00:04:35.600And again, I think of maybe one way to frame it would be, so what would the fruit of the
00:04:40.700spirit self-control look like in the garden with Adam and Eve?
00:04:45.700Well, you know, the fruit of self-control in the garden before there was sin would have
00:04:51.120been using their strength and creativity and life to obey Christ, to obey God, to be fruitful,
00:04:59.180multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, guard the garden, tend it, and to begin exploring the world
00:05:04.800and making the whole world glorious and beautiful like the garden had begun to be.
00:05:12.200And so I want to, you know, sort of push those things together because I think that's absolutely
00:05:18.340what Christ came to do. Again, we were just singing Christmas carols in the last section,
00:05:23.420And if I can go back to joy to the world, he comes to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found.
00:05:33.700And so the whole, the mission of Christ, you can think of the great commission, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go.
00:05:42.280I think rightly as a renewal of the dominion mandate.
00:05:46.120it's because of christ because he's conquered sin and death that we have access to the father
00:05:53.300access back to the garden well the whole point of that access isn't just so that we would go
00:05:59.300there and stay there the whole point of that access is so that we might know the father
00:06:03.880know his glory know his will and then take that glory out into the world um that was the point
00:06:10.340of the garden the garden was the yeah well the garden was this place where the tree of life was
00:06:15.100where God met with Adam and Eve, where they had fellowship, where Adam can learn from his maker,
00:06:19.880his God, about the way that his wisdom, his glory, and then take that communion, that fellowship,
00:06:26.700that glory out into the world and fill the whole world with that glory. That's the point of the
00:06:30.840Great Commission. And that's what's been renewed through the death, burial, and resurrection of
00:06:36.120Jesus. Amen. Yeah, I think it's important for Christians to understand that the Great Commission
00:06:41.180does not come as a substitute, a replacement for the cultural mandate, but rather the Great
00:06:47.440Commission comes right alongside the cultural mandate and really more of just like an exposition,
00:06:53.720a further exposition and clarifying of the cultural mandate in the sense that it's saying
00:06:58.660because of Christ, because of the second Adam, where the first Adam has failed, the second Adam
00:07:04.000has now made possible that we can fulfill this cultural mandate and here is its truest sense.
00:07:09.300here was what was always intended by it. And it's funny because, you know, Christians will say,
00:07:15.360well, we're just fulfilling the Great Commission and the cultural mandate. That's, you know, that
00:07:19.020was for another time or, you know, mission accomplished, right? We've got, you know,
00:07:24.6408.2 billion people, whatever it is, 7.8 billion people. I think we can call it quits. We're done
00:07:30.020with that. And it's just to pit them against one another. It's like, the best disciples I'm ever
00:07:38.020going to make, Lord willing, by God's grace, are my children. So go and make disciples of all
00:07:45.000nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all my commandments. And the sad thing is,
00:07:51.260I think one of the reasons why the church in America, especially evangelicals, are losing
00:07:55.520is because in the name of the Great Commission, what we did is in order to accomplish the Great
00:08:02.660commission what we put on the altar as our sacrifice was the cultural mandate aka our kids
00:08:08.220so we sent our kids to public school so we'd have more money to give to desiring god and missions
00:08:13.240right we put our kids in and this and we failed in this and we failed in that with our own families
00:08:19.200with our own children um you know we we use birth control and we did you know all these different
00:08:24.080things we we limited you know and and we viewed children as a burden although we would never
00:08:28.560really say it but that that's what we did all in the name of the great commission so we had all
00:08:32.440these gospel conversations with people, and we were very gospel-centered, and we gave towards
00:08:36.720the International Mission Board, the IMB with the Southern Baptists, and all this kind of stuff in
00:08:43.540the name of discipling the nation so that Jesus would come back. And meanwhile, what we did at
00:08:51.740home was we seated every major institution, we gave up the culture, we gave up politics,
00:08:59.900And tragically, most of all, we gave up our children.
00:09:05.020And I think all of that goes back to, again, the Great Commission says, make disciples, baptizing them, and then teaching them everything I have commanded you.
00:09:16.360And I think that's, if we failed miserably, it's there.
00:09:22.880We failed to teach all that Christ has commanded.
00:09:26.500And we know from 2 Timothy 3 that all that Christ has commanded is all of God's Word, which is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness.
00:10:22.900you want to take the the culture for christ he says here i'm going to give you arrows
00:10:30.980i'm going to give you weapons they're called your kids
00:10:35.220um psalm 127 like like arrows in the hand of a mighty warrior so are the children of one's youth
00:10:41.780happy is the man who has his quiver full of them he will not be ashamed they will speak with his
00:10:46.660enemies in the gate right and when his uh when their dad is still in the fray right children of
00:10:52.660the youth. That's right. And, and we, we as a culture and particularly the Christian church,
00:10:59.440modern evangelical church in North America said, no, we've got a better idea. We'll do it our own
00:11:05.260way. And you're right. We shuffled the kids off. We gave them to government schools. Even when we
00:11:10.820brought them to church, we sent them down into the basement to play stupid games. We put them
00:11:15.320in nurseries and we basically taught them that they're not real Christians. We don't think they
00:11:19.600are. They certainly can't be until they get old and they've done drugs for a while. And rather
00:11:27.460than saying, no, these are our weapons, we want them with us in church, we want them to be growing
00:11:31.200up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, as we were explicitly commanded to do. Deuteronomy 6
00:11:38.060says that we are to teach our children to love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength
00:11:41.880when we rise up, when we go by the way, when we lie down, all the time, everywhere. We're to bind
00:11:49.280god's law on our hands and on our foreheads uh we're going to we're supposed to put it on our
00:11:53.180city gates um the you you can't read deuteronomy 6 and say but i guess sending them to places that
00:11:59.560hate god for six hours or eight hours a day would be okay no he said teach them all day long to love
00:12:05.840me everywhere you go there should be reminders of me um and this is how you fill the earth uh with
00:12:15.060my glory. And this is how you're potent. And we basically rejected that and said, no, we've got
00:12:21.620an idea. We're going to do a big extravaganza outreach with explosions and light shows and
00:12:28.280smoke, and it'll be a real kicking rock band. And that's what we're going to do. And that's just
00:12:35.520plain disobedient. Christ said, train up your children. Raise them in the nurture and admonition
00:12:42.740of the lord this is how you raise sharp arrows who will stand with you in the gates um and um but
00:12:48.740one last thing joel i'm sorry i'm rambling but no it's good i just also think in terms of this
00:12:54.680um self-government thing in terms of um uh and then the cultural mandate is the potency of hard
00:13:02.320work and good work in this world uh we're we're in we're being um we've seen anything in the last
00:13:09.780couple of years, we've seen how so many of the industries in our country and our land are run
00:13:14.860by people who hate God. Yes. And so the whole cancel culture thing, if you don't, you know,
00:13:19.840put the rainbow flag in your desk or put it on, you know, the pin on your shirt, you might lose
00:13:24.240your job. If you say you think that sodomy is an abomination, that the murder of babies in their
00:13:29.920mother's wombs is wicked and evil. If you don't celebrate the debauchery, you can lose your job,
00:13:36.460You can get fired. You can get demoted, all those things. And then, you know, now they're coming for the banks. They're coming for, you know, all kinds of things in our life. And we realize, I mean, what have Christians been doing? We've not been taking dominion.
00:13:51.660We've not been saying, you know what, by the grace of God, I want in my field, in my industry, I want to provide the best possible products, the best possible services, so that by my serving the world, I can bless them, but also I can protect the gospel.
00:14:09.140I can protect Christians by, you know, running the best social media platforms, by running the best, you know, whatever, oil companies, the best clothing companies, the best advertising firms, the best banking firms.
00:14:25.040Christians should be running all those things.
00:14:36.360and so so everything you're talking about yes and amen a hundred times and i've learned a lot
00:14:40.100of this stuff from guys like you primarily um and and i've been on you know for the last you know
00:14:44.680two three years now this you know post-millennial kyperian kind of journey i you know when i was
00:14:50.100next 29 i started to kind of resist kyperianism but then i started to realize okay this actually
00:14:54.200isn't kyperianism this is a neo kyper because because they were very much about like let's
00:14:57.720get involved in the culture but but when you ask like what is a gospel issue that affects politics
00:15:02.100and the culture, it's synonymous with the Democrat platform. So how do you know if it's a gospel
00:15:07.980issue? Ending abortion, is that a gospel issue? No, no, no. But wealth redistribution, that's a
00:15:13.920gospel issue. So I was like, all right, well then just forget this. I'm going the two kingdom route,
00:15:18.760you know, and I was, you know, close proximity in San Diego to Escondido and so, you know,
00:15:22.740the R2K radical too. And so my point is theology impacts all of this, right? So is the earth going
00:15:28.620to dissolve like snow, literally? Or is this this sense of like Gary DeMar and some of these guys
00:15:33.140talking, you know, like the old, you know, the old covenant and some of its promises wrapping up
00:15:38.060like a rug and, you know, like is the creation itself groaning with eager expectations for the
00:15:44.400sons of God to be revealed because at that time the creation is going to receive a mercy killing
00:15:49.920from the Lord and be annihilated and disintegrated? Or does creation know something that many human
00:15:57.020beings made in the image of God don't even know themselves. Does creation know that Christ is
00:16:01.820restoring not only his image bearers, but that Christ is going to restore the entirety of the
00:16:06.920cosmos, that the trees are going to be restored, that the new heavens will be on the new earth,
00:16:12.400that when Jesus returns, this rapture idea is the idea of, you know, the 10 virgins and five of them
00:16:18.840are foolish and five of them are wise, right? And when the bridegroom is coming, the five wise who
00:16:23.500had enough oil to where they could light their lamps and see the bridegroom as they run out to
00:16:28.440him, but not to go somewhere else. They run out to him as this welcoming party to greet him,
00:16:33.860to meet him halfway and usher him back. This idea that the dead will rise, first those who are dead
00:16:39.540in Christ and then the living, and we will be caught up together with him in the sky as Jesus
00:16:44.380is going somewhere. He's coming somewhere. Where? To earth. And we're the welcoming committee that
00:16:49.200meets him and then comes back down with him to the world that he's king of, that he is ruling and
00:16:55.400reigning now, but is now returned to physically and the new heavens now on the new earth. And what
00:17:01.640we see is we see this eschaton unraveling before our very eyes, but it's, it's not, it's not some
00:17:08.020entirely new independent separate creation. No, it is a redeemed glorified Alps. Those Alps that I
00:17:16.680remember, you know, going and visiting when, you know, in my earthly life and seeing, and now it is
00:17:21.880the eschatological Alps and that river is, that river is still here, but now it's beautiful. And
00:17:28.160it's, and so my point is when you, when you have bad theology and bad eschatology, when you're
00:17:33.640two kingdom, when you're pre-mill, when you're dispensational, I'll just, you know, these kinds
00:17:37.480of things. And I'm saying it not because I've been on the right side of this theological battle for
00:17:42.26020 years. No, I've been on the right side by God's grace for about two years. And I say it
00:17:46.580with passion and gusto because I've been on the wrong side, not because I've earned my stripes,
00:17:51.200but because I've been on the wrong side and I've been so damaged by bad theology. It wasn't that
00:17:56.480long ago for me. So I can vividly remember the effects of having the wrong theological foundation
00:18:03.400and what it lends towards. And all that back to what you're saying, one of the things it lends
00:18:07.180towards is who cares, right? So your job, your vocation, these kinds of things, at the end of
00:18:13.160the day, right, you're always thinking, you know, some books like Radical by David Platt, you know,
00:18:16.900this kind of, you're always thinking in terms of how can I do the least amount of work possible
00:18:21.260and still make, you know, decent money so that I can leave an inheritance for my children's
00:18:26.980children, so that I can be a good steward and own property and build wealth rather than building
00:18:31.920the pagan's wealth by renting. No, no, no, no, don't own a home and don't do this and don't do
00:18:35.800that. No, you want to work as little as possible so you can volunteer at church and you want to
00:18:40.740make just enough money so you can give everything to the church while limiting your budget as much
00:18:45.520as, and it's just this, it's this truncated, it's like work doesn't matter, right? You always hear
00:18:50.840the old adage, you know, everybody in their deathbed. Nobody ever says I should have spent
00:18:54.280more time at the office. Everyone says I should have spent more time with my family. And there's
00:18:58.820a truth in that. Yes, we should spend time. We are shepherds and pastors in our homes. We should
00:19:03.480spend time washing our wives in the word and training up our children the way they should go
00:19:07.400and being affectionate and rolling with the little ones and laughing, rolling on the floor
00:19:11.140and laughing with them. But then we also should, should clock in 50 hour work weeks and, and out
00:19:17.060work our contemporaries, our pagan contemporaries and do better work. And so to land the plane with
00:19:21.920this, I always think of the Luther quote, you know, the, the, the first imperative of the gospel
00:19:26.380and the cobbler is not that he makes Christian shoes, but that he makes good shoes. However,
00:19:30.820I think you and I would both say, no, it is that he makes Christian shoes because good shoes are
00:19:36.000christian shoes so what makes it christian shoes isn't a crappy shoe with john 3 16 written on the
00:19:41.100bottom of the tongue what makes it a christian shoe is that it's a good shoe it was made with
00:19:45.700ethical plans it wasn't made in a sweatshop with child labor it's sold at a reasonable price it's
00:19:51.860durable and lasts and it's aesthetically pleasing and and in even ironically even if a non-christian
00:19:58.120made that shoe it would be a non-christian making a christian shoe because it it glorifies the lord
00:20:04.980And the sad thing is we've had non-Christians producing Christian products, meaning good products and good services, and now the non-Christians are working in their inconsistencies, their inconsistent worldview is finally starting to rear its ugly head in their products, transing your kids through Disney movies.
00:20:25.120So now the worldview is getting, because, because, right, it was only, it was inevitable.
00:20:29.700It was always a matter of time that their allegiance would work its way into their work.
00:20:34.020Their work is going to reflect their hearts.
00:20:36.060So now that their wicked hearts and rebellious hearts is manifesting in their work, they're