Jeff Ro.

Bison.

I'm not sure where the spaces should be in there, but he says, I think a lot of reformed just.

Robinson.

Robinson.

There we go.

Yeah.

Jeff Robust.

Hey, it matters where you put the space.

Geo Frobinson.

It all matters where you put the space.

Wow, you got your syllables wrong.

I'm sorry about that.

Jeff.

Jeff Robinson.

Sorry.

All right.

That's why you gotta have underscores so idiots like me know where to put the space.

Let's go.

Geo fribidson.

Oh, Andrew.

This is Apologetics Live to answer your questions.

Your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rapaport.

Well, we are Live Apologetics Live here to answer your most challenging questions you have about God and the Bible.

We can answer any question that you have about God in the Bible.

And if you doubt that, just go to apologetics live.com and scroll down till you see a little duck icon.

Click on that and join the discussion.

Just remember, one thing I don't know is a perfectly good answer.

I am your host, Andrew Rapport, Striving, the president of Striving Fraternity and the Christian podcast community, which this podcast is a proud member.

Let me add in my two co hosts, Drew and Tom.

I have been waiting for weeks to get both of you together so I could play that clip since a good one.

See, you see, we did the one time where Tom kept agreeing with me as we.

As we discussed the.

The topic of Israel, and you guys made a big thing because Tom kept agreeing, and I was like, you know, someone's got to clip this.

And Drew's like, andrew's gonna clip it and play it every week.

Well, I do actually play the clips where I sound like a complete, utter fool as well, because it was so fun.

I almost forgot about that one.

I was like, oh, yeah.

I went to take a sip of water, and I started listening to it.

I'm like, I can't.

I'm gonna spit my water out.

It still cracks me up.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

I'm that bad.

All right, so what we're gonna do tonight is talk about.

Well, it won't be amillennialism because, well, we had two weeks on amillennialism to give Tom a chance to be here, and he skipped both of it.

So we're gonna invite in M. Howard to join us, and he's going to be the guy to talk post mill.

And, Drew, I don't know if it's you or Tom.

Someone's.

Someone's get.

We're getting a lot of noise from.

So just it's not me.

I just muted myself.

Yeah.

What?

It went away when you did.

Oh, look, watch.

Look, I'll do it again.

See, it's.

Well, see, I'm on.

It's not on, but you're on.

It's.

You're not muted because we can hear you.

I know, but I had muted myself and it didn't go away.

All right, maybe it was Tom.

We'll see.

Yeah.

So.

All right, so here now.

Yeah, well, if it starts coming back, then we'll know that it's.

It could be Tom's mic, too.

All right, so, Josh, welcome.

We.

I found out about you through Eschatology Matters, which I think you do some work with.

And so I reached out to, you know, Brandon Wood, and he.

I said, hey, you got anyone that would be really good on postmail?

He recommended you.

So for the audience, I. I haven't, other than just as this show started, haven't really spoken.

Know much about.

About Josh, but I do know he's in Pennsylvania.

So Kathy Demings is saying greetings and watching from Pennsylvania, so you could feel good about that.

I'm also from Pennsylvania, and someone is letting us know.

Jacob Glass is letting us know that E Matters, which I'm going to assume is Eschatology Matters, is being represented here.

So thank you, Jacob.

And so, Josh, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself to folks, let them know a bit about yourself.

Yeah, no, thanks.

And appreciate the invitation to come on and chat.

Yeah.

So actually, I came in and kind of got involved with Eschatology Matters.

Brandon Wood and I co founded it, following.

Well, really?

Okay, so Brandon Wood.

This is kind of our Backstageology Matters.

Brandon Wood was going to do a conference on eschatology.

It's just kind of the guy he is.

He wanted to kind of explore millennial views, and he was like, why don't I host a conference on it?

And I had just written a book at the time.

It was my doctoral dissertation, and it got published as a academic monograph, which is a really fancy way of saying it's a book that nobody actually reads unless they're writing a dissertation or an academic monograph.

And so I got done with this.

This book, and the book was on the defeat of Satan.

So it's kind of an inherently eschatological topic, how Satan is defeated, and.

And kind of a, you know, thoroughly biblical walkthrough on that.

That theme.

So Brandon reached out to me and asked, come talk about the book at the conference.

I jumped at it.

It was a couple hours away, and we Kind of co founded Eschatology Matters through that.

So that's kind of how me and Brandon have, have, have struck out.

If anybody's been to the channel on Eschatology Matters, you've probably seen my face and you should probably thank Brandon for anything good that comes out of it because he's force behind most of it.

But as for me, I'm a, I'm a pastor.

So I've been pastoring for, I guess.

Coming up on.

Hang on, let me do the math.

I don't know, somewhere 13, 14 years I've been pastoring.

I came out of a, a secular vocation that I did for many years and went through school, went through seminary and I'm pastoring at a church right outside of the Pittsburgh area and little, Little burrow called Monroeville, if you're familiar with it.

So I pastor a Presbyterian church here.

I do a little bit of teaching on the side, which I'm GR for.

I love to teach.

I do a little bit of writing.

So I've written some articles, published a few books through different publishers.

And yeah, other than that, like I told you guys, usually my points are that I am a happily married husband of 20 years.

I have four wonderful children, the fourth of which was, was truly a miracle of God that she survived.

So yeah, just serving the Lord here in, in Western pa, You can't say.

That without explaining why she's a miracle of God or you can't just like leave that out there.

It's just, just floating in the air for.

No, for everybody to.

Yeah, it's a story.

You guys serve in ministry, so you know how these stories, every year, my congregation, when March rolls around, they have to hear this story.

I will work it into some sermon illustration and pull it in there somewhere.

But yeah, the long and short was we'd planned on, we planned on having more kids and you know, just kind of hoped, hoped and prayed.

Toward that end, we had our fourth.

Her name is Johanna.

She, she lived.

She is healthy and wonderful.

But anyway, she, when she born, the long and short is my wife came down with a condition that had a 4% chance of survival.

You know, just, just 4%.

And they kept her a 4% chance for about three days.

It's a, it's a condition called DIC, which we later learned that like hospital staff kind of morbidly refer to as death is coming.

And it's, it's typically one that you don't live through.

So anyway, my wife for weeks was an icu.

My little baby girl was born she was essentially stillborn, so they had to do on my infant when she was first born there on the, on the operating table.

And she was in NICU for many weeks after that.

So it's a, it's a really long and involved story.

The, the point is, God was tremendously gracious.

My wife survived, my daughter survived.

It's nothing I would want to go through, as with so many of those formative experiences, nothing I would wish on anybody.

But it was such a miraculous time.

We are so grateful and we've told that story in much more detail to so many.

Try to encourage them through those times.

So.

Well, thank you.

Brother John says blessings from Canada.

And since John is watching, I'll just, I'll take a sip of my water.

Here.

From my cessationist cup.

Oh, sorry, John.

He'll probably do a video on me now.

He's a good brother.

I love him.

He's a good evangelist up in Canada, but he, and he can take a joke.

So I can, I know I could do it.

Of course, I don't know if Josh, if you're, if you're a cessationist or not, or I just probably just offended you.

So I'll stay out of that debate.

I'm not here for that.

So.

You know the other thing I was waiting for the two you co host to get back.

Tom, you are Mr. AI.

You like to play with AI.

You do your shows and you ask AI what kind of questions to ask.

So they came up with a new thing with AI where it says, hey, I can.

I could tell you about yourself from your chats.

Would you like me to do that?

Now, I use AI for two things.

Primarily, I give it my sermons and say, keep 95% of the content intact, but make it sound better.

Which I use it.

I use it for editing on things I write.

I say make it sound polished and smart.

Yeah, so.

So essentially for me, it's not doing much.

Right.

It's like asking it to make it sound better is like, yeah, anything.

It's not very hard.

What are you going to say, Tom?

I actually have to say, hey, a little bit less academic here.

I don't, I wouldn't sound like that.

That's nothing that would ever come out of my mouth.

Well, see, I, I, my prompts all tell it, you know, I want like 95 of it to be as it like to just smooth it over so none of the content is changing.

Just adding some better bear words.

It is interesting.

It sometimes comes with good outlines.

And the other thing I use it for.

Is to.

For Apologex Live to come up with catchy titles and the description.

So I said, all right, let chatgpt tell me about myself.

So.

So for Tom and Drew's sake, Josh, you could just, you know, listen.

But they'll get.

They'll laugh at this, I'm sure, and you can just laugh at them laughing at me.

But this is what AI thinks of.

Of me.

This is.

This is what it said for you, Tom.

It says, meet the lion of the live stream.

A bold.

A bold conservative Baptist preacher with a theologic.

With a theologian's mind and a debater's fire.

By.

By day, you craft crisp sermon manuscripts with doctrinal precision.

By night, you host apologetics.

Live where you are fearlessly, where you fearlessly tackle big questions, stand firm on in dispensational truth, and keep the gospel front and center.

No fluff, no compromise, just sharp wit, sharper scripture, and unapolog.

Unapolog.

Apologetic clarity in the world of gray.

So.

So there you go.

I. I figured you.

You of all would appreciate that.

Even AI had to slip in the dispensationalism there, huh?

Even AI has to slip it in like you do.

That's pretty good.

That's pretty accurate, I'd say, actually, too.

I thought that was funny.

Yeah.

So.

All right.

So this week we're talking post millennialism.

Josh, What I'd, you know, if you could give us just a couple things.

One is, were you always post millennial, or did you make a change?

And then if you could, for folks, because we have a lot of people who are tuned in, and they don't know all the different eschatology backgrounds and what each of them are.

So if you could kind of give just an overview of post millennialism for us, and then I'm going to ask Tom if you can mute when you're not talking, if that's okay.

Yeah, for sure.

So post millennialism, I'll give kind of, like, my synopsis of it, and then I'll answer that first part of your question, which was whether I came to it or whether I'd always been in that.

So post millennialism, if you were to think of.

Typically, the way I'll try to explain it is if you were to think of eschatology, broadly speaking, there's a lot of nuance, and anybody that's waited into this knows there's.

You'll find authors within the same, you know, camps and.

And groups that will disagree with each other or they'll have slight differences in the way they interpret certain things.

So there's, there's, there's a sufficient amount of variance that I think it, that that's one of the main things that people find daunting is hard to understand, you know, what we're talking about.

But in general, usually I try to explain it as big buckets.

You have a pre millennial bucket and you have a post millennial bucket.

So with, in the premonial bucket, you have different variations.

The two big ones would be dispensational premillennialism or historic premillennialism.

Then you have the post millennial bucket, which is amillennialism and post millennialism.

And before somebody points it out in the chat, I understand it is improper to have something within a category that is the same name as the category, but I didn't come up with the categories.

So I'll just point that to a wiser, smarter man than me with a, with an answer.

But in general, it's just pre and post.

It's where do you see Christ returning?

Do you see him returning pre a millen.

You know, obviously, again referring to Revelation 20.

Do you see him coming pre this millennial time, or do you see him coming afterward post that millennial time?

Does the millennium lead to Christ's return, His consummative final return, or is it something that comes after that consummative final return?

So that's typically where you find them.

And that's why I think you find a lot of kind of share these, you know, family similarities, you could say, between amillennials and post millennials.

A lot of times they're kind of, they're swimming in the same pool.

They're just kind of disagreeing on which which end the deep end goes toward.

You know, where's the grade of the pool?

Which, where is, is the pool going into the deep water?

I came up with that on the fly, by the way.

Feel free to edit that.

If that was a poor illustration.

I've never used that one.

But so that's, that's kind of the two big, big millennial camps within dispensational differences between dispensational premillennialism, historic premillennialism, a little bit of that gets, I think, a little more pronounced maybe than some of the differences between post and.

But I think in general, most people falling into one of those camps pre or post.

So as for me, one of the things that we've encountered at, at eschatology matters is a lot of the, a lot of the people that we started to talk to at the beginning of eschatology matters were, and I don't say this to, you know, as a barb or anything, but a lot of the guys that we talked to were raised in dispensational environments and were either never convinced of that system or maybe they were having questions about that system.

So a lot of the guys that we talked to were kind of, kind of the water in which they had swam in their, in their kind of formative Christian years was an unstudied dispensationalism.

And I say that again not to, not to smear, but just, you know, how that is like the sort of assumptions and beliefs that you, you know, these things and you may never have done the, the actual footwork to study them and to work through them yourself.

And I think for, I think for all four of us that you, we would all agree that for whatever your viewpoint is and wherever you land, it should be a studied view.

Like, that's what we're all aiming toward, is to, to study scripture and to be convinced of these things ourselves.

So that was a lot of the guys we talked to at the front end.

That was not my background.

So I kind of, I think like a lot of 80s babies, you know, I was an early 80s baby in the south, and, and a lot of us kind of, we were aware of dispensational eschatology, right?

Like, and not just the movie, just the caricatures, but, you know, popular speakers or maybe an evangelist to come through town and spoke church.

And that was his passion, was to speak about eschatology.

A lot of us had kind of seen those things.

I was never personally convinced of that system.

So I never, I never identified as a dispensational.

It never quite clicked for me.

Probably long before I had a good reason for why it didn't click for me.

So when I first started kind of delving into eschatology, it was.

It was during my MDIV studies.

So as I mentioned, I'd had a, a secular vocation for many, many years that I did and felt this, this call into ministry.

I've described it as a late call.

I was 29 into, into 30 when I left my job and went into ministry full time.

I started studying in seminary.

But when I, when I did that, I remember I was speaking in seminary.

We were talking about eschatology because everybody likes to argue in seminary, right?

That's half the reason you go there is to just hash it out with somebody and try to stand your Ground oftentimes on things you shouldn't, but that's neither here nor there.

So we eschatology.

And one of the guys said, you sound like an amillennial.

And I said, what is that?

And so he handed me Kim Riddlebarger's book, A Case for Amillennialism.

And, and Kim's a, Kim's a friend.

I think so highly of Kim and love him to death.

Even where we have disagreements, I really respect Kim.

But that was the first book I read like on eschatology.

And I remember reading it.

And I think a lot of people that are in the amillennial circles, that's if it wasn't one of the first books they've read, informative ones.

And I remember reading it and just so much in there, I was thinking, yes, this is, this is what I've been seeing too.

I just never heard anybody put terms to it or kind of, you know, trace it all together.

So for many years I just kind of considered myself an amillennial.

And it really wasn't until probably within recent years, like let's say within the last three, maybe four years, that I started becoming comfortable with the term post millennialism.

We can talk about some of the differences between post and ah, theologies.

And I, I know we already kind of were prior to the recording or prior to the podcast, but one of, one of the things that kind of leads me to not say post Millennial.

A lot of times I'm comfortable with talking about it and defending it.

I'm comfortable with coming on here and talking about why I would call myself a post millennial and why I would differ, call themselves post millennial.

All of that I'm good with.

But we had a talk with Keith Matheson, so he came on eschatology matters.

This has been probably two years at this point.

I'm not exactly sure it was.

It was a very old interview that we had and Keith Matheson came on.

Of course, Keith Matheson wrote one of the seminal books on post millennial thought.

And I remember him saying, I can't remember if it was in the interview or if it was in the, you know, kind of the after chat that we were having.

But I remember him saying that he's been moving away from even using the title of post millennialism.

And I thought to myself at the time, I thought, well, that's strange.

You know, you wrote a book on it.

So it seems, it seems like that's thing.

And so we started talking about that and essentially what his, what his.

He, he Described a hope and number two, a conviction.

And it's, it's really been taking seed for a lot of us.

What, what Keith brought up was the fact, or Dr. Matheson, I suppose I should refer to him as, but what he brought up, fact that if you look at church history, there have been seminal times, these kind of like punctiliar, pivotal times within church history where we have arrived at consensus, a good biblical consensus, usually in the face of pressures.

So the early church had councils and had various, various defenses of not only the divinity of Christ, but also the nature of the triune God, like these, these early theology proper sort of battles.

You could see other battles throughout the centuries.

You know, the Reformation would be one that I would look to and say this was a time that the church in many regards rallied to defend biblical orthodox faith.

What we see within scripture.

And Keith's point was that he, his hope and his prayer was not for camps and more divisions or maybe even clear lines.

His hope was that there would be a unifying experience of the church in eschatology.

And from his perspective, he was saying he's seen a lot of this in recent years.

Now, you could say that's, that's, that's true or not.

But I think the conviction point stands that one of.

One of our hopes at eschatology matters is not to blur lines or confuse where people's convictions are, but, but to make clear where those divisions are and maybe to find those areas where we actually can rally together, where the divisions need not be there and there could be a little bit more of a variance within them and yet kind of a unified approach, approach toward eschatology.

So that's, that's one reason why I'm happy to defend post millennialism, and I'm also happy if that term goes away within my lifetime.

Well, I know, I know that John from Canada has anxiously been watching this because for what you don't know, Josh is that he always comes in and Drew is the one.

That's the post.

What was.

I should say the post mill.

And they would discuss it back and forth.

And so he's been waiting for this one.

And now Drew is, you know, like I joked before we did the show, he's.

He's gone to the darker side.

So, I mean, we still probably view a lot of the verses the same way.

You know, like we would view the 70 weeks as, you know, already fulfilled.

You know, so, yeah, I heard somebody, and I'm quoting somebody, so nobody can get mad that I'm saying it, but I Once heard somebody describe amillennialism as the parking lot of eschatology.

Like you haven't quite figured out what story you're going to go into.

So you're sitting comfortably in the middle there.

But I didn't say it, fellas.

I, this, I'm repeating what I heard.

Yeah, well, you know, I was glad that, you know, one of the things you did say that many who, who come to post millennialism, they come out of dispensational, you know, backgrounds, but they don't.

And I'm glad to hear what you said.

They don't really know the position.

They never bought into the position because they really didn't know it.

Because it is a frustrating thing to me, whether it's whatever side.

Let's take a different topic.

You get a Latent Flowers who says that he grew up, you know, he was, he was arguing for Calvinism and yet he describes a Calvinism that like no one holds to.

And, and it doesn't matter how many Calvinists tell him that that's not the view of Calvinism.

And he, he just denies and goes, well, he, like he knows better because he grew up with this.

Right.

And it's always frustrating.

It's, it frustrates me.

Same thing when people.

Well, I used to be dispensational.

I grew up in a dispensational church when I was a kid.

Yeah, but you didn't study it.

You know, a lot of the times, even if it's, if it's all mill to, to premill, whatever.

Just because people grow up in a church that teaches something, it doesn't mean that you actually studied it, endorse it and actually believe it.

It's just the default position that you grew up with.

Hey.

Yeah, Josh, I was just curious.

Do you, do you think one of the reasons why you didn't dive into the dispensational camp is because of your covenantal background?

Yeah, my.

Well, I mean, my background was not covenantal.

So I pastor a Presbyterian church.

I didn't grow up, up Reformed, nor Presbyterian, but I always, I always saw a unity of God's people.

This was one of my, like, earliest convictions doctrinally, was a unity of God's people, Old and New Testament Israel and the church.

And when I say that, when I say unity again, I'm trying to be careful with my words here.

I know we've got a mixed panel and everything, but, but a continuity in the, in the regard of Covenant theology, one that they hold to the same covenant that the same Continuous people of God.

So that, that was one thing that kind of.

For me, that.

That part of the dynamic with dispensationalism simply never.

Andrew, I would echo what you said.

I think one of the, you know, one of the.

If we're, if we're to advance, if the Holy Spirit is molding and shaping not only individual believers but the church, we have to believe that we can and should do better than Twitter.

Dialogue amongst believers, right?

One of the.

It's just painful and it's.

It's sad when we treat one another with disdain when we haven't studied one another's views.

So I think.

I think we owe it to one another where there are disagreements as best we can.

I can't read all the books to give.

To give the other side its fair share and to actually represent their position.

Well, I think what's a challenge, especially pastorally, not even from a professorial view or an academic view, but pastorally, I think one of the challenges is most.

Most people in the pew, Christians, it's not that they are unstudied or incapable of deep study, but most Christians are.

They.

They are.

They are far more affected by popular voices than they ought be.

It's just.

And you could say that for pastors as well, but I'm just thinking of just normal, rank Christians.

Typically, when you think of dispensationalism, people do think of John Hagee or they do think of, you know, they're thinking of a popular voice which may not represent hardly any dispensationals today, certainly an academic guild.

And yet that's what comes to mind.

Left behind was a formative thing for American evangelicalism.

Now we can all bemoan that fact.

I hope we would.

But in any case, like it, it.

It is a thing that drives it where.

Where you don't really see the.

Some of the depth of the view behind that.

So I would actually argue that.

I think the Left behind series probably did more damage to dispensational premillennialism than anything else.

Like, I think they were trying to promote it, and what they actually did would make a really bad argument.

It's a novel, it's fiction.

But their theology, just like as a dispensationalist, I'm like, yeah, please don't.

Yeah, well, because I know for.

For me growing up, right, the church I went to was very much into the Left behind series.

And so whenever they would talk about ethology, they would talk about that series and the events of that book.

And that's what's going to happen.

And then my in laws church is the same way.

Like that's how they teach it.

So much so that they go to these.

The tribulation trails, right.

Which is kind of trying to bring that book to life and all these things.

And what kind of.

So, so that was like what I knew until I started listening to guys like Jeff Durbin and reading Greg Bonson's.

I think it's like Victory, Victory in Jesus, that one.

And.

And then I kind of went, yeah, that ain't it at all.

Yeah, well I, I'll say this for about Left Behind, Kirk Cameron went from, you know, the pre mill view of Left behind to now post mill.

Now I will say that since he's gone postmill, I have not actually had a conversation with him ever since then.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with each other.

When he was primo, we would talk.

No, but the thing I see is that there's.

With what you said, Josh, there are so many who fight over secondary things.

In fact, with the passing of John MacArthur, I put out a picture that someone created of it's representation, an AI generated representation of R.C.

sproul and John MacArthur hugging each other now and having type of thing.

And I said we don't have to wait like, because everyone's like saying, oh, I see all these pictures of MacArthur and, and, and R.C.

sproul together.

Like they're hugging and it, like they're finally.

And.

And I.

So I said we don't have to wait for that.

Like we could drop some of this tribalism now and stop arguing over secondary issues and start actually working together on what we agree on instead of what we disagree on.

Focus where we agree for the, the furthering of, of the gospel on earth.

To which I had, I had one person, you know, basically say, well, when you, when you know, you Baptists stop attacking us, you know, us, you know, charismatics.

And I'm like, okay, you missed the point.

Another one's like, well, you know, when you stop worshiping men, I'm like, what men am I worshiping?

Yo.

Calvin?

Well, for actually first he told me I was worshiping MacArthur and then when I said I don't worship MacArthur.

Calvin.

Yeah, not that either.

Like, it's just amazing.

The post was about not fighting over secondary issues.

And it's amazing how many people on Twitter like have to bring up their secondary issues.

Like, do you actually read this?

All tertiary issues is what it sounds like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, okay, one was on baptism.

Maybe that's a secondary.

But yeah, I mean it's just, it's amazing.

You could put a post out saying let's, let's focus on what, where we agree rather than where we disagree.

And up you just have the mob that has to say no, like let's point where we disagree.

Well, I think, yeah, modern Christians have forgotten how to do.

You know, Al Moore kind of popularized the term theological triage.

But this is like a, you know, you just mentioned tertiary issues.

This is a, this is a very long standing way of dealing with these things.

I think modern Christians have lost, completely lost the plot of how to care deeply about something because God's spoken and yet to realize that not everything is worth dividing.

You know, lost it.

So it's either it becomes a zero sum game.

It's either this, everything is worth dividing over and then you get, you know, a denomination of 12 people and even they disagree with each other or, or just nothing really matters.

And this is where you get just completely jellified churches that have, they make no doctrinal distinctions.

You can be a, you know, a Hindu in good standing of our Christian church.

So it's just we have to recover that.

No matter, no matter where eschatology goes.

I think we have to recover that.

So let me ask you, you guys have a ministry called Eschatology Matters.

And so I'm just going to have to ask why.

What matters about eschatology?

Yeah, why does it matter?

I mean, isn't it, and I've asked this differently of the previous guests, but it just works well with the name of your ministry.

But you know, why, why should we care about it?

Why should it matter?

Because so many people will say this is, we can't know for sure.

Okay, Granted, we, we can't know what this, the second coming as well as we know the first coming because one's foresight, one's hindsight.

Right.

But so many people want to ignore eschatology.

Why, why should it matter?

Why should we study these things?

Yeah, that's a, that's a good question.

Yeah, a lot of, a lot of Christians and, and a lot of times, times just battle weary Christians who are dealing with, you know, the flesh, the world and the devil.

They'll describe themselves as pan millennials and say, well, you know, it'll out in the end.

And, and I say that because I say the well meaning part because I understand somebody being weary with eschatological battles, especially if, if you've seen those things go ugly and, and people anathematized for very small Differences within their own camps.

However, eschatology matters because it's describing the flow of the story that God has written in Scripture.

That, that would be like my, my very baseline observation.

So usually when we think of eschatology, people think of a very narrow, truncated, anemic definition of eschatology.

We think of Revelation chapter 20.

As important as every part of God's word is.

We think of one part of one chapter.

Or we might think of a couple of key prophetic passages from the, from the major prophets.

But, but in general, that's what people think of with eschatology.

One of the things we've tried to, to really encourage at eschatology Matters has been kind of a whole orbed full eschatology.

And, and that's nothing more than taking from some of the fruits of biblical theology and some of these other, other moves within, within, within the study of Scripture where we try to see the whole of God's story and the direction in which it's moving.

Understanding that the end is not disconnected from the beginning, understanding that the things that happen in the middle, even when you have some strange little occurrence like you know, some random event, quote unquote, that happens within the Bible, understanding that even if it seems that it's actually, it's like threads.

I, I wrote a, I wrote a book on some of these threads and that's, that's how I tried to describe.

It was like a tapestry that is interwoven with a lot of threads.

They're all making up one, one cohesive thing.

We may not see the way that thread connects, but we can understand it does.

So when we approach eschatology, that's how we're approaching it.

So those things at the end, the, the details of, for example, what we're aiming at with the Great Tribulation, those things are important.

What we're aiming at with the millennium, those things are important, but a lot broader of an approach to eschatology than maybe, than maybe that might, that, that would be one answer to it, I think, I think a second answer for me and I'm thinking towards just kind of my personal journey within eschatology.

Although using that phrase now, I'm kind of cringing a little bit that I just said my journey.

That sounds very subjective.

But, but part of, part of my study within eschatology has been when, when I did my, my dissertation, when I wrote the book that came from it, Revelation, you would.

Played a, you know, major role within the book.

And it actually didn't.

So out of a, I don't remember how 400 something page book, maybe 6, 7% of that was actually dedicated to the Revelation to John, maybe that much, most of it.

What I really honed in on was in the Gospels and it wasn't because I'm trying to do the whole like red letter Christian thing where the words of Jesus and the Gospels mean more.

I'm not, I'm not doing that whole thing all the scriptures inspired.

So we, we agree with that.

But particularly struck by how much eschatology plays in the Gospels.

Christ talks a lot about his defeat of evil and his defeat of Satan.

He talks a lot about the coming of his kingdom and what that kingdom is going to look like.

He talks a lot about the things of the end and how he will return.

So such that by the time you get to Paul and, and you know, the other, the other epistles that were written and they're sort of starting to draw on some of these themes, you're are supposed to have sort of a view of how this, the story is headed such that by the time you work through the epistles, then having gleaned from the Gospels and you reach the revelation, you already have sort of a view of eschatology that helps you walk through those apocalyptic passages.

So one of the reasons that I have always felt compelled to say that eschatology matters is that it mattered to Christ.

And Christ in his infinite and perfect wisdom and love for, and watch care over us.

He used eschatological teachings quite frequently within the Gospels to not only how we should live in this life, but how we should yearn for the life to come.

That's something that so often, you know, if you get into a systematic theology book, for example, and you, you start to like dice up eschatology, you can talk about personal eschatology and general eschatology, you can talk about imminent eschatology and you know, not yet consummated are not yet fulfilled.

The already, the not yet.

All these little distinctions we make.

Right, those are, those are helpful, but I think a lot of people lose those.

Where I think eschatology really matters is when my infant, and I'm not trying to just like play on a, on a, on a, a sappy story to, to force a point.

But you brought up, you know, you asked earlier about that situation with my wife and with my child, when my infant was, was lying there gray and not breathing.

And many parents know this feeling and you feel helpless.

And as a father who wants to care for his family, really be careful telling this story on a live broadcast but as a father for his family, all of a sudden eschatology, not necessarily a detail about the millennium, but that confidence and assurance that John says he writes to comfort a struggling nascent church in the book of Revelation, that encouragement writ by the Holy Spirit, that eschatology really mattered like eschatology mattered in that moment when I was contemplating where my daughter might open her eyes next and what hope it was for me to see her again.

So I'm going to end it there.

It's, it's hard to talk about those things, but eschatology really does matter and it matters.

Far past arguing on Twitter.

Yeah.

Listening to that, the kind of that hermeneutical approach to Scripture, it reminds me of what Jeffrey Johnson talked about in his book the Five Points of All Millennialism, where he distinguishes between the historical grammatic approach and then the redemptive historical approach, where the redemptive historical grammatic approach looks through not just as eschatology as a revelation only and an end times only thing, but there is an eschaton to throughout the entirety of Scripture that there is at each point there is an end or there is a, a point to be made of redemptive history.

That's just what kind of came to, came to my mind when you were speaking about those things.

That's exactly what I was thinking about this redemptive.

What is the overall redemptive story being told?

You know, we, we know that we're saved from the, from the power of sin.

We know that we're saved from the prevalence presence or you know, and one day we're going to be saved from the very presence of sin.

And that's going to be on the consummation thing when Christ returns.

And so the question is what does that look like?

We, God has revealed things in the scripture for us to look that that is our hope that one day this, this body right here, I'm going to be resurrected in it, have a glorified body.

This is our hope.

So it's important to.

That is.

That's why eschatology matters.

Yeah.

And just you guys, we do have someone that's saying.

John is saying that there's a little bit of feedback on the audio.

So if you guys are.

Could mute when you're not talking.

I know.

Yeah, I know.

Tom, you're working off the one mic.

So it's.

But so, so let me, let me ask Josh a couple questions that I posted in the description.

You know, just to dig a little deeper for folks and folks that have been putting comments in.

We if you're new, we will get to those questions that you're asking for Josh later on.

So you want to stick around for the whole thing.

I should also mention that if you're.

If you are finding value in this, you could share this episode with others right now so that they can come in.

And you are always welcome to come in.

Just go to apologexlive.com and you can join us there.

Just scroll down to where you see the participate comment with the little duck icon.

You can join us and you can ask whatever questions you have.

Or if you want to have a debate with me, that we could do that too, but it won't be on this topic because, well, I'm not post male, so.

So, Josh, in your opinion, does the scripture teach that the gospel will triumph in history before Christ returns?

Yes.

And.

And how would.

What do you think that's going to look like?

You wanted more from this?

I did, but.

That's Right.

But what.

I mean, how's that going to look?

That's.

I think it's important to understand what does victory look like in the post mill versus all mill and premill.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll.

I'll.

You mean.

You mean, how would it look compared to Amil?

Post mill and biblical is.

No, that's not what you meant.

I'm sorry, Tom.

I mean, I'm kind of outnumbered here because Drew counts for two.

He's on the Amel side and the post mill side, being that he's.

He's kind of held to both.

So.

Let'S just say I. I kind of straddle that line.

Right?

That's.

That's where I. I find the optimistic Amel is straddling that line between the two.

Yeah, the optimistic ammo, guys, by the way, so Sam Waldron, all.

All of his.

All of his cohort have made things so much more difficult.

They have made things so much more because I hear my optimistic Amil brethren say things, and I'm like, yeah, that's.

That's kind of where I'm at, too.

I don't.

I don't understand what we're doing.

Anyway.

It's.

It's fine.

Much love.

We're all.

We're all in the same canoe.

We just got paddles on the different side.

The.

The.

No, no, no, no.

That's for.

I'm post mill.

See, the pre mill, we got a motor in the back.

We're just flying through.

I read this out of the little thumbnail of this episode right before I logged on.

He's come loaded for bear, so.

Well, actually, no, I, I, you know, and you and I don't know each other.

I, I joke around with the stuff.

But you know, our goal, and I should have mentioned this for the audience, for, for people that hear, you know, I mean, we got two guys that are on mill, on premill.

Your post, Mill, you're not going to hear me or the co host here grilling Josh.

He didn't come in for a grilling.

What we're trying to do is help you and the audience to understand the different positions.

So my questions are not to try to, you know, grill them and give them a hard time.

It's really to emphasize some of the differences that I see in the different positions.

And really I, I asked them in a way to try to highlight your position.

Right.

So it's not like, how can you believe this?

Clarity.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what I want.

I want for the audience to have clarity of what the positions are.

Because what my hope is that you in the audience can listen to these.

Dig into the scriptures.

We're going to get to scriptures shortly.

Dig into the scriptures to say, wow, I got to study this out.

To know this is really what I should, what I think I believe.

Yeah, yeah, no, no worries there.

I've been the, the first, I always tell people the first two times I got called a heretic, like actually, you know, not just like by some, some random person, but by both were by professors.

The first time was because I said, God is sovereign.

He does all that he pleases in the heavens and on the earth.

And he said I was a heretic.

I was like.

And then the second time was because I said I didn't believe in a pre, millennial, pre tribulational rapture.

And he said that, well, that's a heresy.

And I was like, really?

Yeah.

So eschatology, you got to grow some thick skin.

We run a channel on it.

You know, you have to, you have to know.

You asked whether, and I'm trying to phrase it right, so feel free.

Yeah.

The question I had had put into notes was, does Scripture teach that the gospel will triumph in history before Christ returns?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's, that's one of the, that's one of the like was just brought up.

That's one of the really key things is what does it mean that it triumphs?

And what does victory look like?

You know, these do what.

And like, what is a triumph?

What does victory look like?

What does it look like?

Right, because, because I've seen some Some.

Well, I think post millennialism really kind of took that and ran with it.

Half the books written on post millennialism have victory or triumph in the label, right?

It's.

It's a very victorious, triumphing type thing.

And.

And then recently, much like with optimistic amillennialism thing, you see a pushback on that, and I think that's fair.

You know, a lot of guys pushing back and saying, no, we see Christ triumphing, we just see that triumph looking a little differently than you're describing.

I think that's a fair pushback.

So a lot of it has to do with how you describe triumph in general.

So there's this.

This old story.

It's apocryphal in the way that I love apocryphal stories.

If you're.

If anybody's a young seminary student and they're listening to this.

This broadcast.

Let me.

Let me save you some time.

If you ever wrote Luther, you know, Martin Luther in a paper, just know that he didn't actually say what you think he said, and you need to go to the original source.

Luther has so many apocryphal quotes.

I just heard one trying to remember who quoted it.

It was somebody.

It was somebody well known.

So I hope.

I'm.

I probably shouldn't.

I probably shouldn't bring this up because I can't remember.

But they just recently, like yesterday, I was listening to a podcast, and they quoted that one from Luther about, you know, if a soldier, you know, hears the sounds of battle, but he's not, you know, where the fighting is, where the metal of the soldier is tested.

I can't remember exactly how it's phrased.

Most of those good quotes by Luther, he didn't actually say it that way.

He said it like a German would say it.

And it's not quotable because he's German and I'm German, so I could say that, right?

Like, it's.

It's very.

It reads like a piece of wood, right?

So.

And it's very angry, a little bit angry.

It's.

It's just the impediment of the language.

You know, we do what we can.

But one of the apocryphal stories that I love was from kind of the old Princeton days.

So if you're studying eschatology, most people will know that the term amillennialism is the term.

So typically, all millennial guys will look back to, you know, heroes like Augustine, and they'll say, you know, this is championed.

I mean, they'll look back to the Bible and say the Apostle Paul was an amillennialist.

But.

But obviously they'll kind of, you know, see some historical markers.

The term didn't come around until pretty recently.

We're talking like within the last 150 years.

And it came.

It came around really around the time of some divides within what was called the old Princeton crowd.

So you had the Hodges and you had Hugh Warfield and then all of the students that kind of came from their camps.

And that's where you start to see a little bit more of this kind of.

Of noticeable division between amillennial and postmillennial thought.

So one of the apocryphal stories of that time, and I hope it's true, I don't know it's true, but I hope it's true, is that Gearhardus, Voss and BB Warfield would run around on this track.

At least this is the way I heard the story.

They'd run around in this track and as they were, you know, kind of running and exerting themselves, every so often, one of them yell, christ returns to redeem world.

And the other one would yell back, you know, in opposition, he says, christ returns to a redeemed world.

And, and, you know, so the argument would go, as they circle the track, whether it's true or not, it makes for a great story.

Right?

So that's kind of, that's kind of, though, getting at what we mean by triumph.

So you asked whether I believe that Christ will return to find the triumph of the kingdom or of the church.

So what, what, what.

My definition or my kind of like dividing line between amillennial and post millennial thought.

And I welcome this to critique and pushback.

But as best as I can tell, number one, many different viewpoints within both camps.

Many historical developments in the viewpoints between both camps, especially I would say probably within post millennial thought within the last maybe three centuries, we could say.

In any case, when you look at these differentiations, like one of the big differentiations is what sort of is advancing.

We all agree that it's a heavenly kingdom.

It's.

It's a kingdom born of heaven.

Christ has instituted it.

I'm speaking to my big bucket post millennial brethren, whether you are amel, postmill or a mix between the two, the kingdom is here as, as Christ said in Mark 1:15, it's.

It's advancing.

It will.

It will triumph in this world.

The big division that I've seen between a lot of post millennial amillennial thinkers is that thinkers will oftentimes say this is a heavenly reign, and it may have some manifestations within the world and the earth.

I don't want to say something like transient, but maybe we could say like temporal manifestations, but ultimately it's a heavenly or eternal kingdom.

They're going to draw a line between sort of the spiritual or heavenly and the earthly or temporal and say, no, this is a heavenly kingdom.

It's.

Occasionally you could see some kind of effects of it down here.

Most millennial thinkers would say no.

For that triumph to happen that you were talking about, this is actually something that is both in heaven and on earth.

And I know I'm cheating a little bit because I just riffed off of the Lord's Prayer, but that's obviously my conviction is that this kingdom, though it is born of heaven, is not solely a spiritual or heavenly kingdom, but instead that it actually advances in heaven and on earth even now.

Now, we all agree that once Christ returns, the glory of the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Right.

We're all on the same with that.

We get into some dicey, dicey waters with how that happens and when it happens.

But we all agree at some point, heaven and earth will all bow the knee to Christ in perfection and in glorification.

What the post millennial emphasizes is that as Christ's kingdom is expanding here, that it's actually impacting not just the heavenly, but it's actually expressed definitionally through the earthly.

That.

That makes a lot of people very uncomfortable because a lot of people have been exposed to post millennial, and I wouldn't call them post millennial, but let's just, let's just be courteous.

A lot of them have been exposed to post millennial thinkers from liberal, liberal Protestant circles, where it almost sounds as if it's solely or exclusively or primarily an earthly temporal manifestation.

And it kind of has some, some heavenly good.

And we become very focused on the things down here.

So.

So I understand some of that, that hesitance, but my conviction personally would be that the way Christ has explained the Kingdom, Matthew 13, Kingdom Parables.

This is the, the whole, the whole conviction is that it's something born of heaven but expressed in heaven as it is on earth.

Yeah.

And, and so one thing that I know pre millennials get accused of, and I've heard this sometimes also with post millennials, is the idea that, well, we just build our theology from the newspaper.

So for the post millennialist, you think of a time maybe prior to World War I, hey, look, everything's getting better, the world's getting better, therefore post mill.

And then World War I happens and it's like, see, the world's falling apart.

This, you know, disposational pre mill.

Right.

Amels just go, yeah, whatever.

So, but I mean how would, how would be your, your challenge to someone that would try to make a claim like that, that.

Oh, you're just following the newspaper.

Yeah.

Everyone should immediately question, reject newspaper eschatology.

Let's make a statement, let's all sign it.

That, that, that should be across the board.

And, and we kind of, you know, people poke around at this sort of thing.

You know, every time something good happens, I get the text threads in our group chats.

You know, something good happens.

And what was the recent one?

Rovers Wade Gets Overturned.

All the post millennials are texting or posting and they're saying, see the kingdom, you know, post mill, it's true and all that sort of stuff.

So I understand some of the, like, the humor to it, but in general, if you were to, if you were to try to look around at the world and gauge what God is doing, I think that's usually faulty because.

Not because God's not doing something in the world.

And this is the key.

It's because we have a really skewed and sinfully polluted way of viewing what God is doing.

So, so the error of eschatology, the error of newspaper eschatology is not the expectation that what God is doing in the kingdom has an impact in the events and, and even tone under the warp and woof of this world.

That's not the error.

The error is thinking that we could be the judge of that, looking around us and saying, ah, things look quite dark in my corner, therefore, or I saw something on the news, therefore you can see a little bit of this come out.

For example, like in Jesus's ministry.

One of the things that I became fascinated with.

I'm gonna go ahead and throw the, the title out there.

I hate plugging my own work, but the book I wrote was called the Exorcism of Satan.

So essentially my, my thesis was, you have to, you know, for a doctoral dissertation you got to have the, have the hook.

The thing that makes it a bit different and the thing that I, the thing that I, I hope was biblically valid, that I really started to become convinced of and really see was that it seemed that Jesus's exorcistic ministry, his exorcism of, of demons, which is a part and parcel of the Gospels, Christ exercised so many demons that the gospel writer said, oh by the way, he went to a village, he threw out many demons on his way.

And it doesn't even give you the details of some of them.

Right.

My, my thesis was, is that that is all part of his victory over darkness that culminates with his exorcism of Satan himself.

So if you get into, I'm not going to get too far afield on this, but if you get into some of the language that, that forcible casting out language, that Ekballo language in the Greek, a lot of that is the same language that's used of demonic exorcism.

In fact, you can see a lot of parallels there.

So that was sort of my thesis was Christ exercises.

He culminates it by exercising Hana Ross the Eve himself there in the defeat of Satan.

But when you look at Jesus's ministry and you look at that those casting out of demons, things actually changed.

Everything didn't get better in a heartbeat.

And, and there's still all of the attendant factors of you must be born again.

You know, you cannot see nor enter the kingdom of God without having been born again.

There's, there's a lot of attendant issues.

But in general when light pushed in that light that John said was already shining and the darkness does not overcome it.

When you see light push in, it actually changed the way the room looked.

Things started to actually look different.

That, that, that's been part of my thesis with you can call it optimistic Amil or post mill, I'm fine with, with any of it.

It.

But the fact that when Christ's kingdom is advancing that it actually does change the things here that in other words, you're not going to have a kingdom that is advancing and having cosmic victory over the bodies and powers of this world like Paul talks about in Ephesians 6.

And nothing actually looks different on the ground, number one, I don't think, I don't think that bears out much from the, the gospel accounts.

I think you see those things start to change a good bit.

But I think also the metaphor, metaphors of scripture or the, you know, the, the analogies of scripture that are used I think are pretty telling in this, in this regard.

If Christ is a light that shines, I think it's a valid question to say can light shine into a dark room and not dispel or push back darkness?

One of, one of the big differentiations I think between amillennial and post millennial, at least for some.

I'm going to stop qualifying by the way.

There's different viewpoints within both.

Right.

But in general, one of the big differences that I think you find between amillennial and post millennial thought is the expectation from some that the light can shine brighter and that the darkness can also get darker.

So in other words, yes, the kingdom is expanding, the light is shining ever brighter, but the darkness is really getting even darker and it's actually getting getting worse and worse.

I sympathize with that viewpoint.

I just don't think that actually turns out naturally.

Jesus spoke in ways that were very simple so we could understand them.

And I think that that analogy of the light shining into the dark is really evocative.

If light shines into a room, pushes the darkness back, the darkness can't cohabitate with the light.

It actually, it actually dispels the darkness.

And the brighter that light shines, the less darkness there is.

So that would be part of, part of, part of my.

Yeah, my case for that part.

Tom, go ahead.

Yeah, I was just gonna say up until the last point, I was gonna say I, I agreed with everything that he had said up until the very last part because I would agree, agree with you that, that the gospel is going to flourish through, through God's people as we go out and preach.

And I even would agree with you that darkness is, or that light is going to shine into the darkness.

You look in Mark chapter five, when he expels the demons out of, out of legion and then tells that man to go out into the region of the Sarah gains, in Mark chapter seven, he back to the land where all the Gentiles were and they ran to Christ, you know, and they, this is a work of that one man who was transformed.

And so we see that difference.

But at the same time, and we know the kingdom is growing through the preaching of the gospel, but at the same time, and we know Christ is growing his church.

We could go outside right now, go outside our doors right now and we still see the evil, even though at the same time we would see.

So it's a minute distinction because I would agree with you that the kingdom is growing here on earth right now as well.

And it's going to transform a community.

If more people go out and proclaim Christ, lives are going to be changed because he said he would through the power of the Gospel.

And that's why I'm optimistic.

But we still know if you look through the pattern of scripture, I think there's a reason remnant so very close.

We are like, like that close.

You know, it just seems that Tom agrees with everyone that disagrees with him.

I'm just saying.

But you know, for Tom, Jesse, Jesse said this.

I'll just put it up.

Since Jesse said, I thought you were James White for a second brother.

You know, I.

You may be mistaken for many things, but James White.

It's just the beard hammers.

I'll never be a James.

So Josh, you know, as we think about post mill, you know, there's a lot of talk about when it comes to post mill, you know, the cultural issues.

You know, we want to get into some biblical things, but I'm trying to just cover some of those, some of the ways people view post mill to start.

And there's a lot that of people who just kind of see post mill as an intermixing with culture and nations.

Can we expect to see the nations discipled and the culture transformed on large scale?

I mean, is it really something that has to be.

Well, may ask it this way.

Is it something where as some think that are not post mill, that postmill is really about just making a better America?

Because it.

Maybe it's just we're in America and maybe, maybe they have the same view in, in Germany and Italy, but, but it just, it the impression that people give when they criticize post mills as if it's really just about trying to transform the culture.

It's just trying to, you know, make a better nation rather than really have a view of Christ, I think is the implication.

But you know, I mean, should we expect to see that nations would be discipled and that cultures would be transformed?

Yeah.

So the short answer is yes.

And then you get into all the baggage that goes along with that answer and you start to, you start to think about how many people's views that you need to qualify that you, you separate from.

I will say this, if anybody's watching just a small plug, I've got a dear brother named Al, Alex Cokeman.

He's doing some great work.

Just did a video on the nations they're over at.

I think it's called the Missions Project, the Baptist crew over there.

But we still play nice.

But they, they just did some really good work on that.

I think a lot of people, I, I put that out there not just to plug that, that episode, but also because I think a lot of Christians struggle with what even to think of the nations.

In a lot of ways we have separated the idea of nationhood from, from anything tangible.

Like, I'm not even talking about some of the like ethno nationalist extremes you could get into.

I'M just saying, like, can you talk about a nation as something you can point to and identify?

I think in a lot of ways we've kind of ephemeralized the.

However, if you were to look at in general, I think you need not be post mill or amil or pre mill.

I think you, I think you can have a variety of eschatological convictions and still recognize that what God said Old and New Testament about nations still holds and is binding.

So, so when God says, blessed is the nation that submits to the Lord, that still counts.

The.

The Proverbs, 18 Proverbs, or excuse me, Psalm 2 and Psalm 110, many places in the Old Testament that speak of the need, the creational ought, the responsibility ontologically for a nation to submit to God, that still actually holds.

Now, whether you think that's going to happen or not, that's not quite the point yet.

The point is that you see the nations.

You see there's things called nations, Old and New Testament.

You see that they are expected and even owed to their Creator, that they are to submit to God.

Now you fast forward and you see in this tremendous his victory declaring that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him.

And we could, we could go far afield here.

I think it's fascinating the way this develops all throughout the Gospel of Matthew.

You have, you have the temptations of Satan.

Satan says, come up on this, this mountaintop, which even the location of the mountaintop is so important.

It says he raises him up to a high place.

And then it also talks about him being on the, the high place, place of the temple anyway.

But you have Satan tempt and say, hey, consider these nations.

I will give them to you.

So you have, you have some sense in which God, not that God has lost control of his universe, but that God has given the nations over in some sense because of their sinfulness to the evil one.

Not that Satan's like a little God running around, but he does have a tremendous amount of authority in the Old Testament.

You see him entering into the very throne room of God.

Job, chapter one and two.

God says, hey, where have you been?

He says, wherever I please.

I've been wandering upon the earth.

I'm walking around the nations.

So there's a story there.

But then you get to the Gospels.

Satan offers the nations to Christ and Christ rebukes him and says, doesn't say that those nations are improper for him to offer, but he does say, those aren't for you to give to me.

And then later Christ says much backstory again in Matthew.

And then he gets to chapter 28.

He says, all authority in heaven and on earth.

No, no division, no bifurcation between spheres, all author, heavenly and earthly.

It's all been given to me.

Now then he commissions his disciples, says, go and make disciples of the nations.

And that is the very best Greek translation one can arrive at.

I have yet to see a convincing or even plausibly convincing argument why that should not be rendered.

The nations of the world.

So the nations have been given over to Christ.

He then commissions his disciples, who he has previously commissioned out two by two and said, you go in my authority, you go in my name.

I give you the key keys to the kingdom.

Now go and exercise those kings keys.

What you bind, I bind.

I will have loosed as you go out and you disciple the nations.

So I think for a Christian, again, whatever your eschatological bent, whatever your political theology that flows, whether from that eschatology or tangentially related to that eschatology, a lot of debate on that one.

But whatever, whatever those things, wherever you land on those things, I think that Christians can recognize there's a thing called nation nations.

They ought to submit to God, and Christ has commissioned us to disciple them.

Now, whether you expect us to achieve that task or not is, you know, that's a matter of eschatology.

My conviction is that when Christ has told us to pray that it be on earth as it is in heaven, and that Christ has commissioned us to go in all authority commissioned by him to disciple those nations, I think that those nations will, in fact, be discipled.

And again, you brought up a good point, Andrew.

You can walk outside and say, is our nation even.

Does he even qualify as being sampled at this point?

I hear all of that.

And yet what will it look like toward the end, however long that end comes, whether we see some sort of worldwide, you know, revival next week, God can do as he pleases.

But just biblically speaking, I think those passages lead you to that conviction.

Now, I think one of the.

One of the hard things about this is you mentioned cultures, whether cultures should be discipled or Christian or.

I can't remember how you phrased it, but I think that's an important part of this.

Because if culture is downstream from religion, in other words, if a culture is an expression in some form or fashion of what we view as good and beautiful, what we view as vile and evil, what is good and what is bad, what is venerable and what is reprehensible, and then all the laws and all the structuring of society, all that's culture, right?

All that builds from that.

What do we say is good and worthy of praise.

If that's all downstream from some religious convictions, then yes, cultures count in that whole disciple process.

That doesn't goofy things like try to go and like win over an art theater to the Lord.

But it does mean that if we're discipling the nations, cultures are part and parcel of that commission.

So, yes, I would say both of those are included.

Yeah.

And for folks, you made a statement.

Let me give you the reason why.

When you said that in Matthew 28, it should say the nations.

It's because in the Greek there's a definitive article before nations.

And so that is why he's saying it should be the nations.

Tom, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna mute you.

Tom, you can unmute if you have a question.

Oh, you were gonna.

Sorry.

Yeah.

So is there a distinction, Are you making a distinction between nations right there being an actual government or a people group?

Ethnos.

Yeah, I'm not making a distinction between the two.

I think where you see people groups and this comes into sort of like the definitional qualities of nations.

Usually Christians.

Well, I don't want to say usually Christians.

How about this?

We might struggle with the nations because you might look at like the United nations and you say, okay, here's these flags.

Some of these nations are like 4 years old or 40 years old.

Like they're not the nations that we see in the Bible.

We see other nations in the Bible that don't exist now.

So what are these nations?

I think in general this is, this is groups of people.

So you can call them ethnos.

You can talk, you can talk about the ethnoi of the world.

Although there's, it's.

It's not a one to one correlation obviously between nations and some of those terms that are used for people groups.

But at the same time, it is a people group.

They have values, they have some sort of semblance of governance.

They usually share languages.

All those things are common to nations, Old and New Testament.

So when you look to the Old Testament, typically when you talk about a nation, you can find them in a certain place, you can find them gathered together, speaking the same or at least similar languages to where they can understand one another, communicate.

And you also see shared values.

They love some things, they hate some things.

You see Israel going through the wilderness, lots of nations that approach them.

The nation decides, hey, we hate that.

God.

God judges nation.

Now God doesn't go down.

All who wave the flag of this country are under my judgment.

But he has the freedom, Old and New Testament to look down and say, I judge the nations that rebel against me.

So there's an actual thing, an actual tangible thing that you can identify as a nation.

And it has certain qualities that come from that.

So let's deal with the, I mean I think a passage that we dealt with last time, dealing with Amil.

I think we're going to deal with it, Alaska of you.

We'll deal with it probably every week.

Week is Revelation 21:6.

Right.

Because this is, I mean this is the passage when we talk about millennial, pre, ah, post millennial.

It's the word millennial.

It has to do with what we see.

This is the only passage, by the way, in the entire Bible that refers to a millennium, a thousand year period.

And so this passage six times refers to, to a thousand year period in post millennialism.

How would you see that thousand year period?

Is it spiritual, literal, something else?

You know, how would you see that?

And then with that, when is Christ coming?

But before that, after that or there really isn't a.

It's just a long period of time.

Yeah.

So here, here is where I will offend any of the post that are watching this.

So I don't fall in, well with kind of some, some of the modern post millennial thinkers.

There's some kind of modern iterations of post millennial thought.

There's also some, some very unique puritan expressions of post millennial thought.

Lots of similarities and similarities to the point by the way, where the average reader encountering for the first time is not going to be able to really parse these apart.

But a lot of post millennials would look for a future golden age.

Many of them saw it starting in future.

So I'm being crass here with this illustration, but let's just say like the year 3000 rolls around and boom, the millennium starts and it actually ends 1,000 literal years later at that, the year 4000.

And then Christ returns.

Okay.

So there's, there's different ways to look at that.

There's also blends of preterism in here, how you take some of these prophetic passages.

Specifically with the book of Revelation.

Again, I would put myself in the camp of one like BB War.

Some of the old Princeton scholars is kind of where I found most of my comfort level.

So I read the book of Revelation.

I am very in step with my amillennial brothers.

I'm seeing this as something that as best as I can tell, or as.

As best as I'm comfortable with, was probably written before the temple destruction, although I think it's definitely signaling the temple destruction in many of the places.

It's a. I'm comfortable with the recapitulation view that this is essentially seven times you were being told the same story from different angles, different viewpoints.

Kind of like looking at a diamond.

You're.

You're considering it from different angles.

Constantly getting more heavenly in its.

In its sort of representation.

More, more, more.

I don't want to say symbolic, because that's a dirty word in eschatology, but.

But a little more, you know, apocalyptic and prophetic in its language.

But anyway, by the time you get To Revelation chapter 20, I'm reading this in the way that I've been reading the rest of the book.

John has made use of a great many.

A great many devices of imagery that are literal, but they're not woodenly literal.

And I want to emphasize that point.

Usually when somebody has more of an idealist interpretation of the Revelation, people say, oh, you don't think it literally means what it says?

And that's not, that's not true.

When Jesus said, I am the door, he was literally meaning he is the door.

Now, he wasn't meaning something of wooden literalism, like I am a, you know, wooden facade that you open and has a handle.

Of course not.

But that doesn't mean what he said was not actually more literal than that physical door that you have.

Right.

Jesus says, I'm actually the door much more than that door that's in your house.

I am the door.

So it's literal, but it's using something understandable to point to that greater reality.

We've seen this all throughout the book of Revelation, so that by the time you get here To Revelation chapter 20, we're told about this millennium, this killia ete.

This is again, it's mentioned six times in kind of quick format.

And we're told that this is a time in which at the end of it, there is this, this raising of the dead.

We're told that their final defeat of the serpent, we're told there's the return.

Well, I guess that comes after verses one through six.

That's in seven through ten.

But still it's sort of in that same little pericope.

Right.

We have the, the.

The final defeat of Satan and the ushering in of the eternal state.

So I take this passage to be a description of the entirety of time between Christ's first and second Coming.

This is a viewpoint you can find probably predominantly within amillennialism.

And you can also find this very well represented within post millennialism, although it's probably a minority of modern post millennials, but we can all get along.

So this is essentially describing and sweeping the format coming off of chapter 19, chapter 17 through 19, sort of giving you this one view of this grand story.

Chapter 20 then launches in again and is giving you this, this recapitulation of the church age before it gets into some of the things of the final state.

You know, you're talking the literal and the, the spiritual.

One of the things that I would say is, you know, there's some differences where with the co hosts here, you know, Tom takes things spiritually.

I take things literally.

One example would be for, you know, like taking a cold plunge.

Because Tom doesn't actually do a cold plunge.

He just spiritualizes it where I actually get into a cold plunge.

So if you want all the health benefits of cold plunging and if you're like Tom and you just can't handle the cold, you can go to plunge and not only get the, their cold plunges, but also you can get a sauna if you need the heat.

Tom just can't handle the cold like some of us.

I get it, I take it the cold plunge, literally, Tom does it in a spiritual way.

But if you would like to get yourself some great health benefits either through heat therapy or cold therapy, you can go to strivingforeternity.org plunge.

That is the affiliate link we have with them that lets you, lets them know that you heard about them from us.

And it gets you some great discounts that right now I think they're, they're offering over a thousand dollars off on their cold plunge.

And I think I saw today that they're offering $3,000 off some of their saunas.

I don't know what those saunas are costing, but $3,000 off it sounds like a lot.

I haven't checked out the price of all their saunas, but they might be a good sauna.

So if it's, you know, a thousand, four thousand bucks, hey now, now you make, you know, maybe even Tom will get one.

But that's the difference of doing things literal versus spiritual.

You know, I literally get into 43 degree water.

Tom just spiritualizes it.

But if, but see, Tom can't handle that.

So what Tom's talking to mute.

I do it already and not yet.

Yeah, I do it already and you're not yet.

But what Tom can handle because he can't handle the code cold.

But what Tom can handle is a good cup of coffee.

And therefore I'm sure that Tom goes to Squirrelly Joe's Coffee and he gets it@restrivingforattornity.org Coffee because he knows that way they know about us here, that we sent them.

So, and by the way, you do get, it's either a free bag on your first order or 20% off at Scrolly Joe's by going through striving fraternity.org Coffee using the promo code SFE stands for Striving Fraternity.

You either get a free bag or 20% off.

But do please go to striving fraternity.org coffee every time you reorder.

That way they know that you heard about them through us and they continue sponsoring us here at the Apologetics Live.

And so I will say that they do have the five pound bags if, well, like you're like me and you're just a heavy coffee drinker and like saving money or if you're to trying church and want to get some good coffee for your entire church.

The nice thing about this is you are supporting a fellow brother in Christ and his family.

So not only are you getting great coffee, but you're, you're helping to support a fellow brother.

So poor Josh is like, what is he talking about?

He's not, he's probably the first time you've watched Apologetics Live and you're not used to my transition, so you never know where I may transition into an ad.

You got to both make fun of Tom and, and get a good ad in at the same time.

It's a twofer that way.

I'm going to change my name to James White.

I'll still, I'll still bust on you.

I, I, I don't, I don't mind making fun of James White either.

It's just that he comes back a lot faster and it sounds smarter when he does it.

So, you know, the, one of the things that, that I hear a lot is when it comes to postmills, the whole idea of missions.

Right.

And so a question I had for you is how does post millennialism, like, how, how does it affect our view of missions?

We already kind of talked about the culture, but politics, nations, you know, how is it that because, and the reason I want to ask it is because there's a lot of people, people that see especially now, I think in recent years there's been a lot of post millennialism that we see promoted on, on social media.

And a lot of it seems to be intertwined with either, you know, creating a better nation or the idea missions of going out in the world.

And, and this I, I think is a, A, A.

Let me put it this way.

It's a, I think a bad critique of post millennialism, but it's a critique that many that don't hold to it make is to say, well, post millennialism thinks that they go out to evangelize just because they're trying to bring the kingdom in rather than share the gospel because, well, God commanded.

Almost sounds like a blending.

Trying to blend post millennialism with the Seven Mountain Mandate a little bit.

Okay, so define that for folks that are not familiar with the, the new Apostolic Reformation.

Yeah.

So the Seven Mountain Mandate is a teaching that was developed by Bill Johnson and Mike Bickle.

And what they're essentially teaching is that it's our job to infiltrate different areas of the culture.

So politics, entertainment, these would be some of the areas that we're supposed to infiltrate and Christianize in order to bring in the kingdom of Christ.

Now would, would those guys be post mill.

They.

Would they be postmill?

They're actually not postmill.

Yeah, I thought they're premill.

Right.

Yeah.

In, in their schools and the books that they, that they sell at their bookstores are dispensational premill.

So like in ihop, Kansas City's school, School for Ministry, they teach dispensational premill.

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, and I'll say this as a dispensationalist, unfortunately, dispensationalism has, I think, more wackadoos than either any of the other camps.

You know, it's just.

Yeah.

I mean, all those guys.

But, but yeah, I could see that intertwining with, with his.

The Seven Mountain Mandate.

But so what.

What would be the, the postmill view on.

On missions?

So, yeah, postmode view on missions.

And first of all, I just checked the.

I was looking at the chat feed.

I think I misspoke a minute ago.

So please give me Bruno's.

My house flooded right before I got here.

So my, my brain has been scattered.

If I said that I thought Revelation was written prior to the temple destruction, that was a misstatement.

I, I am gently in the camp that it was written after the temple destruction.

Some what's called a late dater on the writing of the Revelation, nobody probably cares.

But you know, just for journalistic integrity, I wanted to throw that out there.

You asked though, about missions with post millennialism.

I feel that a lot of this back in seminary days I remember we used to have, you know, the Calvinism debates.

I understand some people still have those debates.

I try to stay out of them, but.

But people would say, you know, well, you're a Calvinist, which gladly clearly means you, you know, you hate the heathen and you would never lift a hand nor share the gospel in case they're not one of the elect.

And sort of this kind of caricature being in ministry was one of the, like the best things for me to get over that caricature.

I realized every missionary save one that I worked was Calvinist.

We worked a lot.

Most of the missionaries I read were Calvinists.

Now that's not to say you have to be Calvinist to be missionary, but.

But it is just to say a lot of Calvinists.

This said, God converts when and where he will.

The spirit moves and we can but see where the wind has blown.

We can't, we cannot guide him.

However, we can be and must be obedient to what God's called us to do.

And we have to do it with the confidence that God will, in his own good time and providence, he will do as he pleases.

I see a lot of that within post millennialism.

So if you were to look at the post millennial convictions within missional work, there should be no disconnect between the two.

In fact, if we were just speaking from like purely subjective grounds, if I was to look out and say, and again now I said I wasn't going to do any more qualifications, I'll sneak one more in.

I'm from the South.

It's kind of reflexive.

I say this not as a smear, but if you think that missional efforts are largely going to be less and less effective and that the church global fact be sure and that things will actually get quite darker in this world, I would think that would be sort of a impediment to encouraging others to go out and share the gospel.

Maybe not maybe, maybe there's great courage in going out and essentially sharing where you think that there is hard soil that will not get softer.

But I would think it might be an impediment.

So I would say on one hand, postmillennialism should be a tremendous buttress to sending out missional efforts.

And when I say sending out, I don't just mean, mean to the farthest reaches of the.

Also mean, please be sending them next door, like send them to your county, send missionaries to the next state.

There's a tremendous deficiency and neglect, I think, of local missions work that's being retrieved by many within Protestant circles.

But in any case, I think post millennialism could in fact light a fire under you to spur you onto those efforts.

Christ has laid claim to the nations.

He's called you to go and, and disciple it, therefore go.

So there's that sort of like, there's that sort of impetus.

I find that a little bit pragmatic, honestly.

I think, you know, Joe Rigney, a while back he used this term, and I have to credit him because he was one of the first ones that I heard use this term, that it really clicked.

He talked about creational oughts.

There's, there's certain things you ought do.

It doesn't really matter what happens from them or if you understand them, you just ought do these things.

And I think one of our.

Not creational.

Well, no, you could say it's creational.

One of our creational and Christian oughts is that we ought call all men to repent and believe in the gospel, them discipled to Jesus Christ, teaching them to observe all that he has commanded to them.

That's, that's, that's an ought that's built into us.

And you can read many who are not of the post millennial flavor who would agree with this.

You know, like T. Desmond Alexander wrote a book called From, From Eden to the New Jerusalem.

Greg Beal has made.

He's probably published like 30 books on it at this point.

But he's talked about like the, the temple and the church's mission.

It's this whole idea that what God began in Eden is in fact like meant to not just be reinvented, but in fact blossom and become more grand and more consummative in the work of Jesus Christ.

So with all that being said, I think there's a lot to say about we, we ought go disciple the nations precisely because we ought do it.

Christ has called us to do these things.

I think what some people get upset about is that a lot of modern post millennials sound like they're far more concerned with politics or with governmental involved, let's say within, within the Christian sphere.

They start to sound very top down and they start to sound very authoritarian in the way they're talking about missional efforts to the point that a lot of people will push back and say, are you even concerned about for example, sharing the gospel with somebody you've just met at Walmart or at Kroger or something like that?

Like, can you still do that?

That sort of evangelism?

Some of that's true, at least from what I've seen on social discourse, a lot of guys do seem to very neglect grassroots in favor of the higher level.

However, my gentle pushback would be if we are in fact called to disciple not just people, but the nations.

If, if in fact Christians are called to as.

As my confession, the Westminster Confession says that we are to honor Christ and call all to obey him and to honor his law within whatever sphere we find ourselves in.

In other words, if you are a Christian grocer, you are to in every way can impact others within that grocery.

You are to see Christ honored as best you can and his gospel shared.

If you are however, a virtue vice president or if you are a CEO of a company, you're to use that place and to use that vocation which God has given you and placed you in.

You're to use that within good bounds, right within good prudence and all those things.

And yet you're to use that to as best you can, glorify God, share the gospel and see God's law honored among the creation that he is called to submit to Him.

That's true, then part of our discipling the nations will not neglect those in high spheres.

You see some of this with Paul and, and I know there might be some pushback on this one and that, that I'm okay, I'm open for that.

But you see this with Paul.

So for example, Paul would run into somebody in very low estate and have no qualms about sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with them.

However, Paul also was not slow to take advantage of his place near the imperial court.

And even that wink and a nod.

Hey, those, those in Caesar's palace, they send their greetings.

Paul's not wasting his time.

Now that doesn't mean he has some sort of imbalanced take on what the gospel spread or what kingdom work looks like.

But it does mean he saw great value in those in higher echelons, much as we saw with Joseph in Egypt, bowing the knee to Christ and being being made disciples of him.

So all that pushback to say, I think that in our evangelism, in our missional efforts, that we ought not exclude the fact it is good for Christians and it is good for the advance of the gospel.

And Christ has used good and godly leaders.

Christ has used for the advance of his kingdom, good laws that protect his people within nations or within cultures.

Christ uses those things just as he does the humble people like me who serve in humble contexts and are of no renown.

Christ uses all of that so not to separate the one from the other.

You know, you mentioned those who would be more concerned with the political sphere of things and trying to operate from that top down.

You see them a lot on social media, right?

The, in the, in the Twitter sphere or the X sphere.

And so when I look at them and, and kind of what they're pushing that political sphere and they're very concerned about, about that.

I also notice the character that they bring to that platform, right to X and how they treat other people.

So when they're talking about we need to disciple the nations and we need to do all these things, my question to them would be like, okay, but I'm looking at your character.

Your character is not very Christlike.

What are we discipling them to?

Yeah, good point.

That wasn't a question, right?

No, no, no, it was.

I would agree too.

And I think every single one of us would believe that the reason why we go proclaim the gospel is because we believe in the power of God into salvation, that God is sovereign, that he uses means, and it's through the preaching of the gospel that he will bring his elect, all those people that he's chosen before the foundation of the world to come back with Christ.

And so that's the reason why we go out, whatever your eschatology is, we go out and we proclaim the gospel because we're commanded to.

And Christ will go his, grow his church through that, through that very means.

And I think that if a. I'm sorry Andrew didn't talk on top, but like, if a Christian is looking for encouragement in this.

Just read.

Don't go on Twitter.

Just stop there.

Just stop there.

Just don't go on Twitter.

Don't go on Twitter.

Social media is inevitable.

Right, we get that.

But if you read like the Puritan Hope by Ian Murray, if you read some of the, if you read some of the actual Puritan, just read these men who, they may share some post millennialism that you don't agree with and you think it's weird when they talk about a golden age, but the expression of Christian piety, not some sort of like removed pietism, but like the piety that so bleeds for the Savior that has bought them with his blood, like it oozes from the pages, we've lost that.

So if the corrective against some of the voices that I think people just so often we hear the, the most loud and unchaste voices.

Unfortunately, if the corrective is to seek that sort of, that sort of heart condition, I'm all for it.

Whether you're Postmillennial or not.

One of the things, one of the things that we've said while is your, your ortho orthodoxy, your right belief, it should lead to orthopraxy.

Right, right belief should drive right practice that was hammered into us in seminary.

However, I think there's one little corrective that's often neglected that Christians of old.

This was, this was very, very apparent to them in a way that I think we've missed a lot in our modern evangelical age, is that orthodoxy should lead to orthocardia.

You should have a right heart.

Like this is what Augustine was getting at.

Right.

Affections of your heart.

And I, I think you're right that for, for better or for worse, a lot of, a lot of pundits have missed this with their eschatological discourse.

Yeah.

Because I mean, if my goal ultimately is to influence the nations, but we'll, we'll kind of, we'll shrink that area to just my community.

Right.

If my goal is to influence my local community with the gospel.

Right.

There's the, obviously the preaching of the gospel, but then it's also happening.

I live where others see how I live.

So there's a fruit that comes, comes from that and then how I serve.

Right.

So, so how I carry myself and then how I serve that community.

And that's the gospel at work that's going to infect and grow and help change that community.

Can I give one like, little.

It's not exactly a pushback, but just, just, just one little point.

Kind of like building off of what we were just talking about.

Yeah.

So I think had a lot of Christians practice a kind of postmillonial view that I just explicated where you were.

You're not neglecting any, any level of power within that scope of what Christ has called us to, to call, to bow the knee to him.

I think a lot of Christians exercise that when we do vbs because.

Because every time a church does VBS recently at least you see that graphic, which I can't find the source material for the graphic.

I found the study of.

That's cited if anybody watching this has the source mater my way.

But it's that graphic of if you reach a father and he becomes a Christian, like 93% chance his family will.

Right.

Yeah.

Seen this one.

And then the mother to like, I think it's in like the high 40s or something.

The child is like, it's like 13, 7%.

It's low.

Right.

So that graphic is, is put out every time.

And I Think it's for good reason because people are saying, look, when you have a VBS or when you have a child's activity, don't neglect the father.

Because there's a good, it's not just pragmatism.

There's actually good biblical initiation that as the father goes, so oftentimes goes the family.

And that's.

That.

That's a deep topic.

Right.

So too there's a lot to be said for the leaders of nations and peoples functioning as a father to the people.

Yeah.

You know the way, again, my confession describes them as nursing fathers.

But, but this is how biblically we see too.

When a king goes astray, his nation suffers.

So, so when the king, that doesn't mean you force Christianity on the people, but it does mean God can tremendously blend, bless people in that area.

So I would just say, like, there's a little bit of a analogy there, I think.

Yeah, no, I, I hear what you're saying.

Sorry, sorry.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, you know, kind of what he was saying, you know, as goes the king, so goes the people.

As though it goes the covenant head, so goes, you know, the rest of people.

At the same time time when we brought up, you know, Jesus going to the Gerasenes and, and going to the most unlikely convert, you know, he, he went to the most, the, the person who was out of the camp of the people who are outside of the camp, he's going to the most unlikely, the dregs of society and, and preaching the gospel to all people.

You know, it's almost like it's upside down.

It's almost like it's backwards.

He started from the bottom up, or from the bottom, you know, all the way up, not from the top down.

But that's what I see.

New Testament and to Son, you said earlier, Tom, when it came to why we share the gospel, yes, Christ commands it.

But Second Corinthians 5 gives us a different reason.

Is the fact if we truly understand the gospel, whatever your end times view is, if we truly understand the gospel, that we rightly deserved eternity in a lake of fire because we have violated the law of an infinite, holy, infinitely just God.

When we recognize that we've broken that law, we know we rightly deserve a eternity in a lake of fire because we're guilty of breaking his law.

When we recognize that and then realize we couldn't earn heaven, we can't do anything to get ourselves in a right state with God.

But that Christ, God became, became a man.

We know him as Jesus Christ.

That Christ died on the cross as a payment for our sin.

When we understand that, with what Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5, is that the love of Christ is what compels us to share the Gospel.

The fact that Christ loved us enough to be willing to, you know, to go to a cross and die that death on our behalf, that right there should blow our minds.

And the fact that he does that, the fact that we are the recipients of his grace, that love for Christ should control or compel us to share the Gospel.

Not because we have to.

Not because, well, God commands it, so we must do it.

No, because we want to.

Because this is what Christ did for us.

And we get the opportunity to share with others what Christ did with us, us, that he may do the same thing in them.

And I think that just goes across all eschatological views.

Amen.

Andrew.

Sorry, got on my soapbox, my preaching box.

But, but let me ask you, Josh, some of the things I'm asking of each, each of the guests.

First off, let me, me, let me start with the weakness of your view.

That way you get to end on the strong point.

But what do you see?

Because I think every, every one of the different views has strengths and weaknesses.

And anyone who denies that their position has a weakness or denies that a different position has a strength, you're just not being honest with, with the Scriptures, nor with the, the differing views.

And so coming from this position, what would you see as the weaknesses of your.

The view of post millennialism?

And then follow that up with what are the strengths of this position?

Like what is it?

Is there a specific verse or couple passages that really convinces you this is right.

Yeah, the strengths and weaknesses.

And you stole my joke because you said that nobody can say that there's no weaknesses or they're lying.

So, so yeah, I'll table my joke that I was going to make and say there's.

Go ahead.

Ironclad.

There's no, it wasn't really a joke.

It was just.

Yeah, it was more of a day.

I mean, he's gonna say, yeah, there.

I know there's weaknesses.

I just haven't found them yet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll save that one for the last week when we do dispensational premill.

I think, I think that one, one absolute weakness that I have seen is that if you, if you reckon with the fact that the kingdom is growing like leaven through a lump, you know, this is like Matthew 13:33 territory, and you see that the kingdom is expanding and growing through that lump until it permeates it and you look around and you see that that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon.

I think it can lull you into a sense of apathy, maybe a confident jubilant apathy, but still an apathy nonetheless.

And I mean like a, there's not a lot of fire under you to go and actually see this kingdom.

1.

I actually don't see that from a lot of post millennials, but, but I think it's a danger maybe of the view is that if you were to see a slow, maybe even thousands of years down the road type kingdom growth happening, that it could lead you into a little bit of a lackadaisical approach to the present.

So most of the guys that I know, that's not the case.

I do think it's definitely a weakness that could come into the view view.

As far as the, as far as the strengths of the view.

You know, I said earlier, and I, I know that, that all of us that are pursuing to follow Christ and be obedient and to understand Scripture as best we can with our flawed, our flawed reasoning and, and faculties, we're trying to honor God.

But I think that one of, one of the things is that it honors the way Christ describes his victory.

So when I read, I think one of the, the pivotal passages for me was when I got to the, it's called the strong man passage or the, the Beelzebubble controversy.

It's in all three of the Synoptic gospels.

Christ describes him having come.

He's describing the kingdom and specifically his work in the incarnation and resurrection and ascension.

He says it's like, it's like an invader, which is Christ, strong man's house, which is the world.

And he says, it's like I've bound this strong man and I've done so, so I can plunder his goods and take what's his.

One of the things that I've found tremendously comforting and also encouraging about post millennial thought is the fact that I trust that even when the world at times looks quite dark, I can look at things that I can say like, this seems like a good advance of the kingdom.

You know, I have bookshelves full of Christian authors.

Nobody has kicked in my door while I've been talking to you all to harm.

I have a cell phone that can pull up commentaries and Greek lexicons.

Like there's like things I could look at.

But even when I can't, even when things do look in fact quite dark, in the world.

And I feel dreary within my soul.

I can look to those promises of Christ and say, Christ has in fact claimed all authority in heaven and on earth, and he will certainly put the house right, as he has promised.

He has bound the strong man and he has done so so that he might plunder his goods.

I think that gives a tremendous, a tremendous long view of encouragement for the Christian.

It's one that I think you could get from other views as well.

And for that I say praise God and amen.

But I think for post millennialism, that's one that I've found especially helpful for Christians that are laboring, maybe even within context and cultural contexts that are opposed and antagonistic toward our Christian faith.

This can give you a buoyancy that the winds and the waves of your time don't shake.

All right, and so we're going to go to questions from the audience before.

You do that real quick, Andrew.

So when you were speaking about technology, I just, I had to throw this in there because I was having a conversation with a buddy a couple years ago, and we just, you know, recently we just lost Dr. John MacArthur, right?

He just passed away into glory.

But, you know, John MacArthur was, you know, that dispensational premillennialist.

And me and this buddy were talking about, you know, free mill versus post male.

And I said, you know, you know, John MacArthur was definitely pre mill, but, you know, a lot of the things he did very much were post mill because you have grace to youo, where it has his sermons and they're being broadcasted through technology across the world.

And it's leading, it's helping lead, you know, countless numbers of people to the Lord, you know, and so that's kind of the post mill thought there.

That's a stretch.

It's true, Andrew.

It's true.

All right, well, listen, we've said, we've said.

I got to piggyback real quick.

We've said for a long time, time, because John MacArthur was one of those guys that we, we loved, even though he got quite feisty toward our eschatological views toward the end of his life, I think God tremendously used him.

But yeah, he was, he was an interesting guy because from, from the outside looking in, he would say, like, Christ's return is imminent.

It's, it's any day now, it's going to happen.

Like, or at least this was my perspective on, on some of his, some of his messages, like this is something very, very soon.

But then in the next breath, we Would hear about Grace Church.

We're planting some seminaries and churches that are going to, like, we are preparing for four generations down the road and.

Yes, and amen.

Like, I.

We're on the same team.

It doesn't make sense to me, but I praise God for it, so it's all good.

Yeah.

Well, you know, we want to get to some of the questions that you in the audience asked, and I know that.

That, you know, it's kind of late for Drew.

I get it.

You know, it's.

He's staying up late, and.

And therefore, you know, it's because of that.

That Drew was going to break out.

Well, his.

My pillow.

Because I know that, you know, he.

He has it there.

Well, he doesn't, because actually his wife stole one, then his kids stole one.

Does the new baby.

Did you get the newest baby?

The little.

My pillow.

This is what.

This is where we're at now.

Okay.

Okay.

So we're in the middle of transitioning the baby because it's our last one.

Right.

And my wife.

And you know that how she's got.

To have all the baby snuggles while he's still a baby.

But we're about to be in the middle of transitioning him from sleeping in our bed to a toddler bed.

His own.

His own bed.

And my kids, we just kind of leave them when they fall asleep.

Wherever they fall asleep, we leave them.

Because if you move them, they're gonna wake up just scare.

So we.

Where they drop, they stay.

But now the.

Now my pillow kind of goes to surrounding the baby.

And yeah, he.

When I put him down for a nap, it's the first thing he reaches for when he's trying to get comfortable, and he just, like, pulls it to his face.

And yes, you're lost in another one.

It's never going to be mine again.

You.

You.

You've bought more my pillows that you don't have.

But even your babies love your.

My pillow.

And so if.

If you guys want to get a good pillow, help you get a good sleep.

You know, some of us don't need a good, you know, good beauty sleep.

You know, Tom obviously needs a lot of it to try to.

Well, okay, it still won't work, but look like me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so you obviously get good sleep.

Sleep with your family stealing your mypillow.

But if you guys in the audience want to get yourself a good mypillow with great discounts, go to mypillow.com use the promo code SFE SFE is stands for striving fraternity.

It's how they know that we send you.

And it's also the code to get you the discounts.

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So go check it out.

Go to MyPillow.com use the promo code SFE to get your discounts.

And as we're looking into scripture tonight, want to encourage you.

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And if you want to get some great software, go to lagos.com SFE Again, SFE stands for Striving Fraternity.

But logos.com SFE you can now with the way they do it now with these subscriptions.

If you're new, new to lagos, go to logos.comsfe you can get a subscription if you're.

Well, if you're Jewish like me, you want to save every penny.

And therefore what you should do is get the two year subscription so you can get the, the, the smallest package they have.

It's about $7 a month.

We figured if you do it, if you get it for two years.

So yeah, you're paying it all up from front, but it works out to less than one cup of Starbucks coffee a week.

So if you're getting Starbucks coffee, which why would you want to, there's Squirrelly Joe's coffee.

But if you are, then you know, you can just drop that, get Squirrelly Joe's coffee and at the same time get Logos Bible Software.

Hey, it's a win win.

Support a good Christian family, get good Bible software.

Why not do that?

It's a great idea, Tom.

I'm glad you thought of that idea.

All right, let's get to some of the questions.

So we, we had this and this is, you know, I should, I should put this in Josh, because this is one of your fellow cohorts here from Eschatology Matters, but civic, civically minded.

Corey Wing.

Civically minded.

If you look the way he spells it there.

He's got a great podcast.

It's a C I V E C C L Y minded, but he says just leaving seminary already.

Love this.

What a panel of scholarly men.

I salute you all.

But you know, later on he ended up saying this.

What denomination does this?

That scholarly man within.

Maybe I should look into it.

Yeah, you, that would be Baptist that you're referring to.

You must be referring to the three of us as the scholarly men.

I'm just saying, I mean the majority here oh no, that's, that's not how it works.

Okay, I will say I saw, I saw Corey at our general assembly and he was wearing the finest three piece suit in the place.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, he is, he is a fine dressed, you know, Presbyterian.

So at least he's fine dressed.

There's something.

No.

All right, so we got a lot of questions from brother John, our Canadian friend.

So first question he's got is, I've heard it said, said that post mill teach.

I'm just gonna read it as it is, Teach that Jesus will not come back for another 70,000 years.

Is that a common teaching?

I'll admit I've never heard that before.

Yeah, I wouldn't say that's common.

I'm sure you could find somebody that said it.

There's been, there's been a lot of guys that will talk about Christ not coming for another 10,000 years or they'll think, they'll speculate as to how long that might take.

I'm pretty cautious with those.

I think that we can say that Christ will return when he pleases.

And in his own providence, he's told us specifically not to speculate about that sort of thing.

So if you'd like to think about the possibility of Christ returning 10,000 years down the road, that's fine.

We should all also be very careful to not speculate our timelines onto Gods.

So if our post millennial brethren, if we are correct in how things will play out, Christ could in his own goodwill, bring a worldwide revival that would shock all of us within the next year.

That's, that's up to his own good providence.

So I would just say to be, be careful.

But no, I don't think that's a common teaching.

Right.

So when you said that, that's based on current events, that whole belief.

The, the 70,000 years.

Yeah, I think, I think it's typically looking around and saying within the, within the trajectory of the last 2000 years, when could we expect the nations to actually be discipled?

And again, I think a cursory look for through our Bible, God can do massive sweeping change.

I mean, Nineveh would be a good example.

Right.

God can do things quite quickly if he pleases.

So let me give an argument against 70,000 years.

I mean, like you said, God could do what he wants, but scientifically, you know, mankind can't be around for 70,000 years.

Just that our DNA, the, the what's called genetic entropy.

As you continue to, as humans continue to lose DNA over and over, you know, there's just an entropy where we will get more and more diseases and yeah, we're not going to be living that long.

But John, John put this up and he's kind of worded this couple.

I'm going to put two comments up.

They're kind of together, and I'm probably going to be the one to respond to this.

But he says Premill is held by 40% of US evangelicals, 48% of pastors post mill, 3% of adults, 11% of pastors, mostly reformed circles.

Then he goes to say, why would you buy a theology that only 3% of Christians accept?

There's a real risk of spiritual pride.

Not saying postmill is a cult, but it's not.

But a lot of online push it come comes off arrogant.

So let me, let me respond to this, John.

Being that you and I would both be in, in a Premill camp, though, you know, different views of, of the tribulation, I'm just going to say that I think that it's a bad argument.

Okay.

I think it'll come better coming from me than maybe Josh.

And I'll let Josh respond if he wants after.

But the simple thing is narrow is the road that leads to heaven and broad is the path that leads to destruction.

So using numbers to try to justify a theological position is not a good way to make the an argument or a case.

And I want to say this in a general sense, because this is not just to John's point on end Times, but just this is apologetics live, right?

We do apologetics when we're making a case, especially with an unbeliever.

We have to be careful that we don't make a bad argument.

There's nothing directly tying the number of people, people that believe something, to the truthfulness of the thing that they believe.

If that was the case, then in Germany, killing Jewish people in the 1940s was the right thing to do because the majority held to that.

And so the question would be up in Canada if the majority of people support transgenderism, should you as a Christian support transgenderism?

See, I'm using that to show that the argument itself breaks down very quickly if you start to try to use it outside of the way you're.

You're trying to use it, right?

We, we got to try to use good, logical arguments.

So how, Josh, how would you respond?

Or if you don't have to.

But yeah, no, I think, I think that was, that was a good response.

I, I understand, you know, seeing something small and being skeptical of it.

I think most of Us would probably agree with, you know, Athanasius when he said that if the world is against me, then I'm against the world.

Or you could think of, you know, from, from our tradition, you could think of John Knox who said that God plus one man is a majority.

Like the, the fact that I'm in a small group doesn't, doesn't so much bother me if, if I think it's biblically tethered.

That's, that's all that matters.

All right.

And so, you know, topic, I, I have to mention something.

I, I don't know if this is accurate.

Of course not.

You're saying, you're saying it.

Am I wearing the same shirt as, you know.

No, mine looks better.

What is going on?

They're never similar.

I, I, I'm, I'm trying to copy you.

Let's see, let's, let's zoom in.

There's my shirt.

Yeah, yeah, I have more.

Okay.

We're close.

Yeah.

I mean, look, look, I, I got pockets.

You don't let me.

Oh, you know, yeah, I got two, you know, so, all right, so, so John, John made the statement and Drew, you may not like this, but he said, I heard the 70, 000 years from Drew.

He said when Drew talked on the show, one of the guests said it.

So, so he might be talking about the show we did a couple years ago with me and Darren stood and Jeremy.

But if I remember correctly that it was probably a comment that was said just kind of facetiously that, you know, you know, yeah, we, you know, it could be another 70,000 years.

Who knows, you know, you know, if I'm, because neither of those guys would say, would say definitively, yeah, Christ isn't coming back for 70, 000 years.

Like, they wouldn't say that.

So if it was on there, it was probably said in kind of a tongue in cheek kind of way.

Yeah.

So Josh and I also want to.

Know is how accurate are those percentages?

3%.

Yeah.

Back to the other question, the 3%.

Yeah, I, I, I don't, I, that was the other thing I was wondering is where, where do you get the numbers?

Because I, I kind of think, well, it depends on the camps.

Right.

So John is going to be more of the charismatic camps which are going to tend to be more dispensational.

You guys are going to be more in the reformed camp.

So I think, I think in John's camp he's going to find more pre mills in just who he hangs out with.

But with you guys, you're going to find more on sawmills because that's more prevalent in, in the, you know, reformed circles.

And if you're up at Doug Wilson's church, you know, or you're going to find all postmill, there's none that are.

So I'm, you know.

But yeah.

So Jesse asked this question earlier.

He says, what does Isaiah 2:1:5 say about the latter days?

There is a change that occurs on the earth.

So Jesse, if you don't mind looking up Isaiah 2:1:5.

And if you know, I know it's.

This is the problem with a live show.

You don't get time to, to prep for it.

And.

But his question in that, in Isaiah 2 is, you know what it says about the latter days.

There's a change that occurs on the earth.

Do you want me, you want me to read it, Josh, or.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were going to somebody else on that first.

No, no, please.

Yeah.

All right.

And so this is what it says, the first five verses.

The word which Isaiah the the son of Amos beheld concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

Now it would.

It will be that in the last days the mountain of the house of Yahweh will be established as the head of the mountains and will be lifted up above the hills and all the nations will strike stream to it.

And many people will come and say, come let us come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us from his ways, that we may walk in his paths and that we may walk sorry.

And that from and for from Zion the law will go forth and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.

And he will judge between the nations and will render decisions for many peoples.

And they will hammer their swords into plow shears and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not lift up sword against nation and never again will they learn war.

Come house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of Yahweh.

So, and then back to the question he was asking if I could bring that up.

He said from that passage, you know, what does it say about the latter days?

And there's a change that occurs on the earth.

So I, I guess he's asking how that fits in with your, your position there.

Yeah.

So this is where all my, my amillennial brothers can have, you know, great, great camaraderie with me.

Notice Thomas smiling.

Before you say another word, Just, just look at that big smile on his face.

There's an already.

And that's the cheat code.

He just, he just hears a mill and it's like he.

No, I do think.

I do think there's a way in which Scripture talks about these things that.

So if you were to look at just like, phrases like latter days, phrases like end times, phrases like the day of the Lord.

So we, we typically look at latter days and we think, okay, this is speaking of the events of the end.

This is Revelation 20: Territory.

The author of Hebrews, who Guy, a guy who sounds a lot like Paul, came around and, and he said, actually, in, you know, in these latter, Christ has.

Or God has spoken through his son, Christ.

Nobody laughed at my Hebrews joke.

Nobody ever laughs at the Hebrews joke about Paul.

But anyway, it.

Because it is Paul.

It's a sermon from Paul that was probably dictated by, you know, one of the others.

Who.

You think you got Barnabas or you got Luke?

I.

Well, I could go with either one, but I, I lean toward Barnabas.

You lean toward Barnabas because we have nothing from Barnabas.

So it's a safer choice, right?

Yeah, it's a wild card.

I get because.

Because therefore, you have nothing to compare to Luke.

It's like, okay, you gotta.

You gotta compare the Greek and see if he's using similar words.

But he's taking it from a Paul's sermon.

So how literal is he gonna write everything down?

Down?

Could he write fast enough?

You know, it is true.

Yeah.

But to answer the Isaiah too, I, I see this as a, As a time number one.

You've got this picturesque language of this mountain of the Lord.

You know, if you look, if you look at sort of this, like, topography of Scripture, typically mountains are places from which God, you know, flows his blessings.

Whether or not Eden was on a mountain or not, the river flow down from it and the people gathered to it.

So I think you've got this mountain imagery.

So here you have in these latter days, that there will be the blessings of the Lord that will flow down.

So usually when people encounter these passages, if they struggle with seeing this completed in the work of Christ, I would encourage them to.

To maybe consider some of the.

The phrases that are clearly used about the.

The coming of Christ.

So when Peter arises at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, and he quotes from Joel chapter 2, verses 28.

2, and he says, this is now being in your presence.

If you were to read Joel 2 without that context, you might think that that was impossible.

This is tremendous cosmic renewal language, something truly monumental happening.

And yet Peter says, without skipping A beat.

This is being fulfilled in your presence.

The same thing at Acts 15, Acts 15, using that same sort of evocative imagery pulled from the Old Testament.

So when I read this here in Isaiah chapter two, I see something that has started in Christ.

Christ actually bringing peace.

That peace reigning.

Christ actually drawing the nations to himself as he declared he has all authority in heaven and earth.

Christ actually his law being being held high, just as he commanded his disciples to teach them to observe everything that I have commanded you.

Now, is there a future time at which this is even, even more perfect and consummated without stain nor.

Nor sight of sin?

Yes, yes, and amen.

And yet this is something that has in fact come with the kingdom peace that Christ is.

So that's kind of.

I would go with that.

100.

Yeah.

Christ is reigning right now in heaven.

The Gospel is going forth on earth.

We are commanded to be his disciples, to live a sanctified life unto holiness.

So this is about.

Sounds very premillennial of you.

One last question that we have for is.

Is also from John.

John was very.

I, I expected that John be very vocal on this one because he, he usually is vocal anytime we talk postmill.

Although now he can't poke fun at Drew because now he's on mill.

So, you know, but he, he says here, Sorry, yeah, He says, if we're living in the kingdom age, where is Jesus?

Because what I see is the nations raging, not submitting.

This doesn't look like Christ reigning with a rod of iron.

Yeah, so.

And that's.

It's a good question.

I think I'm going to stop saying.

I think we agree on any given one of these points.

I would explain this as Christ is reigning as the risen God, man, truly God and truly man.

He's reigning at the right hand of the Father.

I think Scripture teaches us that all the nations of the earth, Psalm 2, are commanded to submit to him them, lest he crush them with his rod of iron.

So there is a coming judgment for those nations that will not submit.

Both a temporal judgment in this age and also a judgment in the age to come.

I think that Christ will, as First Corinthians, probably one of the most pivotal New Testament chapters on eschatology.

I think First Corinthians 15 tells us that Christ in fact must continue to reign as he is reigning now.

He must continue to reign until his every enemy has been been subdued under his feet and been made a footstool.

And that finally, consummatively, that the last enemy that will inevitably fall is death.

And then death and the dragon are cast into the lake of fire.

So I think that is where Christ is reigning.

I think that his reign is bring his every enemy in his own good time.

All right, so, Josh, let me just give you a chance.

Anything you want to.

Any last things you want to share or, or if you want to promote from Eschatology Matters or, or anything.

Yeah, no, thanks.

Yeah, if, if anybody wants to keep up with us on Eschatology Matters.

It's sort of a collaborative work, I guess you could charitably say.

There's, there's several contributors.

I'm not the only guy on there doing series and, and several of our.

They're very talented godly men.

So it's, it's a very fun venture and we try to aim to be helpful.

Helpful.

We try not to be.

We try not to get bogged down in some of the fights that, that typically happen with these things.

We're not perfect at that, but we try.

So please follow us at Eschatology Matters.

You can find us on YouTube and, and some other places.

As for me, I've.

Like I said, I try to write here and there.

I've got a few books out.

I've got.

I've got a few under contract that are coming out.

If I could just name two.

There's two that I would recommend along this topic.

One is the Exorcism of Satisfaction Satan, which.

That is the academic monograph.

I think it's a readable book, but it is a very scholarly defense essentially of Christ's binding of Satan.

This would be what we call the Christus Victor theme, but the fact that Christ has defeated Satan and put him under his feet.

But then I recently wrote one called Stories about the End of Things and really all I tried to do there was just take some of these themes, some of these little pictures, pictures like a tree, pictures like a mountain, and try to trade.

Trace these little pictures that we see in these.

In these apocalyptic and prophetic passages and tried to trace them throughout Scripture.

And the aim for that book was not only to just see some very cool themes traced throughout Scripture, but also to lead to that orthocardia I spoke about earlier.

My, my encouragement for anybody that's watching this is please don't let our human frailty and our propensity for divisiveness and pride, please don't let that steal you of the.

The boy that eschatology is supposed to bring to your millennial view does not bring you joy.

As Andrew just so, so properly preached A minute ago.

Your eschatological view is not going to bring you joy.

As important as.

As theological precision is, that's not the thing that brings joy.

The thing that brings joy is a lamb standing as though slain, and yet he is the king of kings and the Lord of Lords.

Don't.

Don't let these things dissuade you or distract you from that beatific vision of the risen Savior.

This is.

This is what eschatology is, is given to the church as.

It is a gift to us.

So.

So cherish it in that regard and treat it.

Treat it tenderly.

Amen.

And so I'm really happy that we.

Got to do three shows on optimistic amillennialism.

So.

So, Drew, John says, drew, I'm glad.

And by the way, this is.

How do you say I told you so without saying I told you so?

So, Drew, I'm glad.

I'm glad they're out of the post Mill camp.

I'm not gonna say I told you so.

Yeah, I think he just said, I told you so.

Well, it's.

It's funny because you can.

He didn't see the episode we did with Keith Fosky.

Yeah.

Where I said, you know, well, a lot of people today that call themselves post male are really just all male.

Right.

And it was a lot that kind of.

Of took me to go.

Yeah, I think I'm just all mill, you know, and even this episode, I was like, well, I kind of got.

I'm straddling, you know, the line for kind of both of them.

But, yeah, you know, I would.

So, Jesse, I knew.

I knew eventually when it came out, you would be heartbroken about that.

Yeah.

Jesse had said earlier, put it up there.

Is Drew his hamil.

I thought you were postmill, bro.

Yeah, you crushed his heart.

There's so many.

Like.

Like we were talking before the show, and it was, you know, me and Tom told Josh it was like, you know, there's gonna.

A lot that we agree on because there's a lot of the scriptures and a lot of just the overall theological position that we view the same way.

There might maybe some minor nuances here and there, but overall we have a.

We hold to the same view of.

Of things on a lot of things.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so just put this one up.

Kathy says thank you for another good show.

Helpful to.

Helpful to hear more on Post Mill.

Thank you for your time.

Andrew, Drew, Tom, and Josh.

So just to put that out there, give you guys some.

Some things if you want to come in and check out Striving Fraternity.

Go to Striving Fraternity.org.

you can find everything that we do out there.

You can find our free academies that you can take our classes.

You can listen to the many podcasts that are on the Christian podcast community.

Over 50 podcasts that are there.

All of them are vetted.

We.

We actually reject, I think about like 60%.

One of these days.

One of these days, there's two things that may happen.

Matter of Theology may start recording again.

We all look.

We recorded an episode that was in an honor episode for MacArthur.

Will we hear it?

Well, we're gonna have to re record it because we were so just scatterbrained word vomiting all over the place.

Chris listened back to it and he was.

He was like, yeah, we gotta record that again.

Oh, I thought all your episodes were like that.

That.

Oh.

So either you're going to record another Matter of Theology, or maybe, you know, open air theology will eventually become a podcast.

Tom.

Just saying.

Well, matter of fact, we have.

Jeffrey Johnson is coming on our show, matter of fact next week, so we're excited to get that going.

Nice.

Yeah, I do have something I want to.

I want to bring up, and I want to ask.

And I just kill you.

What?

What was that?

Go ahead.

So I don't know if everyone.

And this is more of a prayer request for people in the audience.

So I don't know if some of y' all have seen news stories that have come out about a Georgia father that drowned in South Carolina.

He actually ran in and ran into a rip current to save five people.

People from that rip current, and he ended up losing his life and drowned.

Well, that guy, I graduated with him and we played baseball together.

And I knew him and I knew his wife.

We all went to high school together.

And so learning about that, it was pretty hard.

And so.

But that's giving of himself like that.

That's not out of character for him.

As long as I've known him since high school, he was always that type to go out of his way to help somebody else.

So.

But if y' all could just be in prayer for that family, because.

As.

A dad, you know, I think about now those children have to go through life without a father.

And it's.

It's pretty hard on a lot of us that were.

That were pretty close to him.

Yeah.

Well, thanks for sharing that.

I didn't know that.

And so.

I know.

I know.

Josh, you got a drop.

Thank you very much for coming in.

We do appreciate all your wisdom that you shared.

Okay, much appreciated.

Thank you.

Guys, so much me on.

God Bless.

All right.

And then real quick, before we cut out, just to give you guys some places where you can, if you want to come in here, striving fraternity, some places.

We'll be speaking.

I will be speaking Back to back August 3rd and August 10th at Oxford Valley Chapel.

That's actually my home church, so that's in Levittown, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia, if you're in that area.

August 3rd, August 10th, August 3rd, I'll be preaching on God's sovereignty and human responsibility.

You know that old Calvinism, Arminianism debate.

Well, not really.

We'll just go through Romans 9 and Romans 10.

And then the following week, I will be preaching on August 10th on the Trinity.

That it is a solution to a problem, not a problem.

Then in September, we got a busy September for striving for eternity.

We will be down in, in.

I got to see where Powerhouse is.

They're in Indiana.

I can get you the details, but TC Cook is with Powerhouse Ministries.

We're having a conference there.

And it is going to be basically covering God's sovereignty over man, God's sovereignty over family, God's sovereignty over the church, God's sovereignty over the government.

And so I will be covering.

I think I have the topic of God's sovereignty over man.

And so that will be September 5th to September 7th in Indiana.

And then back at my home church will be Aaron Brewster, who will be preaching at my home church, doing one of our.

Doing a weekend seminar.

And again, so it's in Levittown, Pennsylvania, north of Philly.

He's going to be covering our responsibility to God, to the church, to the lost world and to our family.

So that is going to be what he is going to cover now that I will not be there because that is the weekend I will be out at Jeffrey Rice's church for the roadmap to revival.

So that is in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

So if you can't be to Philly, go to Tullahoma and do search for a road map for revival so you can get the tickets.

But there's a lot of good speakers.

You got James White, the guy that Tom is trying to look like.

We got.

I knew they get a smile.

I'll be preaching on the.

The revive.

So James White's going to talk on the revival of the authority of Scripture.

I will follow James White, which is like, yeah, who wants that position?

That respond.

I will follow James with the revival to faithful leadership.

Boy, is that needed these days.

Keith Foskey follows me with the Revival begins in the house of God.

Jonathan Boris is going to be talking about the revival through repentance and and then Claude Ramsey is going to talk about the cost of revival the second day we're gonna have Michael Schultz.

He will be on next week to talk about historical pray mill and he's going to be talking about revival through this spirit empowered preaching.

And if you've ever heard of his preaching, you know why he's doing that topic.

Jeremiah Nortier is going to talk about the revival in a confessional church.

Jeffrey Rice will deal with revival through the gospel.

And so and then James White will close with with no Prayer, no Revival as the topic.

So that's shaping up to be a good conference.

I do plan to go if you're familiar with conversations that matter.

I will be going.

I will not be speaking but I plan to go to the men's retreat that on music and masculinity up in in the camp of the woods Inspector New York.

So go check out Conversations Matter if you want to find out about that.

I will have details coming soon.

It looks like someone reached out to have me go to England to the UK to preach at a conference in November.

As more details come in on that.

If we work that out, then I will have that for you.

So that's some things that we got going on.

Hope you can check those out.

Hope you check out Striving Fraternity.

Tom has one more thing.

Yeah.

So in August, late August and Longview, Texas there's going to be a conference Friends, Race and Truth Conference on the salvation.

I'll be speaking there.

Don't come to see me, but come and see Jacob Tanner, Kevin, Hey, Nick White, Brandon Scouse, all the rest of those guys.

It's going to be a pretty solid lineup.

Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a fun one.

I mean that's just, that's just half of them.

So it's going to be a great conference.

So yeah, looking forward to that.

Grace and Truth in Longview, Texas.

So those are some things that will help you in your spiritual walk.

Several different events throughout the country.

So try to make it to at least one or two of those.

If you haven't been to a conference, you'll see that it really does encourage your faith.

It does help you in being just iron sharpening iron with other brothers and sisters in Christ as you dig into scripture and have good theologians, theological discussions.

So I thoroughly encourage you to try to check out some of those.

And with that we remind you that next week we'll have.

We'll be talking about historic pre mill.

That'll be really good.

And so want to encourage you to check that out.

And remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

And we will see you next week.