The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - What John MacArthur Misses With Christian Nationalism

00:00:00.000 Welcome. In the past several weeks, we have seen two examples of high-profile evangelicals

00:00:09.080 who have criticized the positions of Christian nationalism. In particular, John MacArthur and

00:00:15.000 Owen Stran both argued that it is impossible for a nation to be Christian, and they argued that

00:00:22.800 God's kingdom is primarily spiritual. Both of these arguments failed to understand what Christian

00:00:28.980 nationalism actually claims. In particular, they miss these two points. First, that Jesus himself,

00:00:36.000 not the church, has already won the earth by his obedience, death, and resurrection, and therefore

00:00:42.260 Christ himself is entitled to all of its spoils. Second, that though Christ's kingdom is not of

00:00:50.260 this world, his kingdom is most certainly in this world, and it is presently spreading throughout

00:00:57.060 all of this world. These two examples show how, yet again, the evangelical church is largely

00:01:05.200 responsible for the crisis that the West is currently facing. Tune in now as we try to 0.92

00:01:12.040 correct the record as charitably but also as clearly as we possibly can and pave a victorious

00:01:18.700 path forward.

00:01:27.060 All right, gentlemen, good afternoon.

00:01:31.820 Glad to be with you again today.

00:01:33.060 Looking forward to our discussion today.

00:01:34.840 GA.

00:01:36.640 GA.

00:01:37.960 Like a GM, but in the afternoon. 0.99

00:01:39.360 Christian nationalism will be efficient and waste no time. 1.00

00:01:42.040 Fair enough. 0.86

00:01:42.860 GA.

00:01:43.120 GA.

00:01:44.260 G.

00:01:46.040 Can't keep track. 0.85

00:01:47.240 We're talking Christian nationalism today,

00:01:48.920 which for some of our viewers might seem like a bit of a retread

00:01:52.480 because, Joel, you were actually part of the statement

00:01:56.140 on Christian nationalism, which I think can be said now is officially finished.

00:02:01.480 So we left it in draft form forever.

00:02:03.420 And when we first launched it in draft form, we got some pushback that I felt like some

00:02:09.740 of it was, I would think most of it was unfair.

00:02:13.040 But some of the pushback we've gotten recently is, are you ever going to finish it?

00:02:16.760 And that is most certainly fair.

00:02:18.280 So we finally, Dusty Devers, we had a conference about a week ago, and James Silberman and

00:02:23.180 Dusty Devers who are two of the original uh writers for the statement they were physically

00:02:27.600 in town so the three of us together me Dusty and James got together took all the emails with all

00:02:32.700 the suggested uh suggested revisions that we got over this past year because it's been about a year

00:02:37.260 now and uh and worked all those that we thought were legitimate uh feedback we worked all that

00:02:43.420 into the statement and then got the final approval from the other original you know writers and and

00:02:48.940 signers, Jeff Wright, William Wolfe, and a few other guys. And we are releasing it on Monday,

00:02:55.340 March 18th, as no longer in draft form, but move to final form, the official statement Monday,

00:03:00.740 March 18th. Great, great. So obviously, if people have followed your channel, they're aware of this

00:03:06.060 idea and this topic. So as we dive into particularly John MacArthur's comments,

00:03:12.160 I wanted to just take one brief moment and set at least how I came to Christian nationalism,

00:03:18.040 not biographically but why i think it's important for the christian nationalist this is not about

00:03:23.920 whether we feel like we're losing our country although we do this is not even primarily a

00:03:29.720 political movement it's not a third party it's not um we need to take over the republican party

00:03:36.800 and realize the promise that it's that's that's not it for the christian nationalists the reason

00:03:41.480 why we keep bringing this up is for us, we believe that the implication of Christ kingship is on the

00:03:49.420 line. In other words, if you do not take the view that Christ is king of nations and that a nation

00:03:55.560 itself ought to submit to Christ, in my opinion, you have diminished the authority and the reign

00:04:02.240 of Christ in this present age. Right, or to be a little bit more accurate, you know, you may say,

00:04:08.340 well sure a nation ought to we're not saying that uh that there's not a moral imperative um it's less

00:04:13.780 of a that a nation uh is not that it shouldn't submit to christ we're just saying that a nation

00:04:18.960 can't right that nations just you know nations as entities cannot be redeemed and therefore they

00:04:25.160 cannot submit uh to christ they can't you know yeah but i think there are major problems with

00:04:30.460 that that we need to unpack yeah so we want to get into we're going to do something uh first time

00:04:34.860 this experiment for us is we're going to be reacting to some clips, but as I heard what

00:04:41.340 MacArthur was talking about, so often I thought, he thinks we're trying to build a political

00:04:45.700 movement. It will have political consequences and implications, of course, but at the core,

00:04:50.720 that's not what we're about. Dispensationalism has massive political consequences.

00:04:55.080 Well, actually, and Kuyper said, the kingdom of God must be political because every political

00:05:01.060 system is at heart a religious system right yeah right you can't escape politics like there's no

00:05:06.500 perfect system where politics are just set aside politics is literally i think john doyle has

00:05:11.240 described it as uh politics are how things are and religion is how things should be they're

00:05:16.100 intimately connected and a necessity and a brute fact for pretty much all of human beings ever

00:05:21.520 right good all right so we're going to get into uh we have two clips we're going to roll the first

00:05:25.820 one, and then we'll spend some time talking about it. Great. My question is this. Since the

00:05:30.980 theological conclusion of the Great Commission is the victory of the Messiah, how should we consider

00:05:38.440 biblical Christian nationalism, theonomy, and hopeful eschatology? That's a pretty big question,

00:05:45.960 so let's just pick off Christian nationalism. I'll give you a simple answer. There's no such thing.

00:05:53.280 There is no such thing as Christian nationalism. 0.97

00:05:59.340 The kingdom of God is not of this world.

00:06:04.220 Jesus said that.

00:06:05.660 He said, my kingdom is not of this world.

00:06:08.060 If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight.

00:06:12.960 His kingdom is not of this world.

00:06:16.360 The kingdom of this world is a separate world.

00:06:19.620 They're not linked together.

00:06:20.780 Let me say it another way. Nothing that happens in any nation, whether it's a communist nation,

00:06:29.720 a Muslim nation, or a quote-unquote quasi-Christian nation, or an atheistic nation,

00:06:39.700 nothing in that nation politically, socially has anything to do with the advancement of the 0.88

00:06:46.840 kingdom of God, because the kingdom of God is separate from that system. God in His sovereignty

00:06:55.400 is building His church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it, Jesus said.

00:07:01.360 So the idea that you should link up some political effort, some political process, some social

00:07:09.320 process, some gain of power or influence in a culture as part of the advance of Christianity

00:07:17.420 is alien to Christianity. You never have our Lord approaching anything like that,

00:07:24.460 nor the apostles, and particularly the apostle Paul. He sought to gain no favor with the Roman 0.98

00:07:31.480 Empire whatsoever, or for that matter, with any other of the rulers that he ran into during his

00:07:37.600 life. Now, that is not to say that we are indifferent to what happens in the nation.

00:07:43.400 We've been talking about that the last couple of Sunday mornings. We have to be the people who

00:07:50.780 uphold righteousness. When we come to vote, we want to vote for that which is the most righteous

00:07:59.700 Obviously, we can't vote in righteousness, but we have to vote in a way that reflects

00:08:09.480 our commitment to the righteousness of God. 0.99

00:08:14.140 So we couldn't possibly elect somebody who was an abortionist, somebody who was LGBTQ 0.96

00:08:21.760 or LGBTQ affirming, or any other deviation from God's righteous moral standards. 0.91

00:08:29.700 all right okay there we are so that's the that's the first clip and there's a lot in there and we

00:08:38.500 really uh we want to make sure we're focused and two big topics that we want to draw out today

00:08:43.700 are what does it mean that god's kingdom is not of this world and then also we want to talk about

00:08:49.940 the difference between the kingdom of god and the church right right now one question that i would

00:08:55.900 asked macarthur right away is why ought a nation to have righteous laws right right that that

00:09:03.380 if there is not a king who the nation will give an account to if there's not a king over that

00:09:10.720 nation that establishes what is just and true in reality and in truth why ought a nation to have

00:09:18.160 righteous laws right all right so what did you guys hear there in that clip well like you said

00:09:25.240 you know, one would just be, you know, that my kingdom is not of this world. And so we would

00:09:29.160 just... Let's pick that apart a bit then. Right. Yeah. So we just say what Christ is saying is

00:09:34.400 my kingdom is not of this world. That means that the power for his kingdom, the source of its power,

00:09:39.500 the nature of his rule as king of his kingdom is otherworldly. So we're saying that the nature and

00:09:46.260 the essence and the source of power for the kingdom of God, Christ's kingdom is otherworldly.

00:09:53.100 But Christ, what he does not say is he does not say that my kingdom is not in this world.

00:09:57.940 And I think that's another misnomer and just misunderstanding of the temptations of Christ,

00:10:03.800 the three temptations where he's led by the Spirit after his baptism into the wilderness,

00:10:08.680 and there he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights, and he's tempted by Satan. And one of the

00:10:15.680 temptations is that Satan takes him to a high-up mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the

00:10:20.980 world and says that I will give to you these kingdoms of the world if you will bow down

00:10:25.620 and worship me. And Christ, of course, says no. And one of the popular, you know,

00:10:31.220 comebacks, you know, that the dispensational pietist would use towards the Christian

00:10:37.320 nationalists is like, see, you know, you're giving into the temptation that your own Savior

00:10:44.780 resisted, right? So Jesus resisted Satan's offer to possess and to be given these kingdoms of the

00:10:52.200 world, and here you are, you know, trying to take it, and that's why Christian nationalism is wrong. 0.70

00:10:58.420 TKO, I got you, you know, and which it's, I mean, I guess it's cute, but it's very misinformed and 0.96

00:11:05.040 very foolish, and so... That would be like saying, Jesus didn't eat, you also ought to... Right, he 0.97

00:11:10.800 resisted the temptation to take the stones and turn them into bread. So what do we think? So

00:11:18.300 Jesus, when he says, my kingdom is not of this world, he's not saying that my kingdom is not

00:11:22.540 in this world. He's just saying that the source and the essence and the nature of my kingdom is

00:11:27.420 otherworldly. And then second, when Jesus is tempted by Satan in the wilderness, I'll give

00:11:32.660 you the kingdoms of this earth, we would say that that was a real offer. So Satan actually did have

00:11:37.820 dominion over the kingdoms of the earth at that time. God in the highest, truest, ultimate sense

00:11:45.760 that God is sovereign over everything. So Satan as a creature, he's not creator and he's not equal

00:11:51.900 to the creator. He's always been a creature. And as a creature, he's always been underneath

00:11:56.940 the overarching banner of the sovereignty of God as all creatures are. God alone, we believe in

00:12:02.620 human agency, but that has to be explained carefully. God alone has what we would call

00:12:07.520 autonomous libertarian freedom. Creatures do not have autonomous freedom, because by logic,

00:12:14.940 you cannot have two beings that both have autonomous, unlimited, true, unbounded,

00:12:23.520 autonomous freedom. Because one creature's, or one being in this case, God's not a creature,

00:12:28.220 but one being's autonomous, unbounded freedom would encroach upon the other.

00:12:33.260 So Satan has always been underneath the banner of God's sovereignty.

00:12:35.660 We see this in the book of Job, where, you know, have you considered my servant Job?

00:12:39.000 And Satan is allowed to torment Job, but at every stage, the boundaries are set for him by God.

00:12:47.400 So Satan has always been on a leash, even in the Old Testament.

00:12:50.940 Satan was still underneath the overarching sovereignty of God, always on a leash.

00:12:54.420 He's only able to do, as all creatures are, what God in his sovereignty permits.

00:12:59.760 But something happened in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, we believe, to

00:13:04.800 where Satan, who has always been on a leash, he's always been bound in one sense underneath

00:13:10.420 God's supreme sovereignty.

00:13:12.360 There was still another sense in which until the finished work of Christ, Satan, although

00:13:17.300 a creature, although under God's sovereignty, he still had a certain set of dominion over

00:13:22.840 the world.

00:13:23.120 And the reason is because God, who is sovereign over everything, gave dominion to Adam as his image-bearing creature to be his viceroy, exercising dominion and reign and rule in the earth.

00:13:35.720 And so Adam, so God has ultimate dominion.

00:13:39.260 God gives a secondary sense of dominion by way of extension to his representative, Adam.

00:13:46.320 And then Adam ultimately gives up that dominion to Satan when he chooses to sin.

00:13:52.540 So it's God's. God gives dominion to Adam. Adam fails. That dominion goes to Satan. Now when Satan

00:13:59.640 then, to catch back up to the story, when Satan is tempting Jesus in the wilderness and says,

00:14:03.920 I'll give you the kingdoms of the world, one, Satan is the father of lies. But in this case,

00:14:08.500 this is a valid offer. He had the kingdoms of the world at that time, still underneath God's

00:14:12.860 ultimate sovereignty, but he had the dominion that Adam was meant to have because Adam forfeited

00:14:17.540 that dominion by his sin and transferred it to Satan. So Satan's making a genuine, valid offer.

00:14:23.060 I have dominion over the kingdoms of the world, and Jesus, I will give that to you if you will

00:14:27.900 simply bow down and worship me. And Jesus says no. And what the dispensational pietist wants to read

00:14:33.240 into it at this point of the story is that Jesus says no because he has no interest in the kingdoms

00:14:38.700 of this world. Whereas we would say, no, Jesus essentially is saying, no, I will not commit

00:14:44.340 idolatry and bow down and worship you, a creature, Satan, in order to have you give me these kingdoms

00:14:51.740 of the world. Instead, by resisting temptation and dying a substitutionary death for the elect 0.94

00:14:59.200 as a perfect, sinless, spotless lamb, and by way of vicarious resurrection, I will not be given the

00:15:08.580 kingdoms of the world. Instead, I will take them. So we don't see Jesus telling Satan no because

00:15:14.840 of indifference or lack of interest. Christ is actually going to receive kingship over the

00:15:23.620 nations of the earth, and not just in the eschaton at some futuristic point, but he's actually going

00:15:30.960 to receive them in his earthly ministry at the point of his death, burial, and resurrection.

00:15:36.980 but he's not going to be given those kingdoms, Satan actually giving them to Christ by Christ's

00:15:43.280 treason, by his failure, but instead by Christ's righteousness and his refusal to bow the knee to

00:15:50.200 Satan. He's not given the kingdoms from Satan, but rather he snatches them from Satan. So his

00:15:56.440 kingdom is not of this world. That means it's otherworldly in terms of its source of power

00:16:01.360 and its essence, the way in which he rules, but his kingdom is in this world. Not of,

00:16:07.040 but it is in this world. And then the kingdoms of the world, which were rightly Adam's,

00:16:12.500 Adam forfeited and then gave to Satan, Jesus doesn't say, I'm uninterested and don't want

00:16:17.340 the kingdoms of this world. No, he says, I'm uninterested in idolatry and being given those

00:16:23.280 kingdoms, I'll earn them rightfully, they're mine, and I'll do it through righteousness

00:16:27.920 and not concession. So those are two just very easy points that we could say, MacArthur,

00:16:33.660 you're not understanding the text. I have just a follow-up on that and then go to you.

00:16:38.600 It's interesting that the real temptation there was not that Christ would take the kingdoms.

00:16:43.800 It's that Christ would not have to endure the Father's wrath. And I think that there's a link

00:16:49.560 between the fact that Christ, by his blood, gained the kingdoms, the right to the kingdoms,

00:16:55.200 and Adam ought to have, by the blood of his work and sweat, would have gained the world.

00:17:03.700 And Adam abrogated that, and Christ fulfilled that.

00:17:09.060 He went through the...abrogated that.

00:17:10.940 He fulfilled the...he went through the difficulty.

00:17:14.840 It was always going to be difficult.

00:17:16.080 It was always going to be work.

00:17:17.680 Christ went through it the difficult way rather than, quote-unquote, accepting it from Satan.

00:17:22.600 Right.

00:17:22.700 The whole narrative of the Old Testament too is the expectation, so Deuteronomy,

00:17:27.600 the expectation of a prophet like Moses who will speak God's words. As you get later on to the

00:17:31.700 exiles of the Israelites, there becomes this expectation of a new covenant. You see in Daniel

00:17:36.060 and Isaiah this expectation of a king and a ruler. So the whole Old Testament is building up to this

00:17:41.140 point of expecting a Messiah, expecting a ruler, expecting someone to redeem Israel from her

00:17:46.660 bondage. Jesus comes onto the scene. I think Mark kind of lays this out chronologically best.

00:17:51.480 Jesus is born.

00:17:52.780 He's driven into the wilderness.

00:17:53.920 He's tempted, like you said, with those temptations to take the easy way out.

00:17:57.620 The second he's done with that, angels minister to him.

00:18:00.260 And then Mark 1.15, Jesus goes out and he begins proclaiming,

00:18:03.820 the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

00:18:05.740 It's here.

00:18:06.560 The whole Old Testament expectation that the kingdom of God would break into history

00:18:10.580 in its finality, put an end to death, Isaiah chapter 25, has started.

00:18:14.880 And so the kingdom has arrived.

00:18:16.400 Repent and believe the gospel and the good news.

00:18:19.100 And then just one more thing related to...

00:18:20.540 Because the king has arrived.

00:18:21.100 Wherever the king is, there is the kingdom.

00:18:23.080 It's in your midst.

00:18:24.400 Jesus says it's in your midst.

00:18:25.740 Go ahead. 0.99

00:18:26.160 Yep, the new Adam.

00:18:27.200 And MacArthur mentions, so he's referring to John chapter 18.

00:18:30.420 In John 18, where Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world,

00:18:33.900 the specific context is he's in front of Pilate. 0.99

00:18:36.380 And you have to remember, the Jews, they were subservient.

00:18:38.960 They were captured by the Romans, so they couldn't execute their own laws.

00:18:42.120 So you had these religious rulers.

00:18:43.160 They really hated Jesus, but they didn't have the political or the rules,

00:18:48.400 the judicial power to actually put him to death.

00:18:50.420 They had to go to the Romans and say, hey, he's subverting our rule.

00:18:53.580 He's subverting our religious customs. 0.99

00:18:55.520 Can you put him to death? 0.75

00:18:56.340 So Pilate queries Jesus. 0.90

00:18:58.000 He says, so are you a Jew?

00:18:59.100 Are you about to lead this uprising?

00:19:01.080 That's the context where Jesus says, my kingdom is not identified with this Galilean Jewish nation.

00:19:08.260 It's not Israel.

00:19:08.940 My kingdom is not this physical Israel right here.

00:19:11.500 My kingdom is from above.

00:19:13.080 That's the specific context.

00:19:14.340 And of course, referring back to Mark and other places,

00:19:17.200 the kingdom that comes in,

00:19:18.780 most certainly is in the world, is arrived.

00:19:20.900 Not of the world, but in the world.

00:19:22.620 Exactly.

00:19:22.740 And like a little bit of leaven.

00:19:24.020 I was about to say, and growing.

00:19:25.880 Yeah, exactly.

00:19:26.800 It's arrived, is growing.

00:19:29.780 A soon and sudden and cataclysmic.

00:19:32.980 Right. 0.52

00:19:33.660 But instead, that's the dispensational pre-mill thing.

00:19:36.380 It's going to be soon.

00:19:37.600 It's going to be all at once, cataclysmic and sudden.

00:19:42.120 Soon, sudden, and cataclysmic.

00:19:43.460 Instead, we believe that it's going to be slow, progressive, gradual, long.

00:19:51.060 It's going to go over time.

00:19:52.780 And that's how Jesus speaks of the kingdom.

00:19:56.340 What's it like?

00:19:57.420 To what shall I compare it?

00:19:59.200 A mustard seed, right?

00:20:00.800 And we all know we've planted a mustard seed in our backyard.

00:20:03.400 And we turn around five seconds later and there's a full tree.

00:20:07.560 No, right?

00:20:08.860 Or leaven, working through the batch of dough.

00:20:11.600 there's a progressive process. And for the record, when we say it's gradual and slow and takes time,

00:20:19.520 that does not mean that it's going to be a perfect trend upwards. Just like stock market.

00:20:27.140 People are like, well, stocks are dangerous. Don't do that because it can crash. Sure,

00:20:31.540 if you're talking about two years. But there has never been a 30-year period in the history of the

00:20:37.640 stock market where it's been down not even close you know and so uh that's that's what we're saying

00:20:43.040 i would say right now we are yeah we're not we're not naive uh times are tough right now things are

00:20:49.300 not going very good we would say that we are in a um a serious dip and not just for the record

00:20:54.820 um if you're listening and you're like yeah man we've been in a dip ever since covid for the last

00:20:58.900 three years it's like that's cute um no no no when we say we're in a dip we're saying at least since

00:21:04.500 the Enlightenment, if not arguably the Renaissance, right? Two sides of one coin, Reformation,

00:21:10.040 Renaissance, and with the Renaissance having some of this bad code baked into the system that

00:21:16.060 begins to materialize further with the Enlightenment and then all that in post-modernity and now with

00:21:21.760 clown world. So I'm completely content to say that we've been in a 500-year dip, definitely 300-year

00:21:29.320 dip definitely at least 130 year dip you know like so um uh post-millennialism and we'll get

00:21:37.200 to because not all christian nationalists are post-millennial including the dude who wrote the

00:21:40.980 book on it right um you know and that's that's worth noting but uh even for the post-millennial

00:21:45.300 christian nationalist guys uh we're we're saying it's slow it's progressive it's gradual over a

00:21:51.020 long period of time that's the nature of the kingdom it's otherworldly and it is in the world

00:21:56.600 now. That leaven is in the batch of dough. It's infiltrated in. When did that happen? 2,000 years

00:22:02.680 ago in the earthly ministry of Christ by virtue of his life, death, burial, resurrection. The leaven

00:22:09.060 has entered the dough, and it's being worked now through for these past 2,000 years, the whole

00:22:14.260 batch, or the mustard seed has been planted. Jesus, like a seed, he even says this. I tell you the

00:22:19.380 truth, that unless a seed, lest it first die, it cannot bear fruit. The seed has to go into the

00:22:26.400 ground, think burial, and it has to die. That's what the seed does in the ground. It dies, it's

00:22:33.440 buried, and then it sprouts forth new life. Sound familiar? That welcome to Christianity 101. That's

00:22:41.100 the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then it grows from then on. So it's something that I think

00:22:47.360 we need to be able to definitively say. And there's an example that I think is maybe more

00:22:54.820 clear to us, because it's obvious. In John 8, 23, Jesus is talking to the religious leaders,

00:22:59.620 and it says this. He said to them, you are from below, I am from above. You are of this world,

00:23:06.900 I am not of this world. That's the same idea. My kingdom is not of this world, I am not of this

00:23:12.480 world. No one in their right mind, maybe some of the Gnostics, would have said Jesus was not 0.95

00:23:16.860 actually in the in the world right at that time exactly that's exactly the point and and in fact 0.52

00:23:21.920 i i love the language of john one this might have said that areas we but santa claus punched him

00:23:27.380 punched him in the face for it right at least so bless uh john 1 9 says that the true light which

00:23:31.620 gives light to everyone was coming into the world there's this idea of the light was not in the

00:23:36.460 world previously and then john i love it it was coming into the world in the same way when jesus

00:23:41.600 was here on earth, he says the kingdom is breaking into the world. And that's the process

00:23:49.640 that is happening now. It's breaking slowly but progressively into the world more and more.

00:23:55.880 That is precisely why we're commanded to pray, thy kingdom come, that will be done on earth.

00:24:02.760 On earth.

00:24:03.480 And so it should not trip us up anymore when someone says, well, Jesus said, my kingdom

00:24:08.480 is not of this world it would be a problem if it was it's not of this world it's in this world

00:24:13.520 jesus took on a physical body for the rest of his existence if you think about it chronologically

00:24:19.180 so invested in this world a real physical cosmos that he's going to rule and dwell in bodily that

00:24:25.360 he took to himself human nature permanently didn't pick it up for a little while because i have to do

00:24:30.840 this in some sense to return to the better which is the spiritual he is forever now the god man

00:24:36.040 I'm going to take on human nature and redeem humanity.

00:24:39.420 And human beings, myself included, at least in some sense,

00:24:42.460 the God-man will eternally be this in a redeemed cosmos.

00:24:46.200 Right.

00:24:46.780 Yeah, God loves the world.

00:24:48.500 All right.

00:24:48.900 All right, let's hit our first commercial then.

00:24:51.100 Yeah, we'll hit our first commercial.

00:24:52.200 And then when we come back, maybe you'll frame it up.

00:24:53.840 And then a second clip from John McCarthy.

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00:26:05.960 All right, we're back. So we're going to jump into clip number two. I did notice in the first

00:26:11.240 clip that MacArthur was very comfortable calling a lot of other nations Muslim nations or atheist

00:26:17.580 nations. And I just wanted to bring attention to the fact that Kuyper at one point just absolutely

00:26:22.420 nailed this, although he didn't have the term Christian nationalism. He was writing along

00:26:26.300 these veins, and he said, Christ is Lord of every nation, because every nation, every political

00:26:30.900 system is fundamentally religious at its core. And so every nation must bow the knee, because

00:26:36.580 it's a religious proposition that governs itself with structure, society, rules, laws, etc.

00:26:43.920 All stemming from a worldview. And that's what a culture is, from the Latin word cultus,

00:26:47.700 which means worship it's all it's all defined by worship and so you know i but i agree that's a

00:26:52.660 good thing to point out is like okay there can you know macarthur wouldn't have a problem saying

00:26:56.120 that you know this is a muslim nation or this is a hindu nation um but then there's a problem when

00:27:00.980 it's a christian nation and we can switch it so they're they're um he's able to recognize there

00:27:07.020 are certain nations but not christian ones uh but then he's also on the flip side uh able to

00:27:11.980 recognize uh that there are christian things besides just regenerate individual people yes so

00:27:17.060 But, you know, like MacArthur has used over 50, you know, 53 years of ministry talking about Christian families and talking about Christian families without equivocation, without apology with infants, that there's no definitive way of being able to judge whether or not that member of the family is actually regenerate.

00:27:37.380 So he's perfectly comfortable calling a family and has said this, that a family is Christian, even if the children aren't yet saved.

00:27:46.120 And in fact, the Apostle Paul would go even further and say that the family is Christian, even if both of the parents aren't saved.

00:27:52.580 And what's really crazy is that you would typically think in a covenantal framework that, you know, okay, well, there's got to be at least one saved parent for the family to be properly labeled as Christian.

00:28:05.240 And that one saved parent must be the husband because the husband is the covenantal head.

00:28:09.000 He's the federal head.

00:28:09.780 But the Apostle Paul actually makes it clear that the woman, the wife being Christian with

00:28:16.720 an unregenerate husband would still be enough for the family to be, in a proper sense, called

00:28:22.300 Christian to where the children should be viewed as holy. And I understand that as a Baptist,

00:28:28.400 you're going to interpret that a little bit differently, but you got to do something with

00:28:34.040 it. So MacArthur's fine with Christian schools. He's fine with Christian families, but he doesn't

00:28:39.160 like Christian nations. He's also fine with Muslim nations or Hindu nations or atheist nations but

00:28:44.320 not Christian nations. I think that there's just an inconsistency. Good. All right, well, we're

00:28:51.100 going to go to the next clip. It's a little bit shorter, and here he will mention a little bit

00:28:56.420 the link to post-millennialism, which we could or could not get into, but we definitely also

00:29:00.080 want to talk a little bit about the difference between the kingdom and the church. Right.

00:29:03.640 But in the end, we do what we can with the understanding that the responsibility of the

00:29:11.340 church is not to advance the kingdom of this world. That's a faulty viewpoint.

00:29:19.340 Christian nationalism is usually tied to what is called post-millennialism,

00:29:24.240 and that is the view that the church somehow, by influencing the culture,

00:29:28.480 can bring in the kingdom of Christ. In other words, it's the idea not that Christ returns

00:29:35.360 and sets up His kingdom, but that the church establishes His kingdom and then hands it to Him.

00:29:42.340 That is not what Scripture teaches. What Scripture teaches is what we're learning from the book of

00:29:48.520 Revelation. Things are going to get worse and worse and worse, and the end of human history

00:29:54.240 is not the church triumphant reigning in the world and taking over the structures of human

00:30:02.120 kingdoms. That's not what happens. At the end of human history, the believers are persecuted

00:30:09.820 and murdered, and that's the very opposite of what Christian nationalism would anticipate. 0.76

00:30:20.060 So we believe the Bible teaches that things get worse and worse,

00:30:23.640 headed toward the wrath of God, which we're seeing in Revelation,

00:30:26.520 and then our Lord returns himself to establish his kingdom.

00:30:31.120 It's clearly what we read in the book of Revelation.

00:30:35.700 Okay, so two quick comments about this, and then I'll head it off to you guys.

00:30:40.500 The first that I have to say is just an aside, and we don't have to get into it,

00:30:44.620 but it's so interesting to me whenever people say the world is going to get worse and worse,

00:30:47.720 we forget that that would have to be from that point not from the height of civilization that

00:30:54.380 the west was able to achieve through its christian perspective if the word if the if the world was

00:30:59.440 getting worse and worse from the time of christ i mean it was already pretty bad it was bad yeah

00:31:03.440 so that's just one thing that we forget we we actually can only say that we're getting worse

00:31:07.280 because we had achieved such a height okay right exactly um that's that's uh you're skipping over

00:31:13.760 that real quick and it works you know on the dispensationalist they'll fall for it but for

00:31:18.620 anybody who's um you know really thinking logically about that uh you have to what macarthur is saying

00:31:25.200 what he's uh you know asserting that the bible says um is is i think unhelpful particularly

00:31:32.480 because it makes uh it makes the bible look untrue right because he's saying well the bible

00:31:36.600 clearly teaches in revelation that things get worse and worse and worse uh okay but for 1500

00:31:41.200 years it didn't yep the opposite occurred for 1500 years from the coming of christ all the way up

00:31:47.420 until you know some of the climax of christendom uh things did not get worse and worse they got

00:31:52.540 better life expectancies longer global hungry down global poverty down um in terms of the

00:31:59.780 christianizing of the world the gospel going out massive the number of conversions and not just

00:32:04.780 because the total population of the world has increased but in percentages of population of

00:32:09.300 the world. Much higher percentage of Christians in the world today than there were at the time 0.95

00:32:15.020 of Jesus. At every single level, the world has gotten better for the vast majority, the lion's 0.99

00:32:20.660 share of these past 2,000 years since the coming of Christ until, relatively speaking, only recently.

00:32:27.700 Which is why dispensationalism is, relatively speaking, a recent phenomenon. Because

00:32:33.920 dispensationalism just at a practical historical level, much less the exegetical level, but just

00:32:39.180 practically logically and historically no one would have ever even considered it until it came

00:32:44.840 on the scene 150 years ago with schofield and darby uh because backed up by two world wars

00:32:49.440 two of the worst wars everything we thought we're going into a golden age that's right back to back

00:32:53.980 culminating in yeah that's what happened it's it's it's the it's newspaper exegesis that's all it is

00:32:59.680 it's not biblical exegesis it's newspaper exegesis it's schofield and darby 150 years ago and then

00:33:05.820 their doomsday seemingly you know at a level of optics it looked as though um yeah these false

00:33:13.000 prophets uh were validated uh with world war one world war two and yeah and the post-war sentiment

00:33:19.200 has been uh a dispensational defeatism things are going to get worse and worse and worse but if you

00:33:24.380 look pan out the 30 000 foot view over 2 000 years of church history uh that is the minority report

00:33:30.060 yep yeah i was gonna say too so he mentions this is largely tied to post-millennialism and he offers

00:33:36.940 some caveats that not necessarily every single one uh but my dad is a great godly man and he's 0.98

00:33:41.680 a pre-mill dispensationalist and i love him and he does great work because he's not a pietist

00:33:46.020 because he says we should still be out there we should be preaching the gospel we should be saving

00:33:49.400 souls and he would 100 agree that we should be a christian nation uh because it's it's really

00:33:54.560 pretty simple even if he said jesus might come back in 500 years no one knows the day or the

00:33:59.660 hour. He could come back in hundreds of years, and until that time, it is still good and right

00:34:04.440 for us to pursue a Christian nation for our children and for our grandchildren that just 0.64

00:34:09.080 practically makes sense. It's almost the luxury. We owe a lot of respect for John MacArthur, 0.59

00:34:14.600 but I mean, he's sitting in a multi-million dollar building, surrounded by thousands of

00:34:18.640 individuals that paid to be there, protected likely by security, talking about things get

00:34:23.820 really bad, and there's all this persecution coming. Well, no, actually things have gotten

00:34:28.380 pretty good, and you've benefited a lot from that. That's not the pick on you. He's built a great

00:34:32.080 thing there with Master's Seminary and Grace to You and with Grace Community Church. You've built

00:34:36.460 an incredible church. You've built a seminary that's put out many men, done all this scholarship.

00:34:41.300 Can't you see that by God's grace, he's doing a lot of good and that the good you've actually

00:34:45.780 done in your life has grown? Master's Seminary wasn't there when you first started pastoring.

00:34:49.900 Grace Community Church wasn't 3,000 people when you started pastoring. So some of that negativity,

00:34:54.620 it's almost read in artificially i think would be the best word we've been blessed a lot and

00:34:59.920 that's evident in the conferences the events in the church that you put on good right okay so um

00:35:05.580 he says that it is not the responsibility of the church to advance the kingdom of this world

00:35:12.020 and i would say to advance the kingdom of of christ in this world no he said and i and i and

00:35:18.580 i copy i wrote down what he said it is the church is not the responsibility of the church is not to

00:35:23.600 advance the kingdom of this world. This is where I think he's not understanding what the Christian

00:35:27.400 nationalists are saying, because we would 100% agree. We would 100% agree. I've never heard any 0.81

00:35:32.900 Christian nationalists say we should advance the kingdom of the world. But when it comes to the

00:35:36.660 kingdom of Christ, yes and amen. So I think it's worth it at this point to spend a little bit of

00:35:42.880 time talking about what we mean by advance Christ's kingdom. The church is the battering ram

00:35:49.080 right, that will endure to the end and break down the stronghold of Satan, but that doesn't mean

00:35:56.000 that the church is synonymous with the kingdom of God. And I think this is where one of the

00:36:03.420 fundamental disagreements is, right, where we would say God's kingdom includes the church,

00:36:10.120 but it is bigger than the church, right? And if that distinction is not clear, people might not

00:36:15.840 agree with us, but if they don't understand that distinction, a lot of what we're saying

00:36:19.600 might sound like we're just the moral majority, again, trying to reestablish a Christian conservative

00:36:24.500 movement for American political power. So guys, let's talk about what that means, that the church

00:36:30.380 is different than the kingdom of God. Well, one very helpful parable, and there's many, but

00:36:37.080 Jesus is talking about, again, what is the kingdom of God like? What is its essence,

00:36:44.180 its nature, its function. So this is Matthew 13, verses 47 through 50. Jesus says, again,

00:36:52.140 the kingdom of heaven is like a net. So the kingdom, not the church, but the kingdom is like

00:36:59.000 a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew

00:37:07.180 it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers, but threw the bad away. So it will be

00:37:15.680 at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw

00:37:23.060 them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So in this

00:37:30.640 illustration that Christ provides for us, the net is representative not of the church, but of the

00:37:36.020 kingdom. And the idea is that there are men, certain men, who once the nets have been completely

00:37:43.400 drawn, once it's all been drawn in, there are men who will then sort good fish from bad fish. And

00:37:50.440 these men, I believe, are in this parable, are representative of the angels. Because Jesus tells

00:37:57.600 other parables elsewhere of, you know, like a field where, you know, an enemy of the master

00:38:03.440 who owned the field. The whole field belongs to the master. But an enemy in the night came and

00:38:08.900 sowed bad seed so that there were tares among the wheat. And the disciples asked, should we pluck it

00:38:17.200 up? And he's like, no, wait until the harvest, the end of the age, lest you damage the wheat

00:38:23.160 and plucking up the tares. But we'll go ahead and sort it out when it's all done. The whole field

00:38:28.400 is mine. And we'll sort it out. What is wheat? What is good? And what are tares or weeds bad

00:38:35.600 at the end? So this is not the only time. It's not just a one-off situation for Christ. So I take

00:38:40.940 this to mean that there's the men who sort the fish, and Jesus also says, he interprets and says

00:38:48.500 it's the angels that are going to sort. The angels are going to sort the wheat and the tares at the

00:38:54.560 end of the age, the wheat to be gathered up into my barn and the tares to be thrown into the fire.

00:39:00.540 And same here, he uses the fiery furnace for bad fish. And so I take it the men that are sorting

00:39:07.440 the fish at the end of the age are representative of the angels. But implicitly in this parable,

00:39:12.540 it's not direct, but there is a second set of men. The first set of men that are explicitly

00:39:18.540 mentioned are those who sort the fish. I think that's referring to angels. That happens at the

00:39:23.680 end of the age. Implicitly, the second set of men that's implicitly in reference would be the men

00:39:30.420 who are working the nets, who are casting out the nets and drawing them back, casting out the net

00:39:36.100 and drawing it back. And I believe that these men, Matthew Henry says this, John Gill says this,

00:39:41.180 these are the faithful gospel ministers. In a general sense, this would be representative

00:39:47.580 of all Christians who are to do the work of an evangelist, and in a proper, more particular sense,

00:39:53.680 It's representative of gospel ministers, pastors and elders in the local church who are tasked

00:39:59.600 with preaching the gospel. 0.97

00:40:01.540 So it's Christian men who are casting the net, and then it's angels, once the nets have 0.96

00:40:08.500 all been cast and all been drawn, and the end of the age has finally arrived, and all 0.93

00:40:14.200 the fish are no longer in the sea, but rather laying on the shore, it's the angels then

00:40:19.060 that come and separate the good fish from the bad fish.

00:40:22.580 Now, a last implicit thing that I take from this parable, just like the other parable,

00:40:27.800 the wheat and the tares, Jesus says, let's wait.

00:40:30.520 We don't want to damage the wheat prematurely when it's still in its growth stage.

00:40:34.960 Let's wait instead until the harvest, once the wheat is fully mature, then we'll go and

00:40:40.200 harvest everything.

00:40:41.760 And once it's all harvested, then we'll segregate the wheat from the tares.

00:40:46.720 Well, we know in that parable, they're going to harvest the whole field.

00:40:50.920 There'll be nothing left in the ground.

00:40:52.580 the whole field will be harvested, and the tares will be burned, and the wheat will be stored in

00:40:57.440 the barn. I think implicitly in the parable of the net, again, Matthew 13, verse 47 through 50,

00:41:04.360 the implication is that the men, gospel ministers in a proper sense, and all Christians in the

00:41:11.240 general sense, are working the nets, that is casting and drawing, casting and drawing,

00:41:16.260 and the implication is that they would catch every single fish in the sea.

00:41:22.580 before the end of the age, that the sea would be fishless, that they're going, they're fishers of

00:41:27.660 men, and they're going to catch every single fish there is, and then at the close of the age,

00:41:32.820 the angels would come, and not every single one of these fish that are not, now have been caught,

00:41:39.200 not every single one of them will be, in fact, good fish. Many will be bad fish and burned,

00:41:45.760 but many, by the grace of God, will be good fish. That is, so my point is this, the net is not the

00:41:52.260 church, the net, Jesus says explicitly, the kingdom, not the church, but the kingdom of

00:41:58.340 heaven is like a net. So the net is the kingdom, not the church. If we want to read the church

00:42:04.220 into the parable, it's not proper to say the church is the net. It would be proper to say

00:42:10.940 that the church, in speaking of the invisible, universal, lowercase c, Catholic church,

00:42:19.660 that church is not the net, but rather it is all of the good fish that have been caught and drawn

00:42:27.940 to the shore from the net. So the church would be the good fish. The net is larger than the church

00:42:34.520 because it doesn't just encompass good fish. It encompasses all the good fish and a whole bunch

00:42:40.000 of bad fish. Ergo, my final statement is the kingdom, if we were drawing two circles, the church

00:42:47.180 would be not a Venn diagram. The church would be a smaller circle, and the whole circle of the

00:42:52.920 church would be within the larger circle of the kingdom. But these two circles, they don't merely

00:42:59.480 overlap. It's not, here's the church circle, here's the kingdom circle, like a Venn diagram

00:43:05.480 and a partial overlapping. No, there'd be one big circle, the kingdom. Then within that big

00:43:12.640 circle of the kingdom, there would be a smaller circle, the church. And that's how Jesus speaks

00:43:18.720 of the kingdom. We have to be careful to guard the definition of the church. So your family doing

00:43:24.140 family worship, maybe you would disagree with me, is not church in the proper sense. It is good and

00:43:29.480 right. And I would say the kingdom of God is there as you catechize your children, as you sing songs

00:43:33.760 and worship Jesus. But strictly speaking, it is not the people of God gathered on the Lord's day

00:43:38.600 for the administration of the sacraments.

00:43:40.760 That's what the church is.

00:43:42.140 Then you have the family.

00:43:43.140 The kingdom, again, like I just said,

00:43:44.680 it's present in the family,

00:43:45.920 and it can even be the three spheres,

00:43:48.100 the church, the home, and the state.

00:43:49.740 It can also be present in the state.

00:43:52.160 Dusty Devers, when he maybe prays in the morning

00:43:54.220 before legislation in Oklahoma,

00:43:55.960 where he's a senator,

00:43:57.460 that's not the church.

00:43:58.920 Church doesn't happen on Tuesday morning

00:44:00.420 at the Oklahoma State House.

00:44:02.900 No, the church administers spiritual things

00:44:04.880 for spiritual good.

00:44:06.060 The family helps order natural institutions

00:44:08.280 rightly, and the state is there to promote righteousness and to judge wickedness.

00:44:13.480 When we say the kingdom of God expands, we're not saying the church subsumes all of these

00:44:17.200 things, but the family and the state become subservient to the church, the church rules

00:44:20.580 over all of them, dispenses the kingdom from there.

00:44:23.260 No, the church is one part of that, like you said, that circle, the holistic kingdom that

00:44:27.980 is going forth in families, in state, and most certainly the church itself as it's being

00:44:32.800 built by Jesus.

00:44:33.520 Right.

00:44:34.180 Yeah, the way that I've explained it in the past, and obviously there are faithful

00:44:38.240 brothers and sisters in Christ who would disagree with this but I've said you know we have one king

00:44:43.240 two kingdoms and three spheres the one king being the Lord Jesus Christ the two kingdoms not being

00:44:49.740 the the sacred and the secular but rather the two kingdoms being the kingdom of light and darkness

00:44:55.360 and then three spheres sovereign spheres where there is like a Venn diagram some overlap being

00:45:01.020 the state, the home, and the church. Wherever you have a Dusty Deavers functioning as a civil

00:45:10.460 magistrate, holding a political office within the civil magistrate, the state, there you have the

00:45:15.660 kingdom of light in the sphere of the state. Consequently, or on the flip side, wherever you

00:45:24.420 have a false teacher like Kenneth Copeland holding an office of pastor, there you have the kingdom

00:45:33.340 of darkness within the sphere of the church. So it's not just the church is all light, and then

00:45:40.060 everything outside of the church is all darkness. No, it's one king, Christ Jesus, two kingdoms,

00:45:47.200 not sacred and secular or holy and common, but rather one King Christ, two kingdoms,

00:45:56.380 light and darkness, and three spheres. And there can be the kingdom of light in all three of those

00:46:02.760 spheres. Wherever you have family worship in the home, you don't have the church. That father

00:46:07.620 is not licensed by Christ to administer the sacraments to his children on a Tuesday evening.

00:46:13.600 right he is not permitted to serve the lord's supper and he's also not permitted even during

00:46:18.300 covid i think there's forgiveness in christ so don't feel like i'm coming down on you but i'm

00:46:23.380 just saying in the technical biblical sense um even when your church was shut down you as a father

00:46:29.220 do not have the jurisdiction to baptize your child in the swimming pool in your backyard right if you

00:46:34.640 did that so it's okay i'm it's not that's not the worst thing in the world there's there's far worse

00:46:40.280 things. You were baptizing your child in a swimming pool and somebody else was transing 0.95

00:46:44.260 their child. So I think, you know, by comparison, you know, I think you're going to make it. You're 1.00

00:46:48.300 going to be okay. But you should perhaps, if you are a Credo Baptist, consider having your child 1.00

00:46:55.240 baptized by the church. I think that that would be a worthy consideration. So my point is this,

00:46:59.900 family worship happening in the home, kingdom of light in the sphere of the family. But it's not

00:47:06.240 church it's family in terms of sphere but light in terms of kingdom um and then like you know

00:47:12.920 again constant uh on the uh flip side uh you could have you could have uh false teachers in town and

00:47:20.200 your hillsong loving pastor your church is barely you know a true church uh but your your pastor's

00:47:27.320 weak sauce and you know it and you've been struggling with what to do for the last year

00:47:31.320 and a half, you know, and then this is the final straw. You show up this Sunday and Joel Osteen's

00:47:37.260 in town and your pastor invited him to preach. Well, there you have kingdom of darkness in the

00:47:41.880 sphere of the church. And then I've seen in the comments, the last thing I want to say is

00:47:46.420 I've seen in the comments people saying, well, that's just the invisible, invisible church

00:47:51.480 distinction. That is an important distinction. The Bible does speak of it, but I think that there

00:47:56.100 are three circles in this. And so going back to a previous point, the widest circle would be the

00:48:00.820 kingdom, then within the kingdom, you would have the visible church. And then within the visible

00:48:08.960 church, you would have the invisible church. I don't think it's just two, because I think some

00:48:14.000 are saying that, well, the parable of the net, you're just talking about the distinction between

00:48:18.180 the visible and invisible church. And I would say, no, because the field in the parable of the wheat

00:48:23.140 and the tares is the whole world. And this net going into the sea, I think the implicit reference

00:48:30.460 here is that every single fish will be caught, that this is an all-encompassing kingdom, this

00:48:35.300 net, and this is a global world-encompassing field, this field, that everything will be

00:48:42.060 swallowed up in it. So if it's just invisible and visible church, well, then the invisible church,

00:48:48.460 those who are truly in Christ, born again by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone,

00:48:52.320 that would be a subset of the visible church, which would also, it'd be a bigger subset,

00:48:56.780 but it would still be a subset of the whole world. But I believe that the kingdom, this third and

00:49:01.920 largest circle, larger than the invisible church, the regenerate, and the visible church, that's

00:49:07.340 the church roster, the membership in a church institute, whether the regenerate or not, this

00:49:12.260 last circle, the third and widest circle, is the kingdom. And that circle, I believe, by the time

00:49:18.020 we get to the end of the age, that circle is meant to encompass. How big is that circle? It's the

00:49:22.840 exact radius and circumference of the world of the universe of the universe yeah if elon gets

00:49:28.600 us to mars then it'll yeah to jump on that real quick you mentioned and then we'll go to our

00:49:32.720 second break but does that make sense it does make sense it does make sense and and i it's a

00:49:37.800 hard thing for us to get our minds around because we have been told so so for so long in america

00:49:44.900 that the church is the only place that god is acting now yeah right and what we forget is that

00:49:51.060 the mission of God from the beginning was mankind ruling over creation. And so God's kingdom restored

00:49:58.920 will be all of creation. And the spheres that you mentioned, that comes directly from Kuyper. I

00:50:04.860 actually have the context of that quote, because he mentions the spheres, but in the quote,

00:50:10.140 they're kind of an afterthought. What he's going after is evangelicals who look to Calvinism and

00:50:15.440 who only want to claim that God is central and supreme over salvation. This is what he said.

00:50:21.060 He said, the dominating principle of Calvinism was not, soteriologically, justification by faith.

00:50:27.140 That's good.

00:50:28.340 But the point is, Calvin and the Reformation were not about God's sovereignty over salvation.

00:50:32.860 He goes on, he says, in the widest sense, cosmologically, Calvinism was the sovereignty of a triune God over the whole cosmos in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible.

00:50:44.740 And he goes on from there to talk about the three spheres.

00:50:46.780 So the three spheres for Kuyper come out of the fact that God's kingdom is over the world.

00:50:53.560 It's over the created order.

00:50:56.180 It's over the institutions.

00:50:57.440 It's over the arts.

00:50:58.320 It's over the economics.

00:50:59.820 It's over the political systems that anyone would establish.

00:51:04.640 The central heartbeat of the Reformation was God's sovereignty not just over salvation, but over all things.

00:51:11.880 Right.

00:51:13.160 Roe v. Wade, practically speaking, was Jesus putting an enemy under his feet.

00:51:17.960 The church didn't do that.

00:51:18.860 It was not church in the Supreme Court when they made that decision.

00:51:21.140 That's right.

00:51:21.580 But that was Jesus, practically speaking, crushing one of his enemies on the long march of enemies.

00:51:27.020 He's already crushed to the final enemy being death.

00:51:29.820 Right.

00:51:30.100 And the church, when you're speaking of the church institute, the church institute did not do that as a sovereign sphere.

00:51:35.280 Christians, perhaps.

00:51:36.100 Exactly.

00:51:36.740 Lowercase c, church, insofar as the word church represents just the people of God.

00:51:41.740 certainly christians were involved in that through voting through legislation through all these all

00:51:46.720 these things clarence thomas uh being on the supreme court you know and as a christian you

00:51:51.160 know and so um christians were doing that but it was not the sphere of the church it was the sphere

00:51:55.240 of the state yes um that did that and just for the record and i know you agree with this 100

00:51:59.480 wesley but for all the abolitionists who are tuning in uh which we would support and be among

00:52:04.100 you count ourselves among you um we recognize that roe did not uh come close to ending abortion

00:52:10.020 but we're still grateful because what it does is it lifts the veil and um and what it what it does 0.57

00:52:16.200 is it ultimately just reveals the slimy rhino republicans in your hometown that never really 0.61

00:52:21.320 wanted to end abortion in the first place and that is a blessing um that is a blessing from god 0.51

00:52:25.840 that's that's an enemy being put under christ christ's feet um exactly that now allows us to 0.91

00:52:31.900 um to go and and run them down um to to pursue the victory it's not total uh not even close

00:52:37.780 But now we can pursue with Roe out of the way.

00:52:41.180 And I understand that it was a Supreme Court.

00:52:44.320 It was never law.

00:52:45.400 Roe was never law.

00:52:46.580 We should have been ignoring Roe for 50 years.

00:52:49.720 For 50 years, we should have been ignoring Roe.

00:52:52.620 But be that as it may, it's still helpful to have the facade,

00:52:57.020 this thin veil called Roe that was never real, out of the way

00:53:01.040 so that we can at least point out now

00:53:04.820 and expose the hypocrisy among, you know, quote, end quote, conservatives and hold their feet to

00:53:11.780 the fire, get rid of the rhinos and get more guys like Dusty Devers that actually will get rid of

00:53:17.180 abortion and not just abortion clinics, but taking the fight to CVS and Walmart and, you know,

00:53:25.300 with pills and, you know, to where truly in the truest sense abortion is abolished. But again,

00:53:31.980 Wes's main point, 100% true, that just simply that that was an achievement within the realm,

00:53:40.560 the sphere of the civil magistrate, but it was a kingdom achievement. That was a kingdom

00:53:45.020 advancement that was outside of the church institute.

00:53:49.380 Right. MacArthur and all these anti-CN guys would 100% agree, and praise God for it.

00:53:54.680 Yes and amen. Obviously, there's more work to be done. They would all agree. Praise God that

00:53:58.680 this evil decision is done right christian nationalism right thanks to christian nationalism 0.65

00:54:03.360 and and from the first clip with macarthur which is one more thing uh that i was thinking is just

00:54:08.060 um he said like you know the apostles didn't do this they weren't pushing you know this and it's

00:54:13.040 one the great commission it literally says go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them into

00:54:17.460 the name of the father the son and the holy spirit and we always forget this part but it is part of

00:54:21.800 the great commission and teaching them to obey all my commandments and so we are teaching nations

00:54:26.180 to obey all of Christ's commandments.

00:54:27.900 And for those of us, it's not nations.

00:54:29.540 You're not teaching, you didn't baptize a nation.

00:54:31.280 You're not teaching a nation.

00:54:32.260 You're teaching individuals within a nation.

00:54:34.080 Great, okay, then do that.

00:54:36.100 Paul does that for two years with Felix, right?

00:54:38.600 Paul, MacArthur's saying, well, he didn't pursue this.

00:54:40.860 Yes, he did.

00:54:41.820 Paul ministered.

00:54:42.460 Why didn't he go to Rome?

00:54:43.360 That's right.

00:54:43.840 Why was he so anxious to go to Rome?

00:54:46.320 Paul did speak.

00:54:47.800 That was part of the prophecy on Paul's life

00:54:49.860 was that he would speak to kings.

00:54:52.960 Herod had a better understanding of Christ and his kingdom than MacArthur does in this sense.

00:54:59.580 Herod, the reason why he wanted to murder all the little boys in Bethlehem is because he knew that

00:55:04.320 it wasn't just that a savior meek and mild had been born, that it wasn't just a Messiah, that

00:55:08.540 it wasn't just a teacher, that it wasn't just a substitutionary atonement, the lamb of God to take

00:55:12.680 away the sins of the world. But Herod understood that a king had been born and that this king,

00:55:17.800 his rule and reign which is otherworldly not of this world but it is most certainly in the world

00:55:23.160 that christ reign would be a threat to all earthly kings right it is because it is the leaven that

00:55:30.880 ultimately works through and infiltrates infects every single human kingdom where they all and

00:55:37.760 here's the whole thing because of christ and the preaching of the apostles and that being

00:55:42.560 inscripturated in the Bible, in comes 400 years later, Constantine, and Rome is dominated by

00:55:49.760 Christ. So that literally did happen. It was a direct threat to the Roman way of life.

00:55:55.760 Yeah. So to pretend that, I mean, that is such a narrow reading of Scripture. 0.93

00:56:00.640 And not just Rome, 1500 years later, historian Tom Holland, not a Christian, to be European was

00:56:07.840 to be Christian. It didn't just conquer Israel and Rome, it conquered pretty much the known

00:56:12.760 Western world in a matter of 1,500 years. Amen. All right, let's go to our final commercial.

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00:57:00.940 All right, great. So what I wanted us to do here as we wrap things up is to take a moment and talk

00:57:10.580 about knowing the times. What are some of the areas of the world that we think Christians ought

00:57:19.180 to prioritize when we think about taking dominion, Christ conquering? You might say now is the time 1.00

00:57:28.220 to take dominion by really refining the combustion engine. Okay, well, yes, God wants good

00:57:34.680 engineering. Christ is the king of engineering and all of these things, but what do we think

00:57:40.180 are some of the practical things? Because every generation has its battles. The kingdom of God

00:57:44.820 is advancing over time. What are our battles for the kingdom? And I thought it would also be helpful

00:57:50.720 to—I think sometimes post-millennialism gets presented in kind of an overly optimistic light,

00:57:58.080 Where we think the golden age by the end, if there is a golden age, is going to basically be exactly the same as heaven, right?

00:58:04.820 And there are some things that will not be put right except by Christ himself.

00:58:10.060 And so I thought we'd touch on a couple of those too.

00:58:12.420 Yep.

00:58:12.640 And for the record, not all post-millennials even hold to a golden age.

00:58:16.040 So one, that would be a subset of post-millennials that even believe that we'll get to a golden age.

00:58:21.620 what all post-millennials you know generally believe is that things will get with some massive

00:58:27.620 dips along the way so it's not a perfect upward trajectory but some big dips but that slowly

00:58:34.100 gradually over time that things are getting better that christ's kingdom is permeating all

00:58:40.920 of the world and that eventually we're going to it's not that christ is going to come back

00:58:46.260 and establish the kingdom he's going to come back and receive right the kingdom right um that christ

00:58:51.840 will have already established this kingdom and he did it just for the record it's not the church

00:58:56.860 yes the church is the beacon the church is that the tip of the spear but remember the church is

00:59:02.740 christ body so it is christ who is the head of the church through his hands and feet on earth

00:59:08.960 his people the church accomplishing all of this so it's christ who um builds and establishes the

00:59:16.540 kingdom and then he comes back in his final physical return at the end of the age to receive

00:59:21.340 this kingdom and then hand it over to his father he's not coming back to mad max right where there's

00:59:27.360 three christians hiding in a cave somewhere and giving that to his father and you know or or

00:59:33.700 coming back there's three christians and then he builds everything from scratch you know uh suddenly

00:59:38.420 cataclysmically um and and where the the the you know the headline of the story is um that the

00:59:44.180 church failed um but in the bottom of the ninth it turns out uh that all the work of the church

00:59:50.420 didn't matter anyways because christ was you know he was just going to win um that's that that is

00:59:56.880 just that's not what the okay so a couple years ago um and this was a couple years ago his answer

01:00:01.280 might might be different we should have asked him uh doug wilson said someone asked him if you

01:00:05.020 could make one change in the country what would it be he said um abolish the income tax and i

01:00:12.700 remember the questioner was very surprised by that and they really that's it that's what you do he

01:00:17.400 said yes because the problem that we have right now is our government has so much power and say

01:00:23.800 and so much money it can do whatever it wants so he was his point was there was a root underneath

01:00:29.420 why we can have a department of education which is polluting the minds of children why we can have

01:00:34.380 all of these bureaucracies that are carrying out law outside of the Constitution. So my question

01:00:38.980 for you guys is, is there something that as Christian nationalists, we would say we need

01:00:44.480 to be strategic, we need to fight this on a fundamental level, or are we fighting branches

01:00:49.860 right now? Are we fighting thorns on the branches that are so sharp and deadly that we have to cut

01:00:56.500 those off first before we can get down into the root? Yeah. I think a big one is recognizing how

01:01:01.500 bad things are so people will say like oh christian nationalism there could be excesses there actually

01:01:06.780 probably would most certainly be the best of men are men at best men are fallible and if we tomorrow

01:01:12.260 i mean i just dusty deevers elected president william wolf as vice president super majority

01:01:17.120 in the senate in the house would there be errors and excesses yes but here's the deal you would

01:01:21.940 have to prove that the excesses of that would be worse than pride parades pride celebrations

01:01:27.700 on the white house lawn millions of babies slaughtered a regime christian institution 0.63

01:01:33.540 that wears christianity like a skin suit all of that negativity you're going to have to somehow

01:01:38.240 prove that christian nationalism even if it's at its worst form even with the most excesses you

01:01:43.760 could possibly imagine would somehow be worse than that right no not at all and so i think

01:01:48.320 one of the thorns that has to get out of the way is things are bad and even if we go to something

01:01:53.680 that's not as bad that gives us time it gives us time to build the churches it gives us time to

01:01:58.280 equip men it gives us time to elect leaders uh and like donald trump i think for example

01:02:03.120 he's not a christian most likely but he's going to give us time by god's grace the fbi is not

01:02:08.720 going to be weaponized against fathers just protesting outside of abortion or not more

01:02:13.240 weaponized right they already are yeah they're not gonna be more weaponized uh the guilt we

01:02:18.160 incur in the murder of innocent children will not continue to pile up we need time and so

01:02:22.780 some pragmatism not a ton not in sin but some pragmatism to give us as much space as possible

01:02:29.140 and even if that takes getting a situation hey it's not where we want to be but it's better than

01:02:33.900 that we have to be okay with and continue to work towards a better nation right well said yeah i

01:02:40.060 like that um with should we talk should we talk about steven wolf and all millennialism you know

01:02:49.660 because that's one of the things that maybe just real real short i'll just say that macarthur you

01:02:53.360 know links it to post-millennialism and he's right in the sense that a lot of christian nationalists

01:02:57.460 are post-millennials and yet at the same time i know a lot of post-millennials that right hate

01:03:03.020 the term christian nationalism you know like joe boot's not a big fan yep you know and i i love

01:03:08.060 joe boot and i'm grateful for him i disagree with him on you know i i think christian nationalism is

01:03:12.680 a fine term and i'm willing to work within it as a big tent um because i want to win um and i'd

01:03:19.540 like to win before 50 000 years if we could you know um and so uh but my point is that joe boot

01:03:25.640 is highly respectable and he doesn't like the term christian nationalism but he is of course

01:03:29.920 post-millennial uh there are plenty of guys like that david bonson hates christian nationalism he's

01:03:36.260 fine with usury but he hates you know christian nationalism and uh you know so there my point is

01:03:41.220 there are plenty of post-millennials who don't like uh christian nationalism um and and so it's

01:03:46.740 christian nationalism is not intrinsically linked to post-millennialism i would argue that more

01:03:51.460 post-millennials are anti-christian nationalism um than than for it and then and then outside of

01:03:58.100 post-millennialism there are a ton of all millennials uh like steven wolf cj angle you

01:04:04.920 know multiple guys and he he may not even use the term christian national like he would prefer just

01:04:09.360 saying paleo conservative you know something like that but there's a lot of guys who are either

01:04:13.400 christian nationalists or at least christian national they they have sympathies or for christian

01:04:18.680 christian nationalist friendly right exactly who are not post-millennial steve dates even said we're

01:04:24.360 all we're all christian nationalists now vody bacham you know you know with uh with tom askell

01:04:29.340 you know both of them not neither of them are post-millennial they're both all millennial and

01:04:32.480 they're yeah christian nationalists you know so um christian nationalism is not contingent on

01:04:38.080 um a post-millennial victorious eschatology it's not um you could even be uh i would say you can

01:04:44.620 be historic premill you could be all millennial or post-millennial or any of the three major um

01:04:49.840 you know the valid the three valid eschatological positions i won't i won't include dispensational

01:04:54.960 premillennialism i won't but any of the three valid positions of historical premillennialism

01:05:00.220 all millennialism or post-millennialism in any three of those eschatological schemes you could

01:05:06.140 be a Christian nationalist. And because in any three of those schemes, it could still be, as

01:05:11.100 Wes said, 500 years. It doesn't have to be 50,000. 500 is plenty. 50 years is plenty. It could still

01:05:19.000 be 50 years that Jesus tarries before his return. And we'd like for those 50 years to be 50 years

01:05:27.060 where our kids aren't taken to a gulag. Right? Why not? Sounds good.

01:05:32.060 That's such a luxury to say that. Well, we don't want a Christian nation. 1.00

01:05:35.000 Well, we saw in communist Russia what happens when you abandon God. 0.97

01:05:39.560 Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote the Gulag Archipelago, 0.61

01:05:42.420 exposed what was happening in communist Russia.

01:05:44.660 He said, this happened because we abandoned God.

01:05:47.820 So it's such a high and mighty, holier-than-thou position to be like, 0.99

01:05:51.860 oh, we don't need a Christian nation. 1.00

01:05:53.460 Well, think about your children. 0.99

01:05:54.960 Think about even yourself. 1.00

01:05:55.840 That's all well and good as you sit in the lap of Christianity, 0.99

01:05:59.200 what it established. 0.99

01:05:59.980 Say, well, we don't need this until you get thrown for 10 years 0.92

01:06:03.040 descendants in communist Russia for any type of external spirituality, teaching your children 0.73

01:06:08.280 prayer out loud, was 10 years in the gulag. And then you're thrown in a hard labor camp in Siberia.

01:06:14.000 And you might say, you know, Christian nationalism doesn't sound so bad after all. If you're being 0.97

01:06:19.040 that person and you think we don't need God, we can do this classical liberal thing, which is

01:06:23.120 working out really well, by the way. For one, we can't. For two, stop being stupid. And for three,

01:06:28.680 i mean c point a i don't know like stop being stupid no yeah we've been blessed accept the 0.98

01:06:34.620 blessing persecution stephen wolf makes a great point in this persecution is not just a net good 0.98

01:06:39.740 we will be at sometimes in places persecuted in this age but we should not pursue it right when

01:06:46.540 it comes to us under god's sovereignty we accept it peter says do not be surprised when you endure

01:06:51.220 the fiery trial right except persecution you rejoice you're commanded to rejoice but you are

01:06:56.020 never commanded to petition to pursue and to request and pursue persecution. Especially for

01:07:01.140 your children. For yourself, okay. But my goodness, if you want persecution for your children,

01:07:06.160 you're a terrible parent and you should repent. Amen. One other thing to say, since we're on the

01:07:12.380 topic of persecution and including... Persecution would be a particular kind of suffering. So

01:07:17.720 suffering would be the broad banner, persecution would be a subset of that. But here's another

01:07:22.260 thing that i think guys struggle with is they're looking at you know all these new testament

01:07:25.680 epistles they're reading first and second peter and um they're looking at all the pauline epistles

01:07:29.860 and they're saying uh if if post-millennialism is true and aside from post-millennialism if

01:07:35.220 christian nationalism could actually be achieved with christian governments well then who's there

01:07:40.480 going to be to persecute us and we need someone to persecute us uh to make sense of all these

01:07:45.440 verses about being persecuted. And what I would say is, one, there are so many verses about

01:07:53.340 suffering that don't actually require persecution. And then even within the realm of persecution,

01:08:00.920 persecution, and catch this, I'll say it twice. So nice, I'll say it twice. But persecution

01:08:06.320 does not require the civil magistrate. The civil magistrate does not have a monopoly

01:08:12.140 on the persecution of the saints the civil magistrate historically has done plenty of it

01:08:18.000 i can see why you might conflate that and trunk it and say the civil magistrate is the sole

01:08:23.200 instrument of persecution of the church i can see how you got there but you know hold on but it's

01:08:27.620 not but part of the reason for that is most civil magistrates were religious figures also right

01:08:32.700 exactly right right they had some kind of religion and christianity was a threat yes to it always it

01:08:38.620 was a threat. And so they came down on Christianity. Herod came down on Christianity because

01:08:43.600 Christ is king, not just meek and mild, but he is victorious. He is king, and he's a threat 0.99

01:08:51.380 to worldly kingdoms. He is a blessing to those kings who would bow their knee in this life to

01:08:59.580 Christ and rule according to Christ's law and Christ's righteousness. Then Christ is no threat

01:09:05.260 at all. He's their prosperity. He's their provision, their protection, their blessing,

01:09:11.460 their encouragement, their consolation. So all that being said, think of this. I'll end it with

01:09:17.820 this. The book of Job. So when you think of suffering, the book of Job, I mean, suffering

01:09:23.580 is all throughout the scripture. So I'm not going to pretend that it's not in other books of the

01:09:27.360 Bible. Of course it is. But if we were to say, all right, you get to pick one book out of the 66

01:09:32.620 that is just marked by the topic of suffering.

01:09:37.720 Just about every Christian would say,

01:09:39.380 Job, that's what the whole book's about.

01:09:42.580 And yet, with all of Job's suffering,

01:09:45.020 none of it comes from the civil magistrate. 0.97

01:09:48.000 None of it comes from a non-Christian, 0.90

01:09:50.840 un-Christian government.

01:09:53.040 Meaning, God has plenty of ways 0.99

01:09:55.380 under the banner of his sovereignty

01:09:57.280 to ensure that his people are sanctified

01:10:01.720 and shaped and conformed further into Christ-likeness

01:10:05.620 through the instrument of suffering

01:10:08.240 without having to have a pagan government. 0.88

01:10:11.900 God can do it through sickness. 0.73

01:10:13.960 He can do it through calamity.

01:10:15.740 He can do it through natural disaster.

01:10:17.940 And also, one of the ways that he'll do it,

01:10:20.440 even if there is a golden age,

01:10:22.000 which I lean towards as a post-millennial,

01:10:24.000 not all post-millennials hold to it,

01:10:25.480 but I tend to lean towards that position

01:10:27.500 that there actually will be a golden age,

01:10:29.540 progressively, big dips along the way, 0.99

01:10:31.720 But progressively, upward trajectory, eventually, the whole world is Christianized. 0.91

01:10:35.960 That does not mean each and every individual person is a regenerate Christian, but the 0.82

01:10:40.340 whole world is Christianized, and I would say that at that point, probably the majority

01:10:45.220 are regenerate Christians. 0.99

01:10:46.940 And then entering into a golden age period that could be however long, but maybe it's

01:10:54.020 a hundred years, maybe it's a thousand years, and then the final return of Christ.

01:10:58.080 And during that golden age, if that's how you read the scripture, Isaiah 65 would be one of

01:11:03.440 the quintessential texts. Isaiah 65 describes no longer will the infant or will a child die in

01:11:11.060 infancy. And the youth, it says, the youth will die at 100. And the nations will no longer know

01:11:16.320 war. They'll take their swords and spears and beat them into plowshares. So you're talking about no

01:11:21.400 more war. You're talking about no more children dying in infancy. So that means both in terms of

01:11:29.220 disease, but that also means no more miscarriage, and it also certainly means no more abortion.

01:11:36.260 And then it also goes further and says that the youth will die at 100. Think of that. Not that

01:11:42.260 long ago, just a couple hundred years ago, when life expectancy was much shorter, if somebody

01:11:47.340 died at 55 was you know he lived a full life now if somebody dies at 55 today we say man he was so

01:11:53.660 young right now and isaiah 65 says that the youth will die at 100 meaning that time is coming

01:11:59.640 according to prophecy in scripture a time is coming that when someone dies at the age of 100

01:12:04.740 we'll say that was young but notice here's the here's the key people are still dying right so

01:12:11.280 dying at 100 is young implying what people are living long lifespans it's not 85 years anymore

01:12:17.900 90 or 95 long lifespans could be 200 people could be living to be 200 300 400 years where where if

01:12:24.800 somebody dies at 100 years you're saying man that guy was so young yeah his life was so short but

01:12:30.080 here's the here's the the kicker people still die right so this is not heaven this is not after the

01:12:36.140 final return of christ because after the final physical return of christ he will uh slay he will

01:12:41.580 defeat his final enemy which is death so when christ comes back and and conquers his final

01:12:46.920 enemy which is death no one dies not at a hundred not at two hundred not at a thousand will be

01:12:52.220 resurrected that's right it's yeah no more death but this is describing isaiah 65 isaiah 65 is

01:12:58.880 describing a time period where death is still in the world which means it's before the final

01:13:04.180 return of christ death is still in the world but the world is much improved much improved no more

01:13:11.120 war uh no more uh abortion death and infancy and uh and a greatly expanded life expectancy um and

01:13:21.260 here's the thing even then people will be reading first and second peter this is my my main point

01:13:26.820 they'll be reading first and second peter about suffering and they'll still get it yeah they'll

01:13:31.520 that yeah my dad he died at 400 and i miss him terribly and we on this side of history we look

01:13:37.240 at them like like quit your crying no no but it's still their death and death is an enemy of christ

01:13:43.620 that he hates it was never supposed to happen it is it is against it is unnatural and goes against

01:13:49.140 everything uh that god who god is a god of life and it whether it's dying at 400 years old or 85

01:13:56.800 it is still a terrible thing it is something to grieve jesus was weeping at lazarus death even

01:14:03.840 though he knew he was moments away from raising him from the dead and jesus still is greatly

01:14:09.460 troubled and vexed in spirit both angry at death angry at all the unbelief around him because

01:14:15.920 they're all weeping as though there's no hope for lazarus and here he is the resurrection of the

01:14:19.820 life standing in their midst and i think in a sense weeping over the loss of his friend that

01:14:24.360 he's going to say hello to in about five minutes and yet jesus is still grieving to the point of

01:14:31.300 tears so an isaiah 65 post-millennial golden age still has within its theological boundaries and

01:14:39.120 categories room for suffering and and us saying well that's not real suffering and that would

01:14:43.660 that would invalidate first and second peter and all these new testament texts about suffering

01:14:47.820 i bet you i bet you that's how um the puritans 200 years ago would look at us guys who had 11

01:14:55.740 kids and 10 of them died john owen yep john owen 11 kids 10 of them died if we told him

01:15:02.260 hey john owen i i've got uh four healthy children and uh a fifth on the way and uh both of my

01:15:08.340 parents are still alive both of my wife's parents are still alive um and you know we have uh

01:15:12.880 electricity and we have a running water uh harsh winters are actually fun we like it you know

01:15:18.400 because we look out the window and we're warm inside with you know central ac and heating and

01:15:23.500 all uh uh but but we still uh we read first peter and second peter and we we told to get what it's

01:15:29.100 saying we get i think john owen would be tempted to say what you don't know anything about suffering

01:15:33.300 and you know what paul would look at john owen's life and say you don't know anything about

01:15:37.540 suffering how many times have you been shipwrecked how many times have you been beaten by rods

01:15:42.660 at least you had kids

01:15:44.600 so my point is

01:15:47.260 everyone is able to look for it

01:15:49.380 and we can push back on the curse

01:15:50.720 important in this is

01:15:52.280 we can push back on the curse 1.00

01:15:53.920 a woman, the curse for the woman 1.00

01:15:55.360 I will greatly increase your pain with childbearing 1.00

01:15:57.740 she is not required to make childbearing as painful as possible

01:16:01.020 we can push back against the curse

01:16:02.640 we could make it more painful

01:16:04.240 we could

01:16:05.160 we are permitted to live healthy, good lives

01:16:08.640 to be around for our children

01:16:09.660 none of this is just consigning us to 1.00

01:16:11.780 like well our work's going to be fruitless my wife is going to have terrible labors as bad as

01:16:15.900 they can be no preparation no chiropractor uh death it comes to me at 60 because i eat a big

01:16:21.340 mac every day so be it no we can push back against the curse because jesus has dealt the first death

01:16:26.100 blow the first fruits and and will completely undo the curse and reverse it in finality and

01:16:31.900 continue here or not yet of the kingdom on top of that we still have our enemy the devil who

01:16:36.380 samuel rutherford said the devil is god's fence master to teach us to handle our weapons right

01:16:41.780 so the devil will still shoot his darts right he will still tempt us to doubt our faith even though

01:16:47.120 he's bound and that's the point i was trying to make earlier yes he's always been bound yep in

01:16:51.080 a sense yes in the sense that there's only one autonomously free being in all the universe ever

01:16:57.840 and that is the creator that is correct god every other being is a created being a creature and

01:17:04.360 therefore cannot, you cannot have two beings with truly autonomous libertarian freedom without one

01:17:11.740 being's freedom encroaching upon the other. So Satan has always been on a leash. See the book

01:17:17.060 of Job again. He has to ask God permission for specific boundaries of what he can do.

01:17:23.200 And since Christ, in his first coming, his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension,

01:17:29.940 we believe that he has bound the strong man. Jesus tells the parable, if you're going to

01:17:33.660 plunder the house, you must first go in and bind the strong man. We believe that as Christ's people,

01:17:38.480 the church is now plundering the house because Christ, 2,000 years ago, came in and bound the

01:17:42.620 strong man. But what I'm saying is that Satan was always, in a big picture, ultimate sense,

01:17:49.740 bound underneath the sovereignty of God. He's bound in the book of Job. And then Christ, what

01:17:54.980 he did was further bound him. So Satan still does prowl around. This does not invalidate New

01:18:00.920 testament text about satan being a tempter or a fencing partner what you said or satan tormenting

01:18:06.280 or all it's exactly or the what all that does is it means uh satan who has always been bound

01:18:12.620 as a created being underneath god's ultimate banner of sovereignty satan was on a leash

01:18:18.380 and since christ the leash is shorter and what does that mean it means he still uh prods and

01:18:24.260 pushes and tempts and torments and is used to sharpen and shapen and conform and sanctify

01:18:31.980 the people of God and to cause us to suffer.

01:18:34.880 Paul called his affliction an affliction from Satan.

01:18:39.160 Right, an affliction from Satan to teach him and to humble him.

01:18:43.600 And so Satan is doing all that.

01:18:45.140 So in what sense is he bound then, Joel?

01:18:46.980 Well, at least one, and we don't have time to go into this because it'd be a whole other

01:18:50.500 video, but at least one is to no longer deceive the nations.

01:18:53.280 And what have we seen happening for 2,000 years since Christ came into the house, that is the world, and bound the strong man, that is the devil, who still is in his binding, has a little wiggle room, and is still able to torment and to tempt and all these things.

01:19:08.560 But in what way, what is he no longer able to do that he did do pre-Christ in the Old Testament?

01:19:16.040 He deceived whole nations, whole nations.

01:19:19.360 And there are still whole nations that are deceived today, but not like before.

01:19:23.280 not like before the coming of Christ.

01:19:26.100 We think things are bad now. 0.93

01:19:28.980 Okay, look into Babylon. 0.99

01:19:31.040 Look into Assyria.

01:19:32.480 Look into the Medes and the Persians. 0.55

01:19:35.120 Look into the, even more recent, like Ottoman Empire.

01:19:38.220 Look into, I think part of it is we've been reading our Bibles,

01:19:44.080 yes and amen, a thousand times.

01:19:45.960 Praise God, it can't be less.

01:19:48.560 But man, I think we need more, not less.

01:19:50.800 but uh we are so historically illiterate that's right as a generation that we uh everything seems

01:19:58.540 novel to us none of these things are novel christian nationalism all the tenets from

01:20:03.300 stephen wolf's conception to to me and and and dusty deaver's conception the statement on christian

01:20:09.340 nationalism of the gospel um to even andrew torban andrew iskers these were assumed these

01:20:14.300 were assumed yeah basic christian theology i'll even end with this john mcarthur i would say

01:20:18.840 say somehow the vote for president comes down to him and it's a godly member of his church not a

01:20:23.940 pastor who wants to legislate morality as we've talked about comes all the way down to this

01:20:28.800 macarthur's mailing in his ballot and he is the deciding vote in california who's he voting for

01:20:33.220 the christian man as president to bless the nation of course he is a christian nationalist

01:20:37.740 he's been he's pushed back against the state and its wickedness called the magistrate to repentance

01:20:41.940 and done that for decades as a godly man john macarthur with love you are christian nationalist

01:20:47.340 You want a Christian nation, so join us.

01:20:49.900 Let's link arms and do this together instead of friendly fire.

01:20:53.060 Right.

01:20:53.300 And if you don't want to call it Christian nationalism because you don't like the label, 0.98

01:20:56.320 that's fine. 1.00

01:20:57.500 Right?

01:20:57.700 Joe Boot doesn't like the label.

01:20:58.960 I still love Joe Boot.

01:21:00.080 That's fine.

01:21:00.980 You don't have to call it that.

01:21:03.580 But I do think that what you have to believe is that governments should submit to Christ

01:21:10.680 and his word.

01:21:12.940 And right here at the end, this is not helpful to drop this bomb.

01:21:15.660 The first table of the law also should be legislated by the civil magistrate and not just the second.

01:21:20.340 I have a quote I want to end with.

01:21:21.460 Do we have anything else we want to say before?

01:21:23.020 Because otherwise loving your neighbor hangs in midair and it's contingent upon nothing.

01:21:27.940 And love for neighbor then becomes distorted and becomes wear the mask, get the jab.

01:21:32.520 You can only legislate the second table of the law, which is love for neighbor, rightly in the right direction if you're also believing and legislating the first table of the law.

01:21:43.320 and know who defines love for neighbor, who is Christ.

01:21:47.060 Not just God in a general deistic.

01:21:50.980 Right, but no, the triune God, the God of the Bible.

01:21:53.860 Okay, go.

01:21:54.440 Okay, so any last comments?

01:21:56.840 I think we're going to close with one commercial,

01:21:59.160 so guys, if you're watching, please stick around for it right after this.

01:22:01.800 But this is a quote that I came across from the pulpit commentary

01:22:04.920 that said it better than any of us could.

01:22:07.640 It said this, speaking about the kingdom of God in John 18,

01:22:11.040 The kingdom that sprang directly from heaven must have absolute authority over all the

01:22:16.080 earth, and it will not submit to be put into obscurity.

01:22:19.520 The kingdoms of this world must become the kingdom of the Lord and his anointed, and

01:22:23.540 he shall reign forever and ever.

01:22:25.440 This is true, but not along the lines of the machinery of earthly rule and authority.

01:22:30.060 The influence and authority of heaven works upon the spirit by truth and righteousness

01:22:34.260 and peace, and thus transforms institutions, permeates societies from the ground of the

01:22:39.480 heart, modifies the relations between the members of a household, and transfigures those between a

01:22:44.580 ruler and his subjects, between the master and his slaves, between labor and capital, and between man

01:22:50.040 and man. Whenever it is triumphant, whenever the lives of kings and their peoples are sanctified

01:22:55.560 by supreme obedience to Christ the King, then more will be impossible. All tyrannies and slaveries

01:23:02.200 will be abolished. All malice and violence of monarchs or mobs will be at an end. Then the

01:23:07.300 wolfish and the lamb-like nature will be at peace. Amen. Love it. All right, here's a final word from 0.98

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01:24:20.800 go to the links in the show notes below

01:24:27.240 We'll be right back.

The NXR Podcast - March 13, 2024

THE LIVESTREAM - What John MacArthur Misses With Christian Nationalism

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