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On September 22, 2023 By In Postmillenialism, Theology

When Do The “Last Days” Really Begin? (Part 1)

SWING AND A MISS

When Christians hear the phrase “The Last Days” or “The End Times,” what images come to mind? For some, a clandestine government laboratory where a pseudo-scientist whose name rhymes with Dr. Ouchie is busily brewing the next super woo-flu that will kill a quarter of the population is well in view. For others, it could be a one-world cryptocurrency, planes falling from the sky, a maniacal and blood-lusting monarch, or the Romish pope (if you’re really old school). Whatever the case, for the vast majority of evangelicalism, we have utterly missed it. 

Now, when I say we have missed it, I don’t mean a booming foul ball ovah tha Green Monstah, kid! No. We missed it like an undersized middle schooler trying to make contact against a Randy Johnson slider. It wasn’t even close. 

Instead of the final fleeting moments at a cataclysmic end to human history, when the Bible talks about the “Last Days,” it means the last days of the old covenant era. It refers to the winding down of that redemptive epoch where priests mediated between God and us, temples were where you traveled to meet with God, and animal blood sacrifices stood between you and the almighty. The “Last Days” picture the close of that significant era and the dawning of the final chapter of human history, where the world will know God through His one and only Son. 

We are not waiting for that great eon to materialize in the uncertain future. The old covenant has been closed already, the new and final covenant era is fully here, and the events we will look at today, from Acts 2:17-21, will overwhelmingly confirm this. 

THE TEXT:

17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: 18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: 19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come: 21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. – Acts 2:17-21 KJV

TEN PROOFS THE “LAST DAYS” ARE IN THE PAST

A BIT OF BACKGROUND:

Whenever one of the three great pilgrimage feasts prescribed in the Law occurred, Jerusalem’s population would swell from a couple hundred thousand to well over a million. This is because all Jewish males were required by the Law of God to attend these three festivals every year. And, since most Jewish males were also married with sizable families, the city would balloon up rather quickly. 

Intriguingly, history reveals that numerous Jewish pilgrims embarked on journeys from the farthest reaches of the known world to partake in these festivals. While some hailed from nearby Judea and Galilee, a significant contingent had settled in the distant corners of pagan cities, towns, and nations across the vast reaches of the Roman empire. This widely scattered group bore the title of “diaspora Jews,” they arrived in Jerusalem, each carrying the rich history and traditions of their native people and the languages from their far-flung homelands.

Now, on the morning of Pentecost, downtown Jerusalem would have been packed with no shortage of extra bodies. Once-quiet city blocks, home to only a handful of families, now teemed with hundreds, even thousands, of individuals pressed tightly together. According to the account of Luke, as the Spirit descended, a deafening crescendo of sound erupted, undoubtedly piquing the curiosity of neighbors, onlookers, and the naturally inquisitive. 

They found a group of very ordinary, a run-of-the-mill assortment of blue-collar Galileans. But, with one extraordinary twist. Instead of those Galileans praising God in Aramaic, the common tongue of the Jews, everyone present heard them praise God in their native tongue. For instance, picture those from Rome hearing hymns sung in Latin or Greek while those from Egypt listened to Peter’s preaching in the elegant flow of Coptic. Even pilgrims journeying from as far as Seluecia, modern-day Iraq, were met with the disciples speaking fluently in their Parthian tongue. They all collectively saw the ancient curse of Babel being miraculously reversed before their very eyes. Well… Not all of them.

Among them stood a few who remained untouched by the Holy Spirit’s power, hearing only an incomprehensible babel crescendoing from a cacophony of gibberish. Instead of recognizing the nature of this event as a fulfillment of eschatological prophecies, they hurled derision and ridicule upon the disciples, accusing them of inebriation. 

For the one group, God had chosen to freely give them the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That outpouring caused them to praise Him, to hear His praises in their own dialects and languages, and to go on to serve Him for a lifetime. For the skeptical party, God intentionally chose to withhold His Spirit, leading them from skepticism to utter ruination, poignantly demonstrating His total sovereignty over election and regeneration. 

To clear up any confusion between these two groups and let everyone in earshot know what was happening, Peter stood up and declared precisely what was happening from the prophet Joel. Within those very poignant words from Peter, we will see ten undeniable proofs that the end times have already come. 

This week, we will look at the first five that Peter mentions, describing the situation for those who love Christ and receive Him. They are the ones who will experience the Holy Spirit’s power, inherit the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit, and they are the ones who will endure to the end, and be saved in those last days. 

Next week, we will look at the final five signs that Peter mentions from Joel’s prophecy, which concern those who hate Christ and reject Him. For them, incredible signs and wonders will demonstrate they are on the wrong side of the end-times debate. They will not make it alive into Jesus’ Kingdom; they will be buried in the ashes of Jerusalem, along with all of the other old covenant trappings and shadows. 

With that, let us look at the first five proofs that the “last days” concern the events in the first century, focusing on how that applies to believers and Christians. 

PROOF 1: PENTECOST SETS THE TIME FRAME

Peter addresses the concerns that they were drunk before the second breakfast by saying: “in the last days” God will pour out His Spirit “upon all flesh” (v. 17). Peter is acknowledging the loud sound they just heard and the miraculous gifting of this group to speak in each other’s languages, is proof that the outpouring of the Spirit had just happened, which makes this an eschatological event. Peter isn’t overlooking the scene unfolding beside Him to opine about something that will happen in the distant future. He claims that the last days had come upon them, and His chief evidence for this is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as Joel describes, just happened. Based on this, we can confidently say that the last days are not something we are waiting on but something that has already occurred. 

PROOF 2: YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTER WILL PROPHESY

Along with the loud whooshing clamor in the Upper Room and the Holy Spirit’s miraculous appointment of tongue speaking among the crowds, Peter also claims that young men and women will prophesy in the last days. According to Luke, Joel, and Peter, the onset of male and female prophets in the first century was one of the sure signs that the Old Covenant era was drawing to a close because, in these last days, God had chosen to speak through His Son (Hebrews 1:2). 

These men are clear: when you see young women and young men prophesying in the Spirit, then you will know that the temple, the priesthood, the ceremonial law, and the sacrificial system are on their last leg and the final chapter of redemption, where the world will be conquered by God’s reigning Son, will be fully inaugurated. For some time, both redemptive eras coexisted simultaneously. Meaning the new covenant era of Christ’s advancing Kingdom lived alongside the waning Herodian temple, the Aaronic priesthood, and the Mosaic system of sacrifice for about forty years (from the time of Christ’s ascension in AD 30 or 33 until the destruction of the temple in AD 70). 

That Biblical generation (about 40 years) was the God-appointed season where men and women could prophesy, which is precisely what occurred in the first century. For instance, when Jesus was born and brought into Jerusalem to be circumcised, he was greeted by an elderly woman named Anna, and an elderly man named Simeon, who were called prophets and ones with whom the Spirit of God was speaking (Luke 2:25, 36). Paul also alerts us that young men and young women were prophesying in the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 14:1-6) and needed specific instructions on how to implement this gift appropriately (1 Corinthians 11:4-5). Luke also tells us that Philip, who was one of the seven Hellenistic deacons, had daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:8-9) and that there was a man named Agabus in the Christian Church who prophesied (Acts 11:27-28 and Acts 21:10-11).

Do not miss the fact that prophets had been notably missing from Judah since the death of Malachi, the final prophet. For four hundred years, God was silent, refusing to raise up new prophetic voices to speak to the people until the birth of His Son. When Christ was born, God unleashed the prophetic tongue once more and brought both men and women to speak prophecies in the early church, which again is a sign that the last days were occurring in the incredible events described in the first century. 

There is one last point to consider before moving along. When God raises up prophets, especially female prophetesses, it is always in transitional periods during the waning of epochs. Think about it like a book with various chapters. The nation of Israel went through a chapter called slavery, a chapter about being set free and given a new covenant, a chapter about the occupation in a new land, a chapter of rule by judges, a chapter that describes the rule by various kings, an exile, a homecoming, and a period of silence that lasted 400 years. During each of these chapters near the closing moments of each, God raises a prophetic voice to bring that chapter to a close. For instance, God raised up Moses and Miriam (both described as prophets) in the waning years of the slavery period, just before a new era of communal Torah observance, called the Mosaic covenant, began. The same is true for Deborah, a prophetess before the Lord, presiding over some of the final years of theocratic rule by judges just before the Jewish Monarchy was installed. This was also the case for Huldah, a prophetess who had a significant role to play in the life of Josiah, a mere 30-40 years before the end of the Monarchy and the beginning of exile (2 Kings 22). 

As the final grains of sand in the Old Covenant hourglass fell, it is not surprising that a proliferation of the prophetic occurred. It is also clear that this was a specific prophecy given by Joel, recounted by Luke, that confirms this would happen when the last days of the Old Testament had come. All of this points us to the fact that these prophets and prophetesses were a forty-year sign to the first-century believers and us that the last days had already begun and that a new era was dawning. That era is the epoch of Christ and His Kingdom, which we live in today.

PROOF 3: YOUNG MEN WILL SEE VISIONS

In the same way that a rise in prophetic activity would signal the last days of the Old Covenant era, visions among young men would also be used by God as a powerful testimony that the changing of ages was occurring. This is precisely what we see going down in the New Testament, and we do not need to speculate whether this sign was fulfilled in the first century. We know unequivocally that it was. 

For instance, while Paul was on his way to kill the believers hiding in Damascus, he was confronted by a dazzling vision of the resurrected Christ (Acts 9; 26:18-20), where he was told to go into the city and wait for a man named Ananias to pray for him. When he arrived, the Lord also gave Ananias a vision as well, comforting the reluctant disciple that it was His will that Paul be healed (Acts 9:10-18). Beyond this, Cornelius the centurion saw a vision (Acts 10:2-4), Peter saw a vision (Acts 10:9-23; 11:5), Paul had multiple additional visions (Acts 16:10; 18:9), and John the apostle wrote an entire book of the Bible, which is the book of Revelation, based on a vision (Revelation 9:17).

Peter cited visionary experiences as critical evidence that the last days of the Mosaic period were occurring in the first century. By the Lord’s grace, we have a plethora of evidence pointing to this being true. 

PROOF 4: OLD MEN WILL DREAM DREAMS

In addition to noises, tongues, the outpouring of the Spirit, prophesying, and visions, God continued piling up evidence that the last days were happening more than 2000 years ago by citing the fact that the old men would be dreaming dreams. This also occurred in the New Testament period, with examples such as Joseph, who, like his Old Testament counterpart, had many dreams (Matthew 1:20-24; 2:13, 19, 22), the Magi (Matthew 2:12), and even Pilate’s wife, who is not a man, but was given a specific dream by God as a warning to her husband, Pilate (Matthew 27:19). Once more, we see a proliferation of these events in the first century, not so we will be confused on the timing of the last days, but so God can give us exacting clarity. 

PROOF 5: A JEWISH REVIVAL

Peter’s quotation from Joel 2 also states, in verse 18,: “On my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit.” When we realize that “my servant” is a common way for God to refer to Israel and Judah as a nation (Isaiah 41:8-9; 44:1; 49:3; 53:11; and Jeremiah 30:10), then we can understand that the prophecy of Joel is a prophecy, not just about the salvation of the nations, but also about the events beginning with a revived Jewish people who will have the Holy Spirit poured out upon them in the first century. 

This certainly did not happen in full at the events of Pentecost, nor during this forty-year window we have been describing. And, for that matter, Joel does not predict a monolithic revival in Judah where everyone is converted to Jesus. That did not happen in history, and that is not at all what Joel says. When he describes the revival of Judah, he talks about it like there is a remnant that survives while the majority of the unfaithful Jews will perish. For instance, in Joel 2:32, the prophet says: “For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.” 

Joel tells us that God will set apart a remnant of Jews to be a part of His elect people that will eventually take over the entire world. This happened most assuredly since the vast majority of the first-century church was Jewish converts to Jesus, beginning with the 3000 who were cut to the heart while listening to Peter preach (Acts 2:41). A future revival of Israel may still be coming. We pray to the Lord it does. But, it is no small matter that droves of Jewish people began worshiping a resurrected man named Jesus Christ in the first-century city of Jerusalem. Let us not take for granted how shocking that would have been at that time and in that context. 

CONCLUSION

As we have seen from this text, Joel lays out five initial pieces of evidence that the first-century people were living in the last days. These passages have proven that the “last days” are not esoteric events in OUR future but clear events within the forty-year future of Peter and the first-century church. We have seen how the glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit caused men and women to hear Peter, who was preaching in a foreign language, perfectly and clearly in their mother tongue. We have seen how the Holy Spirit’s outpouring caused His people to prophesy, His elect young men to dream dreams, predestined old men to hear visions, and a remnant of Judeans to come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ for their salvation. 

The last days began in the first century and ended with the end of Jerusalem and her temple. That isn’t to claim that the Bible contains nothing in our future; it does. But when we consider this text and the ones that have come before, we can conclusively conclude that these events have already happened. Until next time, enjoy living in the last chapter of human history and get to work building Jesus’ Kingdom.

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On September 15, 2023 By In Culture, Theology

An Eschatology Of Pentecost

ESCHATOLOGICAL BLUE DIAMONDS

All diamonds are beautiful and rare. They are formed as a collection of carbon atoms, subjected to unimaginable heat and pressure over the space of time, melding into one of nature’s greatest crystalline masterpieces that has ever captivated the eyes of man. Some diamonds, such as the standard white diamond, are easier to find, occurring nearer to the surface of the earth in the alluvial deposits and within volcanic pipes, which makes them more abundant and affordable in the market. Other diamonds, however, such as the elusive blue diamond, are buried much deeper within the earth’s strata, making them not only harder to extract but also rarer and more costly. 

In the same way, every truth learned from Scripture is precious and essential. Some truths hang right on the surface of the text and do not take much digging to lodge them loose. Other truths, however, take a bit of digging. Yet, the reward for peeling back the layers of Scriptural strata is most definitely worth the reward for all who will venture into its depths. 

This is a good way of thinking about our passage today. Many of you will be familiar with some truths on the surface. These truths are precious and glorious, and I do not want to minimize them. But, if you will grab your shovel and pickaxe, I’d like to take you down just a bit further, below the surface and into the eschatological crust of the text, as we hunt for the Biblical equivalent of blue diamonds. 

THE TEXT: ACTS 2:1-12

1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” 12 And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 

To understand this text, let us first consider what eschatology is and how this text is eschatological. 

EXPANDING OUR DEFINITION 

First, eschatology is not merely about the final climactic moments of human history. That is a futurist’s perversion. Instead, eschatology is about what life will look like during the final age of man. Eschatology is about how the history of planet earth will be brought under the rule and dominion of Jesus Christ in these last days we are living in. That end-time age began when Jesus Christ rose from the dead and poured out His Spirit upon all flesh, which we will see in greater detail next week. 

But for now, it is crucial to understand that everything within the old covenant, all of the promises of God, all of the types and shadows, will either pass away under the rule of Christ or will soar to its climax in the rule of Christ. In this way, eschatology has just as much to do with fulfilling the past as it does with the future. Thus, eschatology is trying to understand how all of the old forms and norms will find their ultimate realization and transformation in the new covenant that Christ has ushered in. To say that in shorthand: eschatology is how Christ ushers in His end-time Kingdom, now in part, one day in full.

To that end, let us explore a few examples, beginning with Pentecost. 

PENTECOST AND THE FESTAL CALENDAR

Pentecost comes from the Greek word πεντηκοστή, which means “the fiftieth” or “the fiftieth day,” referring to the fact that the miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit happened fifty days after the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. Yet, the origins of Pentecost and the other key events during Holy Week run much deeper than the first century AD. 

For instance, underneath the events of Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost are buried Old Covenant feasts that directly and chronologically correlate with what Christ is doing. Take, for example, the festival called Passover. This feast was the first among the final three feasts in the Jewish year. During that feast, a lamb was slaughtered for the people’s sins, and its blood was painted on the doorpost of every home so that the angel of death would pass over them. As Christians, we look to Christ as the final and perfect Lamb, whose blood was painted over the mantle of our own hearts, causing the angel of death to pass us over so that we may inherit eternal life in the Son. 

Likewise, underneath the events of Easter and Christ’s resurrection was a Jewish festival immediately following Passover called “First Fruits.” In that feast, the people would praise and worship God for the first sign of the harvest, that once more He had caused the seeds that went down into the earth dead to sprout and break through the ground again, symbolizing new life and resurrection from the dead. When Jesus rose from the dead, during the celebration of this festival, He was not only claiming to be God; He was fulfilling an Old Covenant rite with precision and beauty. 

In the same way, underneath the events of Pentecost was an Old Covenant norm that must be explored if we are going to understand what God is doing in Acts 2. After the Passover and the festival of First Fruits, the Israelites hightail it out of Egypt and travel ferociously towards the Red Sea. After God’s final and glorious showdown with Pharoah, the Israelites continue to Sinai, where God leaves His throne in heaven and descends upon the mountain to dwell with His people. The journey from celebrating the First Fruits in Egypt to seeing Yahweh descend upon the mountain and deliver His law to Moses took exactly fifty days (Just like Pentecost). 

To commemorate that arduous fifty-day journey, God established a feast called the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot in Hebrew), which would become one of the three mandatory pilgrimage festivals that all Jewish males were required to attend once a year in Jerusalem. Furthermore, within the ordinary annual calendar of the Jews, this feast was the last and final celebration of the year, spiritually symbolizing how God’s ultimate and final purpose in redemption was to condescend and draw His sojourning people into His presence forever. 

This is why the timing of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 is so rich and eschatologically significant. All of the events that happen during holy week and Pentecost track perfectly along with the Old Testament Festal calendar. This is not by accident or mere coincidence. God is purposefully taking His Son through each of the final feasts of Israel to show His people how His Son is the end and point that each of these feasts was pointing to. 

In the same way, God rescued His people from the Pharaoh and their taskmasters in Egypt, Heaven’s spotless Lamb came and offered Himself during the final Passover, freeing the people of God from a far worse tyrant than Pharoah. In Christ, we have been set free from the wicked rule of Satan, the slavery of our own sinful flesh, and the bonds of death that once accosted us. He is the hope the Passover was always pointing to. 

Immediately after Christ fulfilled the Passover, He fulfilled the feast of First Fruits, being the first fruit of a new creation, being the first to rise from the ground, breaking out of the earth like the first barley harvest the people were worshiping God for. In this, Christ (the bread of life) became the first one to rise in the new covenant Kingdom. And through His power, He is bringing all His people back to life and out of the grave until the entire harvest has come in. He is the hope the feast of Firstfruits was always pointing to. 

Then, fifty days later, in the same way God descended from heaven to dwell with His people in Sinai, God Himself descended again to dwell with the people of God at Pentecost. But unlike the Old Testament version, where the people needed to remain far off from God because of the finished work of Christ, the Holy Spirit of God would not remain distant but would live even within the heart of every believer. This was the chief end that the Festival of Weeks always pointed to: God living with His people forever. 

These events are not eschatological because they speak about the final moments of history. They are not eschatological because they concern modern-day Apache helicopters, Antichrists, or marks of the beast. These events are eschatological because old covenant trappings were fulfilled through Christ’s faithful work, and the final end-time Kingdom was inaugurated. Passover, Firstfruits, and the Festival of Weeks reached their glorious crescendo in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is our forever Lamb! He is our resurrection and first fruit! And in His Spirit, He is the one who ensured God’s people would dwell in God’s presence forever! In Christ, we are not waiting for these realities to come, but because of Him, they are already fully here. 

Before concluding, there are a couple of other examples of Christ doing this same thing in this passage. Let us dig a bit deeper.  

ESCHATOLOGICAL WIND

While the disciples were waiting for the Holy Spirit to come, just as the Lord Jesus promised, they were huddled together and hiding in an upper room somewhere in Jerusalem. This made sense for a variety of reasons:

  1. Jesus told them to wait, and they would have needed to stay somewhere.
  2. This room was apparently spacious enough to hold 120 of them and private enough to where they would not provoke any undue suspicion.
  3. This was so critical because waiting out in the open, in the town that just killed your master for insurrection and who was likely on the lookout for you, would not have been the best way to stay alive.

Yet, while they were in the safety and seclusion of the upper room, God brought the full fury of His hurricane-like breath, which is essential for a host of reasons.

The main reason is theophanic. When God physically reveals Himself to the people of Old Testament Scripture, He usually does so through a phenomenon called theophany. If you are not familiar with the term, it simply means God using material means to reveal Himself to people in a physical form. Notable examples include God appearing as a burning bush to Moses, a smoking pot to Abraham, a cloud to Israel, and a sparring partner to Jacob. 

In addition to those common theophanies, God often appeared physically as a wind or cloud in various places. First, since the Hebrew word for Spirit (Ruach) also translates as wind, the Holy Spirit hovering over the chaotic primordial waters of pre-creation in the first two verses of the Bible would count as the earliest example of a wind theophany in Scripture (Genesis 1:1-2). More salient to our discussion would be how the Lord appeared during the Red Sea episode, hovering over a different set of waters, blowing back the waves into walls with theophanic fury. In that scene, God delivered His people by His own breath, which indeed connects to Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit. 

Yet, another wind theophany blows closer to the point of Pentecost. If you remember a few paragraphs before, I said the Old Testament equivalent of Pentecost was the Festival of Weeks in Exodus. This festival occurred after Passover and Firstfruits, and it commemorated how the people traveled for fifty days and settled at the base of God’s mountain waiting for Him to descend. When He did descend upon the mountain, the text tells us that He came as a furious storm that shook the mountain so fiercely that the people and the mountain trembled! In the middle of that storm cloud that lowered itself down upon the mountain’s apex, the wind was so intense that it was described as God blowing trumpets with the magnitude of His breath. Is this not precisely what is occurring at Pentecost?

The twelve disciples, like the twelve tribes of Israel, are in an elevated place waiting on their covenant God to come down and make His dwelling place among them. And in much the same way that God descended upon Mt. Sinai with a breathy storm, God filled the upper room with His glorious divine breath, with one notable exception. Instead of the people being barricaded from going into the eye of God’s theophanic hurricane, Christ the better Moses ascended the mountain and made atonement for our sins. Because of that atonement, God would descend and live with us forever. In that way, the wind rushing into the upper room was the definitive sign that God was making His dwelling place, without restrictions or distance, with His people forever. No longer relocated to the tops of mountains or the back room of a Jerusalem temple, but dwelling within His people’s hearts, filling them with His life-giving windy breath. 

ESCHATOLOGICAL FIRE

You will also notice that when the Spirit comes upon God’s people at Pentecost, He came as a tongue of fire that sat aloft on each of the disciples’ heads and did not consume them. This should remind us of how God first revealed Himself to Moses, coming as a fire that did not consume the dusty wilderness bush at Mt. Sinai. In addition, when Moses led God’s people out of Egypt, wasn’t it God who appeared both as a cloud to lead the people by day (wind theophany) and as a tongue of fire to lead them by night (fire theophany)? And, wasn’t it also God, who when His divine cloud descended upon Mount Sinai (wind theophany), that He also appeared through bursts of intense, white-hot lightning at the apex of Sinai (fire theophany)? 

Without belaboring the point, when God drew His people out of Egypt and settled upon the mountain to be their God and them be His people, He used fire and wind as the physical phenomena signifying His genuine spiritual presence. This is, again, precisely what happened in the upper room. The same God who blew His wind and cracked His fiery lightning on Sinai was now inhabiting the Upper Room with wind and flame. And this time, there was no safe distance between the people and their God. He was descending with wind and flame directly onto them – and praise be the Lord Jesus Christ – for this is what our Lord accomplished. 

There is one final Old Testament reality going on in the text that Christ’s Kingdom will not only intersect with but also undo.  

ESCHATOLOGICAL BABEL AND THE TABLE OF NATIONS

The first command in Scripture is for the people of God to be fruitful, to multiply, and to spread out into the uninhabited world (Genesis 1:28). Yet, under the perniciousness of prevailing sin, the people staunchly refused the commands of God and chose rebellion instead. Rather than spreading out and carrying faithful God-glorifying living to the remotest deserts and deepest bogs, sinful man multiplied their iniquities. Then they huddled together in a single plain where they sat stubbornly in disobedience. 

Echoing their creator God, who said: “Let us make man in our image,” this gaggle of future babblers declared: “Let us make a city,” Let us make a tower,” and “Let us make a name for ourselves.” In this threefold repetition of the “let us,” this group quoted God. Yet, their hearts couldn’t be farther from His. Instead of making a name for God, the entire point of our creation, they were consumed (like Lucifer) with making a name for themselves. Instead of spreading out in obedience, they built a tower that so dominated the ancient skyline that no one could get separated from them (Genesis 11:4). They erected a mud-brick skyscraper to ensure no one accidentally obeyed God and ended up scattering.

Ironically, the tower was so slight and unimpressive from God’s vantage point that He described Himself having to come down in order to see it (Genesis 11:5). Picture God squinting and mocking their effort. Then, once God comes down and scrambles their alphabets, they all become so mired in linguistic confusion that everyone ends up scattering anyway, which is another rather humorous aspect of this narrative. Ultimately, the peoples of the earth are subdivided into seventy nations separated by many languages. 

Now, think about what is going on at Pentecost. Instead of God coming down to confuse the people’s languages, God unloosened the various tongues so the people would no longer Babel (pun intended). Instead of one people being divided into all nations on earth (as was the case on the Shinar plain), in Jerusalem that day, people from “all the nations under heaven” came back together as one people under the one true King. In both scenes, the people are confused and bewildered. Yet, in Christ, everything that afflicted the people of God before is now melting away. 

HOW SIGNS WORK

Before drawing this to a close, one additional element to this passage needs to be dug into. If you are tracking, we have dug down under the surface into the layers of Old Testament feasts to see the eschatological truths buried within. We went further down into an understanding of wind and fire theophany to find the gems embedded into the text at that level. Then, we dug further down into the typological level, seeing how Jesus was undoing one of the most profound elements of the curse at Babel by reunifying the nations at Pentecost. Now, we are ready to find blue diamonds. 

When God gives a sign to His people, He gives it to encourage us because He loves us. He uses temporary physical means like water applied in baptism, fire mounted on the apostle’s head, wind rushing into a room at Pentecost, bread and wine at the Lord’s Table to point to eternal spiritual realities that never end. While the physical manifestation of fire on the apostle’s head and wind in their chamber was a singular and non-repeatable event, the spiritual reality that each signified remains. Every time a man or woman believes the Gospel, the fire and breath of God descends upon them, igniting and fueling new life in the Spirit, which makes every believer on earth a walking, talking Mount Sinai. We do not need the physical phenomena to continue. That was only a sign that the spiritual realities had come. 

In the same way, the gift of a unifying tongue that brings the disparate nations back together in Jerusalem is a one-time physical sign from God that need not be repeated in the modern world. In this passage, God was not encouraging an ongoing physical Pentecostal-style tongue babbling because this passage says Christ has cured and will continue to cure the problem present at Babel. Instead, this passage is a physical sign from God that communicates a powerful spiritual truth. At Pentecost, God unloosed their tongues to bring the fractured world back together in His Son. And while the physical manifestation of the miraculous language speaking does not continue to this day, the spiritual consequence of God unifying the Babel-broken world in His Son does continue. In Christ, the scattered, fractured world will be reintegrated. There will one day, and I hope soon, one people, washed with the same baptism, feasting at the same table, joyfully serving their one King. Pentecost was a one-time event that showcases that God is doing that work, and He will not stop until it is finished. 

CONCLUSION

Eschatology is a much larger topic than what concerns the last and final moments of human history. Rightly understood, eschatology speaks about the entirety of Jesus’ end-time Kingdom. It includes things that happened in the very beginning of His reign, such as His Passover completing death, His Firstfruits accomplishing resurrection, His Daniel 7 fulfilling Ascension, His Festival of Weeks closing Pentecost, and His undoing of the curse of Babel. Eschatology includes events in the apostles’ lifetime, such as the Gospel going out and advancing into the Roman world, the downfall and destruction of Jerusalem, the end of the temple era, the sacrificial system, and the priesthood. Eschatology concerns what happened after the canon was closed, how Jesus’ Kingdom eventually overtook the Roman Empire, experienced a Reformation in Europe, and how that Kingdom is alive and well today. 

Eschatology concerns future events, but those events are the minority. More accurately, it is the theological discipline that examines how all the promises of God, from salvation and redemption to His worldwide Kingdom, will come to fruition under the rule and reign of His Son. And when you understand that, you will not only see that you are living in the end times but also that the final era of human history is upon us. This means that we are living under the end-time rule of Christ, and there are end-time things Christ has commanded us to be doing. The apostles were only commanded to sit and wait for a season. Once the Spirit came upon them, they sat and waited no longer.

In the same way, far too many people treat eschatology as something long into the future that is either irrelevant to where we stand or something we have to wait to arrive. Dear ones, our end-time King has come. His end-time kingdom is here. And His Spirit has come upon you, christening you for the end-time service He has commissioned you to. 

With that, do not be the kind of Christian who sits down and does not get involved. Do what the apostles did and turn your city upside down for Christ. Start Bible studies. Host prayer groups. Do some street preaching. Be present and active in your local congregations. Get married to a godly spouse. Have children and disciple them. Use your life to see His end-time Kingdom advance. 

And one last thing: remember what Jesus did at Pentecost. For a moment, He made all the peoples from all the nations in Jerusalem that day speak in one voice. Let that be an encouragement that our work is not in vain. One day, Christ will complete that work. He will make of all the nations on earth one people under God, indivisible, with perfect liberty and perfect justice for all. We labor to see that true and better nation come in full, even as our nation withers around us.

God bless you! 

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On July 27, 2023 By In Music, Worship

The Masculinity Of Corporate Singing: A Call To Christian Men To Sing

It was once common knowledge that the burliest and manliest chaps among us were the ones most interested in song. For instance, when soldiers marched into battle or were training for it, they would often march to the rhythm of a rousing tune. When rowers on old ships would drop their ores into the frigid waters, they kept time with sea shanties and other melodies. When those same men gathered together for a pint at the local pub, they sang folk songs and bar tunes. When tradesmen were on the job, they were whistling while they worked. When music was being composed, it was predominantly done by men for men. Essentially, wherever you found the strongest and hardest working men, the most aggressive soldiers, and the saltiest sea dogs, you could guarantee that they were singers. Moreover, they loved it. 

Now, one of the things I find the most peculiar, especially in the modern church, is how effective Satan has been in convincing men to remain quiet in public worship. For too many men believe that singing is a feminine action that grades against their masculinity. Even fewer have found the joy and utter manliness of participating at a rip-roaring level. 

While this does not apply to all men, many no longer feel like loud thunderous song-singing is a masculine endeavor. In fact, who can blame them? When the Church, for the last decade or 12, has adopted overly emotive self-focused songs sung by attractive hip-swaying women on stage, with eyes closed, lights turned down, and maybe a few lit candles to accompany the emergent pop vibe, is it any wonder that testosterone rich men are not clamoring to participate in this? Instead of a Biblically qualified elder leading the saints in public worship of their triune God from the book of Psalms or a Biblically faithful hymnal, far too many churches have adopted the shallow style of the entertainment complex, catering to consumer-driven concertgoers who are looking to be entertained with an experience instead of worshiping the Living God. 

(more…)

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On July 12, 2023 By In Culture, Theology

Division Is The Point

Kendall Lankford Jun 14

In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

 – Genesis 1:1-2

ORDER AND CREATION

Just moments before the “in the beginning,” nothing existed. And for limitless eternities, our God was perfectly thrilled to dwell enraptured within the inner trinitarian love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then, oh, about six to ten thousand years ago, God caused time to start ticking and space to bubble into being. The text says God first created the heavens and the Earth, which before the issuance of light, was just a collection of dark, formless, voided proto-matter that had yet to be organized into something meaningful. All of that changes in verse 2. 

Once the darkened, watery building blocks of primordial mass were sung into being, the first thing our triune God does is hover over it. This action signifies His absolute sovereignty and dominion over the matter that He will henceforth be organizing. To hover over the disordered waters of pre-cosmological substances demonstrates that Yahweh is the one who will be taming the chaos, shaping it into a cosmos, and specifying it into something orderly and useful for His purposes. Thus, in six sequential twenty-four-hour days, Yahweh calls forth light out of the darkness and then heaven and Earth out of the waters, filling everything He made with life, beauty, and peace. 

THE ORIGINAL MELKOR (1)

When God sings the universe into existence, He infuses it with purpose, life, beauty, and order. Like a master composer, He does not allow His celestial symphony to disintegrate into chaos or to lapse into an ear-jarring cacophony. He sang existential and intrinsic order into the masterpiece He fashioned and invited all of heaven’s newly created hosts to join the cosmic ballad with Him, which was very good. 

At some point in the song, and no one quite knows how long, the simple harmonies were mixed with a most bitter discord. A rival song was being sung by Earth’s original Melkor. And among the divergent notes, a contingent of heavenly beings defected from their God and followed the dragony piper’s song like rats running to their doom. At this point, the God of order damned the archangel of chaos to slither shamefully upon his belly, dragging himself across the barren Earth, until the lake of fiery chaos could be prepared for him and his minions forever. 

Unlike God, this miserable creature hated beauty, life, and order. He reveled in chaos, destruction, and disorder. He hated everything God made, especially the human beings God was so fond to sing about. From that moment on, the serpent of old would become man’s mortal enemy, seeking to extinguish his life, rob his people of beauty and joy, and fill his neighborhoods, societies, and cultures with pure unadulterated confusion and disorder. 

SATAN’S DISCORDANT SYMPHONY

This campaign of mayhem began amid the beauty and tranquility of Eden’s orderly gardens. It was there the cunning serpent sewed division between the first man and his wife, which caused discord within their marriage, division with their God, and enmity among the creation, who now lived in fear and dread of man. This, however, would not be the end of Satan’s meddlings. 

Throughout the centuries, the dragon has sewn discord, disunity, chaos, and open rebellion against God into one society after another. From a spirit of pure malevolence, this menacing entity still foments his sinister plans to topple the race of man. Lucifer, the master of discord, finds solace when unity is fractured, and harmony collapses among people. Like a twisted artist, he revels in the macabre he orchestrates, relishing the scent of bitterness, rejoicing in the notes of animosity that lingers in the air. Division is his chief weapon, his carefully hewn masterpiece, crafted to purposefully erode trust, foster disintegration, and extinguish the sweet harmonies of the Father’s song wherever it is found. With meticulous precision, he exploits the deepest fears and insecurities within the human race, manipulating the fragile strands that bind us all together, causing us to turn on our God, which causes us to turn on one another.

Satan knows that where godlessness takes hold, division thrives. And where division thrives, love crumbles, compassion wanes, and the very essence of humanity grows sick, despondent, and crippled in his schemes. In this wasteland of fractured souls, he seeks to reign as a malignant despot, gloatingly atop a pile of ever-growing human bodies. He is the architect of despair, perpetuating a cycle of anguish and suffering on everyone and everything he can catch up in his snare. That is his modus operandi, and he has done this over and over and over again. 

THE MARKS OF MELKOR IN ‘MURICA

Welcome to modern-day America. After a dramatic origination founded upon the knowledge of God and a good constitution, we find ourselves once again sick with the devil’s lullaby. A little more than a half-century ago, rampant sexual immorality became the norm among teens and young adults. For the first time in human history, people in this country were legally allowed to have their babies chopped up in agony inside their wombs, discarded like human vermin in medical-grade trash bags, and donated to universities that would perform experiments on the dead babies in the name of “the science.” 

A generation later, homosexuality and lesbianism became the rampant satanic leaven injected into society’s rotting lump. Forty years later, this has festered into an insidious rainbow-colored mold that is morally calcifying this country. Today, men no longer understand what it means to be men. Society has no answer for what a woman is. Colleges doll out gender studies degrees, so that a generation of delusional deviants can foment intellectual absurdities and outright lies. The media is gaslighting everyone. The government and our leaders are bereft of any moral decency or character to lead anyone. Our children are being perverted in indoctrination camps called public schools. And amid all of this chaos and confusion reverberating in this land, the love of God grows ever cold, and the lampstand that once shone brightly to the nations and did beat back the darkness is now in danger of being swallowed by the void as its embers flickers. 

When you look around and see a nation more divided than ever, that is undoubtedly the point. Our enemy never sleeps and is constantly roaming about like a roaring lion seeking whomever he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). We did not get here by accident; this was the point all along, transforming us from a harmonious society into a people who give hearty approval to every kind of wickedness and evil under heaven (Romans 1:32). And while this was clearly the point, there most certainly is a cure. 

THE GOSPEL THAT KILLS DIVISION

Our God has not left us to face the serpent on our own. He did not leave us in our chains and miseries to be eternally accosted by the enemy of our soul. No! 

Two thousand years ago, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came to overturn the devil’s treachery, to heal man’s virulent soul, and to reunite God’s people with their God and fellow man. The chaos of sin was silenced through the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the deep chasm of division between humanity and God was permanently healed. In a single act of the most profound love, Christ embraced the weight of our transgressions and bore the agony of our iniquities. With each agonizing breath, He conquered the chaos that held us captive, disarming the powers of darkness and offering us a pathway to redemption. Through His blood, shed in perfect atonement, He washed away the stains of our iniquities and reconciled us with our Heavenly Father. In the glorious triumph of His resurrection, Christ shattered the chains of division, restoring unity between God and man and granting us the promise of eternal life, a resounding declaration of hope. In Christ, the chaos of sin is forever vanquished, and the division is forever mended.

This has occurred powerfully and ultimately between God and us since there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Everything that once separated us spiritually from God has been abated so that there is nothing that can separate our soul from His love (Romans 8:35-28). Absolutely nothing! 

But this is not just a reality for the soul. This is not just a truth vouchsafed for us in heaven, as true as that is. In Christ, the devilish poison of division is daily being put to death by the power of the Spirit. Through the paraclete’s relentless conviction, our hearts are being stirred, and all division is being laid bare. Our minds are being rewoven with the threads of the Gospel, casting off the shackles of animosity and embracing the mind of Christ (Romans 12:1-2). Oh, the glorious fruit the Spirit has wrought already and is working now within us! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are trickling forth in purest droplets from the soul of spiritual babes and gushing forth like a mighty river from the long in love with Christ.

Empowered now by the Spirit of grace, we extend grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation, bridging the chasms of severed relationships with the unwavering love of Christ. Guided by the Spirit’s wisdom, we discern truth and dismantle falsehoods that breed discord in our homes, neighborhoods, and society. O, let us yield to the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying fire, for under His mastery and care, all division withers and all unity begins to thrive, birthing for Christ’s Church a testimony of God’s transformative power within us.

While the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, the Church, in the name of Jesus Christ, comes to seal, heal, and spread joy. Our country is in a mess right now. The fingerprints of Satan’s sadistic schemes are everywhere. And if something does not happen quickly, this nation will be torn asunder, collapsing into the same rubble as Rome before her. But, this need not be her fate! 

If the Church would pray for revival, if we would speak the truth in love, proclaim the Gospel of peace, interject ourselves like salt into the rot, and shine forth like Christ in a crooked and perverse generation, then we may yet see this nation spared from the coming wrath of God. Perhaps if we would preach like Jonah, weep like Jeremiah, if we would repent like Nebuchadnezzar, or stand firm against God’s enemies like Samson; If we would worship as ardently as David, or employ wisdom like his son Solomon; If we would be as industrious in our society as Daniel and Joseph; if we would chase after the whoring gentiles like Hosea; and if we, who are filled with the same Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead, would live like the apostles – going from town to town declaring freedom in the risen Christ – then I believe we will see this nation turning back to God. 

Division, chaos, discord, and disunity are all symptoms of walking away from God. They are hallmark attacks of the enemy who hates humanity with a passion and wants to see us destroyed. As Christians, we know the answer. We have the remedy. We have the antidote to the serpent’s venom; the only loving thing now to do is apply it liberally wherever chaos and division are still found. 

We do not have time to hide or blend in. If we do nothing, this country will collapse. It may already be too late, which God alone knows. But while we have breath in our lungs and see the truth, let us proclaim it. Let us pray the pagans will be converted to Christ. Let us petition heaven that this nation will repent and bow again unto Christ. And let us labor with everything we have to see His Kingdom advancing in this place. 

For Christendom,

Kendall Lankfordrd

NOTES

(1) WHO IS MELKOR? – Melkor, also known as Morgoth, is a prominent character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, specifically in “The Silmarillion.” He is a fictional character representing the embodiment of evil and the primary antagonist of the narrative. In Tolkien’s cosmology, the world, known as Arda, was created through the music of the Ainur, powerful beings who are subordinate to Ilúvatar, the supreme deity. Melkor was one of the Ainur who participated in the creation of the world. Initially, he was one of the mightiest and most talented of the Ainur, possessing great power and knowledge. However, Melkor developed a strong desire for dominion and control, which eventually led him astray from Ilúvatar’s original intentions. During the “Music of the Ainur,” a symphony performed by the Ainur under Ilúvatar’s guidance, Melkor introduced discord into the harmony. He sought to introduce his own themes and overpower the music of the others, desiring to shape the world according to his will rather than following the divine plan. This act of discord caused disharmony and tension within the music. Melkor’s primary goal was to dominate and control the world of Arda. He sought power, control, and the subjugation of all other creatures. Overall, Melkor’s modus operandi was centered around spreading chaos, corrupting others, and disrupting the harmony and order intended by Ilúvatar. His actions led to a long history of suffering and heroic struggles against his reign, making him one of the most significant and compelling villains in Tolkien’s mythology, and an apropos type of Lucifer in the Scriptures.

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On June 29, 2023 By In Culture

How To Make America Great Again (In 9 Biblical Steps)

PADDLING UP THE NIAGARA

The neurotic optimism accompanying the American quadrennial election cycle seems as cockamamie and asinine to me as a man attempting to ride his homemade rowboat up the Niagara Falls. With a horde of eager tourists staring on in pure bewilderment, picture the hapless virtuoso of absurdity, paddling with the finesse of a drunken lifeguard, flapping as frantically against the currents as a penguin in a cheer competition, nearing the aquatic torrent of a three thousand ton wall of falling water, thinking he could scale it with such misplaced bravado, only to be consumed by the avalanche of its fury. 

Every four years, we are invited into the same cultural absurdity. Each election, we are presented with a new brand of idealogue who will bring about the “Change We Can Believe In,” who will “Make America Great Again,” and who will help us all “Build Back Better.” Yet, like the magnificent fool, paddling with a boundless reservoir of natural stupidity, change, American greatness, and cultural betterment never come. 

The reason for this could not be any more obvious. We were not meant to rowboat against the currents to travel up waterfalls in the same way culture does not change from a top-down point of view. More simply, politics flow downstream of culture; culture is downstream of the family, and the definition of insanity would be for the American people to get trapped in an endless cycle of mindless optimism, thinking: “Well… This candidate will be different.”

But, if there is one thing the American people are good at; they are incomparably resilient. Against all evidence to the contrary, over and against everything we have seen and experienced, every political season, we dutifully don our little row boats once more, falling for the same old lines, expecting this time it will all be different. But it isn’t. Each time we come underneath the mountain of watery lies; however, all we have done is drown ourselves in blind political positivism once again. My hope in this article is for us to stop getting wet and to change our perspective. 

Today, I would like to paint a different picture of how to make America great again. I want to posit real change that you and I can believe in. And I want to give us all a robust Christian plan for when America eventually crumbles, enabling us to truly build it back better. If all that sounds good and lovely, then onward, Christian soldiers!

CHANGING OUR PERSPECTIVE

When the faithful pull back the societal curtains to survey the smorgasbord of today’s cultural malaise, feelings of disgust, confusion, and shock inevitably rise to the fore. If this is not happening, then stop what you are doing and check your pulse. With that out of the way, it is normal for Christians to feel like aliens in this God-forsaken land. For many of us, and by “the many,” I mean those who were not born yesterday, we remember the good old days (just a few years ago) when girls could not have penises, when teenagers at least needed parental consent before they could murder their babies in utero, and where it was biologically impossible for men to have periods and to get pregnant. Apparently, the grown-ups are now in charge, and that “reality” is on full and morbid display. 

Clinging to such antiquated “myths” and apparent “fables” these days will land you in the same company as “flat-earthers” and “science deniers,” whatever that means. And yet, the same body politic viewing us as “moral dinosaurs” are the same ilk beckoning us to participate in their futile system. A system that has produced both Democrats and Republicans (ad nasuem) that fill the highest levels of power but without any perceivable change we can believe in. 

This is because top-down politics do not work. Politicians are not the makers of culture; they are the products of culture. We have corrupt leaders because we are an evil people and not the other way around. 

We must understand that the problems ailing this society run much deeper than a ballot box. If we want to change the world, this nation included, we need a plan that runs much deeper than the superficial two-party system we have been offered. We must also realize that we live in a microwave culture that is no longer patient enough to wait for the brisket on the smoker. We want our change to happen yesterday and can barely stomach a solution that has to be worked out over decades. Yet, this is precisely how we got here, refusing to engage this rotting culture for a hundred years while it willingly marinates slowly in its own skubalon. 

We need a bottom-up, Biblical approach with the long view in mind. 

A NINE-STEP BIBLICAL APPROACH

STEP 1: THE CONVERSION OF SINNERS

While the cultural Marxists continue to goad us into joining the next half-baked revolution, Christians must plod along faithfully and locally, sharing the Gospel with anyone and everyone who will listen (Acts 1:8). We do not march into the halls of power and demand anything from our pagan overlords… At least not initially. We humbly labor wherever we are so that men and women will know Jesus, which is precisely the model we see in the book of Acts. Whenever the faithful are parachuted into a world where exactly no one else around them has a Biblical worldview, the first step is always to declare the Gospel. Some will reject that message. Others will be converted by that message. But, our job is to preach it boldly, lovingly, truthfully, forcefully, and joyfully. 

If we want a Christian culture, we must begin with making Christians. 

STEP 2: THE DISCIPLING OF BELIEVERS

After someone is converted, we do not notch our Big-Eva Billy Graham-sized belts, plastering our conversion numbers on an 8k gigascreen, so that an overstuffed room full of mega-church consumers can be entertained. Unlike Lady Gaga and many in evangelicalism, we are not in it for the “applause” of men but for the obedience of God. Instead of letting new converts slip through the proverbial cracks, ill-equipped and unprepared for the Christian life, we have been commanded to disciple them. This means baptizing new believers and their children into the local, visible church, and teaching them what it means to obey Jesus in every aspect of their life (Matthew 28:18-20). 

If we want a Christian culture, we must teach believers how to live like Christians. 

EXCURSUS: THE BENEFIT OF ONE AND TWO

If the first two steps (mentioned above) were undertaken with any degree of regularity, we would not be in our current predicament. If men were taught how to honor God with their masculinity, and if women were shown how to honor the Lord as a godly feminine woman, the vast majority of the stink would not have settled into our nation’s wound. If America is lopped off the body by the Great Physician, those who stood idly by when the first whiff of odor surfaced will have some explaining to do. 

STEP 3: THE RESTORATION OF BIBLICAL MARRIAGE

Once men and women understand what it means to walk with Christ following their God-ordained design, the next goal for the local church will be to help facilitate godly marriages. This will undoubtedly involve three things:

  1. The church must help teens, young adults, and other singles prepare well for Biblical marriages.
  2. The church must help singles shrewdly identify potential suitors, righteously court them, and to make it to the altar in purity.
  3. The church must come alongside current marriages to work through their idolatry, slog through their conflicts in God-honoring ways, and to learn the blessing of blissful matrimony so that our marriages image that glorious marriage of Christ and His Church. 

If we want a Christian culture, Christians must be discipled to enter into Christian marriages. 

STEP 4: A REVIVAL OF PARENTING

When God designed marriages, they were not sex-permitting static hangouts for heterosexual adults going nowhere. Marriages were intended to be filled with intimate covenantal love-making that produced godly offspring who would then be equipped to rule over, subdue, and bring God’s dominion to the untamed earth (Genesis 1:28). In this way, men and women were designed to become fathers and mothers who inculcate God’s mandate for culture into the lives of their children. When this happens, generations of faithful believers join their parents in the offensive, pushing back the chaos and retaking territory for the Lord their God. 

In Eden, that task was simple. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, they would have filled the garden full of people. They would have extended its boundaries to allow for a larger civilization when things became packed. And they would do it repeatedly until the entire world was filled with worshippers. This was God’s “very good” plan that we have no good reason to believe He has abandoned today. 

In fact, this plan has been restored in the redemption of Jesus Christ. When pagans are converted and discipled into believers and baptized into the local church so that they may enter into godly marriages, the goal is not childlessness. While some may experience infertility due to the fall, the New Testament ideal is for men and women to produce children and raise them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). 

If we want a Christian culture, Christians must be discipled to enter into fruitful, multiplying, ruling, and subduing marriages that produce godly, discipled children. 

STEP 5: THE FAMILY AS MISSIONARY TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD 

While the local church is perpetually committed to doing steps 1-4, mature families will also grow and come alongside the local church as workers in the harvest (Matthew 9:37-38). The men of these families will become deacons and elders (1 Timothy 3) who will serve the body and help it grow into maturity. The older women from these families will become pillars in the community to encourage young wives not to neglect their homes and to raise the next generation of godly children (Titus 2:2-4). And the children from these families will grow up into mature manhood and womanhood, entering into new families through covenant marriage that will fill their neighborhoods with a panoply of children. 

Between the consistent plod of a local church and the mature, fruitful, multiplying nature of covenant homes, neighborhoods will be inundated with converts and covenant children. Considering that our current society fancies dogs over children and sexual identities that can’t reproduce, it won’t take long for Christians to out-populate communities and neighborhoods to the glory of God.

STEP 6: THE NEIGHBORHOOD THAT LEAVENS CITIES

In addition to out-populating and out-discipling unbelieving neighborhoods, local churches have the added advantage of equipping men and women with spiritual gifts to serve in Jesus’ Kingdom. That Kingdom work is two-fold. First, as noted above, Christians must use whatever giftings, resources, and time they have to help build up the local church. They must also, secondly, use the gifts and resources Jesus gave them intending to see His Kingdom take back ground from the serpent of old. 

Some will use the gift of prophecy, to herald Christ within their hamlets on street corners, at water bubblers, at backyard BBQs, and wherever else our Lord is not locally named. Some will employ the gift of serving to meet the needs of the broken; the gift of teaching will be used to bring theology and doctrine to the skeptic and illiterate; the gift of encouragement will be used to comfort the downtrodden and depressed within our towns; the gift of giving used to support the ongoing work of evangelism and missions; the gift of leadership to start Christian businesses, reformed schools, tap houses, breweries, real estate companies, and plumbing businesses that exist for the glory of God. 

Whatever gift the Lord has given His people, they are to use it to build up Christ’s Church and tear down Satan’s gates. With patience, that small amount of Christian leaven will eventually work its way through the whole local lump (Matthew 13:33). 

Thus, if we want a Christian culture, then converts must be discipled to enter faithful families that produce godly children who will grow up to build up Jesus’ Kingdom and tear down the enemy’s gates in their neighborhoods and cities to the glory of God. 

STEP 7: A MUSTARD SEED CITY THAT COVERS THE COMMONWEALTH

While a mustard seed begins as the smallest grain, it eventually grows into the largest plant in the garden. It does not overtake the weeds and faster-growing plants in an evening, but with the slow and steady rains, regular tending, and a dash of patience, it becomes the dominant force in a farmer’s plot of land. 

In the same way, when churches and families implement steps 1-6, understanding that multiple generations are usually needed to take over towns and cities, then it will not be long until commonwealths and states begin to fall as well. This is because onlooking denominations and parishes will behold the long-standing faithful work of faithful churches. As they produce godly marriages, generations of covenant children, and make Gospel in-roads in their local communities and cities, other churches and denominations will be encouraged to join the effort, to imitate the results, which will make the effort a multiplicative mustard-seed-like mission that spreads from our “Jerusalems” to nearby “Judeas” (Acts 1:8). 

STEP 8: THE PEBBLE GROWING INTO A MOUNTAINOUS REFORMATION 

When Daniel describes the coming Kingdom of our Lord, he portrays it as a small pebble that begins locally but will eventually fill the world full of the glory of God like an earth-sized mountain (Daniel 2:44-45). Forgetting the uninformed dronings of our dear dispensational defeatists, the true Church has every expectation that the Kingdom will continue to advance into all the world. We understand that although the nations dutifully rage (Psalm 2), the Lord will pile their bodies high as heaven, putting every enemy under His glorious feet (Psalm 110). We know that His Kingdom will come to every nook and cranny of earth, as it perfectly already has in heaven (Matthew 6:10). We know He has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 29:18); to build His government that will never end (Isaiah 9:6-7); so that every family on earth will be blessed under His rule according to the Abrahamic promise (Genesis 12:1-3). 

We stand on the Word of God, knowing that His Kingdom will not only capture our cities and commonwealths but when the tale is over, all nations under heaven will be discipled (Matthew 28:19) and will bow before the Lord of glory (Philippians 2). How much less should this expectation apply to our culture, whom we labor to see it redeemed? That reformation in America may take two hundred years since it took us that long to squander it, but if we stopped looking for minute solutions to century-long problems, we would begin to make a little progress. 

Thus, if you want a Christian culture, disciple converts to enter faithful marriages that produce godly children, who will grow up and build Jesus’ Kingdom, storm the gates of hell, leaven their cities with Christ, join up with other churches to fill their commonwealths and continue that work long enough to see national revival and renewal. 

STEP 9: THE APPOINTING OF GODLY RULERS

Instead of electing a candidate who will fix all of our problems, we need to catch a vision of a multiple-century effort to build Christendom from the ground up. If the Lord, in His amazing grace, decides to expedite that work, waking a decaying culture with the breath of white-hot revival, then praise be to the Lord! And if we plod along with incremental gains, handing our plowshares and hammers off to our sons who will plod along when we are gone, then blessed be the Lord of Heaven! Blessed be His name! 

In the same way that rowboats work best when traveling downstream, culture will be revived and renewed when the Church and families understand the work God has given us. We declare the Gospel, which is the headwater of revival. We pray that God would convert individuals that we can disciple and help them prepare for and enter into godly marriages. We must encourage those marriages to bear fruit (as the Lord wills), grow into maturity, and take back territory in our local communities through the gifts God has given us all to serve. And then, as we all faithfully and patiently plod along, we must expect that the Kingdom work Christ has given us will spread and take over cities, states, whole nations, and then go to ends of the earth. At some point, we may have a Christian king, but we have a lot of faithful work before we get there.

In closing, if you want a Christian culture, forget American politics. That is as fruitful as drowning yourself under a waterfall. Instead, if you wish for Massachusetts, California, Washington, Nevada, Montana, and all the rest of these fifty states, to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, then put down your politics, lay down your mail-in ballots, and grab your Bible and a shovel. We have work to do! 

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