Pastor Plek's Podcast
Pastor Plek's Podcast
Faith in Real Life
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In today's episode we explore the dangers of neglecting our salvation and how to navigate cultural tensions as Christians in today's complex world.
• How spiritual and material worlds converge in our daily lives
• When we neglect our salvation, we miss seeing God at work around us
• The challenge of navigating the Ten Commandments in society
• The difference between accepting Jesus and truly following Him
• Addressing false converts in the church
• Understanding the biblical promise of a new heaven and new earth
• Why Christians believe in physical resurrection, not just spiritual existence
• How to disagree in love on secondary theological issues
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and welcome back to pastor plex podcast. I'm your host, pastor plec, and joining me in studios none other than pastor holland, greg hello and also john milton hello, it's me yeah, it is john, so I want to do a quick couple things today on the podcast.
Speaker 1:One is apologize for my voice but I think you guys can hang with me, I can hang, hang with you. But I want to recap the sermon from Sunday. We talked Hebrews 2, the supremacy, the superiority of our salvation in Jesus and we should not neglect it. And I kind of start off with, like the story of my old vintage car that I drove in high school and it broke down all the time. Old vintage car that I drove in high school and it broke down all the time partly because I did dumb things like put sand in the engine by accident.
Speaker 1:And that never goes well for anyone. In fact, it breaks down. I made the comparison, though, if we don't maintain not that we have to work to maintain our salvation, but if we don't invest in our salvation, if we don't invest in it, then we don't get the benefit of it. In fact, our lives might break down, and that might be what God wants exactly to happen. And I kind of made the analogy of like my dad worked with me for a long time to clean out, to rebuild the entire engine after I ruined it, and what Jesus wants to do is not just sit there and go well, well, well and wag his finger at us, but to work with us to restore us to that joy of our salvation. And so that's kind of where I went. So anything that kind of stuck out to you from that, as I talked about Jesus salvation is through Jesus' incarnation, exaltation, Jesus is there was a warning against neglecting the superior salvation and then Jesus is the merciful high priest.
Speaker 2:Anything that stuck out to you from Sunday yeah, for sure that the notion of cultivating and and nurturing the salvation is way more meaningful than what culture wants us to do right, which is oh, did you go to church? Did you get saved? Box checked. No more church needed. And that, thankfully, like the church reinforces and the Bible, of course, reinforces often like you got to keep coming, you're going to forget Right, right reinforces. Often like, uh, you got to keep coming, you're going to forget right. Right, you're gonna. You're gonna remember that your salvation is in a closet in the attic, covered in two boxes of shoes, and that's where it belongs.
Speaker 1:no, right, like it doesn't yeah, so for you, john, as a fairly new Christian, came to Christ at 35. And so now, how have you seen the like, how like do you ever find yourself neglecting your salvation? Or is that something that for you, as a new Christian, you're still on fire? Or has there been periods of up and down?
Speaker 2:Periods of up and down, for sure. The really good part is when you're here regularly and you're going to groups regularly, you'll. This isn't good, right. You'll see men who fall away. You'll see men who stop showing up and if you're lucky, they come back. Sorry, if God's willing, they come back and they go. Oh man, I've been missing out and I get to. I get to see the life ebb and flow of someone who didn't need any more God and then realize that was a foolish thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell me how you've seen that. Tell me how you've seen the progression of someone follow Jesus and then fall off the planet.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, um, without dropping names, it was a fellow who came to church, uh, was was really eager to to put on the body and then, uh, then disappeared for nine months or not nine months, about nine weeks, I think and then, without any biblical structure, he came back letting us know like, hey, he's getting in fights with the girlfriend all the time, he's getting in a fight with the live-in son at the time. And then he had a crisis and a friend told him, like you should go to God in crisis. It was following basically a breakup. And he comes to the group and sees me glowing which I don't know that I'm doing that because I'm busy being a Christian. She got a glory all over you. But he says, oh man, that guy's got something. I'm like, yeah, you should stay. I don't think I have anything, but you should stay. It's weird to see that.
Speaker 1:Yeah it is weird and it's exciting to see God on the move, and I think what happens and maybe and Han, you can speak this as well is what happens for Christians, is we don't see God doing anything, and I know that sounds like almost blasphemous. We don't see it. So, therefore, christianity becomes stagnant, it becomes boring, it becomes something that is put in my attic somewhere and I'll pull it out whenever the crisis comes and I need to be a prepper. Tell me how you've sort of seen that as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think over the years of starting and I became a Christian in college and you know, dealt with this with friends who grew up in church and expressed similar things and then, as I kind of went into ministry and you know, you pastor people who say similar types of things of just like I don't see how Christianity really intersects with my real life or I don't see God really doing anything special. And the reality is you know God's at work and everything that. You know, everything we do. We sang a song this morning 10,000 reasons, um, you know, like thinking about, uh, 10,000 reasons that we have to bless God. And reality is that every time you, you think of something like, okay, wow, god did this, there's 10,000 other things he did that you're not even aware of.
Speaker 3:He's always working, um, and the question is whether or not we're aware of it. And the more that you seek God, the more that you spend time with him, I think, the more of a sense of awareness you get of how he is working, even in the mundane things I think of. When Jacob woke up from his dream, you know, it says that he realized God was in that place and he became aware that God was in that place. And that happens, I think, if you don't nurture your salvation through gratitude, through praying to God, through reading his word, through gathering with other believers, if you neglect it, then, yeah, you start to kind of forget and lose a sense of awareness of how God is moving all around you. Yeah, can.
Speaker 1:I just say I think part of what contributed to this is a false belief that this is a just a material world. Here's what I mean by that. Um, when I was young and I was afraid of the dark, my mom would say there's nothing to be afraid of, there's nothing there. She came from a materialist worldview and I was scared of I don't know Freddy or whatever dark evil thing was there, and it was very helpful for a small child to not believe in anything that was spiritual but also prevented an understanding that the material and spiritual world converge all the time. And I think in latter days we kind of went to it's not all material, it's kind of like there is no, it's all ethereal, it's all spiritual. And there is no, it's all ethereal, it's all spiritual and there is no right or wrong.
Speaker 1:I think that's the other flip-flop of materialism to complete spiritualism.
Speaker 1:And spiritualism is whatever you want it to be and what I love about God and hopefully I can land the plan where I'm going with this but he is material, that's what Jesus is, has a body and yet he's fully spirit.
Speaker 1:That's what he brings those two together and then you start to interact.
Speaker 1:We are interacting in a body, material world, but the spiritual is always happening and I think if we're asking Jesus to operate through us, he is going to provide opportunities for kingdom to present itself, the spiritual and material to manifest in one, and that's where the prayers are answered, that's where kingdom comes, that's where his will is done on earth as is in heaven, and I think that's part of our salvation that we neglect that we have access to the God of all creation that we can have a relationship with in the here and now, that can interact with material things from a spiritual perspective and transform life. Anyway, I get excited about that because I think that's the neglected part, where we don't like to talk about demons and devils and angels, um, because, especially in an academic or a intellectual setting, it makes you look like a fool. But I think the true foolish thing is to say that stuff isn't happening, that's not going on and there isn't a way to interact with the God of the ages today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen, yeah. Screw tape letters is a good example of how you should not ignore everything the devil will do to trick you.
Speaker 1:Exactly All right. So, speaking of that, let's talk about how the spiritual and material kind of connect. We got a question from one of our faithful listeners and this person says I'm struggling as a teacher on how to respond when I hear people complain about the Ten Commandments being posted in the classroom. I agree wholeheartedly. The schools need the content of the Ten Commandments, but I also hate to see teachers complaining and disrespecting and refusing to put them up.
Speaker 3:How do I respond to their frustration. It's a good question, it's a great question, I think so. Just the initial thought for me is like I think people assume that you can somehow have a kind of neutral space that, um, you don't have one religion or one set of morals. It's just kind of a neutral, secular space. And that's how America should be, it's how the classroom and government should be, and so to put the 10 commandments in a classroom is like oh, you're preferring your religion over other people and you're adding your morals here. We just need to have a neutral space, right? I think that's kind of like the prevailing opposition to it.
Speaker 1:Right now the cultural thought is I, I mean, and for many years I'd say christians probably were in this space. But as things got sort of crazier with like we didn't even know what gender was, uh, we sort of said we need to figure out what is a baseline. And so now christians in politics have said I want to put the Ten Commandments in every classroom as a moral.
Speaker 3:And this is not a new idea. This is like what people said when America was founded and was a norm for a long time, and the reality is though it's a lie that neutral spaces exist. There's no such thing. Every society is built on some kind of shared moral framework. It's not whether or not there's a moral framework. The question is which moral framework, and if it's going to be an atheistic, secular moral framework, then it's just whatever who's in power, whatever they decide is right or wrong.
Speaker 3:And so what should we? So you know, to answer the question, what do I do when people are frustrated? Uh, man, it's going to be some tough conversations. You're going to need a lot of patience and self-control, but if you can, slowly and gently and lovingly um, you can still be gentle and bold at the same time, I think but kind of move things in the direction of helping people understand there's no such thing as a neutral space. Yeah, um, we do need to have morals here. We, we do need to be able to. You know, schools originally existed to teach virtue, right, um, not just you know information and facts.
Speaker 1:I want to explain. There's no neutral space. In other words, laws government, if you want to are inherently moral. They are inherently moral. It's just whose morals are they? So when people say stop legislating morality, it is impossible because all legislation is a form of morality. So let's get into that.
Speaker 3:And the Ten Commandments are the summary of God's moral law and therefore the very good thing to have that be a shared morality for schools.
Speaker 1:So when somebody says hey, listen, I'm Muslim, why are you putting on your Ten Commandments, which probably Muslims wouldn't have that much issue with? But how about I'm atheist? Why are you putting these Ten Commandments on me? I don't believe in God. So the commandment number one I am violating right now and I don't care, and I will put up graven images all over the place and I will take the Lord's name in vain because I can. How do we respond to that in a gentle but loving way that says hey, the content of this isn't actually what your problem is. Your problem is is you want to be God? Is that fair? Do you have something, john?
Speaker 2:That's a tactic to take. It can't begin and end with that. It would have to probably begin with hey, we should get lunch, and I want to know all about where that's coming from.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, yeah, I mean a lot of times when people came to Jesus with their frustrations, he didn't just answer their questions, he asked his own questions. Right, you know, and helped kind of dig up, take me through that.
Speaker 1:So if I said to you I'm like this is ridiculous, I mean, stop putting your religion on me. And then you take me to lunch, I'm like, okay, let me have it. Okay, christian nationalist, tell me why? Um, I should be on board with your Christian nationalism and you want to put your impose your religion in my classroom?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can start with man, tell me why. Why does that frustrate you? Why, you know? Why is this something that you are so angry about?
Speaker 1:and I would say because I don't want to be forced to believe something that I don't believe, because part of what's being american is freedom of religion and I, or in my case, freedom from religion there you go, a lot of go, go a lot of different directions with this one way you can go, okay, hey, um, you know there might be 10 different religions, you know that.
Speaker 3:Come into this classroom. Um, there's got to be some agreed upon right and wrong to have order, to have peace. There's got to be a code of conduct if we're going to have an orderly, you know classroom in here. So whose code of conduct do you think should be in charge?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's where I'm like well, why don't we? We could just take some of a little bit of everybody.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then you, okay, let's, let's, um, tease that out. What would that look like? And I think, when you can ask questions, reality is um, if you start walking down that path, very quickly it devolves into like wait a second, this is impossible to do. It is impossible. It's impossible to do without excluding someone, um, or without preferring one set of values over another. At the end of the day, if you're going to have a code of conduct, then this is what a culture is. This is how you get values. This is how you get someone is going to decide these things are okay and these things are not. We have blasphemy laws right now. They're just not. You can say certain things and there are some things that, if you say, you'll get canceled.
Speaker 1:Like fire in theater, or like if you make a racist comment or whatever, which is probably a good thing to get canceled over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there are things that if you say this, people are going to go. You know we'll never give you a job here, Right.
Speaker 2:Something like that Right.
Speaker 3:So you know some form, not you know technical blasphemy laws, but you know what I mean. Yeah, no matter what you're going to have to decide, these things are allowed and these things aren't. And so when you ask them the question who should get to decide that and why, and what should it be, you turn around and they don't have an answer. I don't know. And then you can go well, ok, you know, it makes sense. Here's why it makes sense for it to be the Ten Commandments. This country was founded as a Protestant Christian nation.
Speaker 1:I think the Ten Commandments are on the Supreme Court, right On the building.
Speaker 3:And then, well, that violates the First Amendment, right, Freedom of assembly and you go, well, okay, let's talk about that, and you can, depending on how many lunches they want to have, how many coffees they want to have, how much they really. It could be a really fruitful conversation. Or it could be like, yeah, man, that's crazy, and you just move on because you're not going to get anywhere with them. Um, but if someone really wants to go down that road, you can go. Well, man, from the beginning. Uh, talk about Noah Webster and how he wanted every kid to learn to read the Bible and how public schools need to teach the Bible.
Speaker 3:Back at you know, the founding of the country, how freedom of religion originally did not mean you can worship any God you want. It meant you can worship the Christian God as a Baptist or a Presbyterian or you know. You can according to your conscience, without the government interfering in your worship of the Christian God. Freedom of religion was a Christian doctrine. Christian liberty came out of the Protestant Reformation Separation of church and state. That idea was to prevent government overreach. None of this stuff was meant to try to keep Christianity out of institutions, out of politics, out of the public square and so if you want to go into some American history and church history but a lot of people don't want to really go into all that, they're just mad and they want to vent and sometimes maybe the best thing you can do is go. I'm sorry that sounds frustrating.
Speaker 2:And then share the gospel with them.
Speaker 1:So Andy Stanley criticized this law by saying what should be on the walls is this treat others the way you would want to be treated, jesus.
Speaker 3:Christ. That was on a big banner in my elementary school when I was in like first grade. Yeah, the golden rule, golden rule.
Speaker 1:That's what he advocated instead of the Ten Commandments, because the Ten Commandments advocates law, whereas I guess this is still a law, right, I'm not sure where what is, but he wanted Jesus' name on there, and he wanted the golden rule, which I before that too, I haven't either one would be I'd be excited about. Yeah, I say put it all up there. Yeah, yeah, I say put it all up there, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what do you think? But when you hear that criticism of him saying like, don't reflect a Jewish perspective, you should reflect a Christian perspective, if this nation is a Christian nation. What do you mean a Jewish perspective? So like, obviously that's Christian right, but the Jews, if you're Jewish, you would say that's the ten commandments as specific to jewish context, and christians are free from that law as we're forgiven by it. I don't know, that's what I think his, that's where he's going with. Why go and escalate or elevate? So we're not as opposed?
Speaker 3:to new. I see, I see, okay, so to me, yeah, I think andy stanley has some major theological problems we've talked about this in that he wants to he said explicitly detach unhitch from the Old Testament. And he, you know, there's some major problems because as Christians, we are set free from the law in terms of, um, uh, the old, we're not under the old covenant, right, we're not under law in terms of we achieve salvation by obeying God's law. Rather, we receive salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. But God's moral law is still binding on us. It's still binding.
Speaker 3:And you see that in the New Testament, when we're commanded to worship God, paul in Romans says he brings up the second table, so that the two tables of the Ten Commandments, the first four commandments, summarized by how you love God, the second six, the next six commandments on how you love your neighbor, right, two tables of law, second table of law, paul. Paul repeats those things in the book of Romans, saying, um, that by loving your neighbor you fulfill the law. Um, and you know he, he says, yeah, you shouldn't murder, you shouldn't commit adultery. So the moral law is still binding on us. That's a perpetual law. We're not saved by obedience to it, but we're still called to walk in it and obey it yeah, one of the things I always like to say is Christian.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jesus fulfilled the ceremonial law so that he is able to forgive the moral law how we've broken it, how we've broken it, and then we're allowing us to live under any civil law, displaying the kingdom of God wherever we're at.
Speaker 3:So we're not free as Christians to like, oh sweet, I'm free, now I can go murder people and commit adultery and covet, and nobody would say that, right, yeah, we're free from the penalty of that because of Jesus and we're freed from sin. We're not slaves to sin. We're free to obey the moral law. We are set free by the power of the Holy Spirit to actually walk in obedience to the law, by loving God and loving our neighbors. Um so yeah. With that, I'd say the 10 commandments are Christian. Um and uh, they're good, they're God's moral law and it's, it should be, the shared moral framework that we have for a, a good institution, a good classroom, a good society. There's got to be some moral framework. Which one should we pick? I think the one that God came up with.
Speaker 1:Nice Sure, I agree. Any other thoughts on that there, john?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really good to start at the Ten Commandments too, because this is the beginning of something that could build to something greater, right? Uh, but it it's. It's really hard to look at those ten commandments and go I don't like that one. I can't, unless I'm outing myself as someone who loves anarchy and you shouldn't elect me. If I do, then I should be on board with that list. Yeah, right, and that's a good check. Like forget the christianity part, forget. Just look at the paper and then say I mean, I like what it says. It's not like where it comes from. Well, just just just like what it says first, and then we can talk about the rest of it and how it applies and also won't get tricked.
Speaker 3:Yeah, on that note. Um, so that doesn't mean, hey, we're gonna force everyone in this classroom to be a christ. You can't do that. You can't force faith. What you can do is say we're going to look to this standard for our morals and if you're an atheist, you're a Muslim. Just expect like that. This is the standard that we're going to conduct ourselves by in this classroom and you need to be mindful and respectful of that.
Speaker 1:Nice, okay, so let's move on from that to this next question. This question asker sent in this video of Ray Comfort. Let's give it a watch, all right, that was a great video. Now, what I want to talk about, though, the question says what are your guys' thoughts on the church? Does the church have false converts? So, ray brought up like, the problem with the church today is a lot of people ask Jesus into their heart, but those aren't real salvations, and what you need to do is you need to ask people to repent. So when you think about that after watching that video, john, what's your take on that?
Speaker 2:My take is going to start with my personal experience. First, when I got baptized here, I definitely knew that I needed it, but I couldn't articulate why and I was still a slave to sin in some respects, okay, but it made the church completely irresistible to me. It made God's people like, oh man, not only do they want to like talk theology, they're on board with this forgiveness stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, so hold on, let's talk. So what did you receive Jesus into your heart? How did you become a Christian?
Speaker 2:It was late one night and I was in bed talking to Jesus going. Look God, I don't know how this works. I guess I surrender you. I'm waiting to see what you're going to do with me, but I'm only leaving the door open a crack. Let's do this. And then, because I don't like being theatrical or being like a tension guy, I said I'm not going to tell anybody. They have to ask me directly. And of course you are invasive and you asked me at the man group hey, so have you accepted Jesus yet? And I said yeah.
Speaker 2:And you went so yeah, that happened.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's good. So so this is where I don't know and maybe this is maybe my critique of Ray Comfort is he's old Meaning. I don't know if people are saying you need to accept Jesus in your heart anymore, because I think he was criticizing Bill Bright's. God has a wonderful plan for your life, you know, you just need to check it out, and maybe that is.
Speaker 3:It's alive and well today.
Speaker 3:I just I would say, like in every year when we go on family vacation in the summer, uh, we visit a church wherever we are, you know and so every year for the this is um going on 13 years now since, uh, jenny and I got married, um that we have visited a different church in a different town, wherever we're staying, and man, uh, maybe one or two of these churches we came back from was like that was awesome and the rest is we we have visited so many that we've been like now that was a watered down, easy believe um either the borderline, heretical, or just so like seeker, sensitive, where, hey, just you know, um, just come back and we've got a great kids ministry and we've got a gift for you and just you know it's okay, jesus loves you just like you are and you know that's great.
Speaker 3:Kids ministry is great, visitor gifts are great. Jesus does love you. But it kind of stopped there. I cannot tell you if one of the maybe, like I said, one or two of those churches actually said you need to repent from your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:That was just Okay, faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3:That was just okay, maybe I'm just you know what happens is you get stuck in your own world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, and so you don't see that there's other means I think there's a lot of it still going on out there. I so one thought I had one. Where does the like accept Jesus in your heart? Stuff come from? Like? Is that even in the Bible? Um, I think of John, chapter one, where it says says to all who did receive him, so Jesus came to his own. His own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. So there's receiving Jesus. Then you got Romans 10, 9.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 10, 9. Confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. So there's a receiving of Jesus, there's a believing in your heart. So I'm like I don't think that language is horrible, but I also think you do need to call people to repent A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:What about Revelation 3.20, which is not an evangelism verse, but it can be used as one? I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone would open the door for me, he will look, I will come in and sup with him or eat with him. And I think he's talking about door of your heart, right? I mean, he's not literally saying we're gonna have dinner together. So there is some spiritual connection of let me in, yeah. And so I don't think the verbiage is wrong.
Speaker 3:However, by itself, if you don't ever bring in repentance, I would say he's got a point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is where maybe I'm just the part the problem I have. I love I use his technique of like bring up the law. Yeah, I love bring up the law and say have you broken the law? Well, you're a sinner. If you've lied once, you're a liar. If you've hated, jesus says you've committed murder. If you've lusted, you're an adulterer. I love going that route when it comes to evangelism because it makes it clear. However, I don't want to start putting any doubts in people's salvation that they aren't really saved because they accepted Jesus in their heart.
Speaker 3:I think, JD Greer had a book called.
Speaker 1:Stop Accepting Jesus Into your Heart, or something like that. I was like I think you go too far Jesus into your heart, or something like that. And I was like. I was like I think you go too far, like I think you want to. You're so wanting to make a point. It's about the. You know, the gospel isn't accepting Jesus in your heart. It's about the death, burial, resurrection of Christ and him saying repent, for the kingdom of God is near and you believing in what he did for you to forgive you of your sin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in. In some ways, I think it's confusing to kind of challenge people like you're not a real Christian. In other ways, I think it's necessary to have someone say hey, check your heart. Sounds like an old school term. Check your heart to see if you really and truly are saved, that you believe that you're a sinner, that Jesus' death on the cross for your sins. There was a great exchange. He took your sins and he gave you new life and he calls you to live a new life by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Whenever I lead someone to Christ, I usually like to say in the sinner's prayer I love the sinner's prayer. I'm not thumbs down on the sinner's prayer, but I ask the Holy Spirit to come into their heart and make them the person that they're supposed to be and, by believing that Jesus died for their sins, rose from the dead. Now the Holy Spirit comes in and challenges them to live a new way. I don't know, Maybe I'm in semantic world, but I feel like and maybe Ray is just making a point that we need to really challenge people to Jesus' lordship. That's not what saves you, but that's what you're called to. Does that make sense? I don't know, Sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just think, I think to answer the question are there false converts in the church? Yeah there always has been.
Speaker 1:And I think that's biblical the wheat and the tare is going to grow together.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, and you don't. Only God knows someone's heart. All we can judge is someone's confession of faith and the fruit that we see in their life. Um and so when we do membership interviews, you know, like we don't have some device that can you know, see if someone is a?
Speaker 3:real Christian um but when the fruit of someone's life is that they are not repenting from sin but they're calling themselves a Christian and you have a responsibility to call that out and every church is going to deal with that. There's lots of warnings about that in the scripture. But I think kind of his point is you can open the door for a flood of false converts by a certain way of preaching which is never calling people to actually repent.
Speaker 3:So then you have a bunch of people that love Christianity and you have whole churches and movements and denominations that go apostate Right, Because it was never about repenting from your sin, it was just about Jesus loves me and he loves me just as I am and therefore I don't need to change anything about my life.
Speaker 1:It's the comfort without the cross. Because I do think Jesus does say come to me. All you are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. But then he also says if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself. Take up his cross and follow me. And you're like? Which one is it?
Speaker 3:Oh, it's both yeah, exactly, Come to me and let's go. Yeah, and I'll give you rest, and you know it's going to cost you everything. And those are both true.
Speaker 1:All right, here we go. Next question. Good morning, I'm a born-again Christian and I have a question. In the Bible, revelation 21, verses, 1 through 4.
Speaker 1:I need someone to go look that up. It is stated that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. My question is will there be a new physical heaven and earth? Or, because I'm a believer of Jesus Christ and have the Holy Spirit in me, the earth around me is new to me, since I have the Holy Spirit. I'm a 28-year-old woman doing Bible study with my 52-year-old mom and we have different views on the scripture, so we need clarification.
Speaker 3:That's so sweet doing Bible study with your mom. I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that too. That's great. I'm pretty. First of all way to go 28 year old person having doing Bible study with your 52 year old mom First off way to go. But your first thought on that Holland.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is an actual new creation.
Speaker 1:It's not a symbolic interpretation of Revelation.
Speaker 3:Are we going to sneak in some other conversations here?
Speaker 3:Yes, I believe that Revelation has literal and symbolic aspects to it aspects to it, and there is a promise of a new creation in that, in the same way that Jesus, in a similar way that Jesus had a resurrected, glorified body, we have this promise that we too will be resurrected and glorified, and that the whole earth Romans 8 speaks about this as well the earth groaning awaiting the return of Jesus, where he makes everything new. And so, yes, I believe that that's referring to an actual renewed creation.
Speaker 1:I agree with that. So I think what gets confusing and this depends on your eschatological view I think that there is a millennial kingdom and then there is the new heaven and new earth. So the millennial kingdom is the kingdom of God, where Jesus is enthroned for a thousand years, which, holland, I think you take that as figurative.
Speaker 3:No, okay. So it's a thousand years. He's on his throne right now in heaven, reigning over all things, right. So that's not thousand years. He's on his throne right now in heaven, reigning over all things, right.
Speaker 1:That's not figurative, that's literal. All right, okay, I take it. My literal view is that there will be a time, the rapture, when the Christians are taken away, and that's kind of the left behind series. And then there are the seven-year period of tribulation. First three and a half years are pretty great. The last three and a half years are pretty great. The last three and a half years are just awful and torturous for all of humanity, which Christians will have to experience, except for the new believers who become believers during the tribulation. But then, when Jesus comes back at the end of the tribulation, he'll start his thousand year reign, whereas Holland calls that thousand year reign right now, where Jesus is on the throne right now.
Speaker 3:And we disagree on that eschatological preference Three millenn remillennial for you, amillennial for me, right tertiary issue in the church, it's okay we disagree. Chris gets to have the official idea. I get the official position because I it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that anyway. So, but but the reality is we both believe that eventually, after the millennial kingdom, a new heaven and new earth will come down, or a new heaven and a new earth.
Speaker 3:A new Jerusalem comes down from heaven is what it says.
Speaker 1:Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more, and I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and so I would take that as an actual new thing, a new heaven, new earth. But I can see, if you are going from a millennial kingdom perspective, that it's going to be this earth and heaven on earth, so to speak, because Jesus is ruling here, that would be yes, and then yes later, but you would take it too.
Speaker 1:Is that actual new city kind of comes down and we all dwell in it together with Jesus?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so where we both agree is that at the return of Jesus at some point we might disagree on the exact timeline, but where we would both agree, where pretty much all Christians have agreed, is that eventually Jesus will come back to judge the living and the dead, and then the first heaven and earth will pass away and there will be a new heaven and earth where we live forever with God in his presence, with glorified bodies, where there will be no more sin, all the brokenness of creation will be healed, everything will be made new. And that's the great hope that we have and there's total agreement there A hundred percent, yeah, and it's a physical.
Speaker 1:This is why I love about at the very beginning podcast talking about the physical and spiritual manifesting in in moments, whereas there you have the physical and spiritual realized together. It's completely spiritual, but it's also completely physical. You will have an actual body.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so a lot, you know. Sometimes you get the idea that just like the end of Christianity is being a spirit in heaven, you know kind of popularized by movies or TV shows, paintings over the years and stuff like that, where you see people just kind of floating in heaven playing harps and stuff like that. But the promise, the real, true hope of Christianity is not being a spirit in heaven forever. That's called theological term, is the intermediary state, in that it's not the final state. The final state is that we will, our spirits will be rejoined with a physical body in the resurrection and we'll live forever in an actual physical body, in a physical earth, but that is remade, renewed, free from sin and corruption.
Speaker 1:All right. So here's why. What's interesting is, I wonder, as they were talking, I wonder if this was an argument or if this was a you know, is this something they're dividing over or like having real conflict over? I hope it's not, because this is one of those tertiary views, but I think you can agree, we all agree, that you will one day have a physical body, and I and I think the new heaven, new earth thing, that's pretty much universally accepted, right.
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah, I mean, go to like the apostles creed. When you go, what? What do we confess? What do we believe? Um, that, uh, Jesus will come again to judge the quick and the dead. Right, so he's coming back to judge the world. And then it says we believe in the resurrection of the dead, and so we believe in a physical resurrection and to live in a renewed physical world. And that's standard Christian doctrine.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well hey, if you have any further questions, please let us know. We'd love to hear from you. It's an exciting thing to kind of walk through just the truth here. Any other thoughts on that? And when you heard that question, john, does that make you go? Why would you ask that? Or?
Speaker 2:what are your thoughts there, my thoughts when it comes to this kind of explanation. I like to come back to the three S's Is it a sin issue, a salvation issue or a sovereignty issue? Is Is it a sin issue, a salvation issue or a sovereignty issue? And if it's none of those three, then it's an excellent discussion medium. But it isn't grounds for argument or death, right, it's grounds for like. Well, what can we piece together? And as long as we don't break the rest of scripture, which is, it's entertaining. For me it's a thought experiment, as long as we've got it within the cage and confines of like let's not disobey God, but they're theorizing it's, it's. It is a. It is a way to flex your spiritual juices and cultivate a framework without honestly with.
Speaker 2:One of the nicest places that even scientists will agree is that we can admit we don't know yeah it is so freeing to be in an environment where you know I can't be sure, but maybe it's nice if it was this without. What a blessing to have an environment to disagree in love and not the commonplace cultural way which is if you disagree with me, I will unfriend you.
Speaker 1:Hey, I love that. Hey, thanks so much for watching. If you want to jump in the conversation, you can text us 737-231-0605. We would love to hear from you. It is like our passion to answer questions and help take faith from something that's just completely ethereal to something that's not just spiritual but also affects the material. Hey, thanks so much for watching From our house to yours. Have an awesome week of worship.