The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Nephilim’s Relevance For Christians Today

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to Theology Applied.

00:00:05.780 In this episode, I was privileged to interview two special guests, Joshua Lewis and Michael

00:00:10.960 Roundtree, the co-host of Remnant Radio.

00:00:13.800 Now, this is part two of a two-part series on the Nephilim, the sons of God, and the

00:00:20.160 relevancy of the Nephilim and sons of God for Christians today.

00:00:24.220 In part one, we really delved into the question of who are the Nephilim and who are the sons of God.

00:00:30.280 In part two, which is what you're listening to now, we deal with the question of the Nephilim and the sons of God's relevancy and application for today's Christians.

00:00:41.480 Thanks for tuning in.

00:00:43.240 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.

00:00:46.620 This is Theology Applied.

00:00:48.220 apply so let's let's land the plane with this oh and and go ahead and get that final thought in

00:00:56.860 there but real quick get your final thought but then if you guys can help me land the plane

00:01:01.400 application so what is it what does this mean for us today what's the relevancy yeah and that's

00:01:05.620 because that for me would be the final thought yeah yeah yeah that was exactly where i was at

00:01:08.800 with with i was gonna pull up deuteronomy 32 i think this is my my kind of pulling point and

00:01:14.440 And Joel might not agree with this, so I'm going to let him kind of speak to that here in a second.

00:01:19.420 But in Deuteronomy 32, verse 8, it says,

00:01:23.200 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, he divided mankind.

00:01:29.020 He fixed the borders of the people according to the number of the sons of God.

00:01:32.780 Here in this passage in Deuteronomy 32, when did God divide the nations?

00:01:36.500 He divided the nations of the Tower of Babel.

00:01:38.680 Well, here in this passage, he says he numbered those nations, gave them divided tongues,

00:01:42.900 according to the number of the sons of God.

00:01:45.560 Now, we've already discussed what ben Elohim, sons of God,

00:01:48.880 means in every other place of the Bible.

00:01:51.040 My natural reading of this is informed by Daniel chapter 10,

00:01:56.260 when there was a prince of Persia who was sent to resist a messenger, Gabriel,

00:02:00.900 to deliver a message to Daniel. 0.96

00:02:02.680 Michael was released, they kicked the butt of the prince of Persia, 0.99

00:02:05.300 and then they came. 0.98

00:02:05.880 It seems as if there was a principality,

00:02:08.680 a spiritual being who is ruling over the region of Persia.

00:02:12.900 Ben Elohim, if you will. And they were not doing righteous by the Lord. They're actually trying to

00:02:17.900 prevent and thwart God's plans. But here in this text, what we see is that he divided them. So all

00:02:24.160 these fallen angels, fallen entities that are ruling and warring against the plans and purposes

00:02:28.880 of God have been made subject in Christ. And I think that these passages constantly remind us

00:02:35.140 and affirm to us, is there a spiritual warfare? Absolutely. But Christ has defeated them. They're

00:02:40.660 held under in chains that we have confidence. Is there a supernatural worldview? Is there a

00:02:45.520 spiritual worldview? Absolutely. Can they affect us? Can they hurt us? Can they harm us? Absolutely

00:02:50.760 they can. But our confidence is not wrestling against this flesh and blood here, right? We

00:02:56.960 preach the gospel. We push back the kingdom of darkness through the preaching and teaching of

00:03:01.520 the gospel. And that's the application point is that we place our faith and our trust in Christ

00:03:05.940 in the midst of a spiritual tumultuous world yeah absolutely and i would have a few kind of

00:03:11.500 closing points maybe to build on that one uh it appears and many commentators note this that uh

00:03:17.260 the story of what happened on pentecost is meant to be an inversion of what happened on babel

00:03:21.680 that's right and in fact to take it back to the very beginning where god says be fruitful and

00:03:25.740 multiply and scatter across the face of the earth their their mission was to make the earth look

00:03:30.660 more like God. And that's what their role was as image bearers. And of course, they failed at that

00:03:36.520 in Genesis 11 is one of those instances. Because rather than scattering, they gathered together

00:03:42.060 rather than making God's name great, they wanted to make a name for themselves. And so God judges

00:03:48.120 them in Genesis chapter 11. And he scatters them with a judgment of tongues. Now they come in fast 0.92

00:03:57.140 forward, Acts chapter two, they all come together into one place. They receive the baptism of the

00:04:03.480 Holy Spirit. And once again, they're sent back out. You will receive my power. You'll be my

00:04:08.480 witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all of these. Pentecost is the reversal of Bible. 0.95

00:04:12.860 Right. So where you have a judgment centered around tongues, now you have a blessing centered

00:04:17.840 around tongues. And so now God's going to preach the gospel in all of these nations

00:04:22.960 that he once scattered back in.

00:04:26.480 So Genesis 11 is the scattering,

00:04:28.100 but technically Genesis 10 chronologically

00:04:32.840 could have fallen after Genesis 11

00:04:35.140 or would have chronologically,

00:04:36.640 but the way the author of Genesis

00:04:38.520 had a different purpose in putting it first.

00:04:40.940 But the point is that the table of nations

00:04:43.560 in Genesis chapter 10 matches,

00:04:46.760 and scholars have pointed this out,

00:04:48.040 matches the same regions that Luke describes

00:04:50.240 when people heard the tongues in their own languages.

00:04:52.120 my point in saying all of that is to just uh accentuate what josh is saying that now is our

00:04:59.740 role as spirit empowered christians to preach the gospel and to be his witnesses to the ends of the

00:05:05.780 earth it's a restored great commission from genesis chapter one only now it's not just be

00:05:10.760 fruitful and multiply now it's go and make disciples and as we do so we dispel or displace

00:05:19.140 these principalities and powers so if in daniel 10 you had a prince of persia and a prince of

00:05:24.580 greece these sort of ruling evil angelic beings over certain locations and geographical territories

00:05:32.400 now as we preach the gospel and we go forth we push these principalities and powers back

00:05:38.200 not by doing what some radical charismatics do like i cast down the spirit of such and such over

00:05:45.020 Dallas Fort Worth or something like that no it's in the preaching of the gospel just as in Luke

00:05:49.980 chapter 10 Jesus sends the uh the disciples out and uh and they preach into the uh they preach

00:05:56.860 into the various cities and uh there's 70 or 72 depending on your translation disciples sent out

00:06:02.720 and when they do they come back and say hey the demons are subject to us and one of the things

00:06:06.720 Jesus says in that context is I saw Satan fall like lightning and and probably what he's saying

00:06:12.800 here. And this is, there's some debate over this, but they've just said the demons are subject to

00:06:18.780 us. Jesus isn't referring to some primordial fall of Satan. We're like, oh yeah, Satan fell from

00:06:23.820 heaven thousands of years ago or however long ago it was. He's not talking about that. He's talking

00:06:30.000 about it in the context of them preaching the gospel. And so probably he is referring to the

00:06:36.300 fact that like in the preaching of the gospel Satan was displaced from his uh foothold over

00:06:44.480 some region and Satan is not omnipresent and so praise God yeah and I think it's the church in

00:06:51.780 Pergamum where he says I know where you dwell where Satan's throne is so as Jesus sends the

00:06:57.300 sends the disciples out they're preaching the gospel they're preaching the kingdom the

00:07:00.880 the reign of christ as they preach the gospel of christ's reign they displace satan's footprint in

00:07:08.220 that area and that is now our commission is we're empowered by the spirit to preach the good news

00:07:12.940 so completely down for that i love that i think that's great i the only thing i would add to that

00:07:17.860 is i think that the that um that the first wave attack was the life the death and resurrection

00:07:25.360 of Christ, that the biggest blow was in the world, that Christ himself has bound the strong man.

00:07:32.960 And now we're going, so a major blow to the forces of the enemy, to the forces of Satan

00:07:38.380 has already been inflicted by Christ, that he's already been significantly weakened in his ability

00:07:44.820 to deceive the nations, to torment, to do all these kinds of things. And now we're going,

00:07:50.860 and it's almost like Jonathan and his armor bearer,

00:07:56.060 like Jonathan's fighting with the sword

00:07:57.600 and his armor bearer is following up the kill.

00:08:00.440 You know, so like Jonathan knocks someone to the ground

00:08:02.820 and his armor bearer, you know, stabs him in the throat 0.82

00:08:07.000 and, you know, yeah, and lays the death blow 0.56

00:08:09.120 so that they can't get back up.

00:08:10.840 And so I feel like that's, in many ways,

00:08:12.500 that's what Christ has done in his earthly ministry

00:08:14.680 is he's bound the strong man who is Satan himself,

00:08:16.780 dealt a crippling blow to, to all of his enemies and then is sending his church, which is a weapon.

00:08:26.060 So like Christ says, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 0.91

00:08:30.600 We always think that the church is like this poor little thing on the ropes, you know, just getting

00:08:36.080 knocked back and forth. But you know, Satan's ultimately not going to prevail because Christ

00:08:39.820 is going to protect us. No, like no, the picture is that the gates, the gates are a defensive

00:08:44.380 weapons. So hell is on the defense. The gates of hell won't be able to withstand the battering ram

00:08:50.160 of the church because, because the initial siege is by Christ himself. Um, and now the church is

00:08:57.360 at the door, uh, with the battering ram ramming down the gates and ultimately hell will not be

00:09:02.800 able to prevail. So we're pushing back darkness, expanding the kingdom of light. And the final

00:09:06.920 application that I see from this whole idea of the sons of God, um, being actual fallen angels 0.70

00:09:13.400 actually having sex with human women, actually perverting the biological, attempting, well, not attempting, but succeeding in perverting the biological line of human women

00:09:24.680 and attempting to snuff out the seed of Christ, but unsuccessful, and the Nephilim being, whether them being the hybrid offspring of these fallen angels

00:09:36.560 or still giant men of renown who inflicted mass actions of violence. 0.69

00:09:43.220 The point in all of this that I want to make that applies to us today

00:09:47.000 is that we are not Gnostics.

00:09:49.460 And so what I mean by that is, so Ephesians, Michael, you already quoted this,

00:09:53.740 or Josh, maybe you did, but Ephesians 6, I hear Christians quote this all the time,

00:09:58.520 and it's good, but Ephesians 6, verse 12,

00:10:01.500 for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,

00:10:04.600 against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, this present darkness, against the

00:10:08.900 spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And so you hear Christians all the time. I think 1.00

00:10:13.900 one of the excuses that Christians make in not getting involved in culture, just surrendering

00:10:19.820 the arts to secular society, surrendering education, surrendering, not getting involved

00:10:27.680 in culture, not getting involved in politics and especially local politics. I think there's this

00:10:33.240 gnostic mentality that just, we're just, we're going to pray away the kingdom of darkness because

00:10:38.700 our weapons are not carnal. They're not fleshly, but there's spiritual and our, our warfare is

00:10:44.580 spiritual and our enemy is spiritual. But if you take Ephesians 6, 12, and you cross-reference

00:10:49.460 that with second Timothy chapter two, verses 25 and 26, it says, it says, or starting at 24,

00:10:56.340 the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone able to teach patiently

00:11:01.320 enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness, because God may perhaps grant to

00:11:07.360 them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. Now verse 26, this is second Timothy two

00:11:12.660 26, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after having been

00:11:19.740 captured by him to do his will. So our, our battle is not with flesh and blood. The devil is our

00:11:26.780 ultimate enemy. He is ultimately spiritual principalities, but the devil captures flesh

00:11:34.260 and blood to do his will. And so that doesn't mean that we should take up literal swords and

00:11:40.260 kill the infidel. I'm certainly not saying that, but what I'm saying is that this spiritual battle 0.58

00:11:45.000 has carnal, real physical manifestations. The devil takes people captive. Now we need to

00:11:54.940 correct our opponents, our human people components, our neighbors with gentleness, just like

00:12:00.580 like Paul says to Timothy, because we don't know God may grant them repentance. But the point is

00:12:06.080 that these people, our opponents, they've been captured by Satan. Jesus uses the same language

00:12:11.820 in John chapter eight. Your father is the devil. He's talking to people. And in Genesis chapter 0.86

00:12:17.660 six, sons of God, fallen angels, procreating with people and producing offspring, perhaps,

00:12:24.980 or Nephilim, either way, people. And so my whole point is to say, it's a spiritual battle. We wage

00:12:30.060 this battle with spiritual weapons, but these evil spirits that we're at war with, they want this

00:12:38.120 world. They care about this world. So why don't Christians? Seems like the devil and sons of God

00:12:45.780 and fallen angels and nephilim and whatever that it seems like all these spirituals and the prince

00:12:49.760 of persia the prince of persia cares about persia but christians don't and so so the christian today

00:12:55.920 who say well america you know whatever and i'm not you know no that that's not how the enemy thinks

00:13:01.280 the enemy is not gnostic the enemy is not content to just play around up in the heavens in the

00:13:06.540 spiritual realm he is using all his spiritual powers to have physical implications applications

00:13:13.360 here on earth. And we too, even though our ultimate enemy is spiritual and our weaponry

00:13:18.220 is ultimately spiritual, the way that we fight is not just with fasting and prayer and spiritual

00:13:24.920 seances. No, the way that we fight is by speaking spiritual truths to people who have been taken

00:13:33.500 captive by a spiritual enemy. And we do this with courage and also gentleness because God might

00:13:38.780 grant repentance and i would just so that that would be my i think of the apostle paul as a

00:13:43.340 weapon i think the apostle paul is a weapon and because of what happened at the cross the apostle

00:13:47.460 paul was a weapon in the hand of the enemy and the enemy was disarmed of the apostle paul

00:13:53.680 at the cross right so when you think of that like that like hey we're not fighting against flesh and

00:13:59.820 blood we're fighting against these principal super spiritual principalities oh yeah and christ

00:14:04.040 disarmed them yeah but these principalities that look like human flesh that are beating the

00:14:08.700 trash out of me like they really look like flesh right but when the gospel is preached their hearts

00:14:14.600 are converted they're transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light 0.75

00:14:18.440 we're presenting ourselves as instruments unto god and not instruments unto the devil the instrument

00:14:24.220 language is is weapon war like language um so i think of the apostle paul he was disarmed the

00:14:31.320 enemy had the apostle paul as a weapon they used and he was disarmed and and now he's yeah working

00:14:37.900 for the kingdom of god joel i have one more little application i could make really quick here

00:14:42.040 if you want go ahead okay um so this is michael heiser and some of the stuff we were sharing uh

00:14:47.440 a lot of it was from the unseen realm uh michael heiser has kind of popularized a lot of this uh

00:14:52.880 kind of refreshed interest in the nephilim and things of that nature but um it's a very good

00:14:58.320 book unseen realm and uh but here's what uh dr heiser says he says the babylonian elite taught

00:15:04.960 that the divine knowledge of the Eccallus, divine sages, great culture war heroes like Gilgamesh,

00:15:11.880 he says they had survived the flood through a succeeding post-flood generation of these giant

00:15:19.380 quasi-divine beings. So he's talking about what the Babylonians believed, what their writings taught.

00:15:24.460 So their writings taught that these giant people survived the flood is what they taught.

00:15:30.060 And the biblical writers took what the Babylonians thought was proof of their own divine heritage and told a different story.

00:15:37.760 In other words, the Babylonians are like, hey, the reason we're Babylon, the reason we're so awesome is because we descended from these giants.

00:15:45.500 We're great.

00:15:46.820 Okay.

00:15:47.360 And so here's Heiser commenting on that.

00:15:50.380 He says, the biblical writers told a different story.

00:15:52.660 Yes, there were giants, renowned men, both before and after the flood.

00:15:56.140 But those offspring and their knowledge were not of the true God.

00:15:59.440 They were the result of rebellion against Yahweh by lesser divine beings. 0.63

00:16:04.880 Genesis 6, 1-4, along with 2 Peter and Jude, portrays Babylon's boast as a horrific transgression, 0.98

00:16:13.940 and even worse, the catalyst that spread corruption throughout humankind. 0.96

00:16:18.540 So, a couple of things on that.

00:16:20.620 First of all, why is this important?

00:16:22.600 You have three falls, three strikes in your out for humanity.

00:16:26.660 Genesis 3, the fall of man.

00:16:28.780 you have genesis 6 the story we just told and then genesis 11 the tower of babel and these all

00:16:34.840 uh all three of these like if we just say well we can't figure out genesis 6 so who cares about

00:16:39.820 that let's just talk about the other two we're really missing what the the author of uh genesis

00:16:45.380 moses is trying to communicate here he's saying like humanity has struck out three times and uh

00:16:52.040 and so he's going to start over in genesis 12 with abram so that's part of it the other thing i want

00:16:56.660 to focus on is he says even worse the catalyst that spread corruption throughout humankind

00:17:01.540 uh is that uh is that part of what's happening here in my in my estimation my reading of it

00:17:08.460 is that uh and i've studied a whole lot on revelation so i see this more there but it's

00:17:13.860 kind of builds on this genesis 6 story in part and uh is that the biblical authors are explaining

00:17:19.860 the problem of evil they're not just dunking on babylon that's part of it but they're actually

00:17:23.700 explaining like why is there such evil and when we talk about our battle isn't against flesh and

00:17:28.540 blood but against the rulers the authorities the powers of this dark world uh this is just a really

00:17:32.760 important thing it's it's important because there is some evil that just can't be explained by

00:17:37.960 psychology like how can a person torture his children how can adolf hitler do what he does

00:17:43.620 i mean some things are so demented that the secular worldview is utterly without the capacity

00:17:50.900 to explain the level of dementedness that humanity enters into.

00:17:56.720 I mean, you read the news, you don't have to have me name more examples.

00:18:02.880 But actually having an explanation for this, but then further than that,

00:18:07.360 having the explanation that Christ disarmed the story behind the story,

00:18:11.920 the evil behind the evil, disarmed those powers at the cross,

00:18:15.600 and then is coming again to remove them entirely,

00:18:19.360 it kind of just gives us a story to explain why is there's all why there's all this mess in this

00:18:24.760 world to give us a contributing piece and actually uh finishing the task so to speak

00:18:32.180 i mean jesus is going to finish it but giving us a role in this uh right but explaining the story

00:18:37.780 behind the story for evil i think is really no that's that's really helpful michael and and i

00:18:42.640 think that makes sense within and i don't know if you would agree with this but from my position

00:18:47.580 And that would make sense why I think there's a progressive revelation that we see in the Old Testament of the gospel that culminates in Christ, the final word.

00:19:00.700 Hebrews chapter 1, he's the radiance.

00:19:02.580 You know, long ago God spoke to us by our fathers, the prophets, in many ways and in sundry times.

00:19:07.220 But finally, in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son.

00:19:10.100 He's the exact imprint of the father's nature.

00:19:12.320 He's the radiance of the glory of God.

00:19:14.380 And so there's this progressive revelation that's coming to the world from from the serpent crusher with Adam to the seed with Abraham to the king that's going to sit on the throne of David, you know, and, you know, and so we see this revelatory progression, but then now culminating in Christ.

00:19:39.000 And then Christ commissions his apostles to plant churches.

00:19:42.820 And then we're taking this work further.

00:19:45.420 And I would argue that that's why, that's precisely why the world is getting better, not worse.

00:19:52.560 And I know it doesn't look that way sometimes when we watch the news, but that's because scare news sells.

00:19:59.260 you know and and uh but the reality is that like you know i like what uh ben merkel and doug wilson

00:20:06.040 you know they um they talk about david and they say you know we've come a long way from um from

00:20:11.320 a man after god's own heart wearing foreskins around as a necklace around his neck um to you

00:20:17.720 know to what a man after god's own heart looks like today you know like like david was was a bit

00:20:23.220 of a barbarian you know he wasn't allowed to build the temple for a reason you know and uh because

00:20:28.420 God literally says he shed too much blood.

00:20:30.280 And David was a good man. 0.89

00:20:32.380 Yeah, his foreskin necklace did not help his resume when he went to God and asked if he could build the temple. 0.96

00:20:38.260 This is literally the worst necklace I could ever. 0.99

00:20:41.120 Yeah, it's pretty ugly.

00:20:42.640 It's even worse than the shell necklaces. 0.65

00:20:45.000 It got him his first wife. 0.62

00:20:47.700 He got him Saul's daughter.

00:20:49.220 But anyways, the point is to say that there's a progressive revelation of the gospel throughout the Old Testament that culminates in Christ.

00:20:56.180 And then now there's a progressive expansion, not revelation of the gospel, but an expansion of the gospel built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

00:21:07.100 And we're building on that and expanding this revelation to the world.

00:21:12.080 And as we do, my whole point is to say things are getting better.

00:21:16.820 We don't have – now, yeah, there are still – it's like stocks, right?

00:21:22.520 There are dips and spikes.

00:21:23.700 So that's not to say it's a perfectly gradual line of improvement, right? Adolf Hitler is a dip, a big dip. 0.88

00:21:32.220 You know, abortion is a big dip. But the point is that the world is not as violent as it once was.

00:21:41.420 But when you look at parts of the world and you look at the worldview behind it, the Western civilization that's not as barbaric, that is not as physically violent, there's a reason for it. 0.56

00:21:55.240 And it's not because white people just decided to be civilized and, you know, wear wigs.

00:22:02.820 No, it's because Western civilization, the foundation of it is Christianity.

00:22:09.520 It's the Bible.

00:22:10.680 And that doesn't mean that we've always lived up to all of our ideals.

00:22:13.460 And that doesn't mean that we've executed all these things perfectly.

00:22:16.760 But the bottom line, this is another Doug Wilson thing.

00:22:19.960 It's controversial, but I'm going to say it.

00:22:22.140 He said that...

00:22:22.820 Something Doug said is controversial?

00:22:24.340 If you don't want to be racist, he said that you look at other parts of the world.

00:22:31.400 You look at the Taliban, the 8th century barbarians and what they're doing in Afghanistan right now.

00:22:38.880 And they're barbarians. 0.95

00:22:40.640 They're primitive in so many ways. 0.96

00:22:43.740 And so then what's the difference between Europe and the East?

00:22:50.000 and so it's either it's either biological which we would reject that that is racist or it's that 0.96

00:22:58.180 white people were painting their faces blue and going and raping and pillaging countries like 0.95

00:23:03.180 vikings just like any other people group until the gospel did something that the difference is 0.98

00:23:09.120 the gospel the gospel changes not just individuals through conversion but it changes societies it

00:23:15.940 It applies better laws and better governments and checks and balances.

00:23:21.120 I mean, the whole idea of America with our form of government is a form of government that was built on the presupposition of total depravity.

00:23:27.080 That's why we had so many checks and balances, was to guard against tyranny, recognizing that these other countries that, like, God bless the poor people in Afghanistan.

00:23:37.920 But it's because there aren't checks and balances.

00:23:40.100 There's just absolute tyranny.

00:23:42.060 But part of it is because their worldview.

00:23:44.900 I wouldn't say just part of it. I would say that that is the thing. Their worldview doesn't account for sin like we're accounting for in this episode that would put in checks and balances.

00:23:53.980 So my whole point is to say throughout the Old Testament, you have a progressive revelation of the gospel.

00:23:59.260 It culminates in the earthly ministry of Christ, his life, death and resurrection.

00:24:03.500 And then and then Jesus says he binds the strong man.

00:24:08.180 So the enemy takes a pivotal blow in Jesus' ministry, and then Jesus commissions not only the apostles, but he commissions us.

00:24:15.820 And he says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go.

00:24:21.940 And as we go and make disciples, it's not just that hearts are being converted and we're increasing the heavenly citizens, the population in heaven.

00:24:31.520 but but with with the teachings of jesus his commandments to go and make disciples baptize

00:24:37.260 them into the triune name and we always forget the last part of the great commission teach them

00:24:41.340 to obey all my commands teach governments to obey my commands civil nations the nations are

00:24:48.120 christ's inheritance and as we do this um the world is getting better and yes like stocks there

00:24:54.660 There are spikes and dips, but it is trending upward, and I look at the world today, and the places in the world that seem to be the darkest often are places that don't have the gospel or have received the gospel recently, like China.

00:25:11.800 there are tons of christians in china but that's still in the big scope of human history the gospel

00:25:17.640 coming to china is is is a somewhat new advancement and and i believe that by god's great and the

00:25:26.000 gospel coming to africa i believe that if america continues in this state of apostasy which which is

00:25:31.780 what i would say we're in as a state of apostasy and i know people have problems with that with

00:25:36.500 america is not a christian nation well i think we're an apostate nation and and if we continue

00:25:40.980 with that, but people in Africa continue to accept the gospel, then if Jesus tarries a thousand 0.72

00:25:47.180 years, I think Africa will flourish and America could be a third world country. And my whole 0.78

00:25:54.320 point in saying that is just to say we're not Gnostics. The gospel has real life applications

00:25:59.660 and it's not just for spiritual heavenly things to where we're no earthly good. And the gospel

00:26:06.720 doesn't just convert human hearts that's the chief thing that the gospel does but the gospel when

00:26:12.120 applied to societies um it lends towards human flourishing it makes a difference and uh and i

00:26:20.460 think we see that progressively throughout human history and uh and so the difference in nations

00:26:25.980 that have flourished and nations that have not is not anything inerrant in in ethnicity but what

00:26:32.800 it ultimately is is the fruit of the gospel and nations that that um that are implementing the

00:26:38.340 rule and reign of christ and so i think it's worth fighting for so anyways i i know you guys probably

00:26:44.880 want to agree with all that you do i don't know i don't know that i didn't do anything there i i'm

00:26:49.580 all millennial bro and which is really a pessimistic view of what you have until the 19th century

00:26:55.060 amillennial and post-millennial was the same thing and so i'm pretty much in the same place i just

00:26:59.320 i just think that when satan gets released it's not going to be all peachy like you think

00:27:03.560 i mean i'm messing with you bro um i think it'll be more than a blip on the radar but

00:27:11.040 we do shows at five he's tired honestly it's uh we're really close no i agree with you i love all

00:27:16.640 that yeah i like it all right well guys that that was awesome let's go ahead and end this episode

00:27:22.460 I expected you to talk trash back.

00:27:24.300 You were just like – 0.97

00:27:25.000 No, no, no.

00:27:25.660 You're holding on.

00:27:27.200 It's good. 0.98

00:27:27.720 Well, talking trash takes time because if I talk trash, then you're going to talk trash and then we're going to be here for 30 more minutes and everyone is going to be bored. 0.97

00:27:34.260 So let's go ahead and land the plane. 0.99

00:27:36.040 I'm going to be the bigger man who doesn't talk trash, which ironically is me talking trash. 0.99

00:27:40.040 So this is – I won. 0.96

00:27:43.980 So this is how I want to end it.

00:27:45.300 You guys, let our listeners know how they can follow you and how they can – how can they keep up with you and what some of the stuff you guys got in the pipeline.

00:27:55.060 And then our listeners, make sure every time you listen to Remnant Radio, come back and listen to me two times just to make sure that they're not screwing with your mind, getting some weird guests on that show.

00:28:05.680 Yeah, you're for sure going to get weird guests here on Remnant Radio, people that we disagree with we've interviewed, people that Joel will disagree with and others will disagree with.

00:28:14.280 The point of the show is not to have someone on that we're just going to completely agree with.

00:28:18.860 Yeah, so guys, check us out, Ruminant Radio, The Ruminant Radio, on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.

00:28:26.240 YouTube's our biggest, but yeah, check it all out.

00:28:28.020 YouTube is the place.

00:28:28.840 We're on podcasting platforms and everything else.

00:28:31.000 And like Joel said earlier, man, there are going to be people on our show that you're going to disagree with

00:28:34.560 because we interview everyone from across the spectrum, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals.

00:28:39.260 And we disagree with.

00:28:39.980 Yeah, many of them we disagree with. 0.62

00:28:41.380 Uh, there are guys, uh, probably one or two guys we've interviewed that we didn't even know were Orthodox. And the reason we did the interview was to ask those kinds of essential Orthodox kinds of questions. Jesus, the son of God, is he divine? Those kinds of things. Uh, man, I think it's a great place to kind of maybe break outside of the normal things you've been listening to and find out what other traditions have to say about a matter.

00:29:02.040 I mean, heck, I think the Lutheran tradition has a lot to add to the Christian faith.

00:29:06.040 And they've kind of been their own corner of Protestantism for a very long time.

00:29:09.020 And I think that we could glean a lot from them.

00:29:11.540 Yeah. And if you name like one of the well-known Bible scholars or pastors, theologians from around the world, we have probably interviewed them.

00:29:20.080 And so we do interviews on Wednesday.

00:29:22.920 We do do a show on the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

00:29:25.100 And that's less interview, more just right now we're talking through various revivals.

00:29:29.140 We did an episode on the Brownsville revival.

00:29:32.620 But we do it in a way that we're thinking critically.

00:29:36.580 I mean, you just heard us for whatever, hour and a half or whatever this was.

00:29:39.660 We think biblically, theologically, exegetically, all the things.

00:29:43.420 And so we do have a Wednesday show on that.

00:29:45.300 We're starting a new one on church history, a new episode coming up soon.

00:29:49.300 But basically, Gifts of the Spirit, church history, and then theology across the spectrum.

00:29:54.080 We'll do episodes on the atonement.

00:29:55.840 We'll do an atonement theory.

00:29:57.820 We'll do episodes on new perspective of Paul and in the biblical version of the old perspective of Paul.

00:30:05.340 There you go. Right. But so, but we'll talk about all of it.

00:30:09.360 We'll talk about all of it. And then, and so it's just a helpful, like you said at the beginning of the show, Joel, it busts out of your theological echo chamber, helps you think of thinking some new ways in a safe space that is orthodox.

00:30:25.040 Safe space.

00:30:25.720 Joel loves that word.

00:30:27.360 Well, no, I appreciate what you guys have done.

00:30:30.260 Like one of the things that Remnant Radio blessed me with was apart from just Michael's long-term friendship, but you guys connected me.

00:30:38.020 Well, you didn't even mean to do this.

00:30:39.120 He just kind of picked up on it.

00:30:40.160 But through you guys, you connected me with Leighton Flowers.

00:30:43.120 And it was good, not because I changed my view, but it was good because I just – I remember talking to you, Michael, about it.

00:30:51.540 you know, like Layton picked up on an episode I did with you guys with Calvinism and he started

00:30:55.440 critiquing it. Um, because, you know, he can only, you know, he's, you can only critique James White

00:31:00.820 so many times, you know, and so Layton, Layton needed to find someone else, you know, the show

00:31:05.280 must go on, you know? So anyway, so he found my episode that I did with you guys and started

00:31:08.740 critiquing me. And then you guys let me do a response to him. And then that culminated in a

00:31:12.660 debate. And, uh, my point is just to say that, uh, I remember talking to you about it, Michael,

00:31:17.540 you know um after the debate and debriefing with you and you know it was like i didn't change my

00:31:25.020 views but um but i just realized man it had been like five six seven years since i had really like

00:31:32.280 gotten in the ring and sparred with someone over total depravity yeah because because i like the

00:31:40.600 further you go exactly the further you go in in in your life in anything spiritual theological in

00:31:46.820 anything, your, your career path, the further you go, the more you get toward people who are like

00:31:53.500 you specialized. Exactly. And, and the less you interact with, you know, so like I, you know,

00:31:59.460 like there's just certain things that used to be regular. I was always having these conversations

00:32:03.900 because I was first coming into a view, which means all the relationships in my life, my family,

00:32:08.500 my friends, everybody were, were still in my old view. And I'm coming out of that view into a new

00:32:12.860 view like Calvinism and I'm having to defend this change in me to all of my friends. And so I'm

00:32:19.820 being, but what about this? What about this? And the problem of evil? And you know, what about

00:32:23.500 free will? And, and, um, and I remember when that was just like every day I was living and breathing

00:32:28.620 those kinds of conversations. It was an argument every single day about free will and an argument

00:32:33.380 every single day. And it wasn't just because I was a cage Calvinist and arrogant. Part of it is 0.90

00:32:37.340 just the practical relational context of coming out of one view where you've been surrounded with

00:32:42.400 all those friends into another view. But then the point is you, you come into this new view and if

00:32:46.860 you stick with it and you go down that path, yes, you're growing. Yes, you're learning. But one

00:32:50.780 thing that you're losing is, um, opposition. And, and so it is helpful. I think ministries like

00:32:58.060 yours, uh, I think people need discernment and I think you guys help as kind of, you know, like,

00:33:03.160 like, like bowling with, um, with bumpers, you know, keeping people from falling into like just

00:33:07.780 straight up heretical gutter. But so you guys help in the way that you host your show,

00:33:12.480 protecting your listeners from just completely unorthodox views. But I think the listener still

00:33:18.140 needs to exercise a lot of biblical discernment. But one of the benefits is that there could be

00:33:24.100 some confusion. You know for sure what orthodoxy is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. But one of the

00:33:30.840 benefits, my point is to say one of the benefits is that a lot of times we don't spar and we get

00:33:37.060 flabby and we get soft. And that's been helpful for me. So anyways, thanks you guys for coming

00:33:43.420 on the show. I appreciate it. God bless you. Hey man, it's always an honor. I enjoyed being

00:33:46.980 on, man. Yeah, thanks for having us. We appreciate what you're doing.

00:33:50.500 As a special thank you for your gift of any amount, we'll be happy to send you a free

00:33:54.520 digital book from our store. To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.com

00:33:59.940 slash offer. We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved? If you or someone you

00:34:05.860 know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God, this would be a great resource. As a reminder

00:34:11.200 to get this offer, go to rightresponseministries.com slash offer. And thank you for your generous

00:34:16.680 support.

The NXR Podcast - September 08, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Nephilim’s Relevance For Christians Today

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