The NXR Podcast - THE CONFERENCE - Reformed Confessionalism - Session 2 - Joel Webbon

00:00:00.240 This is what I want to discuss. So the first of these seven doctrines to rule the world

00:00:04.460 is Reformed Confessionalism. And so what I want to do is I want to take those two words

00:00:09.720 and speak a little bit on each of them. What does it mean to be Reformed? What does it mean

00:00:14.200 to be confessional? But before even getting to that, I want to address the subtitle of the

00:00:18.800 conference. So, you know, Blueprints for Christendom 2.0. The subtitle, it didn't need it. You could

00:00:23.980 have just left it there. It was a catchy title. Good enough. But, you know, after careful

00:00:28.680 consideration, I decided to become worse. And so I thought the subtitle, it really rub some people

00:00:35.460 the wrong way. And I think that there's an immense value. There's a ministry in that. Eric Kahn is a

00:00:41.640 faithful minister in that arena. From time to time, I like to enjoy him. The nice thing about X

00:00:47.600 Twitter is that if I ever get in trouble, you know that every three hours, I've got another tweet from

00:00:53.320 merit coming that'll take the focus off of me. You know, so it's a it's it is a ministry and he

00:00:58.640 faithfully does it. But all that being said, you know, this subtitle of seven doctrines for

00:01:03.300 ruling the world that bothered people. Well, you don't rule the world. Yes and no. Yes and no. So

00:01:09.680 so starting with reformed confessionalism and starting with that word reformed, what's the

00:01:14.520 first, you know, the first rule fight club, right? You don't talk about fight club. Well, what's the

00:01:18.060 first rule of Christendom? What's the first rule for ruling the world? It's properly understanding

00:01:24.660 that you don't rule the world. So in the ultimate truest sense, King Jesus rules the world. In the

00:01:31.100 ultimate truest sense, when I say reformed, what I mean by that is certainly much more can and

00:01:37.640 should be included in that word reformed. It can mean much more, but it cannot mean less than the

00:01:44.700 absolute sovereignty of God over all things. As the late great R.C. Sproul once said, there's not

00:01:51.480 one maverick molecule in all the universe. And the first foundational doctrine for the Christian 0.59

00:01:58.420 in understanding properly their role as a viceroy, as a lowercase r ruler, lowercase k king in ruling 0.61

00:02:08.860 the world, the first thing that they must understand is that there is a king above them,

00:02:13.960 That God is meticulously sovereign in his ruling, in his reigning, in all things.

00:02:20.820 And yet, it's not one or the other, it's both.

00:02:24.460 And yet, although God is the one who rules the world, the next question that we need to answer is how?

00:02:31.680 How has God, who is sovereign, who is king of kings and lord of lords,

00:02:36.000 how has he determined for his rule and reign to advance and be stewarded in this world?

00:02:43.340 And the answer is, through his image-bearing creatures.

00:02:47.460 That's not my idea.

00:02:49.500 That's not even a uniquely post-millennial idea.

00:02:52.880 You can't even get past the first two chapters of Genesis without grappling with this idea.

00:02:59.860 So it's God's world, right?

00:03:01.840 This is my Father's world.

00:03:03.200 It's God's world, but in creation, what God does is he appoints and delegates rulership, dominion, to Adam.

00:03:14.860 And then Adam forfeits this dominion to Satan.

00:03:19.860 But then the question for us, and this is where certain eschatological positions come into play,

00:03:26.340 and there are some debates and disagreements on this,

00:03:30.140 and some people are wrong and some people are right but the question is is is this dominion

00:03:38.680 that that God holds and the ultimate sovereign sense but that he in a secondary sense gave and

00:03:46.660 delegated to Adam and then Adam he forfeited by his sin and handed over to Satan where is the

00:03:53.120 football now right so it started with God it was passed you know to Adam Adam dropped it and fumbled

00:03:59.780 did and Satan picked it up and is that still where the rule and dominion lies or did something else

00:04:06.880 happen in this great redemptive gospel story and and this thing that happened doesn't have anything

00:04:15.240 any bearing on on rule on kingly rule and I would argue I think the scripture argues that yes

00:04:23.980 something happened and yes the football has has changed hands because in this gospel story there

00:04:32.160 is a second Adam there's a better Adam and it's crazy just to think of all the different

00:04:39.420 distinctions I mean you could draw this out for days right the first Adam he begins this

00:04:46.320 probationary period in the garden as a full-grown mature man. Jesus begins his conquest as an

00:04:55.300 infant. Jesus has to resist sin as a two-year-old. Adam can't do it at mature adulthood, and Jesus

00:05:03.800 does it as a toddler, right? And Adam is able to do this in a protective, conducive environment

00:05:13.120 of plenty. A garden where there's only one tree off limits. Everything else is a yes.

00:05:21.960 Whereas Christ, as he's living in his earthly ministry, and then especially when you look at

00:05:27.740 his temptations in the wilderness, Adam is in a garden with plenty. Christ is 40 days fasting

00:05:34.880 in a wilderness with nothing when Satan comes to tempt Eve where Adam is there with her in the

00:05:44.820 garden it's not as though he's absent when the temptation of our first father and mother takes

00:05:50.480 place it is in the context of plenty in a world that is unfallen with two individuals who who are

00:05:57.920 born mature in adulthood. Jesus starts as a child, as an infant, and he grows in wisdom and stature

00:06:05.580 and favor with God and man. And then he's confronted in the wilderness, not a place of plenty, but a

00:06:11.660 place that is desolate, a place of lack. He's hungry and Satan comes to tempt him. And the second Adam,

00:06:19.720 the final Adam, the better Adam, he succeeds where the first fails. And I want to just address that

00:06:25.860 real briefly. Some of the, you know, like we can do, you could call it post-millennial

00:06:30.960 myth busters, you know, a fun game show. Well, you know, Jesus, you know, you post-millennial

00:06:38.380 guys, you're nothing like Christ. You're doing precisely the opposite of what he did. You 0.80

00:06:44.980 know, Satan confronted Jesus in the wilderness and took him up on a high hill and showed

00:06:50.940 them, all the kingdoms of the world, and held that out as a temptation, but as a viable offer.

00:06:58.260 Just for the record, it wasn't a bluff. It was sinful. It was a sinful temptation, but it was

00:07:03.320 not a bluff. Satan is offering the kingdoms of the world because, in a very real sense, he has them

00:07:09.160 at that time, at that moment. God, who is still sovereign over all, including Satan, you think of

00:07:15.820 the book of Job, Satan has to ask permission, and there are very clear boundaries that are prescribed

00:07:21.180 to him by God. Satan is always on a leash. Just for the record, even the Old Testament, Satan still

00:07:27.820 was on a leash. I would simply argue that the leash is significantly shorter now, post-Christ,

00:07:33.800 but he's always, he's a creature. He's always been a creature, and all creatures do not have

00:07:38.620 autonomous freedom. There's something to be said for freedom, but not autonomous libertarian

00:07:44.860 freedom. Satan has never had that. But at this time, as he's confronting Christ, he does have

00:07:51.600 a rather long leash. He was the prince of the air. He was a ruler, in a sense, under God's

00:07:58.360 sovereignty, but still with dominion over the kingdoms of the earth. Why? Because God, who is

00:08:03.800 ultimate king, gave dominion in delegation to Adam, and Adam forfeited it and gave it to Satan.

00:08:09.360 and when this moment happens in the wilderness it's the exact parallel opposite of the first

00:08:17.100 and the last Adam the first is in a garden plenty protection provision Christ is in the wilderness

00:08:25.380 hungry and he's tempted by Satan and here's the thing Satan says if you bow down and worship me

00:08:32.140 I will give to you dominion and kingship over all the kingdoms of the earth.

00:08:38.060 And the answer of Christ, of course, is, well, I don't want that because I don't care about politics.

00:08:46.380 Well, that's the G-H-E-Y version of Jesus, but not the biblical version of Jesus.

00:08:54.440 Jesus is not a pietist, and he is not effeminate.

00:08:58.600 but jesus doesn't say to satan i have no interest in worldly kingdoms no what jesus rejects and

00:09:07.780 refuses is satan's offer to give him those kingdoms because jesus fully intends on taking

00:09:14.920 those kingdoms and he does he does and he does so by his life death resurrection and glorious

00:09:25.140 ascension. He takes rightful dominion over these kingdoms. But the very next question is,

00:09:32.160 does the football now stay with Christ? Well, in one sense, the ultimate highest answer is yes.

00:09:40.420 But in a lower sense, in terms of human agency and means, God is sovereign over the ends.

00:09:47.700 but God brings about his sovereign purposes and ends through means through human agency

00:09:55.880 and Christ now is the second Adam who has taken not been given but taken back dominion over

00:10:03.560 earthly kingdoms from Satan he then delegates that just as God did in the garden with Adam

00:10:10.040 he now does with us his church that Christ is actually expanding of the increase of his

00:10:17.200 government, there shall be no end. He is expanding his kingdom, his rule, his reign in this world,

00:10:23.560 not cataclysmically and suddenly at the very end of the age, which will likely be next Thursday,

00:10:30.440 but instead progressively and gradually, like yeast, leaven, and a lump of dough or a mustard

00:10:39.040 seed that grows not overnight, but progressively in this gospel age, in human history, through time

00:10:45.780 and eventually fills the earth. Christ is progressing. Shout on, pray on. We are gaining

00:10:52.040 progressively, gradually ground. And Christ is doing all this through the agency, the means

00:10:59.400 of his church. Christ's body. You are Christ's body. You are his hands and feet. This is not

00:11:08.300 the prosperity gospel. That's another post-millennial myth buster. This is not the prosperity gospel.

00:11:14.360 if I teach my children as a father every Friday on your way home from work, you should stop by

00:11:20.920 the nearest convenience store and buy a Texas lotto ticket and play the same numbers and use

00:11:28.720 your mother's birthday. And if you do this faithfully, week after week for several years,

00:11:35.200 eventually you will win. That's the prosperity gospel. But me teaching my children, if you work

00:11:42.460 heart, beginning at a young age, and if you make vows to your spouse and keep them, and if you

00:11:51.080 practice integrity in business and in friendship and in parenting, then ordinarily, over a long

00:12:00.240 period of time, long obedience in one direction, ordinarily, not as a guarantee, not that you're

00:12:05.880 entitled and that God somehow owes this to you, but ordinarily as a general principle, you'll

00:12:11.040 experience blessing. That's not the prosperity gospel. That's called Bible. If obedience doesn't

00:12:18.700 bring blessing ever in this life, if that is not something that we can speak as a general principle,

00:12:26.260 then you have to discount so many volumes of the scripture. I don't even, there's hardly anything

00:12:34.820 left to preach. And somewhere along the line, we determined that the prosperity gospel was not

00:12:41.380 merely faith in our faith. That's wrong. That's heresy. It's not merely the power of manifestation

00:12:49.780 or the power of positivity or wishful thinking. All that really is the prosperity gospel, which

00:12:56.240 really is a damnable heresy. But somewhere through the power of pietism and apathetic 0.98

00:13:04.960 theology, I want to say some other words, but we'll leave it there, an apathetic theology,

00:13:12.900 we equated the prosperity gospel not just with faith in our faith or the power of positivity

00:13:17.420 or manifesting, but we actually began to truncate and define the prosperity gospel

00:13:24.080 as any teaching that asserts even the possibility

00:13:27.760 that blessing in this life may come about

00:13:30.620 as a consequence of obedience. 0.89

00:13:34.300 In other words, we damned the Bible.

00:13:38.600 We started calling approximately 85% of the scripture heresy.

00:13:46.420 Woe to us.

00:13:48.360 And when I say us, just to put a fine point on it, 0.98

00:13:50.460 I'm talking about not just Christians

00:13:52.220 and not just evangelicals,

00:13:53.460 but particularly the Reformed camp.

00:13:57.420 And we need to sit with that.

00:13:58.860 We need to feel that for a moment.

00:14:00.860 It was particularly Reformed preachers

00:14:03.880 that overreacted to the prosperity gospel

00:14:06.940 and began to essentially, effectively assert

00:14:10.320 that verses and principles and passages of Scripture

00:14:14.280 that say things like, I don't know, something like this,

00:14:16.800 God will not be mocked.

00:14:18.640 A man will reap what he sows.

00:14:20.620 the reformed camp began to at least subconsciously and indirectly assert that that's wrong.

00:14:33.780 And we need to recalibrate. We need to repent.

00:14:38.920 There are ditches on both sides of the road.

00:14:41.440 The prosperity gospel really is a false gospel. 0.93

00:14:46.000 But the pietism gospel really is a false gospel. 0.75

00:14:50.620 there really is blessing guaranteed in the life to come,

00:14:56.240 but ordinarily as a general principle in this life as well as a result of obedience.

00:15:02.620 And the Bible calls this blessing.

00:15:05.380 Leftists call it privilege.

00:15:09.000 Well, your kids are privileged. 0.61

00:15:12.080 That's white privilege.

00:15:14.020 No, it's not white privilege.

00:15:15.260 It's Christian blessing.

00:15:16.540 if i don't get incarcerated and i don't leave my wife and abandon her and cause my children to be 0.99

00:15:26.920 bastards then yeah my kids are practically it stands to reason they're going to be better off 0.99

00:15:32.240 than other people's kids who do those things that's not white privilege that's christian 0.98

00:15:37.060 blessing and i know that it's there and i can count on it being there because the bible told me so

00:15:44.100 and that's not faith in my faith that's faith in god the giver of all good things

00:15:51.560 for those who would trust and obey until 15 minutes ago that was just called basic christianity

00:15:59.560 and now i have to teach on these things and here's a crazy thing i teach on these things

00:16:04.660 and thousands of people subscribe to my youtube channel

00:16:09.000 like some people ask what what was your strategy over these last three years right response just

00:16:14.800 came out of nowhere and burst it like i literally this was my strategy i came up with this incredibly

00:16:19.480 novel concept i thought what if i did a podcast it was just called theology applied

00:16:25.540 and i'm not saying that to brag i'm saying that as an indictment on 95 of the church

00:16:35.280 I should not, nobody should know who I am.

00:16:38.160 My wife and kids, you know, maybe a church of 100 people as a faithful local pastor, and that's it. 0.87

00:16:43.420 You know how pathetic it is that I'm standing up here right now in front of 800 people? 0.98

00:16:47.780 I am not that smart. 0.99

00:16:49.960 I'm not that gifted.

00:16:53.860 All I decided, by the grace of God and His grace alone, was, hey, maybe obedience is not just theoretical.

00:17:00.420 call. Maybe obedience is not androgynous, right? That the highest calling of any Christian, whether

00:17:09.040 you be male or female, husband or wife or adult or child or master or slave, it's just to glorify

00:17:14.320 God and enjoy him forever. Okay, great. How? Of course, that's the highest call of every Christian

00:17:22.440 to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The question is how? And when we get to the how

00:17:29.680 in daily practice, is that answer exactly the same for a husband as it is for a wife? No.

00:17:38.940 So biblical manhood is not X, Y, and Z. Great. What is it though? Because it's something.

00:17:45.580 And it's not just something inwardly. It's not just something spiritually. It's not just

00:17:52.820 something theoretically. It's something that I can say to my young son. In very practical terms,

00:18:01.600 this is what you do, not just who you are, not just what you believe. Christian obedience in

00:18:07.980 the Christian life is never less than who you are, but it is so much more than who you are.

00:18:14.060 It begins, all Christian obedience begins as a matter of the heart, but it ultimately should

00:18:19.420 come out of our hearts. A wise man once said, you know, theology comes out of our fingertips. Of

00:18:25.200 course it does. How could it not? And if it doesn't, what do you call theoretical obedience?

00:18:34.400 You call it disobedience. That's what it is. What do you call androgynous obedience, generic

00:18:43.660 obedience? Obedience is merely of the heart. And so it really doesn't matter your station in life

00:18:48.200 where God sovereignly appointed you,

00:18:50.080 whether you be a husband or a wife or a child or a parent,

00:18:52.840 obedience is merely in the realm of the heart

00:18:54.800 and therefore it is universal, it is androgynous,

00:18:57.960 it is generic across the board.

00:19:00.060 What do you call that kind of androgynous,

00:19:02.520 generic, spiritual obedience?

00:19:04.880 You call it disobedience.

00:19:09.860 Or you call it, over the last few decades,

00:19:12.540 reformed evangelical obedience.

00:19:15.000 because disobedience and reformed obedience, as of late, have been synonymous.

00:19:24.320 So you do rule the world. If you are in Christ, you rule the world. In the ultimate, highest sense,

00:19:29.180 no. First rule of dominion is to know that you don't rule the world, but God does. Second thing

00:19:35.560 to know, though, is that God works through means, and he has appointed his image-bearing creatures,

00:19:41.620 and especially and particularly those who have faith in Jesus Christ, his church, to be the

00:19:46.860 means and human agency by which he carries out the progressive and gradual growth of his reign,

00:19:53.620 his rule, his dominion in this earth. Not merely the 17th dimension, but in the world. You know

00:20:01.020 who cares about the cosmos, the physical, natural world, the world that actually exists, that's not

00:20:05.640 just theory. The people who care about the world are Democrats, liberals, progressives, socialists,

00:20:13.360 communists, the devil, and God. For God so loved the world. The only group of people that I can

00:20:22.900 even think of who don't care about the physical world is Christians, particularly over the last 0.97

00:20:29.080 150 years. I'll leave that one open-ended. What happened 150 years ago? Schofield. 0.86

00:20:38.660 Darby. So, we should care about the things that God cares about, which is never again,

00:20:46.580 hear my disclaimer, never less than matters of the heart, never less than those things which are

00:20:52.560 eternal. This is not an argument of substitution. This is not an argument of saying God cares about

00:20:58.160 the physical and not the spiritual. That's not the argument. The argument is both, not less,

00:21:05.940 simply more. So you do rule the world. This dominion has been given to you, and there are

00:21:11.880 certain set of doctrines, a certain way of interpreting and understanding God's infallible

00:21:17.040 word that are more helpful and more suitable for exercising godly dominion.

00:21:22.440 so you could call it doctrines to rule the world and it doesn't make you a prosperity preacher

00:21:29.740 it makes you a logical evangelical thinker which again looks like heresy to most of the

00:21:37.380 evangelical world right now because they lost their minds reformed okay last confessional

00:21:45.860 So reformed, certainly much contained in that word.

00:21:50.560 It can be more.

00:21:51.800 It is more.

00:21:52.600 Should be more.

00:21:53.380 Must be more what it is to be reformed.

00:21:55.840 But I'm arguing that it can't ever be anything less

00:22:00.200 than the view that God is absolutely sovereign

00:22:02.360 over every single molecule in the universe.

00:22:04.780 And therefore, in the ultimate sense,

00:22:06.460 you don't rule the world.

00:22:07.420 He does.

00:22:07.900 But in the secondary agency sense,

00:22:11.040 because God, with his sovereign means,

00:22:13.180 works through appointed sovereign ends,

00:22:16.320 works through appointed sovereign means,

00:22:18.200 you do, in a lowercase r, rule the world.

00:22:21.980 That's the reform part, the confessional part,

00:22:24.160 and I'll be done.

00:22:25.960 I'll make it brief.

00:22:27.980 Do not waste your life.

00:22:32.020 Do not waste your, the enemy is at the gate. 1.00

00:22:36.260 We've got drag queen story hour.

00:22:39.200 We've got a million babies being murdered annually

00:22:41.900 annually in this country alone and that's a low number that doesn't even begin you can't track

00:22:48.640 all the murder that's happening with pills

00:22:51.260 the enemies at the gates you cannot listen to me you cannot afford to take the next 40 years

00:23:00.980 to do theology a la carte i get it i know you want to i know that you still think

00:23:08.200 in the back of your mind

00:23:09.720 that if you just have enough time

00:23:11.740 and you just try hard enough

00:23:13.200 that you can outdo the Westminster

00:23:15.560 or the 1689.

00:23:18.700 I love you.

00:23:19.560 I'm not trying to be rude,

00:23:20.720 but it's just the enemies at the gate, 1.00

00:23:22.160 the sons of Issachar.

00:23:23.120 They know the times. 0.63

00:23:23.860 We need to wake up.

00:23:24.660 We need to, you know,

00:23:25.760 see what time it is.

00:23:26.820 You don't, we, I'm sorry.

00:23:28.620 I'm not trying to be rude,

00:23:30.040 but we are out of time.

00:23:31.960 We're in dire straits.

00:23:33.460 We do not have time

00:23:34.800 for you to spend 40 years

00:23:35.940 and then come to the conclusion,

00:23:37.300 and oh, turns out confessional is the way to go.

00:23:41.740 We just don't have time for it, right?

00:23:45.020 When we were living in neutral world, fine, you know, fine.

00:23:48.360 You say, well, I'm Calvinistic Baptist and not Reformed

00:23:51.800 because I disagree with the Sabbath. 0.97

00:23:53.060 That was cute during neutral world.

00:23:57.900 You just don't get to do that anymore.

00:23:59.840 We're not in neutral world.

00:24:01.180 We are a negative world. 0.97

00:24:02.580 There are people who want to kill you.

00:24:04.840 I'm not speaking in metaphors. 1.00

00:24:06.220 They want to kill you. 1.00

00:24:07.080 They want you dead. They hate your children, and they hate you, and we don't have 40 years for you 1.00

00:24:13.260 to find out what good theology is and be like, oh, turns out this guy was right the whole time.

00:24:19.380 Everyone, just like Sproul used to say, everyone's a theologian. The question is not whether but

00:24:23.420 which. You're either a good one or a bad one. So, too, apply the same principle. Every Christian

00:24:27.760 is confessional. You either have a tried and true historic confession of faith, 1.00

00:24:32.720 or you have the confession unwritten organic in constant fluctuation that you're currently

00:24:39.420 writing in the back of your own head those are your options the historic confession tried and

00:24:45.340 true or your confession and in love as your brother in christ let me encourage you with 0.98

00:24:53.740 these words your confession sucks it's not that good you think it's good it's not it's not that 0.98

00:25:00.800 good. So stop wasting time. Your children can't afford for you to waste time. Don't work for 40 0.99

00:25:09.920 years theologically to a confession. Do not see a confession as the finish line of your theological

00:25:16.720 work. A confession is not something to work to. It's something to work from. It's the starting

00:25:23.640 place. And say, well, but I don't know. I haven't read all the scripture citations. And you're

00:25:30.000 telling me to start with man? Uh-huh. Well, why not start with the Word of God? It's so silly,

00:25:36.840 and I really don't have time. Everybody has an interpretation of the Word of God. No one 0.88

00:25:44.440 has the luxury of saying, I don't have an interpretation. I don't have theology. No

00:25:51.120 creed but Christ. Who's Christ? Oh, well, he was born of a virgin Mary. Did he live a sinless life? 0.91

00:25:57.200 by the time you're done you have a creed

00:25:59.860 you just gave me a creed

00:26:01.520 the difference is it's an inferior creed

00:26:04.080 to the apostles creed

00:26:05.500 we could have saved a lot of time

00:26:07.340 if we just started there 1.00

00:26:08.760 we don't have time for Christians to be cute 0.97

00:26:11.560 doctrinally right now 1.00

00:26:12.760 and that's all it is

00:26:13.900 you're just being cute

00:26:15.060 everyone has a confession

00:26:17.900 it's a good one or it's a bad one

00:26:20.600 all a confession is

00:26:22.000 is a systematic theology

00:26:23.680 in a condensed, concise, historic

00:26:26.040 tried and true way to say, this is what the Bible says. Well, I'll take the Bible over the

00:26:31.260 confession. That's not the dichotomy. The confession is simply saying, this is what the

00:26:38.300 Bible means. And you're going to do it or they're going to do it. And when in doubt, you're not

00:26:45.580 choosing man over God. The confession written by man, which is fallible over God and his word,

00:26:52.660 which is infallible. No, what I'm asserting is this. You have no option. It's not whether but

00:26:58.000 which. You will read the scripture through an interpretive lens. And that interpretive lens

00:27:04.000 of what does the scripture mean comes from man. So it is the scripture, God, interpreted through

00:27:11.200 a lens, interpretive lens, man. So now the only question is not God or man. It's which man? You

00:27:18.660 or Calvin.

00:27:21.920 So stop wasting time.

00:27:24.380 So the foundation,

00:27:25.180 the first of these seven doctrines

00:27:26.300 for ruling the world

00:27:27.340 is I would strongly urge all of you

00:27:30.700 to prayerfully and seriously consider

00:27:33.440 reformed confessionalism.

00:27:36.620 Reformed, God is sovereign

00:27:38.340 in the ultimate sense.

00:27:39.580 He alone rules the world.

00:27:42.900 And confessional,

00:27:44.580 a.k.a. everybody's got a theology.

00:27:47.740 It's either mine

00:27:48.540 or somebody else's and honestly in this moment of time given the state of the church and the state

00:27:56.220 of theology we don't need to be popping out any confessions anytime soon by god's great you know

00:28:03.940 maybe there is a confession yet to be written that could be superior to the westminster probably not

00:28:09.560 probably i mean there's one the 1689 but other than that right probably not right there's probably

00:28:16.400 We're probably not going to beat that, but maybe we could because the confessions are fallible.

00:28:20.600 Not as fallible as you, not as fallible as Fred's confession in his head, but they are fallible.

00:28:27.300 And so therefore, it does theoretically stand to reason that they could be topped, but probably not in 2024.

00:28:35.760 That ship sailed.

00:28:36.580 the reality is our fathers and our grandfathers and prior generations recent prior generations

00:28:43.360 we passed on pretty much any hope of being theological superiors to the reformers or the

00:28:51.780 puritans but by god's grace our great great grandkids i'd like to think that our brightest

00:28:59.000 minds are not just behind us but before us i don't think they're in our generation

00:29:03.180 And it may be, like Dusty was talking about small beginnings, it may be that all you do

00:29:09.580 in your generation is set your kids up to succeed. And well done, good and faithful servant. That is

00:29:16.260 a ministry, a massive ministry. I don't think we have a Calvin today, but I don't think we only

00:29:23.220 have a Calvin of yesterday. I think we will have a Calvin of tomorrow. And part of this idea of

00:29:29.520 Christendom 2.0 is believing two things, and this is a winning motto. It is looking with honor to

00:29:37.480 the past with our fathers and looking with hope to the future. Honor towards our fathers, hope

00:29:45.260 towards our future. What evangelicalism by and large has done for at least 60 years, and we could

00:29:51.840 argue much longer, but at least the last 60 years, what it has done is it said your fathers were bad

00:29:58.460 and your future is bleak.

00:30:02.740 And everybody essentially gave up

00:30:05.000 or at least retreated to the realm

00:30:07.340 of private lordship,

00:30:09.740 private devotionals,

00:30:11.200 private Christian faith.

00:30:13.440 Because we were told,

00:30:15.360 we were convinced,

00:30:16.280 it was insisted, 0.98

00:30:17.980 your fathers are bad, 0.99

00:30:19.280 your heritage is bad. 1.00

00:30:22.620 The Crusades?

00:30:24.960 Bad. 0.82

00:30:25.680 the founders of america racist

00:30:30.240 when you teach an entire generation i would argue two or three generations by this point

00:30:37.380 in the west you teach them your fathers are bad your future is bleak and they don't really get

00:30:43.220 to work but if you teach them say your fathers weren't perfect they were men they were fallible

00:30:47.760 they had problems but the headline that's the footnote the headline of the story is that your

00:30:53.800 fathers should be honored and your future is hopeful. That's it. Blueprints for Christendom

00:31:01.720 2.0, in a nutshell, it's post-war sentiment, revisionist history. What you've been taught

00:31:07.580 over the last 60 years in regards to the past is largely a lie. And what you've been taught

00:31:13.960 by dispensationalism for the future, which only includes nine or 10 days left, is also a lie.

00:31:21.400 So be encouraged.

The NXR Podcast - March 19, 2024

THE CONFERENCE - Reformed Confessionalism - Session 2 - Joel Webbon

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript