Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, podcast theologians. It's Pastor Wolfmuller and it is July 22nd, year of our Lord, 2025, Tuesday after my grandson's baptism. God be praised for that.
[00:00:14] Wonderful. We got some questions. Let's see what we got here. Get some questions answered before the day gets away from us. Rob writes topic current events. Hi, Pastor Wolfmuller. I'm practicing Lutheran lcms. I'm struggling with the state of affairs in our nation. While I understand the admonition from St. Paul that government is ordained by God and therefore we should be peace, peaceful citizens, what are we to do when faced with a government for whom cruelty seems to be the point? I'm speaking of the inhumane treatment that the US Government is bringing to bear on immigrants especially, as well as the horrendous assault on the poor and the needy. Consider the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. That was a man.
[00:00:52] Kilmar was a man who was deported, wrongly brought back, et cetera. My question is, Rob talks a little bit about that case. Let's see.
[00:01:00] It's clear to me the regime in Washington is willing to lie through their teeth to produce criminal charges.
[00:01:05] My question is this. What am I to do? My conscience is practically screaming that this is all wrong and that this Congress is on the precipice of passing legislation that takes food from children, insurance from the sick. It gives it all to the less than the hundred or to the thousand billionaires in the form of massive tax breaks. It's utterly wrong. I also know that Christ lived under a horribly brutal empire. He doesn't say much about it. But I genuinely fear being one of those goats on the day when he returns, because I didn't speak up or do something.
[00:01:35] Not something to scream into a vacuum, but something tangible like advocacy or something more than just disagreeing. We often ask ourselves what we would have done in early to mid-1930s Germany. It feels like we answer that with our daily routine. Right now, I'm not trying to start a revolution. I just want to do what Christ commanded. Thank you, Rob.
[00:01:56] Rob, I think I really appreciate this question.
[00:01:59] It's what's really interesting. Well, there's a lot of interesting things to think about here, but let's start first with the institution of government, which, so Paul writes in Romans 13.
[00:02:10] This is verses 1 to 4. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring Judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil.
[00:02:30] Now, that's the assumption that in fact, when Paul writes this, he's writing to the church, to the Christians in Rome who were under the emperor Nero, which is amazing to imagine Nero, who would end up commanding Paul's head to be cut off and Peter to be crucified, which he's crucified upside down, and all the thousands of Christians that are martyred under Nero. That's the one that he's talking about now, that little line. Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil.
[00:03:01] He is indicating what the rulers should do, that the rulers should be a terror to good and not to evil. And if the rulers are a terror to the good, then they are forsaking the calling that God himself has given them, and they'll be under God's judgment. It's one of the things that I think this is so important for us to remember that one of the great dangers of all atheistic political philosophies is that they deny the judge over the one who rules. This is why it's so important for us to. I mean, one of the minor reasons, but it's so important for us to confess that Christ is king and ruler so that all those who rule know that they are also under authority. Every single person is under authority. There's no one who simply has authority and is not under authority.
[00:03:55] Paul goes on, and he continues, do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good and you will have praise for the same.
[00:04:02] For he's God's minister for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. He's God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil so that the Lord has instituted government. And I think, Rob, it might be helpful for us to remember how the Lutherans derived from this text and from many others the doctrine of the three estates.
[00:04:28] So the three estates, and I'd say the best place. I'll try to put this in the notes for this Q and A. The best place where I have a collection of kind of quotes from Luther on the three estates. And I think this is where we want to ground our political thinking, where we want to go and say, okay, what belongs to the state and what belongs to the family and what belongs to the church.
[00:05:01] And this is going to be a really important distinction, especially in our day, because the danger.
[00:05:09] And Rob, also, I want to bring a little, maybe not a criticism, but I want to give you something to think about.
[00:05:16] One of the things, one of the things that's happened in modernity, in our, quote, secular society, is that the estate of the family and the estate of the church are not considered essential.
[00:05:33] And when you deny the essential nature of the family and the essential nature of the church, then the only estate that you really have left is the state.
[00:05:45] Now this has to do a lot with questions about, well, with questions about borders, with questions about aid, with questions about support, etc. Etc.
[00:06:01] When we look at the Scriptures, we understand that the main role of the state is to, well, it's a funny way to say it, but is to bring death to avoid bigger death.
[00:06:17] In other words, that's why the state bears the sword.
[00:06:21] So the state has the authority to wage war and to punish people for doing wrong. That's bringing about a little death for the sake of avoiding death going everywhere.
[00:06:35] So the example that Luther will give is a surgeon who cuts off a limb in order to prevent the whole body from dying from gangrene or something like that. Now the hand that has gangrene looks at the surgeon and the saw with great trepidation. This is not good for me at all. But the rest of the body, even though this is a painful act, is thankful that the dying part is removed so that life can continue. This is waging war, this is the courts, this is locking people up, etc. Etc. This is the job of the state, little death to avoid the death of everything.
[00:07:14] But it is the church that is instituted by God to bring life eternal and the family that's instituted to support life temporal and life eternal as well. And I, I'm reading in your concern for the state of our politics, a little confusion about the various different roles.
[00:07:36] I think that as Christians, part of our complaint to the government now should be, hey, that's our job.
[00:07:44] The family should cry out, hey, that's our job. And that the government takes up this role in, in supporting people and all this other stuff, in taking care of people.
[00:07:58] That, that is a usurpation of the office that the Lord has given to the family and to the church.
[00:08:06] Now you mentioned the question of borders, the question of insurance, the question of caring, giving food to children, etc, etc.
[00:08:15] I don't want to litigate the kind of righteousness or unrighteousness of all these things.
[00:08:21] It's true that whoever is ruling is a sinner and they are going to make mistakes.
[00:08:31] But I want to understand the complaints in terms of the three estates.
[00:08:37] Now, what do you do, though? And this is back to the basic question. Putting aside the political disagreements, what do you do when you see injustice happening? When the Lord is let, you see something as completely wrong and evil?
[00:08:56] What do you do? We start with prayer. And this. You know, we often say this as if it's like it doesn't matter, but we want to remember that our prayers are the thing that matters most.
[00:09:10] Our prayers are.
[00:09:15] Our prayers are actually the reason.
[00:09:18] Well, when you look in the Bible and you see any of God's saving acts, you see that they're in response to our Christian prayers.
[00:09:26] And so there's Luther. And I remember Dr. Kleinig said this one time, he said, the most significant work that I've done in my entire ministry was the work of prayer.
[00:09:37] So we can pray.
[00:09:39] And then we also have the great gift of freedom of speech in the United States so that we can try to go and persuade people to see things our way. This is great and important.
[00:09:51] We also have the privilege of, in fact, being able to even reach out to those who rule and govern, especially the Congress. Those are the most accessible and those who are working in the state. So that's good. I encourage you to.
[00:10:05] I would encourage you to do that and to reach out to those folks as well.
[00:10:09] I don't think that we should understand ourselves to be in a Nazi regime. In fact, I maybe would give you one more piece of advice. I noticed this.
[00:10:21] I borrowed my mom's truck, and she gets satellite radio. And so it has all the news channels on there. It's got Fox News and MSNBC and everything else. And we had a pretty long road trip last week. And I was listening to. Going back and Forth. I was listening to a little bit of Fox, and I was listening to a little bit of a. I think it was. I think it was msnbc. It was on there. And I told Kerry as we were driving, I said, I can't listen to any news anymore except for the world and everything in it. I don't know if you.
[00:10:51] It's so.
[00:10:53] It seems like all of the stations that are there are.
[00:10:59] So it's not just. They're not just pushing an agenda, but. But they are.
[00:11:08] It's like the whole thing is to get me worked up into a frenzy. And so I would. This is a practical piece of advice, Rob, but I'd encourage you to go and listen to the world and everything in it, which is a news from a Christian worldview. It's an evangelical kind of organization, but they're putting out the news and I noticed that when I'm getting the news that way, it's very, very helpful because it's.
[00:11:32] They're working on being as balanced as they possibly can be, but their goal is not to get people worked up and agitated.
[00:11:43] I think that might be helpful. Okay, thanks for the question. Here's the next one. Let's see what's here.
[00:11:48] Matthew writes about inviting people to church. Here's the question. What is the best way to invite someone to church?
[00:11:57] That's great question and a good strategic question for us to think about.
[00:12:02] Here's something for pastors and for all of us, I suppose, to think about is that we want our churches to be places where we want to invite our friends.
[00:12:13] And if there's a hesitancy to invite people to church, it's a good thing for the pastor and the elders and for the council and church to think about, hey, what is the thing that makes us hesitant to invite people? Are we embarrassed about the color of the carpet? Are we ashamed of what's happening with the, you know, the sound of the microphones or you know what, the smell that's in the ladies bathroom or whatever, that's probably the wrong thing. The smell in the men's bathroom, that would be the problem. Or whatever thing that's there that we're like, I'm not sure I want to invite people. We should just work on that and fix it so that the goal of the council, trustees, etc. Can be. We want to have a place, just a place itself. The physical. We look at our physical plant and then the people and then the preaching and the worship. We want this to be a place where we want to invite our friends.
[00:13:08] That's a really good goal. So one of the nice ways to start is my church, an invitable church. I remember one time, Carrie and I, when we were wandering around kind of, we'd left evangelicalism, but we didn't know where we were going to land.
[00:13:23] And we were visiting all these different churches trying to figure out the theology.
[00:13:29] One of the things that occurred to us is we have to find a church so that we can invite people to come with us.
[00:13:36] If we didn't know that this church we were going to was going to teach the truth and that they were going to clearly proclaim Christ, then what are we doing there?
[00:13:47] So one of the questions that we can ask, am I in the right church? Is am I comfortable inviting my friends here? Okay, so with that assumed that we are going to a church that we want to invite our friends to what's the best way to do it? I think it's, again, we're starting with prayer, and we can pray very specifically for people and for opportunities. I don't know if you do this, but I would commend this to you.
[00:14:12] So I would say, lord, please open up a door, a window, a little opportunity for me to talk to my friend Jeff or whoever, to talk to my friend Jeff about your grace, about your mercy, to invite him to church, make him willing to come.
[00:14:29] And so you're praying specifically for the people that you'd like to invite, and for an opportunity for that to come up in conversation or whatever. A lot of times, then people will show some sort of curiosity. If you're talking about spiritual things, say, hey, why don't you come to church with me?
[00:14:46] And especially if there's something coming up, like if Christmas is coming up, or Advent or there's a special festivity, Reformation Day, resurrection, Holy Week, etc. Hey, you know, we got a special service coming up. That'd be really good. Or what do you do after church? Say, hey, if you come with me, I'll take you out to lunch. I think that's one of the best things to do is when you're inviting friends to church, is to offer to take them out of church afterward and so you can talk about it and buy their lunch and discuss it with them. Of course, it depends on the person, the relationship, et cetera, et cetera, but this is how we're always looking for that. And I think, you know, what happens when we're praying, when we're praying for those opportunities, then it also kind of keeps an awareness there in front of our minds, so that when that door does open, then we know we're ready to step through it. I think that's one of the things that Jesus is teaching us when he says, pray that the Lord would send workers into the harvest. And then he sends them into the harvest, but they're prepared for that work by praying for others.
[00:15:59] So that's really great.
[00:16:01] A couple practical tips, John 1:46 is when Nathanael comes to Philip, or, sorry, when Philip goes to Nathanael and says, we found the one promised by the prophets. And Nathanael says, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And Philip says to him, come and see.
[00:16:21] That's really the idea.
[00:16:23] Come and see. This is. We say, come and see. Come and hear the gospel. Come and rejoice in the word of God. And theologically, remember, we confess that we have the free will to go to church.
[00:16:34] We have the Free will to listen to the Scriptures, just not to believe them.
[00:16:42] Here's a question from Paris. Who asks about Lucifer. This is a short and sweet question. Another one. Why doesn't the Devil get tired of being evil?
[00:16:54] It takes a lot of energy for me to stay angry and bitter. Is he damned to stay evil?
[00:17:00] This is a really interesting question. I remember.
[00:17:05] Well, this is a version of this question. I remember someone was asking. I was hanging around at a pastor's conference. Someone was asking Pastor Graff when he was talking about how the Devil underdoes his own kingdom by the assault of Christ, by.
[00:17:25] By leading Judas to betray Jesus, and by inspiring the crucifixion of Jesus, the devil undoes his own. Because the death of Jesus is the destruction of the devil. So why does the Devil do it?
[00:17:38] Is he ignorant that the cross is the Lord's plan and so he's tricked or what?
[00:17:48] And Pastor Graff, this is interesting.
[00:17:52] He answered by referring to an old Buckley, William F. Buckley story on Meet the Press or something like that, when he was telling a story about sailing around the world by himself. He was on a solo sailing trip and he got caught in the doldrums where the boat doesn't go anywhere. It just sits there, just creepy.
[00:18:10] And he was swimming in the ocean out in the middle of nowhere. You can imagine that there's no land inside. It's just water everywhere, and it's like glass. And you're swimming around and you can see into the water, so you can see the fish, you can see the sharks.
[00:18:25] There you are swimming.
[00:18:27] And then the person who was interviewing said, well, weren't you afraid? What would you do if a shark came and attacked you?
[00:18:34] And William F. Buckley says, well, nothing. A shark is going to shark.
[00:18:38] Some answer like that. And this impressed Graff as an explanation of why the Devil does what he does. The Devil's going to Devil. He's a murderer and a liar and a destroyer. And he's just going to do his lying, killing, destroying work wherever he possibly can.
[00:18:59] He is, by his rebellion against God, set himself in rebellion against everything that is good and holy and righteous and wonderful and beautiful and blessed.
[00:19:12] And so the Devil is not.
[00:19:15] It's not even just that he's doing evil, but that he is.
[00:19:22] I suppose it's what it means to be cursed. But he has no access to that which is good and holy and right.
[00:19:31] He willingly gave up all that is good and holy and godly in his act of rebellion. And so he's locked in to his evil, even eternally which is pretty amazing.
[00:19:47] Now, the Bible doesn't tell us much about the creation of the devil and the other angels. We remember that we know that the Lord created all the angels, all holy, all at once.
[00:20:02] That because of the very nature of the spirits, their rebellion was a singular thing.
[00:20:07] And this has to do with how the angels themselves are spirits.
[00:20:11] So there was one moment where the angels had this choice to move toward God or away, and that the devil, with a third of the angels, maybe those under his authority, moved away from God.
[00:20:27] The closest text that we have to describe it is in Paul's letter to Timothy.
[00:20:34] The verses 1st Timothy 3. Let's see.
[00:20:40] Let's start. In verse 5, Paul writes, For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Not being a novice, talking about this bishop, not being a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
[00:21:00] Now that little line is really the clearest text in the scripture about what happened to the devil. He was lifted up with pride and then was condemned. And there's two texts that are often taken to be descriptions of the fall of the devil. Isaiah 14:12, 15, Ezekiel 28:12 to 12 and following. And I think that's really.
[00:21:29] Those should be understood not as descriptions of the devil's fall, but rather I want to take those as using the language that would have described the devil's fall and applying them to the kings that are being railed against because they also were lifting themselves up with pride and therefore ready for the.
[00:21:49] For God's casting them down and for the troubles that would follow.
[00:21:54] So that's what. So the devil was lifted up with pride and then, and then fell. There it goes. So, Parrish, I hope that that helps you, although it's tough because I mean, I, you know, the devil's gonna Devil. That's the, that's the idea.
[00:22:12] Jeffrey WRITES Litigation AGAINST Non Christians hello, Pastor. I've been facing some long running issues at work from a workplace injury where my employers acted in a negligent manner toward my safety and recovery. From a Christian point of view, is litigation an appropriate course of action?
[00:22:34] Ideally, we should be able to deal with such matters in the spirit of brotherly love. But I have two troubling motivations. First, I want to set a perceived wrong against me right, which I can overcome at times and find forgiveness in my heart, but it never lasts. It also fuels my second motivation, which is to discourage the employer from treating anyone else poorly. Any theological advice on this would Be appreciated. Thanks for your work. Best for the future. This is very. Okay. There's a lot going on here. And the first thing is that I want to encourage you to talk to your pastor about this, because one of the dangers. Whenever we are sinned against and harmed and injustice happens against us, there's an instinct to make it right.
[00:23:18] And part of the thing connected to that, and that's not wrong.
[00:23:22] We should want things to be just and right.
[00:23:25] And particularly when we or people that we love are the victims of a particular injustice, then we're motivated. More like we're much more motivated.
[00:23:33] I guess it depends on the person. But I'm much more motivated to try to right a wrong done to me than I am to try to right a wrong that's done to my neighbor. And the farther away that neighbor is, the less motivated I am.
[00:23:47] So we are specifically motivated when someone that we love or when we ourselves have been hurt. And that kind of desire for justice wells up in us. Now, the important thing to know is that there is no peace in justice.
[00:24:05] Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue justice, but we should know why we're pursuing it. We're trying to pursue justice for its own sake because it's good and the Lord has commanded it, not for attaining some sort of peace or wholeness or completeness ourselves. I remember at some point when this came so clear to me was. I was watching a. I don't know, it was one of these court shows where, oh, someone's like, there's a girl who was murdered and the killer was given a life sentence. And they were interviewing the family after the court case. This family had been trying to fight for this death sentence or life in prison.
[00:24:51] Maybe it was a death penalty. They were fighting for the death penalty. And they got it, something like that.
[00:24:56] And they come out of the court and they're being interviewed, and the first thing the dad says is, we're happy for this decision, but it can't bring our daughter back.
[00:25:06] And that's really important for us to remember as we pursue justice.
[00:25:12] It's not to give us peace.
[00:25:16] It's not to give us a good conscience. You can't get a good conscience that way.
[00:25:23] So when Jesus gives us the fourfold instructions for how to treat our enemies, to.
[00:25:27] To love them, to serve them, to pray for them, to bless them.
[00:25:35] This is the way of peace.
[00:25:37] That's how the Lord wants us to attain peace, both in our lives and our consciences and our hearts.
[00:25:44] Not by justice, but by mercy. Now, again, when we're acting with mercy and forgiveness, it doesn't mean we can't also pursue justice, especially for the sake of the neighborhood.
[00:25:54] But here's where things get particularly difficult.
[00:25:59] And that is, as long as I'm the one pursuing justice, for me, it's very difficult to have anger expressed rightly.
[00:26:09] Now, here I want to make a distinction between person and office when it comes to anger.
[00:26:16] Because there's anger that's godly and good, and there's anger that's sinful and bad.
[00:26:23] And I think the best way to start sorting out that question is to say, does the anger belong to me as a person, or does the anger belong to me in my office?
[00:26:36] So when a judge, for example, when a judge in court sentences someone to life in prison, that's an act of anger. Now, they're not emotionally upset. I mean, maybe they are, but that doesn't necessarily matter.
[00:26:51] They are in their office executing anger on the person who has offended and broken the law and committed this crime and done these offensive things. The same thing is true with a soldier who goes to battle and fights against the enemy and maybe wounds or even kills them.
[00:27:14] That's an act of anger. It wasn't personal anger. It was anger, according to the office.
[00:27:20] The same thing with a parent. When the parent is disciplining, the parent doesn't have to have emotional anger. In fact, probably the less emotional anger, that would be anger of person that I personally am offended.
[00:27:33] That's not why the parent is disciplining the child. They have an office of anger, an office of executing wrath or anger against a certain crime.
[00:27:44] But here's where you can see it getting mixed up. Is the parent acting out of personal animosity or frustration because they themselves have been offended. And now they're doing this act of anger on the child because they're offended. Or are they doing it out of their office?
[00:28:01] And the anger that God requires is an anger of office, not an anger of person.
[00:28:06] I'm not authorized personally to execute vengeance on someone. In fact, the Lord says this so clearly in Deuteronomy 32. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. And Paul takes that and expands on it at the end of Romans where he says, don't avenge yourselves. This is Romans 12:19.
[00:28:25] Do not avenge yourselves, but give place for wrath.
[00:28:30] For it's written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. That's the Deuteronomy 32 passage.
[00:28:37] So that we're not called to an anger of person.
[00:28:40] We're called to hand the anger over to the People who have it in the office.
[00:28:44] And in that way, anger can be expressed in a godly way.
[00:28:48] So when we've been unrighteously treated, then we have to hand that injustice over to the people who can handle it, who are called to it and have the office. Which is why the courts are especially helpful in this way. Litigation against non Christians. So we can say to a lawyer, we can say to the courts, hey, this injustice has happened to me and now I'm handing it over to you to take care of it. And my job now my personal job is to show mercy and forgiveness.
[00:29:23] Your job is to be angry at the person who sinned against me, and especially for the sake of the neighbor. Because if we let, and this has to do with turning the other cheek, we have to be very, very, very careful about how we apply these verses. Because what Jesus does not say is that we should just let crime be crime and to hand ourselves over to all sorts of crime. That's not the instruction that Jesus is giving.
[00:29:53] The instruction that Jesus is giving there is. Look, especially in the case of the government bringing injustice to you because you're a Christian, you endure it. That's what Jesus did. But if some thug brings evil to you because they're evil, then we fight against that for the sake of the neighbor so that that evil and wickedness doesn't spread everywhere.
[00:30:18] So Paul will give us specific examples about Christians not bringing other Christians to court.
[00:30:23] And he says, settle it yourselves. Don't you know you're going to have to judge the angels? Can't you sort these things out?
[00:30:28] But if someone refuses to be under the authority of the word of God and the church, then we have this sad recourse to the state which bears the sword and not in vain.
[00:30:43] So that we try to reconcile first one on one second with a group. And if that doesn't work, then we have the whole church. And in fact we have all these institutions that the Lord has put in place that are available again for the sake of justice, not for the sake of peace, but for the sake of justice.
[00:31:03] So I hope, Jeff, that that is helpful for you in your thinking. All right, let's do one more.
[00:31:10] Let's see. Christopher asks about eschatology if. Oh, this will be fun. If you read Revelation 20 specifically verse 7, it says that Satan is released from his prison when the thousand years are completed. Does this jive with amillennial theology that says that Christ comes when the thousand years are completed?
[00:31:29] How can a thousand years be completed with Christ coming when at the same time Satan's supposed to have a little season after those years, however many they may be, have come to an end. Do we somehow blur the word after to actually mean when the years are coming to an end? I'm thinking it's probably resolved in the linguistics somehow, but I need help. Okay, let's take a half step back and look at the different ways that this verse is interpreted. And then I'll give you some thoughts on it. So Christopher mentioned amillennialism. I think that, I think that actually it's not just amillennialism, but amillennialism is going to actually have the least problems with your question. But let's talk about amillennialism, premillennialism, and post millennialism. These are three ways of talking about the return of Christ, the three major ways, and they all have to do with the millennium. And that's the 1,000 years, Milli thousand annum years.
[00:32:29] That's the Latin chileasm is the Greek kilios means a thousand.
[00:32:34] That's listed six times in Revelation 20 where it talks about the thousand years, which is begun by the angel with a great chain binding the devil and throwing him in the abyss.
[00:32:44] And then the thousand year ends when the devil comes out for a little while and rages before Jesus comes back and destroys him.
[00:32:52] Now the major question is, I mean, I suppose the major question is how do we understand those thousand years? But then the second major question or minor question is how do we put the return of Jesus in relationship to the thousand years?
[00:33:08] So the one that's maybe the most popular or the most loud is called premillennialism. This is what all the radio preachers are talking about.
[00:33:17] This was wildly popular in evangelicalism back in the 90s and early 2000s.
[00:33:23] I don't see the evangelicals talking, talking about this anymore.
[00:33:27] In fact, strangely enough, it used to drive me crazy that you had all these end time prophecy buffs. I mean, I was deep into it.
[00:33:36] All the Hal Lindsay stuff and the late great planet Earth, and that was the 70s, 80s, 90s used to drive me crazy back then when I was coming out of evangelicalism. But now it's a strange shift. I kind of remember those guys with affection because at least they were paying careful attention to the Bible and trying to figure things out. You kind of miss them. I'm somewhat nostalgic about it, but they were all pre millennial. That means that they believed that Jesus was going to return and set up the 1000 year reign.
[00:34:07] And different guys had different ways of talking about it. There's the more historic premillennial view, which just basically says, we got the church. And then Jesus comes back and he sets up a thousand year reign.
[00:34:18] And then at the end of that, I don't know, after a thousand years exactly, or toward the end, I don't know how they would take the word after here. Then the devil kind of breaks out of prison, leads a rebellion that leads to the Great War of Armageddon, and then the devil's destroyed. And then comes the very end, the great White Throne judgment, the dividing of the sheep and the goats and the new heaven and the new earth. That's pre millennialism. Now post millennialism, which was popular, I don't know, 120 years ago before, before World War I, and seems to be popular again, especially with Christian nationalists and some of the Reformed camps. This is the idea that through the preaching of the gospel and through the cultivation of Christian virtue and the word of God having its effect in the world, the world will reach a point where we enter into a golden age.
[00:35:09] And that's the millennium, the thousand years where Christ is ruling, maybe not physically on earth, he's still in heaven, but through the church on earth.
[00:35:18] There's a post millennialism, especially in the reform camp. R.C. sproul, crazy before he died, he was really coming on hard as a post millennialist. And I think even though Catholicism says that it's amillennial, it has a real kind of post millennial sense to it that we're going to fix things up in the world so that we enter into this thousand years, understood either literally or figuratively, this golden age, but then at the end of it, everything's going to crumble. And then Jesus comes back. Post millennial, there's also amillennial, which is from St. Augustine, really been the view of most of the Western church, including the Lutherans. And amillennial is kind of a, I don't know, it's kind of an insult. It means you don't believe in the millennium. Of course we believe in the millennium, but we believe that this description of the 1000 years in Revelation chapter 20 is not to be understood chronologically, but theologically.
[00:36:13] And we say, okay, it starts whenever the devil is bound.
[00:36:18] And so we ask, well, are there other passages that talk about the binding of the devil? And we see, yeah, Jesus told the parable about it three times. The strong man who's bound by the stronger man.
[00:36:28] And that was in the context of his ministry. Jesus says, when the disciples come back preaching the gospel I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
[00:36:37] Or John says in one John, for this reason the Son of God was manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil. Or my favorite on this is Hebrews 2:14, 15, that just as the children partake of flesh and blood, so he partook of the same, so that through his death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil.
[00:36:59] So that through Jesus death he destroyed the devil. That's what Hebrews 2:14 says.
[00:37:04] So that the thousand years begins at the death of Jesus and it ends with this chaos of the last days right before Jesus comes back.
[00:37:13] Now the great thing, wonderful thing, is that every single Christian in every single era has thought that they are living in the little season that marks the end of the millennium.
[00:37:30] Luther thought it, Basil thought it, Aquinas thought it, Walter thought it. We think it, and it's right. That's what we should think. In other words, no one knows the day or the hour in which the Lord is returning. And that means that the thousand years cannot be a chronology of a thousand years, because then you would know the day or the time.
[00:37:56] But rather the thousand years is the description of the complete time of God's patience from the ascension of Jesus to his return. I think this is why the three places that the thousand years that that time period is used in the Bible is Psalm 90 and 2 Peter and Revelation 20. And in Psalm 90, this great Psalm of Moses, the only psalm of Moses, he uses a thousand years to describe God's eternity compared to man's mortality. And I think Moses is riffing on the age of Methuselah. By the way, this is my own theory, is that in Psalm 90, when it says a thousand years are like a watch in the night, it's saying that the thousand, which is no man, even the longest living man lived only the969 years. He couldn't make a thousand, but a thousand years. For the Lord is like a watching the night. It's like a few hours.
[00:38:52] And Peter takes that and he poetically quotes it. A day is like a thousand years. A thousand years like a day.
[00:38:58] And he uses that to describe the time of the Lord's patience between the ascension of Jesus and second coming.
[00:39:09] I'll read you the text, second Peter, chapter three. Let's see, verse three. Knowing first of all that there shall come in the last days. Scoffers walking to their own lust. This is the last days. Saying, when is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. So that one of the marks of the scoffers is they say, well, today is just like yesterday, and yesterday is just like the day before, so tomorrow will be just like today.
[00:39:40] And that happened in Noah's day. It happens in our day. The second coming is denied and ignored.
[00:39:46] They're willingly ignorant that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water, and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished.
[00:39:58] So Peter says, they're forgetting two things. Number one, God created the world one in one speaking, all things were and then day one light, day two dividing. Etc. Etc. That the word of the Lord can change things, and that the Lord created the world, pulled the world out of water, but then undid that, so that in the days of Noah the world was flooded, just like this.
[00:40:26] Verse 7. But the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
[00:40:36] So just like the world was pulled out of the water, and stayed out of the water until the Lord decided not in Noah's day. So the world is being held out of the fire by the Word of God, but as soon as that word, all things are into the fire.
[00:40:55] Verse 8. But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
[00:41:04] The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness. But. But is long suffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
[00:41:16] But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the element shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also shall and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
[00:41:31] So that Peter says, look, it's going to the last days on the way, and in a moment it'll be here. But the Lord is patient and long suffering. Why? He doesn't want people to perish.
[00:41:46] He wants them to have everlasting life.
[00:41:52] So he's patient, waiting for that last day. And how does he describe that patience of the Lord for the last day?
[00:41:59] Well, in the language of Psalm 90, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.
[00:42:05] See, So I think that when we get to the thousand years in Revelation, we say, okay, well, a thousand years. What's that talking about? Well, that's talking about God's patient, God's merciful patience waiting for the last day so that more and more will be saved and come to the knowledge of Christ.
[00:42:25] So then how does the. How does the after refer in the.
[00:42:30] In Revelation 20, back to Christopher's question.
[00:42:35] Is it because we're not understanding this thousand years to be a literal chronological description, but rather a description of God's patience and his mercy? Then we understand the after also in the same way. In other words, the last days before the end of the world are marked by this chaos.
[00:42:55] And the book of Revelation describes it not as seven years, but as three and a half years. And so we look at that and understand that the Lord is contrasting the thousand years with the three and a half years. And in some really wonderful way we should understand this as a theological reality that we are living in both, that we are right now in the little season of Satan where he's raging like a roaring lion, and we are right now ruling and reigning with Christ participants already by baptism in the first resurrection.
[00:43:32] And that both of these are true, that we're harried and persecuted and troubled and afflicted by all these terrible things in this life. And also that we have all the gifts of heaven already living forever, already seated with Christ in the heavenly places, and that the Christian life is both of these all mixed up together, the three and a half years and the 1,000 years, all at the same time. But like Paul says, the troubles are not worthy with being compared. The three and a half years is not worthy to be compared to the thousand years.
[00:44:07] The troubles of this life are not the three and a half years is the troubles of this life. They don't even stand up. They don't even make a dent to the thousand years of glory that the Lord has given to us.
[00:44:18] I think that's how I take it. Christopher.
[00:44:21] All right, good questions today. Let's see how many we got to 1, 2, 3, 5 questions. Thank you, Rob, Matthew, Paris, Jeff and Jeffrey and Christopher for the questions. If you have questions. Wolfmile co Contact. I think this contact form is still working. I got 234.
[00:44:37] Is that right? 134 sitting here waiting to be answered.
[00:44:41] I don't know. You guys might have to. If you're putting questions in now, you might have to wait for a while. Look at all these questions. Questions. Oh boy. So keep them coming, though. It's great.
[00:44:51] And we'll try to keep doing this every week. Thanks again for the questions. And Lord willing, we'll talk to you soon. God's peace be with you.
