Published: July 20, 2023 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Pauline Studies 4 - The Church in the World - Part 1 | Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-16
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1:36
there is a typo I saw on page one very strange one I don't know what was going through my mind in the second paragraph the second sentence for some reason I typed the Jesus
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right it should be Paul just not the Jesus I don't know where that came from it did not come from the Greek yes it actually should be Paul I don't know I don't know I don't know
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probably a cat jumped up in my lap at that moment that moment so we're resuming the Pauline studies that we started a number of years ago this is actually the
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fourth session in that series and um we've we've talked about Pauline eschatology we've talked about his doctrine of the church
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and and hopefully in this course we're going to tie it all together and view the apostles
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perspective on what the church is and is to be in the world and that is not something that the church itself has agreed upon at all for
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the last two millennia and I don't expect that we'll all agree on what I come up with hopefully I'll be able to defend it from what Paul has
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written but again as Peter says we know that Paul writes some things that are hard to understand and so I'm not claiming any infallibility here
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um but I do hope that we can kind of cut through the fog of tradition because every denomination has a tradition in terms of its ecclesiology
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how it does church but also in terms of its missiology the mission of the church now this word missiology
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is usually associated with missions evangelism that's not what the word means it it just means the the mission of the church but in some denominations the missions of the church is evangelism
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okay in other uh it's social action or political action or discipleship um so there there are a number of different uh interpretations of the
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church's Mission and it has gotten to the point where many Christians think that the church with a Capital C is like
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a is like a mall which has a bunch of little churches in it some of which you go to buy clothing some of which you go to buy Hardware or your lawnmower or you know each church
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has its own kind of flavor okay each local church so you have this local church that's in the missions evangelism and that's their that's their thing another church that's into it's into
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teaching and discipleship well that's their thing and so the church has become divided up into departments like a department store department store and depending on what floats your boat
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you know you find a church that that is you know into whatever you think the church should be into
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it seems to me that if Paul calls the church the pillar and Foundation of then we can't be divided on what the church is supposed
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to be and to do in the world we are supposed to be the pillar and foundation of the truth that's what Paul says okay we're also
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the fullness of him who feels all in all these are the things that Paul writes about the church so it's it's hard to look at what Paul writes and remember again that he's
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writing to individual congregations a church in Ephesus or a church in Corinth or church in Rome he's not writing to a department store of churches
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and what he has to say is scattered throughout his letters and so I think we can make the case that his View is uniform is uniform throughout the churches he doesn't look
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at one church as being an Evangelistic Church and another church Being A discipleship Church no it's not Baskin Robbins it's the church it's the body of Jesus Christ
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Jesus Christ so when we look at what is the purpose of the church or the church in the world is the title of the of the session I'm not actually going to start
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with not Paul but Jesus and look at
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look at some metaphors when we look at the church's own perspective of its purpose we tend to see it dividing up along two basic paradigms
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one of which is
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now isolation can have many forms it can be a monastery but it can also be Evangelical campus where everything the people need is there in that campus called The Church
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that's isolation that's isolation intervention also has many forms it can be a missions program or it can be social or political activism but I think the two words kind
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of are self-explanatory is the church to intervene or isolate or isolate okay so let's look at the metaphors that are that are most common there are four
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of them
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now there are other metaphors as the bride of Christ okay there's there's uh the body of Christ that's the temple that's not a metaphor but it's it pertains to the church but these are
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the ones the ones that pertain to the church's relationship to the world and what I find interesting about these is that two of them are isolationists
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and two of them are intervention salt and leaven only work upon contact
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right salt is a preservative we're not in the world to give it flavor the ancient world did not use salt for flavoring they use salt for preserving
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and and really that's a very important understanding of that metaphor because you know we we're not we're not giving a dash of flavor to the world
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if if the church isn't in the world the world will be as pork that is not soaked in a Briny solution in a barrel okay soaked immersed in it right not just a little Dash that is the meaning
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when he says you are the soul but if the salt loses its saltiness he's not talking about its taste he's talking about it's preservative quality wherewith will it be salted again okay
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so the the metaphors of of the the salt and the leaven these are contact
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the other two are guiding metaphors and separation is kind of of the essence of both of them especially the city set upon a hill
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now the city set upon a hill from called upon when they were Landing in
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the Massachusetts Bay Colony and he was giving his speech to his fellow pilgrims and said basically we are a city set up on a hill there's a some of it in the
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notes it's it's worth reading to see what their what their intention was but the idea of a city set up on a hill is once again one that you need to go back to the ancient
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world to understand the the impact of the metaphor travel in the ancient world was very dangerous and you didn't travel after Dark not only because of wild beasts but also
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highway men it was just very dangerous we see that in um in in some of the the Old Testament of people who were traveling late I think in the Book of Judges
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there's a kind of nasty story about somebody who but you wanted to make it to the next Village the next Inn um you're probably familiar with this I know I've shared it before but the
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reason Easter moves around the calendar is that back in ad 325 in order to benefit the safety of
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pilgrims Easter was set upon the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox Spring Equinox because that would give maximum light
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the full moon it had to be on Sunday of course but they did it so that Travelers would have a little bit of extra light getting to safety
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to safety so the the idea of a city set upon a hill is that you can see it from afar off and what do you do you go there it doesn't come to you
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the city is in a vantage place and you go there for safety for rest but it doesn't come down the hill to you
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so it's a it is a an isolationist or at least a separationist concept Ive yes it is definitely secret sensitive those who don't want to get
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so the church as filling each of these metaphors really it's not an either or situation
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that two of the metaphors Demand contact and two of them are separation so as we look at the the lesson is as a
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whole that's something that we need to kind of go through our own mind what do you think the church is for why are we here why didn't why doesn't God just take us to be with him when we're saved what's
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what's the point of all of this and Paul does speak to this but like everything with Paul really everything with the Bible it's not given to us in a systematic way
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you can't just simply look up in the index Church in the world or missiology and then have a list of of different passages that that you can go to and read what Paul has to say but
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the again these these metaphors are not used as much really except for light
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letters the leaven he speaks of is not the church he talks about to the to celebrate the Passover without leaven because Christ Our
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Passover has been sacrificed for us but that's not that's not talking about the leaven that the that Believers the community of Believers is to the world but as I said you know 11
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has to be in the dough for it to work and then its influence pervades the whole so salt has you have to be immersed
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11 has to be needed through the whole lump okay so that kind of intervention or that kind of of involvement is not here or there it's it's complete okay
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but also light is its most benefit when it's a distance and the city set up on a hill is most beneficial when it stays where it is so
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that it can be easily seen and gained before Darkness Falls so there once again you have almost diametrically opposite pairs of metaphors one of them is highly
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interventionist the other is at least highly separatist if not isolationist so as we go into Paul it's not a matter of asking which was he
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because the answer is yes he was he was both and and we're going to see as we go through this how he was at times very isolation has come out
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from among them and be separate he says in second Corinthians 6 which is a quote from the Old Testament in fact it's kind of um Israel's marching order
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it's their covenantal mission statement Touch come out from among them and be separate touch no unclean thing and I will be your God and you shall be my
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people you read that several times in the Old Testament but then and I've commented on this before geographically God's placement of Israel doesn't make sense
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if he intends them to be isolated because if you're at all familiar with geography you know that the mid East Narrows down to a very very thin neck of land
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that is sandwiched between the Arabian Desert and the Mediterranean Sea and so the vast ancient civilizations that settled Mesopotamia
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and Egypt and Egypt were connected by this little strip of land called Canaan called Canaan okay you didn't travel to the east
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because that was the desert you didn't travel to the West because that was the ocean so when you went from one to the other and armies were doing that all the time you end right through this Little Neck
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of land of land so all of the Pagan you all of the Pagan Empires and where does God put Israel right smack in the middle
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that should tell us something especially if we consider that the church in Paul's estimation and this is kind of our previous lesson the church is not something different from
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Israel the church is the Fulfillment the Fulfillment of the Covenant that God made with Abraham and so Paul speaks in Romans how we have been grafted in to the one Vine the one
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Olive Tree okay this is not a new thing this is the same thing completed so when we read Deuteronomy 4 and this is a very important passage to this
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whole lesson this whole series even though it's it's talking about Israel
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he says in verse 6 Moses says so keep and do them speaking of the statutes and judgments that the Lord had given him he says so keep and do them for that is your wisdom and your understanding in
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the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people in the sight
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of these nations it wasn't a geographic error that God made it was fully intentional that they were to be separate
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while still in the midst of all the nations I think that Paradigm is still true of the church that it is to be separate and yet in the
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midst of the world okay and that's where we're going to be going so that kind of gives you away the punch line punch line make you decide either on the brownies or the punch line whether you want to
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come back um but one thing that that has been a major focus on this entire study is the
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of eschatology in Paul's teaching and that may seem counterintuitive because we have been thoroughly taught over the past especially 150 years that eschatology is about the last
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things and even our systematic theologies dating back to the Reformation and before confirm and validate this view by putting eschatology as the last section of the last volume of the series of
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whatever Systematic Theology you're looking at looking at so what is the value of eschatology the last things last things to the present age
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well to Briefly summarize three previous series to Paul a Pharisee a Jew looking for the consolation of
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Israel the Messiah eschatology was the promise of the resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
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that is the eschatology of the Old okay so when Jesus was seen by Paul as risen
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and the Holy Spirit being poured out to Paul eschatology had come to pass now he understands and we see that in
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his letters especially First Corinthians 15 it hasn't completely come to pass but it has been inaugurated so he talks about a new creation
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he talks about New Creation a new Heaven and an earth a new creation well that's Isaiah that is the eschatology of the faithful Jew looking for a new creation Paul says
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it's here in Christ it's here in the spirit so eschatology so eschatology is not at the end of the book if anything it should be at the
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beginning of our book and certainly it should pervade every chapter as it does with Paul because the presence of the holy spirit is to
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Paul the presence of the future in the present age not fully consummated he doesn't he doesn't get into this idea that that
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this is it no he clearly says in in several passages that we still await the coming of Our Lord we await the perusia the Blessed hope he talks about
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what we are awaiting but we are not awaiting anything yet to be done in terms of our sin that's done that's done and we're not awaiting anything to be
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done in terms of redemption it's done what we're waiting for is consummation or completion of what has begun
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so how if if the future has entered the present how can that not impact our present mission
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will massively impact your missiology what you believe God is going to do in the future the future will direct what you think God is doing in the present
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parenthesis it is a plan B because Israel rejected her Messiah therefore God has rejected Israel for the time being and he has turned grace
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to the Gentiles in the church but before the end of the age before God is done with everything he's going to turn his attention back to Israel
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but before he does that he's going to take the church out of the way and then he will deal again with the temple and the levitical sacrifices and King David and all of that
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that's that's in a nutshell dispensational eschatology well that means the church really doesn't have any
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purpose in the world except to try to save as many people as [Music] God ends this chapter and resumes the
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last one last one so there is that view that that's why in many churches evangelism is the primary purpose of the church because frankly there is no other
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purpose of the church except to get as many people saved as possible before as with the parable of the of the ten version before the door shuts
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and nobody else gets in nobody none of the Gentiles get in that is one type of influence that eschatology has
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but let's say you are a
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that you believe that God is bringing in the Kingdom the Kingdom through the church and over the course of time the kingdom will build from within the
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church in the world Christian reconstructionism is another way of looking at theonomous that laws are supposed to be biblically based because we are to bring about the
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kingdom through our activities as the church that view is not Escapist at all in fact it's kind of the opposite it's triumphal
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so the difference of your eschatology will lead to one of these two
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paradigms one of these two philosophies we're either waiting to get out of here and go to heaven or we have a purpose here to change the world around us
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so the first few is escapists the second view is
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in one case no matter how hard we try we're going to fail and the other case no matter how bad it looks we're going to succeed
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obviously one of them is very pessimistic and one of them very optimistic and I'm sure the people who adhere to one or the other are probably of that personality type one or the other okay but that doesn't matter because what guides us is scripture right
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so let's look at The Escapist View I mentioned uh dispensationalism
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encourage a kind of a modern cloisterism where Christians live within a church community and all of their activities are
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revolving around that Church community that is a form of cloisterism that works better in our modern disparate world
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disparate world than even a few hundred years ago when you could you could find some land out in Iowa or someplace someplace in Utah although sorry they're the Mormons the Mormons um you know some some place where nobody
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is and you can you can start your Amana communities and you can make refrigerators but you know you do it all within those seven communities or the Amish of course now that and so
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that's what we tend to think of we tend to think of the older historic like the the monastic oi or the The Cloister
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okay and there aren't too many of them left but that doesn't mean the isolationists The Escapist view is has gone away we
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just do it differently mega churches are actually escapists actually escapists we'll give you everything right here bowling alleys arcades movie theaters
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and then maybe a little bit of church if you want it okay cafes shopping everything you need bookstores right here in our campus isn't that a Cloister
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I mean it's just a modern version I mean yes everybody goes home to their suburbs to their automatic door openers and their Stockade fences but okay isolationist is um it's interesting that
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our culture has become exhibitionist and isolationist at the same time social media allows us to be both
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exhibitionists and voyeurs but then we live in complete isolation from one another okay and and um our idea of a friend is someone on
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Facebook or somebody following me on Instagram I don't want people following me but I but I our culture and we're going to be talking about culture because we're in a
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very historically unique time and and I hope that I'm going to be able to explain that over the next couple lessons as we talk about culture we talk
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about the Enlightenment and the influence of the Enlightenment modernization Industrial Revolution all of those have had a profound influence on Western culture
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making it something that while fundamentally it's the same because it's made up of human beings it is also fundamentally different than
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the time in which Paul lived and one of those features is the combination of exhibitionists and isolationists that is characteristic of our society
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so triumphalism or I'm sorry escapism The Escapist view um I mentioned the mega church that's not necessarily intuitive is it
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but mega churches are not known for their Evangelistic Outreach or even their social activism they're primarily all about themselves and their entire hierarchy and
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institutional structure is about those who are within the campus now obviously they Market the one thing that the monastery I guess the monasteries marketed too to some extent
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you know they did have their they put their name on their beer and you know that kind of stuff they they needed people to come in and they they encouraged people to give up the worldly
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life same with same with the Cloister so these are not you know when I say Escapist I'm talking about the church it's still in the world but its attitude toward the world is don't touch me
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that's kind of the fundamental you know the world is defiling and we don't want to touch it
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Southern or Eastern but now in the last 200 years it seems like the Baptists are taking over yeah the Baptist that's that's a fair statement that Baptists are kind of the department store of the modern era Church the modern Western Evangelical Church
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Evangelical Church um there is a certain sameness of the other denominations yes um and but in the underneath the Baptist umbrella is a wide variety of people but
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it is also almost entirely Escapist the world is going to a hell in a handbasket and we're going to jump out of that basket and be our own basket come be in our basket because we're
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going to heaven when we die okay that's another thing are we going to heaven when we die is that where we're going to spend
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no we don't have enough time to unpack all that but what the scripture tells us that we die we go to be with the Lord but our place is this Earth and the new Earth
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and Man was created to inhabit and to govern the Earth not heaven I don't think we know what to do there do there okay but this idea of that again that's
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that Escapist that's how it is pervaded into our thinking that we think that when we die we go to heaven oh yes when we die we go to be with the Lord but that's not the end
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we are promised you know in Revelation 20 21 it we do not go up to the New Jerusalem it comes down Out of Heaven
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Isaiah 66 Isaiah you know they the promise of the new Heaven and the new Earth the new Earth is is ours that's man that's redeemed man's abode
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okay so these these are just ideas that we have in our mind that you know if if you died tonight do you know if you'll go to heaven okay our answer should be well if I die
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tonight I know I'll be with my Lord I'm not quite sure where that'll be that's not what matters but that's at least has a Biblical basis in Paul that's where that's what will
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happen but we're not that's not the end for us for us and in fact we will long to be clothed with our Incorruptible body so this idea is it's really platonistic
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or gnostic or gnostic that we've kind of bought into this idea that what really matters is our spirit no it was I think there's a number of passage in Revelation as well as in Paul
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that while we will be at peace and we will be without sin we will not be settled how long O Lord until you avenge you know how long is there clothed with
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robes which are clearly temporary how long until we have our bodies then Paul makes that very clear in Corinthians so our eschatology
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really does impact how we think even about ourselves as Christians it affects our evangelism it affects our ecclesiology it really it affects our
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ecclesiology in that we don't necessarily have to have one if the church has no biblical mandate
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then we can pretty much do what we think is right and hopefully we're guiding ourselves if we can't by the scriptures but we're very we're a very pragmatic people in the United States
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there are a number of characteristics that go with different people groups and I know there are stereotypes but they're only stereotypes because they stick
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okay I've never heard of Italians being stereotyped as good administrators okay a very militant people ever to take over a whole no there were the Romans not the
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Italians don't mistake them okay uh the the Italians have trouble conquering a plate of spaghetti so they don't you know stereotypes work because they fit
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Americans have a stereotype first of all I'm shooting first and asking questions later Cowboys but also of being very pragmatic very practical
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if it works it's that's what counts efficiency is what matters and that is our church that is the western church in the United States at least and so
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pragmatism has has seeped into our and it's okay because we really don't have any governing Theology of the church's mission so we do
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what works what works and we basically invented marketing and so the church in America has done as
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essentially yes escaping the world being because the world is defiling the world will make me dirty the world will make me sin so I don't go to certain places and I don't have to because now I can do it all in my campus
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okay I can I can watch Christian movies I can go to Christian bowling alley whatever that means I mean there are three holes in the ball I guess that's must be something there
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I don't know um but that's what this was all about the monastery right get away from the world because the world is defiling same is true with The Cloister the Amish for example
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[Music] it's it's something like that it is very Gnostic but but we there's a lot of in in these not in the mega church but but in the monastic and the coyster and in
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dispensationalism there is a lot of preaching against sins there's a lot of moralistic preaching but what is the greatest sin is to be worldly and to to be in the world and so you
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can't go to certain places because they sell or serve alcohol and you can't see certain movies and it's it's really ice it's really I'm escaping the world
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because my eschatology tells me that that's ultimately what I'm going to do right in the Rapture I'm going to escape is going to save the mega churches preach against the sin of not tithing
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not tithing yeah yeah well if you had their mortgage you would preach against um yeah I I don't even want to go into what the mega churches preach because
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that's they would not be mega churches if they preach the truth that's that's for sure so The Escapist View is The Escapist view is predominant in
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our country our country the triumphal View is not nearly as predominant but I already mentioned a couple of the the
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forms that it's taken one is called Christian reconstruction
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this is the view that the that God is rebuilding or building the kingdom through the church and that the church is is not only has a purpose at least it has a purpose
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its purpose is to bring about the transformation of culture into the kingdom of God and it will take time and generations
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but it will come to pass another uh part of this oftentimes although not always is the idea of theonomy
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theonomous these are teachers who Advocate that civil law civil law be guided and really modeled after biblical and particularly levitical law
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and there are gradations within theonomous but the theonomist basically wants to see this country as a theocracy
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and our laws reflecting biblical legislation Old Testament legislation
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well yes and no I mean there have been some pretty solid dispensationalist teachers over the ages um I don't think they're all wackos and and I think that that you are right
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there are there are some very solid Christian reconstructionists Christian reconstructionists um men that you could read and and say well yeah I agree with a lot of what he's saying
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RC Sproul um Greg bonson who's passed away uh russos rushduni who has also passed away but these These are men whose views I I would say that it
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you know I want to make sure that I'm very clear here I've said this before in other classes other classes I am viewing all of these views as within Christianity
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within Christianity I'm not saying that any one of them is outside the faith within each one of them there will be undoubtedly those who are outside the
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faith but it's not as a whole okay that all dispensationalists are unbelievers or that anybody who joined a monastery was clearly a reprobate no
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I I don't think that's a that's not a fair statement to history that there there are believers in The Cloisters I don't know about the mega church but you know
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okay I don't know there's God God has his witness everywhere so I mean there must be some um they're re they're con I don't know why
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they call it reconstructionists but they're constructing the kingdom of God it's yes but it's called Do you have a
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practically yes they're read They're reconstructing the Western world there's a lot and we'll talk about this as as we get on into the the idea of culture but one aspect of us there is an aspect
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of escapism that's more subtle and it is it is escapism of your era and in that what you do is you find an
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era of church history wherein you think they got it all right and then you do your level best to imitate that era
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but don't ever read anybody from that era any preachers because you'll find out that they didn't think they got it all right all right and any era that you actually read you
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will find will find Ministers of gospel lamenting the loose morals and apathy of the church
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okay so there's there's no era in if you went back to that in time that you would find them saying we've got it nailed this is you know spot on no they're they
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are grieving over the condition of the church no less than Paul did over galatia or the Corinthians okay so but there is that form of escapism where we
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we want to be like the 17th century Puritans or we want to be a new testament church now we'll get into this in a future lesson but
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lesson but um the the the wisdom of Mordecai he kind of applies here and that is how do you know whether you have been raised up for just such a time as this
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if we are reformed if we believe in Divine Providence Divine Providence then wishing we were in a different era is actually an affront to God it's saying God you made a mistake I
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really belong you know in another era and he's like no I didn't make any mistake you have been raised up for just such a time as this and it it is
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um quixotic um quixotic to attempt to turn back the clock on culture it it's tilting at windmills
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culture changes despite efforts to either maintain it or change it in a particular direction it changes in directions that are unpredictable
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but inexorable but inexorable and it doesn't go backwards so we can't I mean we can read history we can learn from history but we cannot return to History
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that's that's a fundamental principle that that I think especially within the reformed Community we need to get into our mind that none of these former ages
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got it right they all tried to live to the best of their ability in the age in which they lived and to some extent they succeeded and to other extent they failed
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but if we were to go back into those times we wouldn't even know what to do of the answer Aaron uh a lot of this is in the west and
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the United States because like I said before when you look at a Chinese churches or Russian churches Eastern
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black churches they're very influenced by the sensationalism they are yes
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situation they don't have an option of reconstructing they do not live in a democracy many of them or or have not for Generations and so yes and then we're going to talk
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about that because it says uh in in Chronicles an interesting little statement of the sons of issachar that they understood their times and what was to be done
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okay and you know it's just a little passing phrase and you can rest assured that the sons of issachar didn't generation after generation understand their times but at this particular time they did
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they did and I think that's a challenge to the church in every generation to try to understand your time and we can't understand our time by wishing it were some other time
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we can't even wish it was the time of our own childhood or our own early years as Believers again that that is a denial of Providence
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yes it is but it's not the way the Christian reconstructionist which is through civil legislation okay he also said my kingdom is not of
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this world this world he also said the kingdom is in your midst because it is within you so yes there is a kingdom being built as there is a temple being built built of Living Stones being fitted together as a
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holy habitation that's going on now and Paul and Peter and John they knew what they know about this but what we've done is we've turned this especially in our country we've turned
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this into a political and social activism okay and that's kind of the third one here on the triumphal is the political
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these are these are chronic in in our country especially but they were also in Europe and in Great Britain these ideas that the church in the world is to change the culture in which it lives by
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getting rid of evil through legislation we're gonna we're gonna ban alcohol we're going to ban we're going to abolish slavery we're gonna you know
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we're going to shut down the taverns and we're going by legislation or buy boycotting okay but this is activism
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this is this is pure intervention but
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fight the world the world but Paul says the weapons of our Warfare Are Spiritual and not carnal so there's no doubt when you read Paul
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that this is Warfare our battle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers and powers and principalities of this present Darkness okay he uses
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the the terminology of warfare in several places several places but it's not the same Warfare as the Crusaders used for example or as
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the political activist uses the church is not a voting block so um is there a kingdom yes the kingdom
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has come has come I think that's fundamental Paul rarely uses the word Kingdom he says the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink but of of
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um righteousness um righteousness peace and joy in the holy spirit thank you um so you know he talks about the kingdom but not not explicitly as Jesus
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did and yet he does say that we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of his beloved Son you know he does talk about the kingdom but he talks about it often indirectly
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okay and we'll get into that because that's that is a fundamental question what is the kingdom the kingdom and how is it to to manifest itself in the world the world the the triumphalus says it's going to
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manifest itself through the activity of the church in the world and and really all of these views have some biblical support
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Romans 16 verse 20 a very intriguing passage where he says God will shortly Crush Satan under your feet Romans 8 I think it's verse 37. in all
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of these things we are more than conquerors okay so again these These are these are military militant words there is a militancy of Paul's reference
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to the church it's often called the church militant the church on Earth is called the church militant the church in heaven is called The Church triumphant
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okay that is that is back from the Reformation or even before the idea that while we were here are here there is a battle going on but it is it is typical
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of the triumphal View the typical The Escapist view is I don't want to have any part of it because I'm going to be out of here the view of the triumphalist is I want to be right in there in the in the midst
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of it slugging it out for Jesus okay is that what Paul means when he says our battle is not against flesh and blood
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I'm sorry I don't want to be part of a lot of things and also that I'm going to win it in okay well in that sense remember we we've said these are not either or they're not either or it's not it's not
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it's it's the general tenor of your eschatology that will predominate one or the other what you think God is doing and is going
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to do to do will guide your almost subliminal almost subliminal expectation of the church okay so if you are an Escapist generally
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speaking you're not going to have a high expectation of the church the church is basically a holding pen until we're taken out of here
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some churches are better than others in that they do teach you but why do they teach you I don't really know because we're supposed to learn about God and about Jesus and so that's good other churches basically
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um almost harangue almost harangue about how you're living and how you're you know how you're sitting and and other churches are very comforting uh you know very encouraging
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but they're really just holding pens that they don't have a purpose in the world except to shelter Christians until they're taken out that's the general but
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that comes from the eschatology the other view whether it's political social and this is a wide gamut of different denominations and churches
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okay not not every political activist is a Christian reconstructionist they're they're different not every political or social activist really
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wants the law of God to be the law of the United States but they want their law to be the law of the United States okay and then there's a tremendous uh
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impetus from the very beginning of our Colonial history Colonial history for the church to be very activist in the political Realm I mean this idea of separation of church
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and state first of all it's not in the Constitution second of all it never works not in the United States back in the 1820s when Alexis de taukeville came through
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he comments all through his Democracy in America how religious we are and how that religion impacts our political uh life the body politic so unlike
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Europe that he was familiar with the church was the church it did its thing and we just simply received the sacraments and we did our thing not in the United States and it's never been
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that way so we are almost politically programmed As Americans to move in this idea we're at basically at or near the
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height of political Imperial power in the world okay now there have always been people who are saying you know the the age of
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America has passed we still dwarf every other economy every other military okay we we dwarf in oil production Saudi
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Arabia it is amazing what this country puts out so so we're at the top we're at the Pinnacle we're where Britain was in the middle of the 19th century or Rome under
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Marcus Aurelius how can you not be triumphal when you are the big bully on the Block I mean we are a hyper power not a
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superpower even the Chinese aren't close to our armaments and our Navy oh they're going to catch up they're going to bankrupt themselves before they
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catch up catch up the same way the Soviet Union did that doesn't mean we're going to last no one else lasted Paul tells us in Acts 17 that God has appointed the times and the
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boundaries of every nation upon Earth including the United States my point is triumphalism fits triumphalism fits and even and there's and there is a
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sense of that in here especially because what ties these together and we'll talk about this in a different lesson is a spirit that it's really
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it derives from the Renaissance Era though not because of the Renaissance but it was the rise of the nation's state
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people began to think of themselves first and foremost as Englishmen or Scots or Germans or French it's
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nationalism this idea that sometimes it's called patriotism but that mixes into all this too
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and so it is a it is a very agglomeration of of different attitudes but when you kind of pull it apart where the pieces are going to filter out is going to be largely dependent upon what
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you think God's doing that's that's my point there we go
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judging the world in fire for the triumphalus that's the part that I don't like get what is the place of Christ's return for the triumphalest well it varies some triumphalists are somewhat like
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Armenians and that is um in Reverse okay The Armenian believes that God has done most the work but the sinner has to do the last bit well in Reverse some triumphalists think
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the church is going to do most the work but at the end Christ has to come in and top it off okay he's got to relieve you got to reserve a place for him um others think that we're basically
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bringing in the kingdom and then he'll return to take up his throne but it'll be all set will it
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yes well certainly it's metaphorical and again in this Camp here you will find your preterists your preterists those who believe that everything was by 80 70 that was all taken care of
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that the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem of Jerusalem that was it so they were not looking for that okay which doesn't make any sense according to the scripture because there's no new Heaven and new earth yet
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and then Paul in First Corinthians 15 I think is very clear that there is still much left to be done but not in relationship to sin or death that's been
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done okay and and on the basis of that Paul forms his eschatology which is one of completion but not yet consummation
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and that that's that's not an eschatology that has much representation in modern American theology the idea that God has
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completed his work and what remains is its consummation that means that the church is the completed work but not yet the
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consummated work of God it means that the age to come has invaded the present age
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and its influence in the present age is by the Holy Spirit in the church the impact of that is going to be both
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intervention and isolation it's going to be salt and leaven but it's also going to be light and a city set upon a hill
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not Duality that's the tension in Paul's teaching on what the church is and what the church is to be in the world what happens so with so many things is that we tend to hit upon one aspect of
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it and we hold that to be the entire truth so we read that we are to come out from among them and be separate and we become
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monks or we read you are more than conquerors and we become Christian reconstructionists Christian reconstructionists okay but a half-truth treat it as a whole truth is a lie
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sufferings of this present age that you're mentioning this with you were born of the ages you were born into the sufferings of this present age are are things to be patiently endured they they don't they don't have a
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an eschatological purpose that we can see it seems to me that the The Escapist of you is an attempt to escape suffering altogether the triumphalus view is an
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attempt to justify suffering in a way that you can understand and see now right that's a good point right now right
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now right um but but suffering suffering to Paul and to James is part of the process of maturation it's part of the process of perfecting
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our faith