Speaker: 00:00:00

so here's one though that I've heard

that might be a little outlandish,

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but I think it's relevant. Back

to, what does God say.

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What does Scripture say.

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I've heard this from many places

and that is oh well, Revelation

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says this whole world's going to burn up

anyway, and we're living in the end times.

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It's about to happen any minute now,

because they're just convinced

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that the world is just about to end

and it's all going to get burned up.

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So why should I care?

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And I've heard that regularly used as,

oh, this is a reason why environmentalism,

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whatever, what have you stewardship

of the creation that doesn't apply to us.

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What would you say to that?

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Because that's someone trying to say, oh,

well see right here it says,

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I mean, it's all going to burn up,

so it doesn't matter anymore. Yeah

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I would say there's two part,

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maybe two parts to that question,

number one.

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Let's say let's, let's,

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for the sake of argument, agree

that it's all going to burn up.

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Does that make it

any more right to disobey

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when God says that we ought to be good

stewards of what he's given us?

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So let's

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even if it's going to burn up,

does that mean that we,

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you know,

just just destroy the farmland around us?

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Does it mean that

because God is going to destroy the earth?

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Everything that he said about,

being good stewards doesn't apply.

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So that's the one part of it.

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And and of course not.

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If it's going to be, destroyed.

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God's, We're still supposed to be good

stewards.

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The other question is,

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is there any hints

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that creation will be renewed

rather than destroyed?

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So this is the one

isn't dependent on the other, just because

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it's going to be destroyed

doesn't mean we disregard all of God's,

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commands to be good stewards.

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And the second question, though,

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is, are we on solid footing

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that it's just going to be

simply destroyed?

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That’s the second question.

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That that's a really good point, because

when people use this, they would say

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with great confidence, you know, like,

oh yeah, it's all going to get destroyed.

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So it doesn't matter.

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And then that's that's the kind of crux

of of the whole argument.

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And I've always wondered about that

because you've also been referring back

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to. Yeah,

but there's all these other scriptures

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saying to take care of what God's

given us, take care of the the earth,

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whatever however you want to phrase it.

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I mean, we see that right in the Garden

of Eden and a lot of other places.

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Is this is

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are these people too confident,

perhaps in their position that just says,

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oh, it doesn't matter because it's

all going to get burned up anyways.

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So yeah, walk through that a bit destroyed

versus renewed.

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What does that look like?

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Because I feel like it's not quite clear

in my own head and, Yeah.

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So, so help me out with that.

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So Christians,

good Christians disagree on this point of,

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emphasizing the destruction

or the renewal.

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I was, at Maranatha

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Bible School as a teacher,

and there was discussion,

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you know, which one should we emphasize

that it's going to be renewed

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or it's going to be destroyed?

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And, there is evidence in Scripture

for both,

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we often think that the Earth

is going to come to,

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you know, a sudden end.

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But then we have verses

like Psalm 148 and verse six,

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talking about the creation.

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And then it says he has established them

forever.

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Oh, And Ecclesiastes

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one and verse four, generations

come and go,

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but the earth remains forever.

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Now that's really interesting.

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I've never picked up on that one

before, Yeah, and there's more.

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There's those verses, but there's others

that, we often think of.

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You know, we often would emphasize,

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and this is not to argue that there's

no arguments on the other side.

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We obviously have first Peter three.

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So the, the, the,

elements shall melt with fervent heat.

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But there is yet, you know,

so this idea, a hint

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that creation,

the molecules of creation, will

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in some sense survive that.

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Is there any other hints of that?

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Well, there's another one.

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Christians believe in the resurrection,

the bodily resurrection.

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And this is another

one that has faded in the background.

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So Oh yeah. Okay.

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I, I wonder if I think I might see

where you're going here.

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Because that's something

that I've very rarely ever heard about.

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Talked about the bodily resurrection

and the like.

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It feels kind of fuzzy in my head.

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Is it because, oh, this,

this is kind of confusing.

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Can't really wrap our heads around it.

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So it's not exactly it's not like a topic

of conversation very often I would love.

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I would love to hear you

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dig into this one, because I feel like

this is a pretty important piece

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because because it seems to fit with these

themes of renewal, resurrection.

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You know, there's a lot of these themes

flowing through the New Testament,

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but I don't feel like I've.

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I know nearly enough about this, so

I'd be happy if you dig into that a bit.

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I do agree, in our day and age, we

we think and very much think in terms of,

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when we die, we,

we become disembodied and we go to heaven,

100

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and, what we what actually, we actually

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if we want to be very careful

about how we talk,

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what we actually believe

is we go to the intermediate state,

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which is before

our bodies are resurrected. So,

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and not to, to geek out too much.

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But what happens to us when we die now?

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And we would say this in our,

in our statements of faith

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that we believe we go to the

we are disembodied.

108

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We no longer have our body, but someday,

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the ultimate hope of all Christians,

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and this is not only some Christians, is

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we have the hope of bodily resurrection.

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And and if it's hard to believe that,

then my next point will be it'll be.

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But if we believe in some kind of bodily

resurrection and classic,

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orthodox historic Christians do,

and we we have a less in our day,

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we even Mennonites would have a little bit

less of a grasp on that.

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I think you're correct in saying that,

but that is what Christians believe.

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And I'm not being, controversial

when I say that

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if we are going to be bodily resurrection,

that means that

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some of the molecules of God's creation

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are going to survive in some sense.

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And that is a hint

that more could as well.

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Do you understand my argument there?

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So if we are bodily right,

if we plan to come out of the grave

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and all all Christians,

all classical Christians,

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when they think carefully about it,

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they do agree that we are going

to come out of the graves, right?

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The dead in Christ shall rise first.

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It's not

they're not going to stay in the grave.

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The the body that was buried

is somehow going to come out.

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And we can there's, you know,

a lot of questions about how that all be.

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What does renewal all mean?

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But in some sense, what God created

will be raised from the dead,

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like Jesus was raised from the dead,

did his created body.

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Stay in the grave. It disappeared.

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The molecules that were in the grave

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were renewed into a new body.

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And so there is at least a hint

in this discussion about will

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what God

created be destroyed or will be renewed?

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In my mind, there's a strong hint

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in the resurrection of Jesus

and the resurrection of all Christians

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that it will be renewed,

not destroyed and disappear.

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And so one part of the three pieces

of creation in the beginning, I said, I'm

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going to talk about kind of three pieces

the land, animals and humans.

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And we we are pretty convinced

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as Christians

that humans will be bodily resurrected.

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That points that possibly

some of the rest will be renewed as well.

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To answer those who feel that

they're very confident

148

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that it will be burned and destroyed.

149

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That, that, that there

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something will come through that fire

and be renewed, not destroyed.