, and the inspired apostle says, this is that. This is what Joel was talking about.

00:18:03.840 Um, and you can keep going. Uh, uh, there, let's see, let's see. Um, as you go through the New

00:18:11.780 Testament, there's, I mean, there's over a hundred verses. Um, Romans 16, 20, the God of peace will

00:18:17.320 crush Satan, will soon crush Satan under your feet. Um, it, it says, um, uh, okay, here we go right

00:18:25.720 here. First Corinthians 10, 11. Now Paul says, these things, the examples from the Old Testament,

00:18:31.100 were written for our instruction, he's talking to first century Christians, upon whom the end of the

00:18:36.860 ages have come. So he says, here's an example, and to the first century Corinthians, he says,

00:18:44.060 these examples are written for us. Who? The first century Corinthians. He says, upon whom the end of

00:18:49.600 the ages has come. So the apostle Paul believed that the end of the age, um, had come upon those

00:18:55.480 first century Christians. Um, and, um, you can continue on, but I think some popular ones would

00:19:02.880 be, for example, from the book of revelation and read them to you just quickly, um, to show his

00:19:10.680 bond servants, the things which must shortly take place. Revelation one, one, the time is near

00:19:15.360 revelation one, three, nevertheless, what you have hold fast until I come revelation two, 25. Um,

00:19:21.160 I'm coming quickly revelation three, 11. Um, he says, behold, I'm coming quickly revelation 22, 12.

00:19:28.400 And, um, uh, yes, I'm coming quickly revelation 22, 20. And this one do not seal up the words of the

00:19:34.900 prophecy of this book. What book? The book of revelation for the time is near revelation 22, 10 real

00:19:40.440 quick, Daniel eight. There's a prophecy where Daniel is told to seal up the words of the vision for the

00:19:48.220 time is a little far off or we were talking to a matter of hundreds of years. So Daniel gets a

00:19:53.040 vision and he's told seal up the vision for it's it's for a long time from now, but it was, you

00:19:57.920 know, hundreds of years in revelation. John said, John's told, don't seal the words of the prophecy

00:20:04.080 of this book. It says for the time is near. So in terms of how God tells time, we can see that there

00:20:11.520 are time indicators in the new Testament that demonstrate that there is an impending looming

00:20:16.420 judgment, a quick judgment, end of the age context. They were in the last days of something.

00:20:22.400 And, um, I think we need to take those seriously.

00:20:34.400 Okay. So by covenant breakers, you were talking about Israel, correct?

00:20:41.400 Yeah. I would say first century Jerusalem specifically.

00:20:44.680 And the, the judgment was the destruction of the temple. You're talking about 70 AD

00:20:50.100 and the great tribulation was under Nero. Is that correct?

00:20:55.080 Yes. Yeah. Okay.

00:20:56.240 It climaxed around the time of Nero during, during Nero's reign.

00:20:59.860 So in order to believe that revelation is talking about something that was going to happen,

00:21:05.500 you have to believe obviously that revelation was written before 70 AD, correct?

00:21:10.800 Correct. That's right. And, but some people contend that revelation was actually written

00:21:15.640 like in 96 AD. Some people say that it was written around like 68 AD. So you have to believe that it

00:21:21.960 wasn't written. You have to reject what some people say the evidence is that revelation was written

00:21:26.500 after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD to say that it was talking about the destruction of the

00:21:32.420 temple in Nero and all of that. Correct?

00:21:34.940 So yeah, there's, there's an important element here in terms of, um, the truth there, the truth,

00:21:41.200 there are post-millennialists that disagree on interpreted on the interpretation of revelation.

00:21:44.800 Who knew Christians would disagree and argue? Um, there are post-millennialists who do disagree

00:21:49.840 historically. I mean, uh, Christians have had a variety of different understandings, different

00:21:54.440 sections of the book of revelation or the whole thing, uh, in total. But, um, there are post-millennialists

00:22:00.500 who do have different perspectives of how do you work out some of the details in the book of revelation?

00:22:03.960 Some would say in early dating is not, um, absolutely necessary and it doesn't do any damage to

00:22:10.460 post-millennialism as, as a, as a total overarching perspective. Um, but yes, my, my own perspective is

00:22:18.440 that the external and internal evidence that the book of revelation was written before the fall of

00:22:24.640 Jerusalem, I think is overwhelming. And, um, I was in Bible college and we were taught about the dating

00:22:30.720 of the book of revelation. I was taught that it was around 96 AD during Domitian's reign and persecution,

00:22:35.460 which by the way, it was actually a pretty limited persecution at that time. Um, it wasn't as, as

00:22:40.840 dramatic as the persecution that was pre 70 AD. Um, historically, actually, this was the thing that

00:22:47.300 startled me. Historically, you can see that some of the giants and some of the greatest scholars in

00:22:52.860 history all dated the book of revelation pre 70 AD. Um, the, the dating it during Domitian's reign in

00:23:00.120 96 AD is based upon, uh, really a single ambiguous as a statement written in Greek. It's written in

00:23:09.620 ambiguous, uh, Greek. Well, I'd say written in Greek in an ambiguous way. Um, uh, and, um, it's not,

00:23:16.720 it's not actually overly clear, which is why Christians in history have actually disagreed on that dating

00:23:20.880 because it's based on a statement from, um, one early disciple of the apostle John, um, or a disciple

00:23:29.120 of a disciple of the apostle John. Um, and so we have to actually go to, well, okay, let's look at

00:23:33.740 the text and what does it say? Well, in terms of internal dating, I'll just, just, I don't want to,

00:23:38.060 we probably don't want to spend a million years on this, but in terms of internal dating of the book

00:23:42.100 of revelation, um, John is told a lot of things related to the soon coming judgment. Again, I'm coming

00:23:49.700 quickly. Behold, I'm coming, coming quickly. I'm coming quickly. Things which must shortly take

00:23:54.180 place. Revelation 22, six, every, I will see him, even those who pierced him. Um, and, um, so you

00:24:02.300 have those, those things in terms of time indicators, but internally the apostle John, and this is what

00:24:07.480 R.C. Sproul said. He said, this is one of the most devastating things in terms of internal evidence

00:24:11.960 of the early dating of the book of revelation. Um, the apostle John is told to go measure the temple,

00:24:17.640 which apparently is still standing in his day. Um, and so that's an internal, internal dating. Um,

00:24:24.800 but, and you look at the external evidence, I think it's, it's, it's pretty overwhelming. You

00:24:29.260 have examples in history as you look at scattered evidence throughout history and everybody could do

00:24:33.920 this and try to support their view for whatever. I think you could look at the mass and, uh,

00:24:37.400 overwhelming internal, external evidence. Um, church fathers have argued that, um, John wrote

00:24:44.380 revelation and got the revelation of Jesus Christ, um, after being, uh, boiled in a pot of oil by Nero.

00:24:51.880 Nero, the neurotic persecution of Christians had, had been in full effect, um, about this time during

00:24:57.860 the sixties of the first century. Um, the, of course, Nero was, um, was a beast. Um, he was referred

00:25:04.860 to as a beast. Uh, Nero was a disgusting, disgraceful, despicable man. Caligula really got that,

00:25:12.640 uh, emperor worship cult going in terms of the temples. You can go worship, um, at and worship

00:25:18.940 the emperor. Uh, the emperor is God, but Nero, he, he turned it up big time and, uh, Nero demanded

00:25:27.380 worship and Nero, um, was a part of that persecution of the Christians, not just by decree,

00:25:34.440 but he was actually involved himself. Um, this will get kind of graphic, but I think it's important

00:25:39.160 to understand his beastly nature. Um, Nero, um, would have Christians rounded up in the streets

00:25:45.040 and, um, brought to his, his garden parties. Uh, they would tie them, uh, to a stake, uh, wrap them

00:25:51.760 in pitch and they would light them on fire and they would use these burning Christians, um, as Roman

00:25:56.680 candles to light up his garden parties. And he would ride his chariot through these Christians.

00:26:00.160 Uh, there's even, even examples of him, um, uh, getting Christians, um, uh, tying them to a stake

00:26:07.180 and then covering himself in the skins of animals and trying to eat them. Um, he was a disgusting man.

00:26:13.180 He, he kicked his pregnant wife to death. He castrated and married like a 10 year old boy. Um,

00:26:18.860 he was a vile, vile man. And, um, Nero was responsible in many ways for this intense persecution

00:26:25.860 so that, uh, during his reign, uh, Peter's killed, Paul's killed. This is interesting. The only

00:26:32.900 apostle that survived to the destruction of Jerusalem and saw that judgment come was the

00:26:40.840 apostle John. And isn't it interesting that at the end of the, uh, the gospel, according to John,

00:26:46.720 Peter's kind of ticked because Jesus tells him, you know, when you're old, people are going to take

00:26:51.080 you where you don't want to go and essentially telling him he's going to be martyred. And then Peter's

00:26:54.900 response is he looks over at John and he goes, well, what about him? And Jesus says, if I will,

00:27:00.380 that he remained till I come, what is that to you? You follow me. And John was actually the only

00:27:06.080 person that survived that, that whole great tribulation and destruction of Jerusalem in

00:27:10.360 terms of the apostles, um, that saw that was able to see all of that. But the history tells us that

00:27:17.040 John, um, actually was boiled in a pot of oil by Nero. Um, he didn't die, which freaked Nero

00:27:24.860 out because Nero was a very superstitious man. Yeah. Freak Nero out. So Nero sent John into exile

00:27:30.740 to Patmos, which is where John wrote revelation. Um, so, and there's a number of other external

00:27:37.560 evidences, um, um, in terms of timing and the book of revelation, but there's internal, um, as well.

00:27:43.780 But yes, I think that you can read the book of revelation as something written pre 70, 80. And I think

00:27:49.060 it could be demonstrated clearly if people wanted more on this and a very historical, very scholarly

00:27:54.280 work, uh, read the book, um, before Jerusalem fell, uh, by Dr. Kenneth Gentry. Um, it's, it's pretty

00:28:02.300 amazing. And it's actually, I don't, I don't always say that I recommend really scholarly resources just

00:28:09.280 generally cause they get, people just get weighed down and that's just too much, too heavy for me.

00:28:13.800 But Gentry writes it in such a fun way. It's very scholarly and such a really fun and interesting

00:28:19.420 way. I mean, I was like, it was like two in the morning. I was in my kitchen reading it. Um,

00:28:23.200 and it's a scholarly work. Yeah. So for the people who are looking around, obviously we go to scripture

00:28:30.540 for our interpretation of, or our understanding of what the end times is, not just what's going on

00:28:34.880 around us. But of course it is very tempting to look at what's going on around us. And yes,

00:28:39.500 we know there've been very bad times in history, but I think for a lot of Christians, this seems

00:28:44.640 maybe more dire than ever. We see America as the kind of the last beacon of liberty. And we're just

00:28:51.220 wondering, okay, if Christians are persecuted here, if it's not safe for Christians to speak up here,

00:28:56.360 then we don't have, we don't have another refuge and things are just going to get terrible and worse

00:29:03.780 and worse and worse because we have no hope of, you know, another nation where you have free speech

00:29:08.880 and freedom of religion and things like that. People see the, the, what seems like the ushering

00:29:14.360 in of, of Christian persecution. And I think are thinking, okay, well, this is an indication that

00:29:20.080 these are the last days because it's about to get worse than it ever has been before. What would you

00:29:25.240 say to those people that are like, how can you possibly think that things are getting better and

00:29:30.220 better when things are clearly so bad right now? Yeah. It's such a great question. It's so important

00:29:35.140 because it comes down to what you just said. Like we need to believe what the word of God says,

00:29:39.860 not what our experience is, not what our inner monologue is. And by the way, this goes across

00:29:43.400 the board. Like, I mean, even if we disagree on eschatology, I think all of us need to recognize

00:29:47.380 how important this is because it is the healing that we need in terms of people who struggle with

00:29:52.020 loneliness and depression and fear of the future, all those things. We'd say, don't believe the

00:29:56.460 experience. Don't believe the circumstances. Don't believe the inner monologue. God's word is sure.

00:30:01.400 God's word is true. It's not just an eschatology question. This is deep. I'm a pastor. This is a

00:30:06.760 deeply pastoral issue. It goes way beyond the category of eschatology and goes down to our

00:30:11.840 deeply intimate relationship with God. What will we believe? Our circumstances, the moment that's in

00:30:17.500 front of us, our inner monologue, what voice will we listen to? This is the most critical question,

00:30:23.980 and it goes into so many areas. But in this question, when people say, well, look how bad things are now.

00:30:29.640 Look how awful things are right now. My answer is, well, I'd start this way.

00:30:37.180 In history, you realize that almost every generation of Christians has had a moment where they've

00:30:42.220 thought exactly that. I would say things like, we have to grapple with the fact that 200, 300 years ago,

00:30:50.080 Christians were pointing to these very same passages, or 200 years ago, people were pointing to the same

00:30:54.180 passages, and they were saying, see, that's our time. That's us. People were pulling passages from,

00:31:00.420 say, Revelation or other books, and they were saying, oh, this thing, that resembles the locomotive,

00:31:04.860 or this resembles, like, this thing. And they were trying to find from their day examples of proof of

00:31:10.620 that this is the last days. We're truly in the last days now. He's really coming quickly now.

00:31:15.860 And so I would say that, you know, just know that this has been a pattern for Christians through

00:31:20.100 history, who have had a futurist perspective. They always think that their day is the last day,

00:31:26.180 and they always think that their moment is the worst they've ever seen. Well, what I would say to

00:31:30.380 try to comfort Christians in this area is, please think about this. Please think about this. We follow

00:31:37.180 a man who was a Palestinian Jew, crucified as a common criminal under Roman rule. He was resurrected

00:31:45.640 the third day. He stood in front of very confused disciples that weren't even clear in understanding

00:31:50.840 of what the heck was going on. So he had to even chastise these disciples in the road to Emmaus,

00:31:56.200 where they're like a bunch of sad saps walking on the road. And like, we thought he's the Messiah,

00:32:00.100 not the Messiah. And Jesus is like slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

00:32:04.640 And then he takes him through the whole Old Testament. It's like, here, this is all about

00:32:08.700 me. So even they're like, wait, what, what's going on? And then Jesus stands before a very limited

00:32:14.840 crowd of disciples at that point. And what he does is he, before he ascends in Matthew 28, he says to

00:32:21.100 them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. We're going to stop for a second and

00:32:26.140 think about this. Uh, he has a small band of followers here in front of him. And he says all the

00:32:33.660 authority, not just in the spiritual realm, heaven, but here on earth during Roman rule,

00:32:40.540 like no, Caesar's got, he's got all the authority. And this, this Palestinian Jew just murdered by the

00:32:45.720 Romans, uh, and of course raised again, has the audacity to say that all the authority in heaven

00:32:50.920 and on earth has been past tense given to me. Uh, that's that kingdom mindset. I think that's

00:32:56.860 important for us to grapple with in terms of, did Jesus believe that he brought the kingdom? Did he

00:33:00.460 believe that he had that messianic, uh, uh, throne at, and, and the kingship? Um, I think it's

00:33:06.460 important because he says that all of it's his, he's not waiting for the authority. It's all mine

00:33:10.100 right now. He says, go therefore, because it's all mine. And he says, you know, win the nations

00:33:16.500 and baptize them, teach them to obey all that I've commanded you. Um, that's how Jesus departs.

00:33:22.900 And there's a small band of followers there before Jesus. They had to be like looking up going,

00:33:28.580 uh, what? Yeah. Like, uh, like this world is ginormous and as complexities of the Roman empire

00:33:37.280 and paganism and all this evil. And I always try to remind people that in many ways, you can look at

00:33:42.720 it this way. We started 2000 years ago with 11, very confused disciples, 11, because we lost one.

00:33:48.900 Judas was a devil, right? Right. So I've been very confused disciples and Christians in the 21st

00:33:54.340 century today will be on radio programs, streaming live globally around the world, talking about the

00:34:00.280 supremacy of Jesus Christ over all things with Christians who love and worship the Lord God of

00:34:05.480 Israel because of Jesus on all over the planet. And we'll be saying things are just so bad. They're

00:34:11.300 just getting so terrible. It's so awful. It's like we started with 11 disciples. Now we have believers

00:34:15.800 all over this planet who bow the knee to Jesus Christ, um, as savior and as Lord. And yes,

00:34:22.940 we have tough things in front of us. And I want to say this, there's a huge misconception,

00:34:27.360 a massive misconception, and it is always used as an argument. And it's a very poor one.

00:34:32.220 Uh, people say, well, you know, post-millennialism is true. Um, how can you say things are getting

00:34:38.100 better and better and better when look at the world around us? I would say, well, no, Jesus said

00:34:43.100 that the kingdom of God was like a mustard seed that becomes a tree. So it, his perspective of

00:34:48.120 the kingdom was not that the kingdom drops, um, out of the sky, like an army, but that the kingdom

00:34:54.100 grows from this very small seed into a large tree that ultimately is bigger than a man and has fruit

00:34:59.620 and all the rest, the birds of the air nest in its branches. And it's like leaven and a lump of dough.

00:35:04.480 Jesus is the one that said it was going to be small to large growth. He's the one that said that

00:35:09.580 Daniel's the one that said that in Daniel two. And so we should expect in this fallen world,

00:35:14.780 as Jesus brings his salvific rule and reign globally through the proclamation of the gospel

00:35:20.700 and the transformation of people's lives, we should anticipate, of course, in this fallen world,

00:35:25.740 there is difficulty and there is trial and there is moments of victory. And there are moments of

00:35:30.800 failure from our perspective, God's in total control of that. But I was going to just sort of

00:35:35.680 like, I'm going to just push my brothers and sisters and say, stop and think about what you're

00:35:40.020 saying. You can preach the gospel right now, literally globally live by pushing a button on

00:35:48.360 this silly device. And you can tell the world about Jesus and people come to Christ hearing the gospel

00:35:55.320 through this little device. Even we get word all the time about people from other countries that watch

00:36:02.580 our content and come to know Jesus Christ. There's people in other continents that have heard our

00:36:07.580 content years ago, came to Christ, and they're now pastors in foreign countries. When someone says

00:36:14.100 it's getting worse and worse, I want to say, you should probably go back to the first century and

00:36:18.940 live there for a bit and tell me how we're doing. Right. So obviously, like you said, we have more

00:36:26.440 believers, but at the same time, there seems to be a strong, maybe not stronger than ever, but stronger

00:36:35.120 than we've seen in our lifetimes, a centralized aversion to Christianity and allowing Christians

00:36:42.380 to have the ability to do what you do, to be able to spread the gospel globally through a device. So

00:36:49.020 would you say that even if we do go through a time of severe persecution, even here in America,

00:36:55.240 where voices are stifled and deplatformed and canceled and all of those things, would you just

00:37:00.680 say that is just kind of, that's obviously not an indication, according to you, of anything contrary

00:37:08.000 to the post-millennialist view, but simply that we are going through a stage in human history that

00:37:12.540 all, that Christians throughout time have always gone through of persecution, but still the gospel

00:37:19.460 is advancing and the kingdom is growing. Is that what you would argue? That even if we are facing

00:37:24.400 a sort of tribulation to come or a sort of trial and persecution to come, that still the gospel

00:37:30.120 is being spread and the kingdom is advancing? Yes. And so I'll do that. I'll answer that question

00:37:36.080 in two ways. One, by way of just giving a direct answer. And then two, giving you why I believe it

00:37:42.840 in terms of like, well, what are you hanging on to even think that? Yes. I think that one of the

00:37:48.640 problems is that we tend to, as, as Christians, particularly in the West, in the United States,

00:37:53.900 we tend to think about America as, as, as the, as the, the symbol of victory and like the sign of

00:38:00.840 how we're doing, sort of Christianity wise. So when America does poorly, we think, oh, the end is near

00:38:07.440 and it's, we've lost all hope sort of a thing. And it's like, why do we think about ourselves in this

00:38:11.580 way? Um, there's nothing in scripture that tells us that America is going to make it to the end.

00:38:17.840 Yeah. Well, I think it's because we're the last place that we're, we're the last place that has

00:38:24.600 constitutionalized this idea of an, an, an alienable right of free speech. And we're just wondering,

00:38:32.280 okay, well, if you can't speak freely here, I mean, of course you still share the gospel,

00:38:36.920 but where can you go without fear of punishment? I think that's why there's, uh, there's a fear

00:38:44.060 of America being kind of the last stand. I know, I know, I know, no. So don't get me wrong. I'm,

00:38:49.200 I'm very patriotic. I've been loved. I know, I know, I know you are. And, but you're making a great

00:38:55.240 point in terms of like, but still it's, there's still like, oh my gosh, what's happened to us?

00:38:59.420 Well, Ali, I would just say like, this is kind of, I think an indictment upon us in many ways.

00:39:04.920 Um, when you look at America and our origins, you got to start further back than 1776, you've got to

00:39:10.880 look at the covenanters and the colonies and all that took place to get us to this place. Um, you

00:39:16.260 had very faithful colonies that, you know, had state, they even had state churches, they're making

00:39:20.520 treaties and the name of the triune God of the Bible, like the Christian worldview was in the

00:39:24.480 atmosphere. So the benefits of the United States of America currently are from the Christian worldview,

00:39:30.280 the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the freedom to, to, to own arms, to protect your

00:39:35.240 family, uh, the right against a warrantless search and seizure, the ability to not have to, um,

00:39:41.080 self-incriminate. That's all from scripture. Like it's literally from the Bible. And, but to go,

00:39:46.680 okay, man, we're losing this. I would say, where's our salt and light? Those Christians that gave this to

00:39:53.440 us, they were the ones that were courageous and fought and labored and spoke and they spoke

00:39:59.200 prophetically. Let's be honest, goodness gracious, over the last couple of generations, the last,

00:40:05.320 well, let's say just the last generation. I believe that, that what's happening around us is

00:40:09.800 an indictment upon the church. I do. I think it's an indictment upon the church. We've got,

00:40:14.260 we've got great godly men in the pulpit who are teaching and are courageous. You've got men like

00:40:19.180 John MacArthur. You've got giants of the faith. Yes. But, but largely, largely we've been afraid

00:40:26.180 to cause any trouble. We want to just be loved by everybody. We're not courageous. So we're not

00:40:30.840 salty and we're not light to the culture around us. And I want to say it's historic judgments.

00:40:36.320 I believe that. So give an example. In Psalm two, um, it says, um, to the, the father says to the son,

00:40:43.180 ask of me and I'll give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your

00:40:47.840 possession. Um, now I don't think Jesus forgot to ask. So I believe the father gave it to Jesus.

00:40:53.680 And that's where we're at now with the great commission. I'll get in all the nations,

00:40:56.720 but the father actually says to the son, sorry, to the Kings of the earth. He says, uh, be wise.

00:41:02.580 Oh Kings. He says, obey the son or kiss the son lest you perish. Um, and so I think there are

00:41:09.840 historical judgments in history that we should anticipate as people are unfaithful to the son,

00:41:15.960 as they don't yield to his authority and his Kingship. They disobey his law. They, they live

00:41:21.700 in injustice. We should anticipate that nation receiving historical judgments. Um, we can't

00:41:28.440 live in sin as a nation, um, and not have God respond because the goal of the kingdom, Isaiah 42,

00:41:35.880 this is one of the goals, not the goal. Uh, one of them, Isaiah 42, it says that the servant is coming.

00:41:41.500 That's Messiah. And it talks about him being this humble servants. He's, you know, bruised reed.

00:41:46.520 He will not break in a faintly burning wick. He will not quench. It says he will bring forth

00:41:50.800 justice on the earth. He will not grow faint or weary until he has done it. And the coastlands are

00:41:56.440 waiting for his law. That's the promise of the Messiah and his coming justice and his righteousness

00:42:01.380 and rule. Um, now I believe Jesus is in the process of that now. And I believe as a nation disobeys

00:42:07.880 God, especially a nation alley like ours, my goodness, we've got all of these giants behind

00:42:13.340 us who handed us all these blessings. You've got people again in States that would acknowledge

00:42:19.020 the triune God of the Bible in their treaties. And they acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

00:42:25.720 Now we're a nation that doesn't like people say, like, you know, we need justice, police justice.

00:42:30.860 I'm like, okay, what's it look like? Um, like, do you even know why we have the, uh, the, the,

00:42:36.920 the, the amendment against warrantless searches and seizures? Do you know why we have the right

00:42:41.060 to remain silent? People don't even know why you have that. And the answer is, oh, because in these

00:42:46.120 verses here, because these scriptures, this is God's justice. People are crying out for justice,

00:42:51.120 but they don't want God's justice on God's justice. And so because of that, I believe we see in

00:42:57.920 history as the gospel goes forth, it penetrates, it impacts. There is the duty of faithfulness and

00:43:03.800 obedience to the son who is ruling and reigning now. And we should anticipate historical judgments

00:43:09.160 upon any nation that doesn't obey the son, but the ultimate place that history is going,

00:43:14.700 this is a scatter. Genesis 49, 10, Shiloh is coming and to him shall be the obedience of the nations.

00:43:21.700 It's interesting because Peter, I'm sorry, Paul uses that language in Romans one and 16.

00:43:25.940 And he says that the goal is, uh, to bring the nations to God, to the obedience of faith among

00:43:32.060 all the nations. He says it at the first chapter and last chapter of Romans, his explanation of the

00:43:37.520 gospel, that the goal is the obedience of the nations. Well, that's Genesis 49, 10,

00:43:42.540 the obedience of the nations. How about the promise to Abraham? Abraham, your descendants are going to

00:43:47.400 be as numerous as the stars. So much for a small victorious minority in history, numerous as the stars,

00:43:54.200 that's a heck of a lot of stars, like the sand on the seashore. That's a lot of descendants. That

00:43:59.220 doesn't sound like, that doesn't sound like, um, um, uh, a defeat in history to me in terms of a small

00:44:05.640 remnant in all of history. That sounds like a lot, but then you get on to Isaiah chapter two and the

00:44:11.500 promises that the Lord is going to draw the nations. They're going to stream up to God's mountain,

00:44:17.640 which is weird because water streams down, but it says that they stream up to the mountain of God

00:44:22.960 and that's, um, there's going to be salvation. And the law, the Torah is going to go forth from

00:44:28.980 Zion, from the people of God. So the nations are coming to God. The law is going to go forth

00:44:34.220 from the people of God. Then you have Isaiah nine. One is coming. Who's the son and the child

00:44:39.900 and his name should be called wonderful and counselor, the mighty God, the father of eternity.

00:44:44.880 And it says of the increase, this is interesting of the increase of his government and of peace,

00:44:51.800 there will be no end. So his government and his peace, there'll be an increase and there'll be no

00:44:56.820 end on the throne of David to establish it with justice and righteousness forevermore. And the

00:45:02.360 amazing thing is when you say, and everyone says, and I even have moments where you see things getting

00:45:07.300 awful and you're like, how is this ever going to get overcome? The answer from Isaiah nine, six through

00:45:13.080 seven is this, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Then Isaiah 42 is that passage

00:45:19.000 about the justice being established on the earth. And he's not going to go faint or weary until he

00:45:23.840 does it. Psalm two, the nations are given to Jesus. The Kings are warned. You better obey the son or

00:45:29.620 you're going to perish. Psalm 22 is the famous passion of the Messiah passage where his hands and his feet

00:45:36.200 are pierced. Um, he's, he's pierced and his hearts like wax melted within him. They surround him like

00:45:41.920 dogs. Um, they mock him. They divide his garments among them and cast lots for his clothing. In the

00:45:48.820 very same passage of the passion of the Messiah, as you keep singing the song, it says, and all the

00:45:56.580 families of the earth will return to worship the Lord. So the impact of the passion is that all the

00:46:04.820 families of the earth return to worship the Lord. Psalm 72 says he shall have dominion from sea to

00:46:10.580 sea, from the river to the air ends of the earth. Uh, Psalm 110 one, um, um, the Lord said unto my

00:46:16.980 Lord, sit in my right hand. And Jesus is by the way, seated there until I make all your enemies a

00:46:22.040 footstool for your feet. That's messianic new Testament. That's current Daniel chapter seven.

00:46:27.800 He's looking in the night visions and it's interesting. He says he sees one like a son of man coming on the

00:46:32.620 clouds of heaven, by the way, cloud comings in the old Testament are judgment comings. Um,

00:46:38.840 and it says, and he comes up to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And it says to him,

00:46:45.200 Jesus was given dominion, kingdom, and, uh, and glory that all the peoples should serve him. People

00:46:51.500 are very tribe tongue. People in nature are going to serve him. It says his dominion is an everlasting

00:46:55.740 dominion, which will not pass away. And his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. That's Daniel

00:47:00.360 seven. And we could just keep going and going and going all these passages about victory. So if you

00:47:05.680 ever say to me, how are you believing this with things as tough as they are right now in the moment,

00:47:11.560 I would say, cause the promise is he shall have dominion and he is winning the world. All the

00:47:18.780 families are going to return. And so my duty is to be faithful, to preach the gospel, to win the nation

00:47:25.580 to Christ, the nations to Christ. And, and, and I can't look at the current circumstances and say,

00:47:31.940 well, I guess, I guess, um, I guess we're losing, I guess, I guess he's not going to have victory

00:47:38.960 because God does work throughout history through, um, a seed to tree, um, picture.

00:47:46.980 And you can kind of see through the description of all of that, how your eschatology determines how you

00:47:54.780 live your life and the things you care about. Now, obviously, as you've said, as I've said,

00:47:59.240 pre-millennialists, post-millennialists can both be obedient and both be compelled to be obedient

00:48:04.580 and faithful Christians, even if they're coming from a different kind of perspective on certain

00:48:09.480 things. However, as far as things like the so-called culture wars, as far as things like affecting what

00:48:16.760 laws are implemented, you do see a tendency sometimes among pre-millennialists, not me, but some to

00:48:23.580 say, well, that doesn't, that doesn't really matter. Those things don't really matter. If like you said,

00:48:29.300 the world is just going to hell in a handbasket, then all I have to do is kind of hide away and wait

00:48:34.100 for Jesus to come back. But if you do believe that you are advancing God's kingdom here and that his

00:48:41.780 authority is increasing and that you are playing a part in that, then you are going to try to affect

00:48:46.780 what's called, you know, the public sector. And so you definitely see how eschatology is practical and it

00:48:55.940 affects what you do. Now, someone like me or someone like John MacArthur, you know, maybe you would say

00:49:01.420 that this is inconsistent with our eschatology. I obviously care about the culture wars because I see how it

00:49:07.440 affects, you know, my children and how it affects future generations. And I would say John MacArthur does

00:49:12.480 too. Maybe not in the same way, but, you know, pre-millennialists do care about what's going on

00:49:19.860 in the political world too. But, you know, I don't know, I guess our motivation is just different,

00:49:25.040 one of obedience and not necessarily one that the post-millennialist has, but I do kind of see some

00:49:31.980 inconsistency there for sure. What we use, for example, like I kind of feel like your eschatology

00:49:38.220 could be used by social justice advocates to say, we are trying to make God's kingdom that we see as

00:49:46.980 God's kingdom, totally equal, equitable, whatever, here on earth because that's what we are called to

00:49:52.720 do. Whereas someone like John MacArthur would say that is why post-millennialism is wrong because it

00:49:59.600 falsely, it falsely tries to bring God's kingdom here on earth when that's not what we are called to

00:50:05.160 do. And he would lump post-millennialism maybe into kind of a social justice theology, which is

00:50:09.780 obviously not something that you hold to. Does that make sense? Right. Yeah, yeah. And historically,

00:50:15.020 you can't make any real, genuine, meaningful theological connection between, say, the social

00:50:21.860 justice movement of the day or liberal social justice movements and theologies of the past to

00:50:28.320 a biblical historical post-millennialism. Right. Because what we would say is, is that the gospel

00:50:36.540 is the transforming force in the world. Yeah. People's hearts and minds have to be changed

00:50:42.360 by the gospel. They have to repent and bow the knee to Jesus and trust in Jesus Christ.

00:50:47.800 So the solution, the transformation of the world happens as people are saved. Yeah. So it's the

00:50:54.460 gospel that's up front. But it's actually clear in scripture that as the nations come to God,

00:50:59.980 as people are saved, that now that law, his law, his standards, his justice is with, is on their

00:51:06.260 hearts. Yeah. That's what they desire. Yeah. So it's actually, it's where Jesus took us. He says,

00:51:11.320 all authority is mine, heaven and earth. He says, go, and he says, disciple, teach and disciple the

00:51:17.020 nations, baptize them. And he says, teach them to obey all that I've commanded you. So it starts,

00:51:22.140 it starts with conversion and then turns into, and now training and righteousness. And so we're

00:51:28.580 trying to follow that perspective, but isn't it, it's actually a powerful thought. People today

00:51:34.860 who are crying out, even as silly evangelicals that are just acting like they have no understanding

00:51:43.320 whatsoever in terms of like righteous standards of justice, where do we get them? And history of

00:51:49.120 the church, all of this is wrapped up and there's just such, such confusion when evangelicals even

00:51:53.100 today, squishy evangelicals are saying, social justice, social justice, ask them, what do you

00:51:57.160 mean by that? Yeah. Like what's your standard of justice? Like, what do you mean? Where, where are

00:52:01.380 they getting, where are they getting their standards of justice? They're getting them from the world.

00:52:04.500 Yeah. They're getting, they're getting them from neo-Marxists. They're getting them from,

00:52:08.300 um, classical Marxists. They're getting them from, uh, uh, people who are socialists. They're not

00:52:13.900 getting their, they're, they're not post-millennialists. They're not trying to bring

00:52:16.880 kingdom in through biblical standards of justice. They're trying to bring this weird version of

00:52:23.020 kingdom, which doesn't even have Christ as ruling ultimately in with, uh, ungodly and, um,

00:52:29.900 unbelieving, uh, standards of justice. They're not even going to the Bible. Yes. But here's,

00:52:35.700 what's powerful. We just, we, you and I love this country and we're both fighting regardless of

00:52:42.340 eschatology. We're laying faithfulness to Jesus. Love for my neighbor demands. I say something right

00:52:46.840 now, but we're living in a country with all the benefits of the Christian worldview. It is

00:52:51.540 interesting that the dominant eschatology in America early on was post-millennialism, that the

00:52:58.160 Puritans were post-millennial. Um, uh, my friend Doug likes to say, um, uh, there's two reasons that

00:53:05.980 I'm a post-millennialist. He says, one, uh, it's a lot of fun. And two, Jonathan Ed believed it. Um,

00:53:12.020 some of the giants of the faith and history historically were post-millennialists, but I

00:53:15.580 think it's powerful, uh, in terms of like, look, look at culture and society. When you had Puritans

00:53:20.260 who were post-millennial in their perspective, what did they do? They established communities

00:53:25.020 where they saw Jesus Lordship from the bottom to the top. When they pointed to, when there were issues

00:53:31.100 of justice, they said, well, what does God say? And they would point to his law. Now we're not saying

00:53:35.020 these are perfect people that did everything right. We're just saying like in, in practice,

00:53:39.140 their understanding was Jesus is Lord over all. And our duty is to, is to win the world to Christ.

00:53:44.580 And if we have questions about justice, we point to what God's word says. Um, and so they built a

00:53:51.320 community, a culture, a society that saw God's revelation as supreme. This is the standard. And then

00:53:59.160 what's, what did we all get? Well, we all got the benefits of that because the impact of the Puritans

00:54:03.920 upon, um, um, the colonies and the West gave us the nation that we have today. Even if people like

00:54:11.940 Benjamin Franklin weren't Christians, um, they still were beneficiaries of the Christian worldview

00:54:18.740 and they accepted it. Um, but that's, that's life and labor of faithful Christians before many of

00:54:25.080 them post-millennial. And it's interesting to note that the society they built was a society that said

00:54:32.860 God's word is the ultimate standard. They weren't just saying like, the goal is to bring the kingdom

00:54:38.320 in through these standards of justice. No, these are people like Edwards who, who was, you ever hear

00:54:43.800 of the great awakening? It was like, it was all the gospel and repentance and faith. The goal is bring

00:54:50.860 them to Jesus. And then once they're saved, you say, and this is the standard God's word.

00:54:56.700 That's post-millennialism. Yes. Social justice people, Christians, professing Christians are

00:55:04.020 working from the outside end. They believe that first you have to, whatever it is, instill these

00:55:10.540 anti-racism policies. And then that will eventually change people's heart. Whereas the Christian says

00:55:16.260 it starts with the regeneration of the heart and that is then how we affect societies and laws. That

00:55:21.900 would be the distinction, correct? One of them. That's exactly right. One of the, that's probably

00:55:26.280 the most important one. So just the, the final question, when Jesus is coming in, riding on the

00:55:33.600 horse with the tattoo and the sword and all of that, do you believe that that is coming soon?

00:55:40.880 Um, ask, ask that again. So that you, uh, they, you're talking about. When Jesus is coming back.

00:55:46.760 When do you believe that that's going to happen? Or am I misunderstanding your

00:55:50.880 going to revelation? Okay. So here we go. I was like, we're going to be on here for another hour.

00:55:54.940 No, no, no, no, no. Just, just quick, quick answer.

00:55:58.360 I believe that we're in the infancy of the church.

00:56:01.840 Um, wow. I believe, I believe we're in the infancy of the church. I think we've got a long

00:56:06.880 way to go. If we had a bunch of time just to go through the texts of the old Testament

00:56:11.680 and the new Testament that talk about the kingdom of the Messiah and what it's going to look like. And

00:56:16.480 it's very, by the way, it's, it's very earthly. Like there's earthy promises to this kingdom

00:56:21.260 and spiritual it's, but it's comprehensive and, and beautiful and powerful. And if we're to take

00:56:28.140 Paul at his timeline, all enemies are under the feet of Jesus and then death will be destroyed.

00:56:34.980 I look around today and I say, well, we've got a lot of victory, but there's a heck of a lot of

00:56:39.540 enemies and, uh, these enemies need to be converted. They need to come to Christ or put under the feet of

00:56:44.240 Jesus. So when I look around the world today, I say, based upon what we see in scripture about the,

00:56:48.680 the victory of the Messiah and his kingdom in the world and the justice and the righteousness and

00:56:52.580 peace that comes from that salvific reign. I say, I think we have a long way to go. Can God perform

00:56:57.560 miracles and change things quickly? Absolutely. But I think it's better to look at us as if we're in

00:57:03.020 the infancy of the church, we've got a long way to go. We've got a lot to learn. And I think we've

00:57:08.720 got a lot of courage, uh, that we need to, to, to bolster up and to have, to actually go out and

00:57:14.380 to bring the gospel. I think we have a long way to go personally. Um, but I'd be happy. I'd be so

00:57:20.460 happy if it was, uh, you know, uh, a major revival and transformation. And it was a hundred years from

00:57:26.420 now, God is sovereign. He can do that. Uh, but I think we're in the infancy of the church.

00:57:30.620 Wow. Okay. Well, I have a lot more questions for you. I could talk to you for a really long time,

00:57:35.140 but I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me for this hour and a half. I know people

00:57:39.560 are going to get a lot from it. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, Allie.

00:57:48.860 Okay. So I know that you guys enjoyed that two-part series with Pastor Jeff Durbin. If you've got

00:57:54.420 questions, if you've got comments, if you, uh, just have something to say, you can either reach out to

00:58:00.680 Jeff Durbin. You can reach out to me and ask your questions. A lot of people have shared this on

00:58:05.120 your story and you've been telling me just how this conversation made you think. And that is

00:58:09.000 awesome. Any conversation that helps us think more critically and biblically, I count as a win,

00:58:14.860 something that is edifying for the body of Christ. Speaking of edifying the body of Christ,

00:58:19.240 I want to introduce Pastor Joel Webin, who, um, I had a very, uh, edifying, encouraging conversation

00:58:27.200 with about how churches, how Christians can navigate, uh, navigate the craziness that's going on

00:58:32.580 in our culture, particularly in relation to governments trying to shut down churches who

00:58:37.620 are exercising their first amendment right of gathering together and worshiping God. I got a

00:58:42.740 lot of good wisdom and insight out of our conversation, and I'm so excited for you to listen to it. So here

00:58:48.260 is Pastor Joel Webin. Joel, thanks so much for being here. Yeah, glad to be here. Can you tell everyone

00:58:54.660 who you are and what you do? Sure. My name is Joel Webin. I'm a local pastor of a church in San Diego,

00:59:01.700 California, and also, uh, the president of a ministry called Right Response Ministries.

00:59:07.660 And what does Right Response Ministries do? Um, basically we, we do podcast articles. Um,

00:59:14.740 we host sermons, sermon clips, we do interviews, things like that. So, uh, similar to like, um,

00:59:20.400 well, Jeff Durbin, I guess that you had on recently, I think you had again today.

00:59:24.900 And so, um, similar to like Apologia Church slash Apologia Studios, or like Tom Askell and Jared

00:59:31.060 Longshore with, uh, Founders Ministry, um, trying to just be a blessing to the body of Christ at large.

00:59:36.480 So you are kind of equipping Christians to be able to have the right response to a lot of the

00:59:43.340 craziness that's going on in the world right now. Cultural changes, social changes, political changes,

00:59:47.940 things like that. Is that, is that true? A good description?

00:59:51.400 Absolutely. That we, so response, I mean, so two words, right? Response. Response comes from the

00:59:55.520 fact that we're reformed. So we, we believe at the end of the day, we love because God first loved us

01:00:00.240 first John 4, 19. And so we, we believe that God is the great initiator and that all we ever do as

01:00:05.360 mankind is simply respond to what God has done and continues to do for us through the personal work

01:00:10.440 of Jesus Christ. And so, uh, we're not trying to elicit an emotional response or love or salvation from

01:00:15.920 God, but rather he initiates, we're responding to him. And then the word right, um, is simply

01:00:21.220 kind of a tipping of the hat to the regular principle of worship. So saying that not only

01:00:25.940 is man required to respond, um, but God actually regulates by the agency of his word, the manner

01:00:31.920 in which we respond. So we, you know, when we worship, when we pray, uh, all of the Christian life,

01:00:37.020 our obedience is something that God regulates. It's not just a blank canvas for our own creative

01:00:41.580 freedom as, uh, sometimes Christians tend to think. And so we're saying that there is a man's

01:00:46.900 responsibility is to respond and there is a right response. And it's not just, uh, we put too many

01:00:52.860 things I think in the church today into the subjective category. And I think there's more

01:00:57.780 that's objective, uh, regulated by God's word than we're sometimes willing to admit.

01:01:02.180 Now, a lot of people in your part of the country are especially allergic. It seems like to objectivity,

01:01:07.800 especially when it comes to theological objectivity. How is your church navigating the crazy cultural

01:01:14.700 waters that we've lived in for a long time, but they seem to be especially turbulent right now

01:01:19.420 on top of some of the state's restrictions of how churches are able to behave and worship right now?

01:01:28.900 Yeah, great question. So, uh, we were privileged to have our first, uh, illegal church service on

01:01:34.640 April 26, uh, that Sunday. And so at the time in California, the emperor Newsom, um,

01:01:41.320 his benevolent majesty, um, was not allowing for churches to gather in any capacity. Um,

01:01:48.760 including for a time, we weren't even able to, uh, do a car service. And then eventually that was

01:01:53.600 allowed because it was categorized as technology. So in the same way you could live stream because

01:01:58.320 you're using technology will car constitutes as a piece of technological, you know, equipment.

01:02:04.360 And so you could do a service like that, but for a while we couldn't even do the cars.

01:02:07.420 And then for us, we, um, you know, we're a smaller church. We don't have our own building.

01:02:11.900 And so we have rented a school historically. And so we weren't able to meet in the school,

01:02:17.500 of course. And, uh, and so we didn't, didn't have a parking lot. So what we did was an outdoor

01:02:21.860 service, April 26th. And, uh, it was an illegal church service. We had about two thirds of our

01:02:27.000 church come out. Um, but it was difficult at the time because a lot of pastors really nationwide,

01:02:33.000 including guys that we love and highly, highly respect in the reformed, you know, um, Christian

01:02:39.100 camp. We're still oppression that, you know, as, as you're fully aware, you know, Romans 13,

01:02:45.420 Romans 13, love your neighbor, love your neighbor. And we really kind of truncated, you know,

01:02:49.900 the second greatest commandment of loving our neighbor to, you know, that we're,

01:02:53.340 our neighbors is nothing more than a body. Right. So we just, we love their physical health

01:02:57.360 forgetting, I think we're neglecting at least that our, our, our neighbor also has a soul.

01:03:02.540 And, uh, and so, you know, I think loving our neighbor, of course we're called to love our

01:03:06.520 neighbor, but I think there's, it's, it's not so simplistic. Our neighbor has. And, and so we were

01:03:12.160 working through that factor. We were working through, uh, what does it mean to actually obey

01:03:17.320 Romans 13? Um, you know, the highest civil magistrate in our land is not a human official

01:03:24.240 by design and, and rightfully so, but rather a document and that protects our freedom of worship

01:03:30.700 and the right to peaceably assemble. And, and so, um, so we worked through that as elders in our church

01:03:36.220 and, um, it was tough, you know, because there's so many guys that we've previously looked to that

01:03:42.260 took initially a different stance. And some of those guys have come around now and we're very

01:03:46.980 grateful for that. So the first thing that we did was we shut down for about four weeks and just

01:03:52.380 trying to, um, because we didn't know. Right. So when big on like church is essential, but when we

01:03:58.840 say that church is essential, uh, we're not saying that it's essential under every single circumstance,

01:04:03.380 right? So if the mayor of San Diego said there's a tsunami, it was, let's say Saturday evening,

01:04:07.780 we get word that there's a tsunami coming to the city of San Diego and it's going to land at 10 AM

01:04:12.640 Sunday morning. Uh, if I tell my congregation, Hey, church is essential. We're going to gather.

01:04:17.120 And if the tsunami comes and wipes us all out, so be it. That's the sovereign. That's foolish,

01:04:21.700 right? We head for the hills. Let's, let's get out of the danger zone and, and we'll assemble and

01:04:27.680 have church next week, maybe in somebody's backyard or whatever we got to do. When we say church is

01:04:32.300 essential, we're not saying under any circumstances, but what we are saying is that church is just as

01:04:37.460 essential. And I would argue more, but just as essential as anything else, because in the tsunami

01:04:42.340 hypothetical scenario, everything's closed. Grocery stores closed. Abortion clinics certainly

01:04:48.040 are closed. You know, weed dispensaries are closed. And so all we're saying is that if anything else is

01:04:53.920 being deemed as essential, then certainly the church should be included. And so what we did was we worked

01:05:00.540 really hard to make sure that our Sunday morning gatherings were as safe. And I would argue safer than going to

01:05:07.100 the grocery store. And so therefore the only question for us theologically was, well, what did

01:05:12.320 Jesus say in the wilderness when he's tempted by Satan? He said that man shall not live by physical

01:05:16.440 bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And then the question became, well,

01:05:21.120 we have our Bibles, we can do our personal, you know, quiet time devotions at home. We have the

01:05:25.360 word of God Monday through Saturday. But the question became, but is there a unique or a specific word

01:05:31.300 that proceeds from the mouth of God in the gathered assembly on the Lord's day? And we believe that

01:05:36.900 biblically there is, and that we live by that. So we live by the word of God in our private

01:05:43.100 devotions, but we also live by the word which proceeds from the mouth of God that comes in that

01:05:48.900 corporate Lord's day gathering of things. And so we were like, man, we need this to live in the same

01:05:56.420 way we need to go to the grocery store. We need this. So if we can do this in a way that is prudent

01:06:02.620 and just as safe as a grocery store, biblically, we can't argue that it's any less essential than a

01:06:08.260 grocery store. So we're going to do it. And we believe that that was submitting to the highest

01:06:12.120 authority in our land, namely the Constitution. And if a lesser civil magistrate, like a governor or a

01:06:17.720 mayor, is disagreeing with the Constitution, then they're actually not obeying Romans 13. Romans 13 was

01:06:23.000 not just given to the church. It was given also to lesser civil magistrates. And so Gavin Newsom was

01:06:28.200 in rebellion to the word of God and in rebellion to his civil magistrate. And so we were actually

01:06:33.560 rebelling against a rebel in submission to the highest civil magistrate in our land and ultimately

01:06:40.720 a submission to God. And that was our view from within about two weeks. So the first couple of weeks,

01:06:46.100 it's like, you know, we were told everybody was going to die, you know, 2.1 million, whatever it was.

01:06:51.360 As soon as we realized, I don't know if that's quite accurate, then we arrived at this conclusion.

01:06:58.500 Right. And I have made a very similar argument that thankfully in the United States, at least for now,

01:07:03.640 the law of the land is the Constitution. And it doesn't bind its people. It binds our magistrates. It

01:07:11.260 binds the government. It says what the government can and cannot do. It is Gavin Newsom, for example,

01:07:16.880 who is bound by the restrictions of the Constitution, not the citizen. Obviously,

01:07:22.380 we have laws that are supposed to be in accordance to the Constitution that we then have to obey.

01:07:27.020 But you articulated that really well. What do you say then to the, as you said, the respectable

01:07:33.360 Christian leaders across the country who have criticized what churches like yours have done or

01:07:37.940 John MacArthur's have done, who have said, you know what, you're not trying hard enough

01:07:41.960 to obey our earthly authorities, as Romans 13 tells us to do. There are different, you know,

01:07:49.320 there are a lot of different avenues they would say that you can explore. You can do smaller house

01:07:53.340 churches. You can continue to meet virtually, whatever. They would argue that someone like

01:07:59.140 you or John MacArthur, you're not trying hard enough to submit to earthly authorities, according

01:08:03.900 to Romans 13. What do you say to those pastors and leaders?

01:08:06.900 Great question. So I get the sentiment, and certainly I've heard that from multiple pastors.

01:08:14.040 You're not trying hard enough to be in submission to the civil magistrate. And I think, well, I feel

01:08:20.580 quite strongly about this, but I think what I would say is that the reason why you don't see us as

01:08:27.080 really striving to be in submission to the civil magistrate is because you are under the impression

01:08:34.480 that God has allowed for a much greater degree of liberty for his church and the means by which it

01:08:43.840 gathers than the Bible actually says. So I think that part of the problem in all this and the reason

01:08:51.300 why I think many churches really, really struggled and didn't necessarily come to the right conclusions

01:08:57.800 and came later or still haven't come to the right conclusion in my assessment of the way that I would

01:09:02.920 interpret scripture, I think is because the church in America has historically had pretty poor

01:09:09.940 ecclesiology, right? So it's not like COVID-19 came on the scene and then all of a sudden, you know,

01:09:15.260 we got bad theology. We respond as the church poorly to the restrictions that came due to COVID-19

01:09:22.580 because we already had poor ecclesiology. Churches didn't start live streaming their services,

01:09:28.140 you know, four months ago, right? I mean, they've been doing this for quite a while. And so I think

01:09:34.140 because of a bad understanding of the Lord's Day gathering, and I think a lot of people at the end

01:09:40.580 of the day, they're like, all right, what, you know, even devout Christians, what I need is a sound

01:09:44.540 doctrine. And that comes from faithful teaching. And I've got, you know, I've got at my disposal,

01:09:49.260 ligonier, and desire for God, grace to you, founders, you know, all these guys. But the reality

01:09:55.340 is, I don't think, and so I've written a little bit on this, but I wrote a piece really trying to

01:10:01.340 highlight that, number one, church is essential, but number two, and I think it's got to be both,

01:10:06.180 church is also unique. There is something unique that happens when the people of God in local

01:10:12.880 assemblies gather together on the Lord's Day in order to administer the ordinary means of grace,

01:10:18.560 which, if I could sum that up, would be, we preach, it's all word-centric, Bible-centered.

01:10:24.000 So it's, we preach the word, pray the word, sing the word, and we see the word in the sacraments

01:10:30.740 or the ordinances of the Lord's Supper and baptism. Those are the only images that God has prescribed

01:10:36.920 by his words. We have, we see, in a sense, Christ in baptism and in the administration of the Lord's

01:10:46.480 Supper. And so we gather together for the ministering of these ordinary means of grace,

01:10:51.160 preaching the word, praying the word, singing the word. And people say, well, I can sing at home,

01:10:55.840 but the Bible's clear. Ephesians, we're addressing not just God, but one another with psalms and hymns

01:11:02.460 and spiritual songs. There's a horizontal element, a corporate element of the saints. You know,

01:11:07.780 we're stirring one another up to love and good works through the preaching, the praying,

01:11:12.340 the singing, and the seeing. And we're called to do that physically, gathered together on the Lord's

01:11:18.440 day. And when that happens, Christ himself is present. The spirit of the risen Christ is actually

01:11:25.840 present in a particular way. And so I think people would say, good Reformed Christians, in many regards,

01:11:31.160 they would say, well, God's omnipresent. I mean, Christ is always present by virtue of the ministry of

01:11:37.100 the indwelling Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit of the risen Christ is constantly present in the life

01:11:42.640 of the Christian by virtue of the indwelt Spirit of God that indwells all Christians. And I would say

01:11:49.360 a hearty yes and amen to that, but I would say in addition to that, like Revelation chapter 1,

01:11:53.760 and I know this is interesting because I think you and Jeff Durbin have been talking about

01:11:57.040 eschatology. And so part of this depends on your persuasion. But Revelation chapter 1 talks about

01:12:04.060 the lampstands, the seven churches, and it talks about how each of them has a lampstand,

01:12:09.740 and each of them also has an angel. And a lot of guys that I would trust in eschatology, historically,

01:12:16.220 theologians would say that, you know, the church itself is the lampstand. The angel is actually the

01:12:21.900 minister, so it's the preacher. And what happens is that when the lampstand is lit, as it were, which I

01:12:29.240 would believe is referenced to the church gathering on the Lord's day. Now the lampstand is lit. And

01:12:35.540 the minister, the angel begins to speak, and I would say that's the minister who is now preaching.

01:12:41.120 The minister in that moment is actually being held in Christ's right hand, and something is not only

01:12:46.760 proceeding from the mouth of the minister, namely the word preached, but the Bible says, Revelation 1

01:12:52.320 says that something actually proceeds from the mouth of Christ, who is the Son of God, a sword, which

01:12:58.240 a word is a double-edged, sharper than any double-edged sword. So there's a word proceeding from the mouth

01:13:03.460 of Christ in the gathered assembly when the lampstand is lit on the Lord's day, meaning that Christ is

01:13:10.980 present in a particular way. And so I think what I would want to encourage some of these pastors with

01:13:16.200 is go back to your ecclesiology. What is the church? And right, we said, well, the church is the people

01:13:22.700 of God, and you're the church gathered, or you're the church scattered, right? So Sunday, the church is

01:13:26.600 gathered. Monday through Saturday, the church is scattered, but you're always the church. And I would

01:13:30.480 say, yes, that is the church in one sense. The church is all those who are adopted by the Spirit,

01:13:37.900 saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. So the church is the people, but the church is also

01:13:42.860 the event, right? And so we're always, well, the church isn't a building. Well, true, right? So

01:13:47.060 you can meet outside. But the church, it may not be a building, but it is a gathering. It literally

01:13:52.300 is a gathering. I mean, the word is ecclesia, it's assembly. And if the church is not assembling,

01:13:57.300 then there is a very, in a very real sense, the church is not, it's ceasing to be the church.

01:14:02.880 The church is a gathering. And when the church gathers, Christ, who is always present by virtue of the

01:14:08.780 Holy Spirit, is now present in a unique way. So church is essential. And I think people say,

01:14:15.860 of course, church is essential. But I think what they really would get at is they say, no, just

01:14:19.960 Christian faith is essential. So your personal, you know, if church can't happen, you're still just as

01:14:26.840 good. You're going to be just as sustained spiritually by your personal devotions, family worship,

01:14:34.620 reading the Bible, singing with your family in your home, those kind of things. Like, why do you have

01:14:39.680 to go to church? So I would want to argue both. Church is essential. And part of the reason why

01:14:44.700 it's essential is because it's actually unique. There are Christian disciplines that occur in this

01:14:49.700 setting that only occur in this setting. And Christ himself is present in this setting in a way that he

01:14:55.840 is not present in any other setting. And God has, throughout church history of 2,000 years,

01:15:00.860 God has providentially sustained his people by the Lord's Day gathering, and I would argue more than

01:15:06.780 he has through personal devotions. For instance, in the Reformation with Tyndale and Luther and guys who

01:15:12.200 translated the Bible, until then, with the Vulgate and, you know, just the Latin, you know, Catholic,

01:15:17.860 Roman Catholic Bible, for 1,500 years of church history, people did not have the Bible in their home.

01:15:23.380 They didn't have personal devotions reading the Scripture. They didn't have these kinds of things.

01:15:27.500 So how did God, for 2,000 years, sustain his people globally? Well, he did it on the Lord's

01:15:33.820 Day. So I would argue, as far as the Christian spiritual vitality and spiritual health and being

01:15:38.440 maintained and sustained by the Lord in spiritual maturity and spiritual vitality, if we look at

01:15:45.580 church history and we ask the question, if we frame it like this and we say, what has God used

01:15:50.760 more to sustain his people? The Lord's Day gathering of the saints or personal devotions Monday through

01:15:57.100 Saturday. Right. Well, it's the former. So I would say both are essential to a healthy Christian

01:16:03.880 life. But if I had to say which one is more essential, I would say the first. It's the

01:16:09.900 gathering of the saints and something happens there that doesn't happen anywhere else. And I think the

01:16:15.180 reason why pastors were so quick to capitulate, for lack of a better word, on this issue is,

01:16:23.740 I think for some, maybe cowardice. But I think for many, it wasn't so much. I don't think they

01:16:29.460 actually thought, to give them the benefit of the doubt, I don't think they thought they were

01:16:32.600 compromising. I think they honestly had a clear conscience because their conscience was clear

01:16:39.040 because their mind was empty, or at least anemic in terms of ecclesiology, just poor ecclesiology.

01:16:47.760 Right. And I think that we take it for granted in the United States that we do have a constitution

01:16:53.520 that protects our ability to freely gather. It's supposed to be without fear of government

01:16:59.360 intervention. Our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, especially in the eastern part

01:17:05.660 of the world, they don't have that privilege. And yet, what do they do? They risk their lives

01:17:10.420 to be able to gather together, knowing that it is very likely that their house church or their

01:17:15.880 congregation or their assembly is going to be broken, going to be broken up. And so if those

01:17:22.600 brothers and sisters see it as essential, even at the risk that is posed to them, then I think we in

01:17:28.900 America, while we still have this right and this privilege to freely gather, I agree with you. In

01:17:34.780 exercising wisdom, like you said, looking at assessing the risk, the proverbial hurricane or tsunami,

01:17:41.880 whatever it is, we need to do everything we can to be able to exercise the privilege, the right,

01:17:47.640 and the grace that we have to be able to gather together. Can you tell everyone where they can find

01:17:53.840 you? Yeah, so rightresponseministries.com is a great place to start. If you wanted to subscribe to

01:18:01.600 our YouTube channel, that would be really great. Another great avenue is just to download our free app,

01:18:05.960 the Right Response Ministries app. And if I could say one more thing, Alex. Sure. Yeah. I think

01:18:12.500 Daniel chapter six is really helpful. And I think Christians need to really think through all the

01:18:18.280 avenues of this. There was a decree that came from the civil magistrate in the land at that time that

01:18:23.500 said that no one could pray for 30 days. And I think the people that you're referencing, like

01:18:28.880 Christians in China, you know, that in nations where there's not that freedom, so they've been

01:18:33.480 exercising civil disobedience for a long time. I think what American Christians, the objection

01:18:39.140 that I've gotten from them is they say, well, but that's when Christians are being specifically

01:18:43.520 targeted. And I think what I would say, well, in the case of Daniel chapter six, we have an edict,

01:18:49.480 a decree that goes out from the king that says that no one can pray to any God, not just the triune

01:18:55.240 Christian God, but any God. So this would incorporate the Buddhists, the Muslim, and it goes even further

01:19:00.240 than says, or petition any man. So the atheist and agnostic is included. It was universal. It was

01:19:06.440 not specifically simply targeting the worshipers of Yahweh, not just Daniel and Israelites. It

01:19:12.720 targeted all people. You can't pray to any God or petition any man. And what Daniel does is, and it

01:19:19.680 was temporary. A lot of people said, you know, I've gotten pushbacks. It was just temporary. It was

01:19:23.900 temporary in the days of Daniel. It was a 30-day ban on prayer. And Daniel continues to pray. And not

01:19:29.980 only does he continue to pray, but he prays three times a day, as was his custom. So he's not ramping

01:19:34.760 it up to just try to stick it to the man. He's not trying to throw unnecessary punches, but he's

01:19:39.880 doing what he's always been accustomed to do, pray three times a day with his windows open. And even

01:19:45.240 the windows open is not trying to stick it to the man. The opening of his windows was actually, again,

01:19:50.080 that right response. That was something that God regulated in his worship, because when Solomon

01:19:55.580 christened the temple in the Old Testament, there was a covenant made that said that if anyone was

01:20:01.940 even held captive in a far distant land, if they would turn and face this temple and cry out to God,

01:20:09.100 God would hear their cry and answer their prayer. And so Daniel is praying with his windows open,

01:20:14.420 facing Jerusalem as he's held in captivity. He's not trying to just throw unnecessary punches. He's not

01:20:19.880 trying to be unnecessarily disobedient or rebellious, but he's doing precisely what God has always

01:20:26.000 commanded him to do. He's following the regular principle of worship, which includes praying,

01:20:30.640 and in Daniel's case, praying with the windows open. And even though this was an edict that affected

01:20:35.960 universally all the population, not just Christians, and even though it was temporary, only for 30 days,

01:20:41.640 I can just imagine the Hebrews saying, oh, it's only 30 days. Surely we should submit to the civil

01:20:46.120 magistrate. God will honor that. But Daniel doesn't do that. And so I think we have

01:20:49.660 biblical texts for this, and we're just not seeing it. And I think it's because of what you said.

01:20:55.900 I think this is a muscle that the church in America has just had not had—we haven't had to

01:21:01.220 work this muscle. And so it's atrophy. It's weak. And I think as time goes on, I think we're going to

01:21:07.880 see a lot of churches that maybe just weren't true churches to begin with, but I think we'll see a lot

01:21:13.280 of other churches, and hopefully more, that are like sleeping giants that the Lord uses, and eventually

01:21:18.300 churches all over, you already see it happening are saying, that's enough. That's enough. And

01:21:22.680 they're rising up to the occasion. And I feel encouraged for what God's doing.

01:21:27.680 Well, that is very well said. Amen. Thank you so much for sharing this insight. It was so encouraging.

01:21:33.060 I know a lot of people are going to be edified by it. I encourage everyone to check you guys out on

01:21:37.720 YouTube and your website. And God bless you guys, and God bless the congregation that you're leaving

01:21:43.020 there in San Diego. Thanks, Allie. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for watching and listening.

01:21:50.260 This was a little bit of a different episode, but I hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope you guys

01:21:55.760 were encouraged. I'm so excited about Monday's episode. I am talking to writer and pro-life

01:22:02.160 activist Samuel Say. He has so much insight about the things that are going on with, for example,

01:22:07.400 Black Lives Matter and people crying out for justice. We are going to talk about what it looks like

01:22:11.820 as Christians to care about justice and to execute justice in a way that is biblical,

01:22:16.520 that honors God and puts the gospel first. So make sure that you turn, make sure that you

01:22:22.600 tune in to that and have an awesome weekend.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 07, 2020

Ep 285 ｜ Is The End Near？ End Times： Part 2 ｜ Guests： Jeff Durbin & Joel Webbon

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