Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells,
and this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast,
episode number 133.
With our book today
that well, well, let me talk a
little bit about this book. We're gonna sort of lay the foundation for what we're
about to experience with our guests today.
There is one book in the course of human history that has
influenced more people than any other book in human
history. This book, that is part of a
collection of books, it's a part of a larger bibliotheca
such as it were, has inspired songs, plays,
other books, movies, and even poetry. As a matter
of fact, it's the only book or one of the only books
that we in the west have been masticating
over, arguing over, and thinking about
for the last 2000 years. By the
way, if you include the older parts of
the book, it's actually for about the last 5000
years, By the way, I've got a sample
of some of the poetry that comes from this book. These are not my
words. I'm just going to go ahead and quote them. And I quote,
and I heard as it were the noise of thunder. 1
of the 4 beasts saying, come and see, and I saw,
and behold, a white horse. There's
a man going round taking names,
and he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll
be a golden ladder reaching down
when the man comes around. The
hairs on your arm will stand up at
the terror in each sip and in each sup.
Will you partake of that last offered cup
or disappear into the potter's ground
when the man comes around. Here are the
trumpets. Here are the pipers. 100,000,000
angels singing. Multitudes are marching
to the big kettle drum.
Voices, calling voices, crying,
summer born and summer die. It's
alpha and omegas kingdom come.
And if you know that song, or if you know that poetry,
you know exactly what I just said.
Of course, there have been commentaries on this famous book that we are going to
talk about today. And the commentaries have been written
by theologians from, Augustine and
Aquinas all the way to the theologian or the
pastor who is the author of the commentary that we are going to be talking
about today. These commentaries on this much
larger book are almost as famous as the book
itself. I don't know what the term is. I couldn't figure it out when I
was putting together the script today. I couldn't figure out what the term is for
something that gets fame from just standing next to something else.
But the power of this book
allows it to imbue fame, import
fame, impute fame to other things that
stand next to it. That's the power of
this book and the commentaries about this book.
So today on the podcast, we will be extracting leadership lessons
from the most unlikely book of all, a
commentary on the book of revelations by the
pastor, the social commentator, a YouTube and
Twitter gadfly, Douglas Wilson,
and his book on the book of revelations, when
the man comes around.
Leaders, keep in mind, even if you don't believe
in an almighty being, the kingdom
of God is at hand.
And today on the show, as is our want this is the
last show of 2024. That's when you will be
listening to this. We are going to be joined
by our guest and cohost,
pastor, a writer, and a podcaster in his own
right. We've had him on for a couple of episodes this year, and we had
him on for an episode last year. And I thought it was fitting that he'd
come in and join us for the commentary run.
Right here. Hello, Brian. How are you doing today? Man,
I am blessed to be here. Excited to wrap up the year.
Yeah. And I couldn't think of like I said, I couldn't think of a better
person to kinda have this conversation with, based
on your background, your knowledge, not only of this
book, the book of revelations, but also the book
that we are covering that talks about the book of revelations.
You and I have had multiple conversations
offline, really, not really online. This is gonna be our 1st conversation online about
Douglas Wilson. We could talk a little bit about about who he is and why
it's important that we're covering this particular commentary from this particular
guy. Most of our listeners probably
don't know what a reformed theologian actually is.
Right. And so we're gonna talk about a lot of things on this
podcast. They were gonna cover a lot of territory. We're also going to
talk about the end of the year here on the podcast and what we have
to look forward to in 2025.
So normally on the show, I would have the book in my
hand and I'd be reading clips through the book, and then we'd be talking
about it. The book begins Doug Wilson's book, when the man
comes around, opens up with, well, the book of revelation
and his, attempt to place the
book of revelation in a larger context. And so let's talk a little
bit about the structure of, when the man comes around. You've read the
book. You know Doug Wilson. Your background as a pastor makes
you uniquely capable of speaking about this. So why don't you go ahead? Why don't
you open up with how's this book structured? What should readers who
have no clue what a reformed theologian is? No clue what reformation
what reformed theology actually is. No clue who Doug Wilson is or where
he sits in the pantheon with RC Sproul and maybe even
CS Lewis, although there are those who are gonna yell at me now and see
that CS Lewis wasn't reformed. Yeah. Okay. Calm all of you chorus
and chaos people, calm down. Just chill out.
And, yes, I know John MacArthur isn't reformed either. Okay. Calm
down. So who's reformed? Who's not?
What does it mean? Who's Doug Wilson? Why should we care about this book? Let's
go into let's start off with a a basic question. What is the structure?
What is an overview of When the Man Comes Around? Go ahead. Yeah.
So so the the book When the Man Comes Around is is
just a commentary on the book of
Revelation itself. In fact, when Douglas
Wilson, when he writes this book, he just reads
through each, each passage of
the book of Revelation. He reads that passage, and then he just comments
on it. He talks about it. Now, and and and it's it's
very well written. So it's a it's a great you know, if you don't
know anything about the book of Revelation, you don't even have to have a copy
of the Bible with you because Doug reads from a
passage of that of of the Bible, and he just goes straight through it. It's
just just from front to back, just a straight reading
of of the book of Revelation. And then in that commentary, he
provides historical insights into, you know, what's
what's really happening here in this passage. Because in the book of
Revelation, there's a lot of metaphor and a lot of
allegory. There's a lot of there's a lot of pictures that
are presented in that text, and Doug
helps you kind of understand what what's really being said. What
like, when or, like, a great example is, the
the dragon with with 7 heads. Well, that's you know, he he helps
you understand that that that's a a clear alliteration,
or a picture, I guess, of of Rome and the
Roman government. And then he talks through, like, the 7 the 7,
heads on that on that dragon were the 7,
emperors of the Roman Empire, I believe starting with Augustus
and end ending with, Vespasian. Or, actually,
maybe there was one after Vespasian. I can't remember. But, anyway but there is you
know? And and so what Doug does in this book is he helps he
helps put a a historical underpinning just to kinda
help you know what's happening in the book as you read it. So it
it's a really straightforward reading of the text. And
now you mentioned Haysan, you mentioned,
you know, that, you know, he's reformed and he is reformed.
But what I would say what's probably,
just as important, maybe maybe more important, but just as important
is he in addition to being reformed, he's also,
takes a particular view of a certain passage
in here called the millennium, and that really informs,
in addition to his his reformed background. But but the the view of
the millennium is what really informs his whole view of
this book. And he's a postmillennialist, and and we can get into
what that means later. But Yeah. But that is, that's kind of what
informs now as as a reformed, as a
reformed guy, you know, he has he takes a particular view of
how God applies salvation to
his people. That's called the the the technical the theological term
for that is called soteriology. So he he
takes a a a soteriology that's, that says that god,
chose who would be saved before the end of the world.
And, you know, people can debate on, is that right? Is that wrong?
You know, that's been going on for centuries. It's not gonna be resolved anytime soon.
But that, that does definitely work its way
into his understanding of of this particular book.
Now for someone who is not a
reformed evangelical, for someone who maybe comes
from a different branch of evangelicalism, maybe,
let's say, the episcopalian branch
or the Anglican branch or, I'm
gonna go away for out on the left, and I'm gonna say the Unitarian
branch. Right? Or for someone who is from now
let me go further to the right that even reformed. Someone who comes to this
from a orthodox background. We have a lot of listeners in
Eastern Europe. They don't I won't say they don't
understand. I would say it's esoteric to the point of,
being obfuscated the the level of,
shall we say, dismembering or dysfunction
that is in Protestant theology. Most people don't
understand what number 1, why Protestant theology is so
fractured. That's number 1. But number 2, they also don't understand
why and I'm gonna ask you a core question here. Why is it when everyone
can read the bible, no one can come to a correct and not a correct,
a clean, united understanding when the
words are clearly here. And I have my bible in front of me, but the
words are clearly here, so why can't we just all, to paraphrase
from the 19 nineties, why can't we all just get along? So so
so for those for those who are outside of the reform
tradition, maybe in other evangelical traditions or more orthodox traditions that
don't get any of this and are listening to this and going, why are we
talking about this? Explain why we're talking about this. Why does
this matter? Why should we care? Yeah. Okay.
So so, obviously, there's there's the, you know,
you have protestant tradition, and and the protestant tradition is,
like you said, fractured into many, many different branches
and and streams. If you were theological streams, we can call them
that. And then you've got a, like, more of a Catholic stream or maybe an
Eastern Orthodox stream of faith. What what
separated the Protestants from those other
streams of faith was, the the Protestants
insisted on the supremacy of the word of God.
And that's not to say that Catholics don't value God's word. That's not what
I'm saying. The the the where the rub came
was let's say you had, you had
the church, like, when when the church first began, right after
the the day of Pentecost, the Christ dies on the cross.
He's resurrected. He appears to his disciples,
you know, on the 3rd day after, you know, after he arose and
appeared to the disciples, and then he was with them for another 40 days before
he ascended into heaven. At at that
began, at his ascension, okay, there was, just a a
few days later, they had something called the day of Pentecost. And the day
of Pentecost ushered in the age of the church,
which was the beginning of church history.
And at that time, there were,
there wasn't a lot of church tradition. There were just churches that were coming around.
They were they were, very young churches. And
they, and so they're really all there was was just
the Old Testament. The the New Testament hadn't been written yet by the apostles. It
was just really the the word of God, and and even that was just the
Old Testament. As the word of god developed through the
letters and writings of the apostles that, that would
ultimately be included in the canon of scripture.
That became god's holy word. And that that
canon, we believe, was closed around a 100 AD with the
book of Revelation, which we think was written around,
well, actually, we think it was written sometime around just before
the fall of Rome or the the fall of Jerusalem, which would have put it,
like, 68, maybe 69 AD, something like that. The fall
of Jerusalem was 70 AD. So it was not long after
that. Well, that that's the last well, that closes the canon
of scripture at that point. And so so there were
many debates and heresies that came from
interpreting scripture because people would misinterpret
things in the text that would lead to heresies.
And so from those heresies, we got the apostles' creed. We
got the Nicene creed. We got the Athanasian creed. And so
all of these these, these church councils were called
to develop creeds that would help us understand the
text so that we could eliminate heresy,
things that actually undermine the word of God, the the
actual teaching of God's word. So one famous one was,
that Christ did not come in the flesh, that that Jesus was it
wasn't actually you know, yeah, he was here, but it wasn't really in
bodily form. It was, it it
was just kind of an apparition, and and that kinda took
off in a lot of sectors, and it and it began to lead people astray.
So these church councils met over time to develop
creeds, and and and what happened was
after the 3rd, 4th let's say let's call it the 5th church council,
there they began to take on other topics,
okay, that were that were outside of the realm of scripture.
But yet these these councils continued their words
continued to be binding upon the church. And so you
have the Catholic church, and to a to an extent, the Eastern
Orthodox Church at the same time, the the the Eastern Roman Empire out
of Constantinople, you know, they were constantly
updating their doctrine in there. And what happened was the traditions,
the religious traditions, began to
overshadow the word of God. And many Christians in
Europe felt that, hey. Well, you know, we the
church says that we have to do penance. We have to pay,
indulgences to the church to cover our sins, but that's not
anywhere in scripture. We don't find that in in the holy word anywhere.
And so so there was a a push to say, hey. All of
these things actually undermine the teaching of god's grace.
And and so there was a reformation to actually get
to reform the church to get back to what the
Bible actually taught. And so so there was a pushing
aside of tradition and embracing the the word of god. So
so I would say that's that's and broadly, that's what separates
Protestantism from Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox.
And I would say that there's a great book out here that will help you
that think about all of what Brian just laid out there
kinda succinctly in about 5 minutes. It's called
The History of Christianity by Paul Johnson. Paul Johnson was a
historian, wrote many, many books, including Modern
Times and many others that are great historical books. I put them up there with,
like, Will and Ariel Durant. Paul Johnson was
British. He had access to
documents and artifacts and historical
understanding, being out of England
and being out of the British Empire. And he wrote the history of
Christianity late in his career as a devout Catholic
seeking to understand Catholicism more. And that book
starts off with and Brian will like this. It starts off with the
argument in the book of Galatians that Peter references
or that Paul references where he argued with Peter and got in his face.
And Paul starts he he basically says, this is the beginning of
historical Christianity. When Paul and
Peter, to to your point about creeds, right,
are gathered at a council to decide what the
future is going to be, which which way Christianity to to
paraphrase from that, to do the word the verbal version of that meme that floats
around all over the area, which way western man. Right? And it
was it the the the choice or the fork in the road that
was hit at that time because the disciples were still alive. People with direct understanding
of Jesus were still alive. Paul who had no direct understanding of
Jesus was making inroads with people who were not Jewish.
And the church had to decide, are we going to be
Jerusalem focused, or are we going to be
gentile focused? And Paul's argument with Peter,
which ostensibly we don't because we don't understand it almost 25100
well, 2000 years later. We really don't understand this argument, why the issue of circumcision
was such a big deal. We don't get that. They got it. Peter got
it. Paul got it. Paul got in Peter's face. And the way
Paul Johnson frames it is Paul gets in Peter's face. And then
from there, we now tumble out of biblical Christianity into
historical Christianity. We literally tumble out of the cradle, and now we're in the
world. And he traces the growth of the history of Christianity
all the way through from that moment all the way down through 2000
years of Christian history to the beginning of the 20th
century and the struggles that Christianity had, against scientific
materialism, evolution, and, of course,
the postmodern giants of deconstructionism, French deconstructionism that
came out of World War 2. And it is a it is it's it's one
volume. It's a massive book, but it's hugely interesting
because what you do is you get insights into particularly the deep
history of Christianity, that first, like, 500 years after Paul,
when, to Brian's point, traditions were being built
off of something raw that had no traditions. The Jews were
being vilified relentlessly and ruthlessly, and this gets back to the book
of revelations, which we're gonna talk about here in just a second. And it
sets up all of the particularly with Augustine
who laid the laid the cornerstone for a lot of,
well, Augustine laid a cornerstone for a lot of things that then Thomas Aquinas
built on top of. Those are the 2 I mean, Protestants can yell and scream
all they want, but, like, Aquinas and Augustine, I mean, that's it. Like, if you're
not reading those as a Protestant believer, I'm sorry. You only know, like, a
third of the tale with Luther. Like, you just you just show me know a
third of the tale. And even Luther would say that, by the way.
So you get a clear sense of what historical,
not non theological, but what historical Christianity looks like. And
and for me, as a person of faith, as a person who is a Christian,
I look at going back even further than Johnson, I
look at the beginning of historical Christianity from
what happened in acts, the book of acts,
the 3rd book of acts when the holy spirit fell on the, the
3,000 folks, and then they scattered.
I I think and I'm gonna offer up a and I may talk about this,
like, next year some more, but I'm gonna offer up an esoteric theory here. I
think you had God who created the world in Genesis 1.
You have Jesus that comes into the world after 400 years of silence
in, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That's that's what
Christmas is all about. Jesus comes into the world. That's the embodiment of
Christ, the embodiment of the word as John said in,
in his gospel, the word made flesh. But then you have
the the the spirit falling on everyone. That was the 3rd
great interaction of the spirit of God with humanity.
And I don't think we as Christians forget non Christians for just a minute.
We as Christians appreciate that nearly as much as we probably should.
I don't think the Roman Empire would have fallen over
without that spirit being imbued in everybody. Mhmm.
Not just the Jews. And I think the book of revelations points to some
of that. I think it proves some of my thinking and some of my
theory. Alright. So we've kind of laid the foundation here. This
is this seems very theological. This seems very
topical. I wish I could have gotten Doug on. Maybe we'll get Doug on next
year. We can talk about his own book here. Reach out to him. That would
be awesome. I'll just see him well a while for that
one. Yeah. That would be great. Yeah. I have a couple of questions I wanna
ask Doug here. Okay. So we've got we've got when
a man comes around when the man comes around, we've got Doug Wilson. Doug comes
out of that historical, tradition of theology and
of reformed theology. How why is Doug different, and why does he
cause so much let's just talk a little bit about a
little bit about him as an author. The literary life of Doug Wilson. Why
does he cause so much consternation among people
in religious circles? There's a whole Facebook group that's devoted to, like,
hating on him and what he's doing in Idaho. It's just kind of
amazing how many hackles he raises. Like, currently, the man is in a
contra Trump about something on Twitter. Like, I watched a 20
minute video of him the other day, and I'm just like, why are you
why are we having reformed on reformed violence?
Stop. But, you know, I often have said and and and Brian
Bagley laughs at this because we used to both go to attend the the same
church, the church where he served at, and the church where I went. That's how
we sort of met. Never let it be said that there's not church
discipline. There is church discipline. It comes in a lot of different
ways. There's always church discipline. Believers and non believers alike think
that that they they are faulty. They're thinking if they think that that is not
true. So why does Doug Wilson cause so many
people bits? Why does he drive so
many people crazy? Well, first off, to kinda go back
to your, your your talk there on on fights within the church. I
I I was in Paris one time teaching at a a
biblical institute there in Paris, and I remember I taught on so I can't remember
what we were talking about. Okay? It was overview of the New Testament. And
this this French theologian comes up to me after the class, and
we were we exchanged some thought. You know, he gave me some thoughts, and I
gave him some counter thoughts. And he said he said, you know what? That's
okay. No worries. Every man is entitled to his own mistakes.
I'm very I'm very French of you, sir. I I I love you, brother.
I love you so much. That's amazing. No. But, no. I
think I think with Doug so,
Doug is such a strong writer and a strong
thinker that he's ahead of a lot of people in a
lot of ways. Mhmm. And anyone who is a first
mover disrupts things. And and so
so Doug is constantly disrupting,
kind of the old order, if you will. And whether
they wanna admit it or not, the old order actually benefits a lot from having
Douglas around. But, you know,
Doug is kind of like, he's kinda like
Winston Churchill in some ways. He has a lot of courage
to say things Mhmm. That that otherwise
would not be said in very dangerous times.
And, and and so I first kind of, I knew of
Doug Wilson. I just knew him kind of out there on the periphery.
But to me, I really kinda got to know Doug and and
appreciate Doug during the whole COVID pandemic, all the shenanigans going
on with government shutdowns and how that was affecting our church
there in Texas, and and just how there was how
very few people were willing to voice an opinion on that.
And Doug was not only willing to voice an opinion, but he was actually willing
to contemplate, you know, a
proper a a good biblical church response
for people whose consciences were being trampled by by
government. And so so I really appreciated what
he said there and what he did. And the thing that I've noticed
about Doug is, you know, he will admit mistakes. When he
makes a mistake, he admits it. In fact, he has a website that lists all
of the controversies, all the ways he's been misrepresented, mistakes that
he's admitted that he made, and, and then how he's
changed his views on those things. Mhmm. And, and so and
and so I appreciate someone who's willing to be so open and
honest that I'm gonna put it out here on the Internet for anybody who's willing
to go spend 10 minutes and read it. Mhmm. And, and so I I
feel like the other day, I was listening to somebody talk about a book on
that Doug Wilson wrote. And what was so funny is they won't mention him by
name. Right? They're the the the the controversial pastor who shall not be
named. But but they say, oh, but he was involved in federalism.
Okay? Yes. Which one which was one of those things that he
disavowed and he wrote a lengthy thing about, but
it's sort of a way for people to just sort of write him off and
they don't have to address anything by just saying, oh, he he believed in federalism.
That's terrible. And, anyway, so it's it's
don't evangelicalism has its own cancel culture. You know?
Don't, don't think it doesn't. You know? They're they have everybody has
their own opinions and their own, you know, lines that they don't wanna
cross. But but to your point, Doug Doug is
he gets in, he gets in a lot of arguments with folks, and I say
arguments. 200 years ago,
this would not be controversial. Like, the the the way that we the
this type of banter and talking back and forth, that was the way
people talked to each other because they were thinking, and they had
to defend their thoughts, against other
people who were it was it was, like, literally
intellectual warfare, intellectual and I and I and I don't mean,
like, people were gonna die, but but ideas have consequences.
Right. And some ideas need to die. They need to die,
and others need to live. And the strong ideas
that contribute to human flourishing, they deserve a fight. They
deserve to be fought over, and and the the good ideas
deserve to triumph. And so so we it's
it's the feminist society that we live in that gets its
feelings hurt all the time that, you know, kinda gets wound up about this.
But, anyway, I I think that answers your question.
Yes. And so you're gonna have a guy like that look at a
book that's part of the book of books, which is the bible.
Look at the book of Revelation, and he is going to make certain
assertions about that book. And I read when
the man comes around, gosh, probably earlier this
year and I've, I've been through it twice and I have,
I've never really talked about my journey or my personal, my
personal, my personal journey with the book of revelation.
But it is a.
Well, it's a book that if you interpret it through a lens of
dispensationalism, and I'm going to say something else about this as we get into the
book of revelation here a little bit. If you interpret it
through a certain lens, it can wind up your life.
And there are many Christians in particular I think
Christians in the United States, in particular, evangelical Christians in the
United States who are not doing the work they need to be
doing in the world of leading, and they are
allowing the secular materialist atheists to rule the day
because they have misinterpreted the reading the book of revelations.
Right. And they have bought too many
copies of the late great planet Earth and have
allowed that to become their theology. And it
drives me once I started seeing this probably about 5 or 6 years
ago, it has it's been sort of like a like
a like a piece of, like a nail that's just been driven slowly into my
brain, like, deeper and deeper and deeper, and it's got a hot end on it.
It just keeps searing and dry and it dry my wife will tell you. And
Brian knows my wife. It'll I I start yelling. And it it it and my
wife's like, you gotta you gotta she doesn't get as nearly as excited about this
as I do. And I'm like, you because I can see where
if your theological underpinnings are faulty,
your philosophical underpinnings will be faulty, and thus your actions will
be faulty. And there will be things that you will allow other people of the
world to get away with because your default and I've had many
good god fearing sal they're going to heaven Christians say
this. Well, I don't need to worry about
getting involved in all that stuff over there, like with voting or
politics or policy or their neighborhoods or whatever
because Jesus is just gonna come back tomorrow. Mhmm. And the
question I have, the counter I always
have to that is, what will you do if
Jesus doesn't show up tomorrow?
What will you have built on the off chance that you
live another 30 or 40 or 50 years and
Jesus doesn't show up? What bold thing will
you have done and put forth if when the man
comes around, but it ain't in your time and it ain't in
your children's time, and it ain't in your and there's no answer to
that for American Christians. I
fundamentally believe that Americans care far more about the book
of revelations than other evangelical Christians in other parts
of the world. I don't think evangelical Christians in China care very
much about the book of revelation,
but don't believe me. We're gonna talk about the
Scofield bible too here in a bit. Let me read directly from the
book of revelation, though, which because we always try to read directly from the book.
So to the book. Right? To the book
of revelation. Now the version that I have, of course, is the
King James version because as I have said
on the podcast, the King James version of the bible
is the version of the bible that stands as a bulwark of purity of
language against the degradation of language and the degradation of the
English language. Now there are going to be those of you, my wife
included, that, like, the, ESV version or the NKV
version or the new American version or whatever. Please read
whatever version you may read. The message bible is fine too,
I suppose. But I stand. This is this is my
thing. I I stand on the I stand on the, on the
granite of the King James version.
Good thing. And, yes, I know. And, yes, I know King James was a was
a challenging man who was writing this I get all that. And I
stand on the granite of the King James Bible.
Alright. Thanks, sir. Shakespeare liked
it. Yes. He did. And it was good enough for Shakespeare.
It's good enough for me. Alright. Back to the
book. The revelation of Jesus Christ.
Greetings to the 7 churches. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which god
gave unto him to show unto his servants things which would shortly come to
pass, and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his
servant, John, who bear record of the word of God and of the testimony
of Jesus Christ and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that
readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things
which are written therein for the time is at hand.
John, to the 7 churches which are in Asia, grace be unto you and
peace. From him which is and which was and which is to
come, from the 7 spirits which are before his
throne. And from Jesus Christ, who
is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of
the kings of the earth, unto him that loved us and washed us from our
sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God his
father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.
Amen. Behold, he cometh with clouds,
and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him,
and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so,
amen. I am alpha and omega, the beginning
and the ending, saith the lord, which is and which
was and which is to come, the almighty.
Now that's just the first eight verses of the book of Revelation
right there, the greeting right there. Most people will read that, and
they will stop because they'll go, I don't know what any of this means.
This seems weird and esoteric.
What does the book of Revelation actually
mean? And it's interesting because right now in my bible in a year, I'm actually
reading, Ezekiel 36, 37, 38, 39, and
40, which weirdly enough, I I just recognized it the other day,
overlaps with, John's prophecies in the book of
Revelation about the measurement of the temple and the inside of the
court and where the, where the unbelievers will be and where the believers will
be and so on and so on. It's kind of interesting. I finally like, that
finally clicked over in my head, but I don't wanna get that esoteric. I wanna
keep this very broad and accessible. Just from the
first book, just from that first eight verses, what should
people take from this? What is John setting up? And, why
is I am the alpha and omega the beginning and the ending? Why
is that in red in the King James version? Why are those words in
red? Yeah. So so the answer to that to
that question is what is this book about? I mean, he says, right there
in verse 1, he says, it's about things that must shortly take
place. Like, things that are gonna take place in the very near future.
So we know this book was written, you know, late sixties, AD. Nobody can
put a, you know, a nail a date on it, but it's late sixties.
And the the things as as you get into the book and you read,
when you begin to understand the symbolism and you understand that this book
really is about the fall of
Babylon, which is a, which
is the city of Jerusalem, it's a it's imagery
for Jerusalem, then then you understand,
like, well, that's that's this book is it's detailing
how the the the, the end
of the Judaic age will come about, which will
come with the destruction of the temple. And then what will the new age
what will the church age be like? And then what will
and, you know, the end, what will how how will it all ultimately culminate?
But, yeah. And then, you know, what's the the
thing about that that verse 8, I'm the alpha and omega, the beginning and the
end, one who is and who is to come the almighty, that that is
that's God declaring his authorship over history. So he's
he's saying, hey. I'm I'm uniquely qualified to talk about this
because I'm writing the story. I'm literally the one writing and
executing the story. The I was at the beginning. I'll be at the
end, and I'm the one who's, who's to come.
And, and so I
I think, those words are in red because
Christ, in particular versions of the Bible, a lot
of, Protestant versions of the Bible, you'll see the
words of Christ in red. And so that
those the that text, I am the alpha and omega, that's that's
attributed to Christ. Like, he is the beginning and the
end. Alright. Now let's pick up
back to the book of Revelation. Let's pick up with verse 9.
I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation
and in kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is
called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus
Christ. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day
and heard behind me a great voice of a trumpet saying,
again in red, I am alpha and omega, the first
and the last, and what thou seest, write in a book and send
it unto the 7 churches which are in Asia, unto Ephesus, and unto
Smyrna, unto Pergamos, and unto Thateria, and unto Sardis, and
unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. And
I turned to see a voice that spoke with me, and being turned, I saw
7 golden candlesticks. And in the midst of the 7 candlesticks, one like
unto the son of man, clothed with garment, down on down to the
foot and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and his
eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet like unto
fine brass as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound
of many waters. And he had in his right hand 7 stars, and out of
his mouth went a sharp two edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun
shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet
as dead, and he laid his right hand upon me saying, unto
me, fear not. I am the 1st and the
last I am he that liveth and was dead and behold, I am alive
forevermore. Amen. And have the keys of
hell and of death. Write the
things which thou hast seen and the things which are, the things which shall be
hereafter. The mystery of the 7 stars, which thou sawest in my right hand,
and the 7 golden candlesticks. The 7 stars are the angels of the 7
churches, and the 7 candlesticks, which thou sawest are
the 7 churches. That's look
of revelations chapter 9
all the way through 20 verse 1 or or chapter
1, versus a 9 through, through
20. Okay. Now there's a lot
going on there. Let
me ask you this because we do have a lot of listeners who are Jewish,
and you said something very interesting that I've marked. You said the end of the
Judaic age. There will be Jews who will
stop listening to this podcast right now today. They will just stop. They will just
be done because they they they have no
dog of the fight. The first thing that they think of is anti
semitism. To paraphrase on the comedian Marc Maron,
who is Jewish, ethnically Jewish, not practicing. But
Jesus isn't my guy. Like, he's you guys' guy. Like, good luck
with all that. He's just I've heard of him. It's not
my guy. Larry David would say the same thing. It's not my guy. I'm talking
about those guys are pretty funny. Funny Jewish guys. But but
you you see in particularly in modern Judaism, Dennis
Prager, the Prager you, often will say this.
He would rather live under Christianity than under Islam.
Mhmm. But he's not gonna get into the depths of,
is Jesus the son of God? Like, you saw this with John MacArthur went on
daily wire with Ben Shapiro one time. Right. Like, he was trying to convince
Ben Shapiro that Jesus was the son of God, and Ben Shapiro wasn't moving.
So this idea of the end of the Judaic
age, there are Jews walking around right now who will say that is an excuse
for antisemitism and pogroms and holocausts. So
what do you mean when you say the book of revelations is
a is a sort of an announcement of the
fall of Babylon and the end of the Judaic age? Because a Jewish person will
hear that and will immediately shut this off because to them, that just sounds like
an excuse to pogrom them or shove them into concentration camps
or or destroy them with a nuclear weapon if you're the Iranians.
So how do you respond to that? Because modern Christians do have to deal with
postmodern Christians do have to deal with that. Yeah. So
all I would respond to that with is, Jesus is the
fulfillment of all of the Old Testament prophecy. So
so Jesus, carries
on carries on the the the covenant,
given to Moses in Genesis chapter 15,
or sorry, to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15. And
then, the the covenants, that were made with
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and, with David. So so
all those covenants are fulfilled in Christ. And so,
so there's there there's not
it it's it's not an excuse to beat up anybody. It's
an invitation for everyone to come
into the kingdom of God, not just the Jews. Right?
So remember, this is what the battle of
Paul and Peter in Galatians was about. Right? So
so Peter says, no. Everyone must be circumcised. You
must become a you must remember the Jewish traditions. You must
become a Jew. And Paul says, that is anathema.
Mhmm. Right? Let like he says, let him if if if I
or an angel come preaching to you this doctrine, let us be
accursed. That is not true. And so so I would
say it's not an excuse, to to to
beat anyone. It's it's an invitation to the whole world,
to come and to be and to know Yahweh,
to know him as God, the the father, the the God the
father, God the son in Jesus, and then the spirit that that
proceeds from the love of God and the father,
that the spirit that proceeds from that is the Holy Spirit. So so
to know those 3, that to know that trinity, to know God
in his truest sense requires that one
come to know Christ as the Messiah. That's the
that doesn't preclude Jews. It fulfills
Judaism. And that's why the end of the Judaic age
that's what we talk about. When we say the end of Judaic age and the
beginning of the church age, the church age is when now
the kingdom of god expands to all the world, including the gentiles.
Okay. Now tie in or
or explain a little bit, if you don't mind,
what Babylon has to do with any of this. Because when when when when modern
ear hears Babylon, if they're educated,
Jewish, Christian, secular, whatever, The
modern ear hears Babylon and immediately thinks of Persia,
maybe, Iraq, Iran
maybe thinks of Islam, maybe. But
most of the time, most people when they think of Babylon, they think of gardens,
maybe, of the 7 wonders of the world. So why was Babylon so horrible, and
why did Babylon have to fall? What does Babylon mean in the context of the
book of revelations? Right. So when you go back and you look through the old
testament and and you look at all of these civilizations that were
judged by God for their tremendous evil, whether it's
Tyre, Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah, Jericho, Babylon,
Each one of these cities, the the the evil
that occurred within them was so great
that they were they were, in league
with Satan or or the kings of the world
as the as the scripture may call them. We're we're talking about
demonic forces is what we're talking about. Right. And so
these these people had aligned themselves,
prostituted themselves, or themselves, if you will,
away from the one true God and given their allegiance,
the desires of their heart, of their minds.
They've given them to to other gods, to deep to
demonic, influences. And these these
kings, these human kings and and their kingdoms were in league with
demonic forces that perpetuated all kinds of
terrible evil, the worst kinds of evil that you could imagine,
human sacrifice, prostitution,
all kinds of debauchery, and just and and terrible
things that that
Babylon sort of came to represent and and if you go
back to the Tower of Babel, right, you you know, that you have there's
this there's this
sort of man's chronic problem is that he
wants to be God. He wants to
to put God, on his level or
lower, and and he wants to be God. That's
man's chronic problem. So remember what what the serpent said to Adam and Eve in
the Garden of Genesis chapter 3. Mhmm.
Did God say? Right. Did god say that?
Did he really say that? And when he said it, did he really what did
he really mean? Right. And and so so
any any confusion that can be sown in in in
any understanding of of who God is, what he is, what man
is for, and and why we were created,
anything that can get into that is gonna is going to and pervert. And
so so Babylon so in essence, what what
what's being done here in the in Revelation is
they're saying, hey. All the things that that
Israel was supposed to stand against And, you
know, everything that it was supposed to represent as the people of God,
it became what it hated. It it became those
things. And so and even in here, there's I can't remember where in the in
the chapter. I didn't I didn't mark it, but but he says that
Jerusalem was guilty of the blood of the prophets, the apostles,
and of the lamb. And so so all of these
wicked places throughout human history wanted to destroy
the work of God, and they opposed the work of God.
And they that's why they were judged. Well, Jerusalem killed its
prophets. It killed its it it killed the apostles. It killed Christ. It
it you know, Christ was put to he he came to his own people. His
own people received him not. He was put to death. Right?
And so so this was this was Christ saying, hey.
The Judaic age is over, and I'm opening up the door
not only to faithful to faithful Jews, to faithful
Israelites, but I'm opening it up to the whole world. And
anyone who wants to come to me can come to me, and and we're
ending we're ending we're ending Jerusalem.
Jesus says in, or he's quoted as saying in Matthew 23,
where he's yelling at the well, yelling. He's having a
vigorous intellectual warfare with the scribes and the
Pharisees, in Matthew 23
verse 34, Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets
and wise men and scribes, and some of them you shall kill and
crucify, and some of them you shall scourge in your synagogues and
persecute them from city to city. That upon you may come all the righteous
bloodshed upon the earth from the blood of the righteous Abel unto the blood of
Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom you slew between the
temple and the altar.
That's that okay. So that then leads into
Matthew 24, which is signs of the end, which
is always sort of particularly dispensational circles
collapsed into, the, the book of revelation
along with Thessalonians and some other some other
references, including weirdly enough, I've seen in the last 30
years. Oh, Daniel being pulled
in, and some other things which I find to be very
I I think it makes it more confusing, not less, but we'll leave that aside
for just a second. But it's an attempt to sort of understand what you're
talking about here in this end of the Judaic age, which, again, I
don't think modern Christians understand very well.
And I don't think there's an understand well, no. I think the I think the
challenge comes in where we look
around and even Jews will ask me this. Well, if Jesus came
and everything, the kingdom of heaven is here, why is there still murder
and and and death and sin? And you can't
tell me that the kingdom of heaven is here because people poor people are still
here. Right? And if I go back and look at some of these prophecies, the
prophecies that state, particularly in Isaiah,
that state that all of these things will be
made right. If I could just I could just look around with my eyes and
see that for the last 2000 years, none of this has been made right. As
a matter of fact, we just came out of a century where we actually
forget doubling down, forget even quadrupling down. We quintuple
fold down on the killing of people and making it less
right. So how can you tell me that Jesus was the son of God?
Which is, by the way, the objection. Because then all this would be made
right. How can you tell me the the Judaic the Judaic age has ended? How
can you tell me the Gentiles have learned anything? They've learned
nothing. They've just continued down the same path of evil.
And so people, particularly good evangelical Christians, look at the book of
Revelation, and they will and they are looking for, I believe,
fundamentally, the answer to that question of
how do we make right no. Not even how do we make
right. What does the end of the age look like? What does the end of
all of this actually look like? Which, by the way, I wanna talk about
the beast too. But which, by the way, is answered in, a little
bit in revelations 21 about a new heaven and a new
earth, which we'll talk about that in just a minute. I wanna talk about
being 75% predatorist.
90 is good. 90. 990 is good. Okay. Well, Brian Bagley already warned me that
you never go full predatorist.
Never to go full predatorist. Although, the temptation, once you begin to
see the impact of things like the Scofield bible and dispensationalism on how this
book is interpreted, the strong temptation is is to go hard to the hoop in
the other direction. Yeah. So let
me let me let me go back to the book for just a second here.
Go back to the book of revelations. I'm going to skip past a whole bunch
of fun imagery and some interesting letters, including
letters to the church in Ephesus and the church in Sardis, Laodicea,
Philadelphia. I'm going to skip past the throne in heaven. I'm going to
skip past the seals, which are very important, and the
trumpets. I'm going to skip past all of that because you can go read that
yourself, and And I would recommend going to your local church if you've never visited
1. Take this to your pastor or to a pastor there
and see what he or depending upon which area of the
country or the world you live in, she may say, about
this. And I'm going to go again past the prophecy of the 2
witnesses and the woman with the child. I'm going to directly to Revelation 13.
So we're gonna start with the beast. I wanna you
mentioned something about Satan there. I wanna come back to
this idea.
So revelation 13
1. And I stood upon the sand of the sea and
saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having 7 heads and 10 horns,
and upon his head upon his horns, 10 crowns, and upon his
heads, the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like
like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and
his mouth is the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his
power and his seat and great authority. And I saw one of his
heads as it were wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed, and all
the world wondered after the beast. And they
worshiped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast, and they worshiped the beast saying,
who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? And
there was given unto him a mouth to speak a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies, and power was given unto him to continue for 42 months.
And he opened his mouth and blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name and his
tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto
him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and power was given,
him over all kindreds and tongues and nations. And all that
dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book
of the life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
If any man have an ear, let him hear.
He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity. He that
killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the
patience and the faith of the saints.
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had 2
horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exercised with all
the power of the first beast before him and causeth the earth, and then which
dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. And
he doeth great wonders so that he make a fire come down from heaven and
on earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them
that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles as which he
had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell
on the earth, they should make an image to the beast, which had the
wound by a sword and did live. And he
had the power to give life into unto the image of the beast
and that the image of the beast should both speak
and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast
should be killed. And he causeth all, both small
and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark
in their right hand or in their foreheads. And
that no man might buy or sell, save he that
had the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his
name. Here is wisdom. Let
him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, or it is the
number of a man, and his number is
603 score and 6.
This is one that people have been looking for
since literally this was written down.
Napoleon was supposed to be the beast or the antichrist.
Hitler was a candidate. Name. Your
favorite orange man here is now a candidate.
There's always been a search
for this beast. Doug
Wilson in his book, when the man comes
around, makes the point as do many predatorists slash reformed
thinkers around this book that the beast already came and went, and the
beast was not necessarily a man, but a system. The
beast is the economic system. Gary DeMar makes this point. The beast is an economic
system. That's where the buying and the selling in the market, all this stuff
comes into play. But if we're looking for an actual
physical person, it was probably a Roman emperor,
probably one of the one of the descendants of Caesar Augustus who was killing
Christians, and that was the end of that.
And yet there are Christians, to get into
deep the deep exegesis of
this book, who are still searching. I I mean,
even today, in the Internet, www. Right?
That happens to match up, in letters to 66
or numbers, sorry, to 666. AI and robotics
are now being, or particularly AI, are
now being claimed
as a precursor to a mark. Right?
There was times during the COVID crisis that we just went through
that if you took the COVID virus, I heard this in some Christian circles, you
were accepting the mark.
What do we do with what do we do with this piece of revelations? What
do we do with the mark and the beast? Yeah. So, you said
something a minute ago I wanna just go back and touch on real quick. Absolutely.
You you asked you asked the question, and and we we got
talking about something else, then we blew past it, but it was such a good
question. I just wanna go back and just talk about it real briefly. You were
talking about, hey. You know? And you were saying there are there may be Jewish
people who are like, how could Jesus be the Messiah? Yes. The the world
is so still terrible. How could the kingdom of God be coming? And so
what the the what I would encourage modern readers to
do, whether you're Jewish or whatever, it doesn't matter, but
to look at the fruit of of Christianity,
in in over the course of the last 2000
years. Okay? So let me ask you this question. Ask
yourself, would you rather be alive in the year 0 or
the year 500? Which would it be? You would take 500.
Okay? Oh, I'd take 500. Yeah. 500 or a1000. Right? Or take
a little 1,000. Oh, yeah. Every every 5 so when you when you zoom
out of history Mhmm. You you see a
pattern that has favored Christendom
in the West. K? So there have been certain things that
have happened in the Christian west that have not happened
in the Islamic world. In fact, that's one of the greatest challenges
to the Islamic theologian is, hey. If we're
supposedly the last word from the Messiah, if we're the if
we're supposedly the the final word, Mohammed was the final
prophet, well, why is
the 3rd why are we why why do our nations occupy the
3rd world? Why are we in the lowest strata in every
category across the across the world? And
so so I so
I I would just encourage readers to to take to
to to zoom back and and think about it this way. Anytime
you're in a war, which is what this is, when when we're
talking about the the coming of the kingdom of god, Jesus says the kingdom
of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. So Right. So
there is literally combat, spiritual combat, and
sometimes even physical combat that takes place
over, over the kingdom of God and the the correct
transmission of of the faith once for all delivered for the saints,
as the scripture calls it in the book of Jude, that that that
this this violence is is something
that, that just like in a war,
it's it's not always clear in a
local place what's happening across a theater.
Okay? So let me give you an example. In in June 19 or,
no. Let's see. It would have been, probably, December
1944, I think. Late late 1944, the Battle of the
Bulge. Yeah. So you had the Western allies who were sweeping
across Europe. But in this one pocket, right, it looked really
bad. It looked like the Germans might break through and be able
to flank the Americans or the Allied forces. And
so so even though, yeah, the the Allies had been winning the
war, in that one place, it looked like
hell. Okay? And so so it's the same thing
here. Like, in in America, in 21st century America or maybe
in Europe, it looks bleak. It looks very bad. But
in other parts of the world, on other parts of the front, if you will,
the the where the war is being fought, it's way more positive.
It's more positive than it's been in centuries. And Well, when it's
So and so go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting not to interrupt,
but it's interesting that you mentioned this because Vodie Bachman was
interviewed by Doug Wilson, earlier this year. And Vodie
Bachman, if you don't know who that is, you can Google him. But, you know,
he's running a bunch of basically, a bunch of churches in Nigeria,
who have and the and the Nigerian the country of Nigeria has made a
commitment to being a country that is run on
Christian principles. Right? And so he's come over from America as an
American theologian, African American American theologian coming over,
take his family to Nigeria, building churches in Nigeria, schools, building a whole
infrastructure out to support this. Right? He came back, was talking to
Doug Wilson. And one of the things he said to Doug that was very interesting
and caught my attention was this. He said, it's
interesting observing, and I'm paraphrasing, observing the
American church from outside America. Because
when I come here from a country like Nigeria, where there are almost no
Christian resources, and we're just building everything from the ground
up, the level of how far ahead you all are here
is astounding, and you all don't appreciate it.
And he's saying this as an African American
pastor, teacher, writer, theologian who
worked in America for literally decades before
saying, as my mother would say, bump this and
moved on moved on to moved on to Nigeria. Right? Because he was
so frustrated with the lack of forward motion in America.
And so I think particularly for and and by the way, this also
is a counterpoint to my point earlier that I made about American Christians not doing
the necessary work they need to do. This is the counterpoint to that.
We do have such a large
pillar of work that has built in a con that
we have built in a country that was nakedly
publicly Christian for the
first, what, a 150, 200 years of its existence.
Now Doug Wilson would say that we were eating through our seed corn, and we're
already at the end of it. And that's why he's ringing the bell. But Vodie
Bachman from a Nigerian spot would look
and say, no. We haven't eaten through all the seed corn yet. Not even close.
So do you so I just wanted to back up that point with what you
were saying about looking at the fruits of Christianity, rather
than looking at the form rather than only looking at exclusively
the the presence of the messiah, the presence of Jesus Christ. So go ahead. I'm
sorry. Yeah. Well and then I would just say, just to just to kind of
continue on that vein, is, you know and it it's
important to remember that the the work of God
is accomplished through the saints of God. Right.
And I think this gets back to one of the things that you were you
were talking about earlier about, you know,
a lot of people sidelining themselves and getting out of certain
avoiding conflicts or or just, saying, you know, I'm
just waiting for the rapture any day now. Like, no. Like
like, if if if a society is going
to be built around, the
pursuit not of social justice but of actual
justice described in the old testament, not described
by Marx that we syncretize then with some version of of
the scripture that we then just turned it into
Mark's light, I guess, or whatever. You know, but
actual, like like, we we really are trying to bring about
a society that that of human flourishing under
the rule of God. That takes courage,
and it also takes a willingness to confront evil.
And in many cases, that the ancient world understood that we
in the west, I think, have largely forgotten. We
are we willing to die? Are we willing to spill our
blood, for the advancement of the kingdom of
god? For and and and and I say that, you know
you know, and and I I wanna be real clear here because I
think in to a lot of evangelicals, the only thing
that really matters is, do people give their souls to
Christ? In other words, when I preach, if I give an
altar call, will everyone in here, acknowledge that they're
gonna pray this prayer and receive Christ as their savior, and then and then
their eternal future is secured? Yes or no, and then
my job is done. Okay? And then I'm just gonna wash my hands of
the people that haven't that haven't prayed the prayer, or maybe I don't wash my
hands. Maybe I say, well, I'm gonna double down. Well, that's fine. But
it and I call it like a it's almost like a worship of Billy
Graham. It's right. Right. So Billy Graham was the great evangelist who did crusades
all over the world, and and, you know, I I had a tremendous
wonderful impact in the world. But but what I
think Billy did, unfortunately, and I to no fault
of his own, I think it was people who idolized him
incorrectly, but they they became obsessed
with this pray the prayer evangelism, receive
Jesus into your heart, and then you're good. You don't have to do anything
else. Just hang out until Christ shows up again. Who knows when
that'll be, but it's gonna be really soon. Just trust us. And then and
then now we wonder, well, why are our institutions terrible? Oh, it's
because all the Christians are just they just checked out because, you know, it's
it's all we just have things are gonna get bad enough anyway, and
then Christ is gonna return. It's almost like we've said,
instead of Christ coming in glory and
making his enemies a footstool under his feet, which is what first Corinthians
15 says. K? Christ will not return until his
enemies are a footstool under his feet. We've said, you know what? No. No.
No. No. We don't like that picture. We we prefer the picture
of the American Embassy in Vietnam. Okay? Get
everybody up on the rooftop, and we'll just cling to the helicopters as
as Jesus comes in with the rapture and just sucks us out and takes us,
you know, back to heaven and then, you know, then the rest of this world
can just go to hell and tribulation and all this other mess. That's not
the picture that that that the New Testament
gives. And and I don't think it's a hopeful
picture for people who care about the world in
which they live and care about what god asked us to do in
Matthew 28, which was to make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost, teaching
them to observe all that he commanded. When
that's done when that is done, when everyone understands
what it means to obey god, then the work is done, then Christ
will return. And we're not close, so get busy.
By the way, I am going to go to,
the
Gonna reference the passage in Thessalonians
that, because I don't wanna I don't wanna get caught
up with the rapture. It's too easy to get caught up with the rapture. No.
Book of revelations, but I'm going to, I'm gonna reference, 2nd
Thessalonians chapter 2. Yeah. Read 2nd Thessalonians
chapter 2, 1 through 12. And you
will see what he is, talking about with the mystery of
inequity and, the temple and the day of Christ
and the falling away and the man of sin.
I want let's let's talk a little bit because we didn't answer the question. You
answered my previous question. Now I'm gonna ask, like, another question again. The mark of
the beast. Right? So the beast is referred to a interpolation. So let's talk a
little bit about the beast. Let's do a couple minutes on that. And then I
wanna talk about the Scofield bible of dispensationalism and the power of
dispensationalists in the state department in the 19 forties after World
War 2. So oh oh, yes. Oh, I wanna get you on a oh, I
wanna I wanna get us on record talking about that because if there's anything that's
guaranteed to get us banned hammered from somewhere, it's gonna be that. So let's just
go full. Let's just go, hey. We already talked about the book of relations. We're
talking about the bible. We said the name of Jesus several times. I'm ready to
go get banned hammered. It's fine. This is why we don't have sponsors
on this show. I can do what I want.
Alright. So, revelation,
revelation 13. Right? You know, the beast, the,
the mark, the number that is his name, not buying, not
selling. I mean, people read this Christian and non Christian
alike, and, their blood runs cold. Right? You know,
the ability to buy and sell is the,
well, we saw this with COVID, the ability to buy and sell, the ability to
have free, free movement,
across boundaries and borders, the ability to
basically and you and I talked about this in a previous episode, put Caesar
back in the box, right, and tell Caesar no, which by the way we uniquely
have. You made this point on that episode. We uniquely have that in the United
States versus other countries because we live under a republic,
ostensibly or should be a biblical republic, but we live under a republic
nonetheless. So we
have certain benefits that other people in other countries don't have.
When American Christians read
chapter 13 of the book of Revelation, their blood runs cold, and then they're running
around looking for the beast everywhere. Mhmm. What was John talking
about here? Who is the beast? What does
this mean? And, again, this book was written in 80, you know, 66 to 80
70, so we're talking about the fall of Jerusalem as well during a time
of Roman persecution. So go go ahead. So this was one of
the parts that I love when, help it really helped me
understand some things that that
Doug just explained it very well, I I thought. So,
again, Doug is not coming at it from a premillennial
dispensationalist understanding. So that if you're coming
at it from that perspective, what I'm about to say is
you're just gonna be like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Okay? So
so that being said, the beast is the
Roman Empire. So, again, as as a as a
predatorist, as a postmillennial predatorist, we're reading this book.
These events took place in the writer's future,
but in our past. Okay?
So so and it's so he wrote it about things
that must happen in the near future, not in the distant future.
We we take the writer of of of Revelation at his word. He
said it was the near future. So he's he's talking about the
fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. So so when he's talking
about the beast with 7 heads, the 7
hills, right, I mean, that that that would have been like
us saying, the big easy.
Right? We all know we're talking about New Orleans.
That if we're talking about the the city of brotherly love,
everybody knows we're talking about Philadelphia. Okay? The big b. We're talking about Dallas.
Right? So so when he says 7 Hills, well, he's talking about
the beast and and he's everybody knows he's talking about Rome.
So and that would have just been common understanding. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He was talking
about Rome. So so Rome was the beast, the 7 heads,
the 7 emperors. I believe is this the passage,
let me see if I can get back to it, where he says he's talking
about the the kings or the the heads of the beast.
Yes. And he says I can't remember if it's here
or later in the book where he says, 5 of
them were, one is, one is now, and one will
be. So that the 6th he's
talking about the 6th ahead in the iteration is
it is is who's in charge when this book is being written?
Well, that is Nero. K? That's Nero
who caused a great persecution to come upon the
Christians, to come upon the,
the the the the woman who had the child.
Right? So that's the church, represents the church. Right?
Not that she had Christ, but but that's the the the
pure, the pure followers of God, the
ones who didn't defile themselves with, with
idolatry and and and debauchery and all those false idol
worship. But the true the true line of Christ,
that those faithful Jews, they are the ones who gave birth to the
Messiah and and then and the church begins from there.
Now the the mark of the beast the thing that I loved about what
what how Doug described the mark of the beast was he said it's a numeric
play on words to help you to that basically
would hide the fact that he was talking about Nero.
And there's some and I didn't I didn't, quite I don't quite remember
how, but there's some mnemonic and and the way
that they that Mhmm. That Jews would understand and and I
say it's Jews. It's not Jews. It's,
I can't remember if it's Hebrew or Latin or no. It wouldn't have been Latin.
Maybe Hebrew or Greek or something. I can't remember which one Yeah.
Where each value each the letter of each person's name
would be assigned a numeric value. And so
every word so, like, let's take my name for instance,
Brian. So okay. A b. B is numb
is given 2. Okay? So b r is 2. B
b r I no. I'm saying, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, h,
h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h,
h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h,
h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h,
h, h, h, h, h, h, h
Well, that's Nero's full name, his his his long his
long name. So it was a way of saying,
it it's a way of giving the reader clues as to where we are on
the time line of history. What's also interesting about this
is, you know, it talks about on your forehead or on your hand.
It later on in the book, in the in the commentary,
you'll read where the saints of God
have their heavenly father's name written on their head.
Mhmm. Okay? So instead of the mark of the beast, they have the mark of
their father. Mhmm. K? And so so everyone is gonna
have a mark on their forehead. Everyone's gonna have a mark on their hand.
The question is whose. Is it going to be,
the the one you worship? It it it and, well, it's gonna be the person
you worship, either either a false idol or the one true and living god.
And so so when when we get into this
this premillennial dispensationalism and we I feel like
we're working too hard to understand the scriptures.
We're we're we're reading things into them that
ought not be there. And and when we do that, our
imaginations run wild. It's like I mean, we're looking around,
you know, every quarter, like, what's going on? And
and the truth of the matter is that as a as
a believer, you don't have to worry about the mark of the beast.
You already have the mark of of your your heavenly father on
your head. You have the mark of your father on your heart, right,
because because he dwells within you. And that's the great hope,
I think, that that we find in in in this scripture and the
way that that the the postmillennialists understand
this reading of the text. Okay? So so I would just say
I would say put the fear aside when it comes to the mark of the
beast. If you know Christ, you don't have to worry about that. There there may
be other marks. Right? There may be there may come a day when when a
when a state tries to put a mark on you or tries to, you know,
like the Nazis tried to mark the Jews or who knows what. I mean, that's
happened before. But but for the the true
believer, the the one who who knows Christ, you're already
sealed. You're already marked.
So we've said it several times here. This is a good time to open the
door to this. I'm just I'm going full I'm going
full hog today, end of the year. I'm going I'm going all the way into
it. So now I'm gonna have the state department. I'm gonna have Victoria Newland chasing
me around the block along with Robert Kagan. That's gonna be great.
Hey. Look. If any feds are listening, may you be blessed by, the
belief in Jesus Christ, and, be sure to spell my name correctly.
I want you to come looking for me.
Okay. So we've said this several times. Let's start
backwards. So the the version of the bible that I've got is the new king
James version. It's a bible that my my wife gave me, or not the
new king James version. I'm sorry. The king James version of the bible. The King
James version, this version was published by Thomas Nelson.
I I do like the King James version, primarily
because one of the main reasons I like it is because, yes, of the language,
but also because it has the, the
epistle the epistle dedicatory at the beginning of it that
opens up, for the King James version, to the most high and mighty
prince James, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland,
defender of the faith, the translators of the Bible wish grace, mercy, and
peace through Jesus Christ, our lord, and then they just go into why they
created this Bible. I love that. I love that opening. Right?
1611, by the way, I believe was when the King James bible
was, was finally published. And, yes, was King James using it to do
some shady things that were very much, temporal and
probably sinful? Sharp. Just like every other
prince that you have ever met in your life.
Alright. So I've got the king James Bible. Right?
Fast forward a few centuries, maybe a couple
millennia, and you run across something called the Scofield Bible.
So let's start with this. The Scofield
Bible walk me
through why that Bible was so popular, why it gained
such popularity among folks, and
then walk me through these terms that we've been using sort of
as if people just know what they are, premillennial,
millennial, postmillennial, predatorist, and then finally,
dispensationalist. So walk walk us through those terms and and
how they tie into the Scofield Bible. So let's start with the Scofield
Bible. Why did it gain such popularity? Who created it? What was the
point of it? And, and sort of how has it embedded
itself into, American Christian evangelical
culture to such a degree? Yeah. Well, the the
Scofield Bible was not a,
it was a Bible that in
it was a Bible that was published in which
was also written a commentary
by a gentleman, I can't remember his first name, by the last name of
Scofield. And and mister Scofield
was had
imbibed, I guess, is a a a good term,
this this dispensationalist understanding
of the end times, or of of the rev of
understanding eschatology or the revelation, the the study of
of the end times, the study of the end of the world. And so so
as he had kinda taken this in, he wrote a
commentary based on the principles that he learned about this
dispensationalist theology. By the way, his his first name
was Cyrus. It was Cyrus Ingersoll Schofield. Right. According
to Wikipedia. Yep. Born 18 43 in Clinton, Michigan,
died July 24, 1921 in New York, New
York. He, was a,
American according to Wikipedia, an American theologian, minister, and writer
whose best selling annotated bible popularized futurism and dispensationalism
among fundamentalist Christians. Go ahead. Keep going. Yep. Well
and and you gotta kinda understand what was also happening at this point in
American Christianity that sort of allowed dispensationalism
to sort of catch fire here. So you you had all
of the the German deconstructionists.
All of their work was starting to make its way through the universities
here in America. And so and that all happened right around the
turn of of the century. So you had, you
had what, Jay Gresham Machen Machen
called a a downgrade. Right? There were lots of there there were
lots of theological at at our at all our seminaries, our
our our prestige our prestigious,
flagship seminaries, Princeton, Harvard, all these places where that have
been stalwarts of protestant
evangelicalism and and orthodoxy were now
calling into question very basic things about very, very,
very fundamental things about the Christian
faith. And so so you had a a
lot of people who were reacting to that. A lot
of people, and they became called fundamentalist. They wanted to get back to the fundamentals.
And and then there was this sort of, well, man, things are they're getting worse
all of a sudden. They're not getting better. Well, that's what dispensationalism
teaches. Dispensationalism must it it it it it
must be true or it must be right. And so there was this,
whereas before, the vast majority of Christendom had been postmillennial and had
an understanding much like the one Doug Wilson describes in his
book, under that type of understanding of Revelation, then
then this the door was opened to this alternate understanding,
this dispensationalist understanding. And and, oh,
by the way, a a major publishing house in Chicago, I think it
was I can't remember who published the book, or maybe it was Booty Press. I'm
not sure. But I believe it came out of Chicago. All of a sudden,
this this this Bible gets published. It's sold in lots of different
bookstores, and people the average American is sitting here
reading their Schofield Bible, and they're like, well, look. The Bible says
well, it's not the Bible. It's the commentary that's embedded in your
Bible, but but it's just it's right there. It's and it's an
easy way to understand the the scripture. And
so people just they just start believing it, and it and it takes hold.
It takes root in in the culture. Well, this
bible was also published right around or at least had at least a little bit
of weight during the time when the Scopes monkey trial was taking place in
1925. Absolutely. So Scofield died in 21.
The Scopes monkey trial took place, which was if you don't know what that is,
it was basically the trial that put the
kibosh on teaching any alternatives to the theories of Charles
Darwin in the public school system. And
so the battle at a
the battle moved the battle between
European you talk about the Germans. European
not even postmodern. European Nietzsche nihilistic thinking
had versus versus Christian
worldview thinking with the Scopes monkey trial had
finally descended into middle class American consciousness.
Yep. And the most middle class Americans
probably, particularly those and people will always nail the
south for this, but it was all over the United States, would
probably have had a copy of the Schofield
reference bible in their house or had access to
it or had pastors in their church that had been taught
in or no. Well well, yeah, who had been taught in
seminary or at least had heard because, you
know, you're talking about these seminaries being in opposition to this this
Nietzschean worldview that's coming down from these German Europeans.
Or I'm sorry, not German Europeans, for these Germans. This battle is happening
out at a middle class level in America. Right? And so
the thought I would think would be not to throw you off your point, but
I would think the thought would be around the Scofield Bible. If we can just
embed this thought about the book of
revelations or this interpretation of dispensational is around the book
of revelations so that we can somehow counter this modernist
move towards believing that we all came from monkeys and that everything's a 1000000 year
1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of years old and that we are no more than dust in
the universe. Right? That was sort of the larger theological slash
philosophical battle, the spiritual battle probably that was really going on, right, during that
time. Because it's interesting to me how Schofield Schofield's death and then
the Scopes monkey trial all occur within, like, 4 years of each other. Yeah. I
don't think that's accidental. They I don't I don't think that's accidental at all. Right.
Yeah. And you had Clarence Darrow with winning William Jennings Brian. And by the way,
I didn't know this about Scofield. I was just looking him up on Wikipedia. Apparently,
he also served in the civil war, as did
many men of his generation. I mean, he was born in 18 43. So,
that that that tracks, you know, he would have been, like, 16 or 17 when
the when the civil war started. Okay.
So you've got these dynamics, right, going on.
You've got the Scofield reference bible, which was
created as an in opposition to
these other more secular humanistic explanations for how the
world should work coming down the pike.
There's a couple of other terms that I asked you to explain, which we sort
of skimmed over, but we're gonna go back and explain now. So what does it
mean to be a premillennial? What does it mean to be postmillennial? And
what is actually dispensational? What does that actually mean? Like, we've used that term quite
a lot. What is dispensationalism? So, and and I'm gonna if if
there's somebody out here on the the thing that might be, you know, I might
I might butcher something. Okay? But I'm gonna give it my best shot here. But,
it it it's all about how you understand the millennium,
k, which let let's go, let's see. I
believe it is chapter yeah.
Yeah. Chapter 20 of Revelation. K? Okay.
So so that's the millennium. That's the millennial reign
of Christ. So if you believe
that that Jesus Christ is returning
before the millennium. K? You believe he will return.
So in other words, you read this, and and and I say return. What I
mean is the final coming of Jesus Christ. Okay? I'm not
talking about, like, because that's something else we could get into here in a minute.
But but let's talk about the final coming of Jesus
Christ. Right? So he's coming he's coming one more time, and he's gonna end this
thing, or he's gonna he's gonna wrap it up. Right? If you believe that his
that his coming is sometime in the future,
k, and you believe it's before this this this
millennial period, you're what's called a premillennialist. Alright?
If you believe that his return
is after the this this millennium that's
described in chapter 20, then you're a postmillennialist.
And and and and that's the problem about this millennium
is this is the one this is the only place that it's
actually named in the whole Bible, like all,
66 books. This is the only place that it's mentioned. It's in chapter
20 of of Revelation, the very last book.
And if and so if you if you believe that
that what that what's described in chapter 19 of Revelation about the
the Lord coming, Christ on a white horse, and and on his name,
he has a robe, and on his thigh is written king of kings and lord
of lords. Here he comes, and he's coming in judgment. If you believe that's
happening, then then
then you also don't believe you believe that
that the that Babylon isn't Jerusalem. You believe that it's
some evil city or an evil system that has to be overcome
and and judged. It's gonna do all these crazy things, and then you have to
decide, okay. Well, if that's what that is, well, then who are the 2 prophets?
Well, we don't really know. Let's see if we can put something together. Right? Let's,
let's dig around in the Old Testament, see if we can piece something together out
of, Amos or Daniel or who knows what. And and it
if you if you just take a much more straightforward reading,
and apply the the history of that region at
that time, the fall of Jerusalem and all the events surrounding that, it
becomes much easier to interpret the Bible, the this this
particular story, all the different imagery and allegory that you see here.
So so I I think the premillennial is
before a 1,000, post is after a 1,000. Dispensationalist
gets into, the there are certain dispensations
of the grace of God. And so you would say that that the dispensation
of grace ends at such and such time, in in
the scripture. And, so I hope that that kind of
explains broad broad broad view of these things that there's
they're very nuanced. Oh, yeah. But yeah.
Oh, and then there's one other there's one other area. So how
does this all relate to Israel? Because you you mentioned to me
to me before, and you're a you're a veteran of, of our armed
forces. And, you said something very interesting to me probably
about maybe about a year ago now in a conversation we were having.
And you said something that stuck with me. You said there were a lot of
dispensationalists in the state department during the time of the formation of Israel
between 19 what was it? 4749.
And they were the ones that pushed for the creation of Israel, which by the
way, Gary DeMar, I mentioned him now twice on this podcast. You should go listen
to his podcast, if you can find it
at American I mean, so I believe it's American vision dot org is where he
where he's at. Free plug for him. Gary needs all the help he can get.
By the way, after having been deplatformed by Doug Wilson, which is interesting to me.
But, anyway Because he went full predatorist. That's what happened.
I Gary Demar is amazing. And and Doug actually
cites Gary, in his book. It gives him, like Oh,
yeah. It's like, I love Gary Demar. Gary Gary Demar went full
predatorist. I'm just telling you. Don't go full predatorist. So Well, well, but the the
well, the the temptation is is to go hard in the other direction because so
many people are just like they just won't stop.
Say, I I how Lindsay
recently passed away, the late great planet earth guy. Right? Yes.
Yes. And I was telling telling somebody about this book, and
they didn't even know who Hal Lindsey was. And I said, oh, you know who
he is. You just don't know his name. Yes. That's
right. And this is the problem with bad ideas.
This is why I rail against Nietzsche and Nietzsche and philosophy.
The bad ideas of Nietzsche are so are buried
so deep in the subbasement of western thought Yep. That they are
never questioned or dug up or just
ex excised to the outer darkness. And the
ideas of how Lindsay have never been dug up and act well, not never.
Mhmm. The the excavation work that Gary Demar and a few others are doing
on the ideas of how Lindsay and Tim LeHaye
and the Jenkins fellow.
And by the way, I am not opposed to any of these folks on matters
of salvation. I think we're all gonna go to heaven. We're all gonna be walking
down those pearly gates. We all believe in Jesus as the son of God, and
it's gonna be it's gonna be really interesting showing up and figuring out what we
all gotta talk about. I think there's gonna be some vigorous communion going on at
the pearly gates, between us and MacArthur and
everybody else. I I think it's gonna be a surprise. Yeah. Yeah. I don't break
fellowship over this. I but I do think it is important because I
feel like I I to your point a minute ago, I I feel like the
reason this matters, it's not not for people going to heaven or not. I
feel like it affects the work that we do while we're here. Or the work
that we do in the earth. That we earn, honestly, or the the
yeah. Yeah. The yeah. That's right. So The work that we do here on earth.
So, so, anyway, the
the the state department. Right? The US state department and the creation of Israel.
One of the points that that Gary makes, and I agree with it, is
that a fully thought out
postmillennial or even well, not premillennial,
but millennial or millennial reign or ushering in the millennial reign
with the philosophy. The thing that it does is it
allows Christians the permission to
basically herd Jewish people into one geographic area
and allow them to be slaughtered because of what it says in the book of
revelations about, you know, people dying. If you
interpret the book of revelations through a Scofield bible lens, Scofield
bible lens plus dispensationalism means there's a
pogrom and or a massive holocaust that has to happen
because the Jews just refuse to be converted. And DeMar rails against this
all the time. And I don't see I have yet to see
a compelling argument in the opposite direction against how he is
interpreting that line of thinking. Mhmm. And one of
the things you said to me, like I said, was that there were a lot
of dispensationalists in the state department who basically pushed for
Israel's creation as a state. Now I think Israel would have been created as
a state anyway. I don't think that you get away with the
what happened after the Nuremberg trials without giving Israel a
state. And, yes, there's an argument that maybe maybe
man the man sure not the manchurian. Sorry. Maybe the Japanese should have
allowed the Chinese to create a larger state because of their war
crimes after World War 2. But, I mean or during World War
2, maybe the rape of Nanking, what whatever. You you can make those kinds of
arguments all over the place. Heck, you can make those kinds of arguments right now
for the war in the Ukraine with Russia.
But these ideas have political
consequences, and you and I have also
talked about this. Politics is always downstream from theology.
Revelations, is that gonna be trouble for people politically?
Well, I I I mean, we'll see how Providence
plays this out. But at the, at the end of the
day, if if you as
a dispensationalist, you believe that
Christ cannot come back cannot come
back until the the nation of Israel
has been reconstituted. Because there's all
of these the way that you're viewing the imagery
of the, of the text, you're
saying that, you know, that that the this 144,000,
that this is actually gonna be the next, the reconstituted Israel, and
it'll be this generation that has the, you know,
have all these things come to pass, and and then and then Christ
will return within that, time frame. I mean,
there was a book so the nation of Israel was constituted and
reconstituted in 1948. There the a
generation, a biblical generation is is 40 years is
considered 40 years. So I can remember, as a kid,
there was a book that came out, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will
Be in 1988. K? Now that,
that book didn't go over very well for obvious reasons,
But but there's this obsession
that, oh, the rapture is just right around the corner. Mhmm. And and so
well, now that that that didn't happen. So they said, oh, maybe it'll be when
the last living person, who who was alive
in 1948 will you know, before they die, then
that's when Christ will return. Right? Well, guys, I'm telling you, the clock's ticking. Okay?
I don't know I don't know when that person maybe they're gonna die in, you
know, 19 or 2052 or something. You know?
But but who knows when it'll be? But the the point of of
that is, that
that the understanding, right, that
that Israel has to be reconstituted before the coming the same coming of Christ,
that that's a very strong theological argument. And and
I again, I I'm not saying that that the the nation of
Israel should not have been reconstituted. I think it it should have, but
not for those reasons. Mhmm. And I think it I I think
that there were people who were making that call
who, were thinking in their minds, I'm
gonna usher in the return of Christ as if we're in control.
Right. As if we really we really are calling the shots on
this thing, and we really can make God do something or not do
something. Yeah. So, anyway, I just
I I believe it I believe it's an unfortunate trap that a lot
of Christians can find themselves in. And and the latest version of this is
the red heifer. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got oh, well, we've
gotta we've gotta bring about we gotta bring the red heifer back. Well,
okay, if you're a Christian, okay, if you believe that
Christ was the last sacrifice, if
you if you believe Revelation, which which says that the temple
of God is his people, not not the earthly
temple, but that you but that as believers, we
are the temple of god and the sacrifice,
is no longer required, then why on
earth would you want to rebuild
the temple and recreate
what would be considered an abomination, a a
a direct assault on what Christ did on the cross and what
was accomplished in 80, 70 when god said, no. It's not for
the Jews. It's for the whole world, or not only for the Jews. It's
not only for the Jews. It's for the whole world. And here we are,
coming full circle thinking, oh, we're gonna usher in the second
coming of Christ by recreating all these things that were destroyed. And
Right. It's just very shortsighted, I think. Well, and you and you get into
then you get into you talk about Islam already. We have not addressed Islam on
this podcast, and we will not do so today except
to say this. The Islam assists,
particularly the fundamentalist Muslims,
believe that there will be a 13th imam that will
show up at the location where the
current mosque is
where the old temple was
rasped to the ground by the Romans.
And they believe that the coming of such an
imam will
set off the conversion or death
of all the opponents of Allah,
including not just unbelievers who believe
in secular materialism, like gays for Gaza, you know,
those people. Yeah. But also people
like myself who believe in Jesus. Oh, and the Jews too
and the and the Buddhists and
the, the the the the yoga practitioners.
Anybody who doesn't believe in Allah and anybody who will
not convert or die well, no. Anybody who will not convert will die. That's
what the 13th imam will do. We'll eliminate all every single
last one of the unbelievers.
Yeah. So they're looking for
their own temple to be destroyed
for the ushering in of their own end of the world
scenario. And
this is what you get when you look at a book like the book of
revelations, whether it's in the context of, when the man comes around
by Douglas Wilson or the Scofield reference bible or
just through the lens of Brian and myself. What you finally
come to understand, and it's taken me years to kinda get to this understanding, what
you finally understand is that everybody, everybody, everybody has
their own theology. And from the secular material
atheist, all the way to the person who believes
in Allah and everything in between,
Everybody has their own version of an apocalypse. Everybody has their own
version of the end of all things where all people who
don't believe like me will be swept away, and I will
be, well, taken up to my paradisical
reward. The only difference is that Christianity
believes that the paradisical reward is here
and that we have to work for it here. If you
read the book of revelations closely, if you read the
Bible closely, the book of Genesis begins in a garden, but the book of revelations
ends in a city, a new heaven,
but also a new earth.
God, Jesus, and the holy spirit in a Christian
context cares very much
about the physical world.
We would do well to remember that
as believers in Jesus.
Alright. Yep. That's really good. And I one thing I just wanna add to that.
Like, I love how you stated that. You said, the paradisiacal
reward. Okay? And we're not talking about salvation.
Salvation is accomplished through Christ and his work.
But there are rewards that are given to the
faithful for what they do or or, or maybe
even fail to do as the case may be, with
the the time, talents, and treasures that god has given them.
And sometimes working those out,
requires combat and hard work and
conflict, and those things are frowned
upon in in many in most circles, I would say.
Well, we're a tiny circle here, me and Brian. So, part of the circle
here at the end of the year, we're gonna make the switch because we're gonna
close here today. We're gonna wrap up, this year.
So this is our last episode of 2024. We covered a lot of books this
year. We started off with, interestingly enough, the progressive Woodrow
Wilson, and we talked about his writings. And
so I I did this book ending on purpose. I wanted to end with the
book of revelations to kinda counterbalance what we did
there with Doug with, Doug Wilson, with Woodrow Wilson at the beginning of the year.
But in between, we also, finally got our arms around,
particularly with Brian Bagley. We got our arms around what the potential
geopolitical world could look like, coming up in the next generation
with The End of the World is Just the Beginning with Peter Zeehan and, The
Fourth Turning, a book that Brian turned me onto. We also
talked about later on in the year Huckleberry Finn and the need for
Mark Twain levels of comedy just to get us through the 4th turning
because god makes all kinds, including the comedians, because god
does laugh. God laughs for sure.
There's no possible way that I can you, lord, for laughing. There's no possible way
that I can laugh and you can laugh and god doesn't laugh. There's just no
possible way that that doesn't happen. Like, a you know,
like, you never really hear Jesus about Jesus laughing in the new testament. Like, they
don't really record that because they weren't really looking for that. But you have to
think that at a certain point, you would've just cracked up at something that went
to the scribes and Pharisees would've said before he would've, like,
responded anyway. So I know if I'm given the power to laugh, it has to
come from somewhere.
We also covered, with, with with Libby Unger and several
other special guests, and Brian recorded a piece for that. Our
100th episode, our 100th episode in regular numbering this year, which is
kind of an amazing, touchpoint. Most podcasts
90% of podcasts never get past 100 episodes.
Once you get past that, then you're into elite territory regardless of the number of
downloads you have. And we're now entering into such
territory, and you will begin to see some changes around here,
going into 2025 with the podcast, with the show, not
not necessarily with our content, but with some of the directions and the setup that
we've got. Interesting things started happening after episode number
100. We covered lessons from
leadership by rabbi Jonathan Sacks. We talked with Richard Messing, about
that, because I do believe that my Jewish brothers and sisters have a lot to
say about a lot of things, and we are going to do more of that
next year, including leadership.
And, of course, we covered a wide variety of different books, all the way from
the oral history of Sitting Bull, by his great great grandson,
Ernie Lapointe. We covered that with Tom Libby. All the way to,
fathers and sons, by Turgenev and the master of the
margarita, by Bulgakov, a couple of Russian writers who we had
never touched on before. And, of course, we covered sci fi. We finally
talked about Philip k Dick and, Isaac Asimov,
and, the power of books. Right? Asimov
and, Asimov and Ray Bradbury would love this
podcast. I think they'd be all over this sucker because it's
worthwhile. So that's the end of our year.
That's our wrap up, sort of our summary of books we covered and of topics.
Brian, what would you like for us to take away? You've been
on this podcast now 3 or 4 times this year, making and you're gonna
be on the podcast more. I I sent you the email yesterday with a list
of books for next year. You're gonna look through that and poke through that and
tell them what you're There's some good ones on there. There's some gems. I'll tell
you what too. There's some there's some gems on there. Gonna tell you what you're
interested in. So, as as you approach becoming a semiregular
guest here, give us some final parting thoughts with the last
maybe couple of minutes we have on, what we should have taken from this year
for the books we read and what we should be looking forward to in 2025
in in your opinion as we close here? Yeah. Well,
I I think, we have to understand that leadership
is in great need. It's in short
supply, and and it's a tremendous need for it. But leadership
requires people who are thinking, people who
are, applying wisdom to
their lives and seeking seeking wisdom where it may be found. You
know, I I will say this. There's a lot of people who
are smarter than me on a lot of different things.
But I was going through this, with with my kids
the other day. We were reading through the old testament Proverbs,
and, it says that the the the fear of the lord is
the beginning of wisdom. And as we are reading through,
you know, Revelation and, that, you know, particularly towards the end of
the the judgment the the idea of judgment and,
you know, that Christ is the one who holds the keys to judgment.
He holds the keys to hell in Hades. He's the one who is on the
throne conducting, you know, the the
judgments. He's the one dishing out justice. That if we wanna
be leaders of character, leaders who are impactful, right, we
need to be leaders who are humble enough to fear
God and trust him. And so, so I think, you know, as as
we we've covered a lot of different you've covered a lot of different topics.
I've been here for a handful of them. But but,
as as we, you know, I would just encourage your listeners
to, to continue to, to grow. You've you've never
arrived as a leader. You've never, you know, been to the gym
enough times. Like like, if you wanna maintain the strength
that you have, you've gotta continue to go to the gym. You've gotta
continue to to work at it. I would say leadership is the same thing. You've
you've got to the pursuit of wisdom, the pursuit of the the the
qualities that make a good leader require effort and diligence.
So I'll just encourage your your your readers or your listeners in the new in
the new year to continue on their journey.
I think that's great encouragement. I'm going to take it.
And I'm going to say, for the last time in 2024,
thank you for listening to the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books
podcast. And with that, well,
we're out.
