Sorry Not Sorry

If modern evangelicalism were a basketball team, we could be compared to the 2023-2024 Detroit Pistons. In the former days, circa the late 1980s, the Pistons were a dominant team, winning back-to-back titles, pulverizing almost everyone that stood in their path, and becoming a team that was well acquainted with victory. Yet, regardless of such a glorious past, the current iteration of the Detroit Pistons is both laughable and pathetic. Instead of the courage and physicality that defined Isaiah Thomas or the killer instinct of Bill Lamphere, this year’s Pistons were weak, they were cowardly, and they did everything within their power to tank their season. By tanking a season, I mean they believed that if they could lose enough games, a hero would get drafted in the next NBA draft, and that hero would come and rescue them. I can think of no better comparison to modern-day evanjellyfish Christianity.

Although having a past and a legacy littered with tremendous victories, infinitely more glorious than the 1980s Pistons, much of today’s evangelical Church has become toothless, passive, and seemingly content to simply tread water while awaiting a Deliverer to come and rescue us from our own impotence and incompetence. Rather than boldly advancing the Gospel with the fervor and tenacity that defined giants of the faith like Martin Luther, John Calvin, or the Puritans, many modern evangelicals have adopted an attitude of spiritual pacifism, more concerned with tanking our legacy than with building a dynasty that will last forever. And in the same way, no one admires a dejected team with a penchant for losing; no one admires a pathetic Christian religion with a loser’s mentality. This is one area where the Church of Jesus Christ needs desperately to repent.

Now, by repentance, I am not just talking about individual Christians who believe everything is going to hell in a handbasket and have adopted a posture of trembling ostriches within their culture. Sure, they need to repent and grow a spine. But, I lay the majority of the blame, instead, at the feet of pastors and seminaries, who preach such rank eschatological escapism that the laborers have left the fields. I blame pastors and seminaries who publish books, put on conferences, and teach sermon series peddling such an inglorious and hopeless message about how we lose down here that the Church of Jesus Christ can no longer conceptualize what victory is. And as a result, we have become a demoralized church, a defeated church, an impotent church, and a timid church. Precisely none of the things Christ died to make us, we have shamefully become. And, as said before, it is high time we wake up, get up, and get back into the fight.

And that message is precisely what we have been communicating in this series called A Practical Postmillennialism. We have been trying to discover what God says about the end times, what role we have to play in those times, and what that role will require of us as we go and serve our King. If you have followed along, you will know that the Bible’s first book tells us everything we need to know about how God made the world. He made the world so that it would be filled with worshippers. He made the world where humans would rule and extend His dominion. And He made a world where godly men and women would populate every square inch of this planet with discipled worshiping Christians. This is the paradigm for how God created the world in Genesis 1:28, and it is the plan God refuses to abandon after sin enters the world. Instead of scrapping His plan to spread His victory over every square inch of earth’s dirt, He repeats it, restates it, and reinvigorates it by making astounding promises to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. God promises that Noah’s family will fill the world with worshippers one day (Genesis 9:1). He promises that Abraham’s family will bring God’s covenantal blessings to every family on earth (Genesis 12:3). He promises that Isaac’s family will bless all the nations (Genesis 26:4). He promises that Jacob will have kings and nations who rule in allegiance to Yahweh coming from his own loins (Genesis 35:11). And He promises that from the line of Judah, the King of kings would come, and bring the wayward nations into obedience to Him.

This means nothing less than God’s plans to win the entire world to Himself so that no more pagan religions exist, murder is eliminated, infant mortality is eradicated, and the whole world is filled with Christians who worship their King. If you think the future of the world is pluralistic, you have a flawed view of what God is doing. The future, my dear friends, is Christian. The future is about the bright hope of Jesus bringing His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. The widespread proliferation of pagans with secular philosophies and institutions will fade, will wither, and will give way to the universal empire of Jesus Christ. Far from a loser theology, we have a theology of dominion and victory in the one with the name above all names!

So with that, I have been trying to take down the loser gospel of dispensationalism, of premillennialism, of some ammillennials, and of the lion’s share of evangelicalism. Instead, I would like to see an eschatology of victory, which is the eschatology of Christian history, retake root in this land. I would like to see Christianity become that glorious champion of Christ, who will storm the gates of hell with water guns, and will take their beatings with joy for the name of Christ, and will see the Kingdom growing and pushing back the enemy in our lifetime. I want to see the Church become what it has been in the past and stop pooping her pants every time our culture acts like pagans.

With that in mind, today’s episode will examine the Book of Acts and show how it not only proves Postmillennialism but also gives us the attitude adjustment we need to stop losing and start winning, working, warring, building, and extending His dominion.

So, with that, let us begin!

The Loser Mentality and the Book of Acts

If you want to know what Jesus wanted His Kingdom to look like or how He envisioned us to think, act, or labor in this world, you would be hard-pressed to find a better example than the first-century Church. These are the men who knew Jesus face to face. They are the ones who heard His sermons, wrestled with His parables, and watched as He gave one discourse after another on the nature of the Kingdom throughout His three and a half years of ministry. They also had off-the-record conversations, campfire discussions, and other forms of communication not recorded in Scripture. They had the unique privilege of asking Jesus questions that we do not get to ask, and as a result, they got a unique glimpse into Jesus’ vision for the Kingdom of God and what His Church was to be about and to accomplish. Thus, when we look at how the first-century Church behaved, we can actually intuit much about the theology of the Kingdom.

For instance, if the early Church believed in the same way as John MacArthur, that the Church loses down here, we should expect to see the early Church losing. We should expect to hear a bit of pessimism in their vernacular. And we should expect to read a fair amount of hedging on just how much success could be possible in order to maintain our status as losers. And if you think that is harsh, I would remind you that we are English speakers. People who win are winners. People who fight are fighters. People who lose are losers. People who lie are liars. This is not very controversial English. It is only controversial because we do not want to reckon with the implications of our embraced theology. When we say the Church loses down here, we are saying she is the loser down here. Whether we like that or not or have the integrity to admit it, that is precisely what we are saying. And, I, for one, am totally unwilling to speak in such ways about the bride of Christ (whether directly by the words coming out of my face or indirectly through what I believe about her in my mind). I would rather overestimate how much she will accomplish with Christ as her bridegroom than stand before the King of Glory one day and explain why I filled my time with bashing and doubting His bride. If there were ever a husband I would not want to face after slandering His beloved wife, Christ Jesus would rank supreme.

Now, back to the point… The Church we see in Acts does not act like losers, does not think like losers, does not moan and whine like losers, and does not expect to become losers. From the earliest moments of the book all the way to the very end, we see a group of people who expect to win, expect that the Kingdom of God will rapidly advance, and are overjoyed when God begins doing that in their lifetime. So, with that, I would like us to look at a few examples in this book to see how their expectation was nothing short of victory. I would invite anyone interested to see this book with new eyes to continue with me as we open it.

When Do the Last Days Begin?

The end times are not a future period we look forward to – they began 2,000 years ago with the incarnation of Christ. This is because the Bible divides time into two categories. The former times (which are the times of the law and the prophets, temples and tabernacles, priesthoods and sacrifices, etc.) and the latter times or end times (which is the period of Christ and His Spirit-indwelled Church). And guess what? The New Testament makes this abundantly plain for anyone with eyes to see. For instance, the author of Revelation, when talking about the inauguration of the end times says: these events “must soon take place” (Revelation 1:1) and that the “time” for the changing of the ages is not long away in the distant future but “is near” (Revelation 1:3). Jesus warns He will return in judgment “quickly” against apostate Israel (Revelation 22:7,12,20; Matthew 24:34), which is why James declares that the Judge who will pronounce judgment on the Jews is standing “right at the door” (James 5:9). This is why the author of Hebrews so clearly differentiates an era that is passing away (Hebrews 9:26) and a more perfect era (the end times) which has now come in Christ (Hebrews 9:26). He even tells us that in the old times God spoke to His people through the law and the prophets, but “now in these last days God has spoken to us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:2). Since God has incontrovertibly put away the Old Covenant types and shadows and has spoken to us through His beloved Child it is painfully apparent that we are living in the last days. We are not waiting for the end to start – we have been living squarely in the long-promised eschaton for two millennia!

Now, as clear as that is, not everyone agrees. Many modern evangelicals seem to conveniently overlook these things and insist that we are living in “the age of the church” and still waiting for the end times to begin. Not only have they invented a new age in which the Bible does not even countenance, but they have also ignored the clear teaching of the New Testament, which forcefully disproves their assumption. Perhaps most shocking is how they arrogantly dismiss Jesus’ own words that the Kingdom arrived in His incarnation (Luke 17:21) and would be entrusted to His people, the Church, to bear its Kingdom fruit (Matthew 21:43). They ignore the prophecies of Zechariah how this coming Prophet, Priest, and King will establish God’s Kingdom on earth (Zechariah 1-7), which began when He rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey and set up His empire (Zechariah 9:9). They’ve become deaf to the words of Christ, who said that the Kingdom was near to the first century people listening to Him (Mark 1:15), that it was already at hand two thousand years ago (Matthew 4:17), and was being inaugurated as Christ ascended to the ancient of Days (Daniel 7:13-14) and sat upon His rightful throne to reign (Matthew 28:18) with all authority (Matthew 28:18). The clarity in all of this is astounding and even more astounding at how readily it is ignored.

These blind guides not only fail to see this generally, but they fail to see this, particularly in the book of Acts, which screams that a new era of history, the last days (or end times), has already begun! For instance, according to the apostle Peter in Acts chapter 2, the last days began at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh. As the crowds watched the rushing wind of the Spirit descend upon the early Church, Peter reminded them that all of this was prophesied in the book of Joel, who not only prophesied this event would occur but said it would mark the arrival of God’s end-time Kingdom! (Acts 2:17-21). So, just in case you missed that, according to Peter and Joel, the pouring out of the Spirit is the definitive evidence that the end times have already begun.

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