A New Heaven & A New Earth

Jeremy Walker (00:16):

Welcome, welcome, welcome to The Last Kingdom. I am your host, Jeremy Walker. We are going to be talking about faith, family and the future and why Christians, for us, it is a positive thing, something that we can look forward to, not with apprehension, but with confidence. We are excited about it, can't wait to get to the future and also we're going to be talking about the absolute devastation of our enemies. We are going to be talking about those two subjects in a very candid manner. So, buckle up for this very first episode of The Last Kingdom.

(01:01):

Well, to get us started, I want to introduce myself to those people who may not know who I am. My name is Jeremy Walker, I am a father of 11 and my wife and I have been working in early childhood education in Southwest Florida now for over two decades. And we have been working in our community to teach children, each and every single day, God's commandments and, of course, to take care of them on a daily basis through early childhood education and to support their families as well.

(01:35):

Now, why is that important? Well, mostly because I want you to know who I am and what I do. Now, I was converted at the age of 17, I grew up in a Christian home as far as we went to church every day, Southern Baptist Church is what it was. And for that purpose, I have a very distinct perspective and I like to talk candidly about that, about denominationalism, the Christian church and Christian perspective in general, many problems that it has but the wonderful thing about that is that it can still be a positive. Because it's not the Christians or the so-called Christians that are going to win, it's not the Christian church as an institution that is going to win but it is the church universal. In the Catechisms, it's called the Catholic Church, not to be confused with the actual Catholic institutional church but the Catholic universal church as in all members in Christ.

(02:42):

A lot of people like to be pessimistic but I want this podcast to be very candid and talking about two subjects. On the one hand, you have the absolute victory of Christ and His people in time and in history, something that we're going to discuss on this episode right now and other episodes in the future. And the second side of things which, of course, is the absolute destruction and annihilation and judgment of God's enemies. You have the wheat and you have the tares. You have a positive message to those people who are in Christ, who are not rebelling against Christ and you have the absolute judgment and devastation of those who are going to rebel and stay in a state of rebellion.

(03:29):

Now, having said what I have about growing up in the church, whenever I was converted, there was a problem because the Southern Baptist Church, like all denominations, has its major problems. Denominationalism, in and of itself, is a problem. There is no such thing as denominations, there never was. There is one Christ, there is one Savior, there is one church, there is one faith, there is only one doctrine. There are not multiple different ideas and that's your interpretation, this is my interpretation and you can have yours and I can have mine and we're all going to be in our little tiny groups. That is not Christianity. In fact, what you see is not success, is it? What you see is failure. And why do you see failure? Why do you see churches who are doing nothing?

(04:25):

Well, the main reason is that the Christian churches today are like the retirement home for the religiously minded you could say. Because people that retire, according to insurance statistics, generally don't make it longer than five years before they pass on. They die because they've lost purpose, they've lost direction, they are meaningless and that is what the vast majority of denominations are. They're meaningless, they've lost purpose, they have no drive, they're not going anywhere, there's no victory. For them, the success and the overcoming is in the future, it's not here and now, they don't have anything to do. They're just going to sit in their pews like it is a bus stop and they're waiting for Jesus to come over on that big old bus, open the doors and say, "Get on, guys, let's get out of here." But they're not doing anything but sitting around and waiting and so they die.

(05:23):

Look at the institutional churches today, what did they do? Do they look victorious? No, they're in there and they're entertaining idiots. That's what they're doing, they're not in there cultivating anything. What happened to onward Christian soldiers? Whatever happened to that? It's gone, it's missing. And when I was converted, I found there was no victory in the church, there wasn't any. It was one, two, three, pray after me and then you are going to heaven. Your only job is to show up at church and is to soul win. We're going to go out, we're going to find people, we're going to bring them into church and we're going to make them into us which are people sitting in the pews waiting to die.

(06:12):

We don't have any word from God for us today. All those prophecies, all that purpose, that was in the past. In fact, there is no past because the Old Testament doesn't exist, it's gone. Where has it gone? It's nowhere. We don't even have it. We took our Bible, we cut it in half, that's the Old Testament, this the New Testament. When you're converted, they give you a little tiny New Testament Bible, it also, oh, sorry, does have Psalms and Proverbs, I forgot. A little bit of inspiration for you before you die. However, there is no complete word. The Old Testament doesn't mean anything to Christians today, it's only the New Testament.

(06:53):

And the New Testament doesn't mean anything because that's why they changed the lettering because it used to be all in, say, black when you're using ink to make a printer but now we have black and now we have red because now we differentiate, well, which words were spoken by Jesus Himself and those are going to be the ones we listen to because now we're going to put them in red but, the ones that are in black, those really don't matter. And so, churches have now taken the Bible, cut it in half but get rid of the Old Testament, cut it in half again and now we only have four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

(07:27):

And then, of course, we don't even have that because those gospels don't really mean what you think they mean. No, no, no, we have denominations and so your denomination thinks they mean this and our denomination thinks it means this. In fact, a lot of our denominations may even revolve around just one verse in the Bible like John 3:16. See, this is the major problem, churches are dying. Have you not gone into them? They're one of two things. One, they're full of old people sitting in the bus stop waiting to get on the bus or die who are doing nothing in the real world. They're not teaching anything to anyone and they're not even having children. That's right, their Christianity is so low that they can't even get into bed properly with their wives and have children, that's how pathetic the modern church is.

(08:24):

They're also in there trying to entertain the goats. They're trying to bring people in with smoke machines and electric guitars and now they have big monitors and they're playing Super Mario Brothers on it as they're entertaining all the idiots of the world. That is not Christianity. But guess what? The victorious music that you heard at the beginning of this podcast is just that, it's victorious music because we are still winning. The real church is winning. The fake institutional church, just as in the days of the Old Testament and in the days of Jesus, they are dying and they are already dead. They are not with us and they never were. And so, as a Christian you can see all these things but it not be a negative and that's one thing I want this podcast to be about. It's giving it a Christian perspective.

(09:20):

Now, I took on, some time ago, the term Christian reconstructionist. Christian reconstructionist which was coined by R.J. Rushdoony and the Chalcedon Foundation some time ago. R.J. Rushdoony, if you're not familiar with him, you can find more about him on his website at chalcedon.edu and through the efforts of people like myself who are trying to promote more of his content so that you can listen to somebody who is actually worth listening to. It doesn't mean he's the only person worth listening to but he is one of the people that are lost to the times of most people but they liked his scholarliness, they liked his intelligence.

(10:02):

They were attracted to it, they liked the idea that he was a person who promoted involvement and productivity and he was very much so on that. Most people took him to be a person who was a political activist of sorts and so they latched onto him and put their little nails and claws into him and they rode his back as he rose in success and he traveled the country and the man was a one-man power horse, there's no debate about it. Without him, there is practically no homeschool movement in the United States of America today and that is a fact not even contended by Christians or non-Christians alike. The man was amazing, God used him in a way He doesn't use most men and doesn't ever.

(10:49):

But the Chalcedon Foundation and Christian Reconstructionism started in the '60s, '70s and '80s and then exploded where he was traveling around, lots of conferences were going on, people were writing lots of books. They made this think tank where everybody was going to have a solution for everything, everybody was writing books about it and how are we going to answer this and how are we going to answer that, what are we going to do here and what are we going to do there, what is this and what is that and they were writing books left and right.

(11:17):

Rushdoony has tons of books, I encourage you to go get them from chalcedon.edu and read them all. You can also alternatively go to rushdoonyradio.O-R-G, that is a website that I maintain and that has, by permission of Chalcedon, all of the lectures and sermons of R.J. Rushdoony, you can get them right there. You can also find all the audio books which also Chalcedon has allowed us to help produce and they're all on there as well and we're also working on transcripts of all of his stuff. Pretty much, it has everything you could ever want right there in one place.

(11:51):

Now, why do I bring all this up? Because we're talking about what this podcast is and its perspective, what you can expect from me. I want to be candid, I want to give you me unfiltered and, my thoughts, to a certain extent, unfiltered but I want to be candid with you because that's how we grow. Judgment starts at the house of God. But it doesn't matter about you and it doesn't matter about me, Christ is going to succeed with or without your help. That's right, with or without you. You don't matter if you don't want to matter. God has no problem picking you up and sticking you on the shelf and you being a completely worthless tool in the kingdom of God. Or, like Paul, you could be an absolute invaluable person to the kingdom of God earning great reward here and now for yourself, your family, everybody around you and, most importantly, in the kingdom to come which, of course, is the final days.

(12:55):

Now, we are already in the final days and have been for the last 2,000 years. We have a job, we have a purpose and we have been assured of victory. But the main problem, you have to get this and just pry it out of yourself, if you can't do it, get a crowbar and pry this out of your thick, stupid theological head that you don't get to determine the truth. That's right, your denomination does not get to determine truth. You personally don't get to interpret the Bible and make sure that you can have your own views of the subject, that is going to not give you any victory at all. You're going to lose, lose, lose every single time. Your denomination is going to die as it already is right now. I have a major problem with people whenever they say, "Well, I am a Presbyterian," "I am a Southern Baptist," "I'm a Methodist," "I'm a Lutheran," "I'm an Anglican," whatever they want to call themselves because they're instinctively and naturally drawing a line in the sand between them and their fellow Christians.

(14:08):

That's right, they're drawing a line in the sand automatically and dividing themselves up and say, "Well, these people over here might be Christians but they're not my kind of Christian. That's the other kind of Christian over there, those are the dirty, stupid Christians over there. And us over here, we're the high, intellectual, understanding, loving Christians over here," or whatever it is that you might be. No, you have to pry this out of yourself. You may have grown up in denominationalism, you got to pry it out of yourself. Either you're a Christian or you're not. You are a sheep or you're a goat, you're wheat or you're a part of the tares. That's it. You have to wake up, Christianity has to stop the stupidity or it's going to continue to be put on the shelf.

(14:55):

Does that mean that Christ is not going to win? No, it doesn't. Kind of in the day of Mordecai, whenever there was a time of judgment and Esther had the question of should she go before the king, she had the position and it was going to be very difficult for her to do so but Mordecai says, "Well, if you don't do it and if you don't save us, then God is going to raise up some other salvation for His people and He's going to use that." And that right there is what we're talking about here. The Christian church, the saints of God are going to be absolutely victorious. Now, not all of them are going to receive a reward, quite a few of them were entering the bus stop waiting to get on the bus and were unproductive fools and they were stuck on the shelf. No reward for them, they got in by the skin of their teeth.

(15:48):

Based on your productivity, you are going to receive reward or not. You can be the ruler of 10 cities or you can be the man who picks up the garbage in the Kingdom of Heaven in the end. That's the facts people and the main problem with people is that they want to fight, they want to fight. If you take the Christian reconstruction movement, I came in right as it imploded, imploded. And once again, remember, judgment starts at the house of God. R.J. Rushdoony had people all around him, picking at him like vultures, vultures and they all split and fractured and ran off in different directions. Do you know why? Do you know why?

(16:36):

It wasn't because the doctrines were failed, it's because of spineless, pointless individuals who wanted for themselves renowned. They wanted followers, they wanted to be the next in line, they wanted to be the head man, they wanted the seat at the highest table, they wanted to be on top. Well, God looked at those people and said, "You want to be on top? Well, that wasn't your position," and so He puts them down. God told us to go find the lowliest of seats. Be content with your position, be content as a Christian husband, as a father, as a teacher, whatever you are. And then, as you are faithful, God will raise you up. You don't have to reach before your time as so many countless people have done and then God debases them, takes all authority from them and the renowned that they were hoping for turns to disdain, the followers they're hoping for, they end up alone because God does not reward that kind of stuff. He rewards faithful people who are going to go out there and teach and mostly be productive, have good works.

(17:53):

The Christian reconstruction movement imploded upon itself because of pompous, theological idiots who wanted fame and fortune. They didn't care about the doctrines, they didn't care about the teachings, they didn't care about edification and it all fell apart and was destroyed. But guess what? The teachings didn't die, they didn't go anywhere. R.J. Rushdoony is still out there and the person that they were all claiming to support, support, support, support, where are they now? Where are they promoting his materials? They're not. They're out there promoting their own materials, they're out there promoting themselves. They're not out there promoting what Rushdoony taught and he was one of the best Bible teachers I have ever known.

(18:40):

If you sit and listen to his lectures and listen to his sermons, you can't help it, the man was truly gifted of God. And if you listen to him, you just might learn something. There's a lot of other people out there also that you should listen to, there's no debate about that. I'm only speaking from the heart, from the position I came from, what I have seen from the Christian church. This is why I'm the hardest on the southern communities, the southern culture, I grew up there. I'm the hardest on them because I grew up in it. I'm the hardest on the Southern Baptist denomination. Why? Because they're the worst? No, because I know them the most because that's how I grew up, that's what I know about.

(19:23):

When I speak, I can't help but speak about them. When I speak about churches falling apart and organizations falling apart, I can only speak about the things that I was the closest to and I know that it has effects on everything else. You, as the listener, some of this you may not know anything about but other things you're going to be like, "Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about. I've seen that." You can see the churches, when you walk into them, that they're dying, they're not having children. You don't have lots of babies being born, you don't have lots of young couples in there being Christians, forming Christian communities, you don't have that, you have a bunch of older people who are all dying.

(20:01):

They're not out there doing anything in the community. At best, they might do little things at their church and, for some people, that's enough because there's nothing else they can do, sure. You can't bash everybody but the real question is what is it you are supposed to do and are you doing that or are you not doing that. Because the church is going to succeed, the only question is what part did you play in the kingdom of God and bringing about as you're supposed to be doing? And when I say bringing about, I don't mean that we usher in the kingdom. There's been a lot of theological stuff of a lot of people who wrote all kinds of things about we have to do this, we have to do that and it'll make your brain bleed, it's so stupid.

(20:48):

But it comes down to do you believe the Bible? Is that your standard? Then you are going to have to be critical primarily of yourself. Not somebody else, yourself. You're going to have to work on fixing yourself. Don't try to fix the world, God has the world soundly and completely under control. It's not spinning out of control, it doesn't need you. "The graveyards are filled," a man once said, "With indispensable men." The first thing you're going to have to learn if you're actually going to be of any use to God in His last kingdom, which we are living in, is you're going to have to learn that you are a tool to be used by God for the advancement of His kingdom.

(21:37):

And the advancement of His kingdom isn't these broad spokes where we went out and marched on Washington and we changed the world with the political activism, that's not it. The smallest things matter, the small things. If you can get a child to tell the truth, if you can get a child to make his bed, if you can get a child to say yes ma'am and yes sir and be respectful to his elders, you are changing the entire world. It's not the big stuff, it's the little stuff. The kingdom of God is built from bricks and these bricks are small and, as we build, we are constantly bringing the light to the dark world and what we're doing is we're casting out all the evil people. See, the cockroaches, they don't like the light. When you turn on the light, the cockroaches scatter and that's what happens every time you step foot outside of your house.

(22:40):

Step outside your house for five seconds and you do something good in the world, you show up to work on time, you speak good of somebody, you hold your tongue when you're angry, you do something extra for your wife, you make sure your children are properly trained consistently, you are changing the world and the cockroaches can't help but see it and scatter. But here's another thing. There's a wonderful thing about Christianity that I like is that it's not just about scattering the cockroaches of the world but they are thankful for you. That's right, you heard me right. Because it is a giant mistake, giant mistake to believe that it is us versus them. It is us versus them in the broad scope of wheat versus tares but, at the same time, those tares, those goats, they're not an enemy in the sense of some people's understanding of it. And see, and that's where the kingdom of God, the last kingdom really matters and it really shines.

(23:53):

See, some people think that you're supposed to hate your enemies but Christ told us we are supposed to be kind to them. That's right. Don't treat them as they treat us but treat them as we would like to be treated. We love our enemies and, as we do so, we heap coals of fire upon their heads. Our enemies, the goats and the tares, they can't do that, they don't have that operandum, they're just going to try to destroy you. They'll take every opportunity to be spiteful to you, to speak lies about you and you're supposed to call it all joy, all joy. We go out there and we do not overcome evil with evil but we overcome evil with good.

(24:41):

So, you're going to hear a lot in this podcast about the wheat and the tares and the goats and the sheep but the main thrust is how our Lord wants us to win. See, it's not just in the winning, it's how we win that matters and we have a different status, a mode of operations, standard operating procedures that do not make sense to the world but they do make sense to us because they're given to us by our Lord. They will not act the way we do and that's how you can spot them, that's how you can spot them. By their works you shall know them, the Bible says, and that's also what denominations hate because, if you take the Bible, if you take the Bible and you take it seriously for five seconds, just five seconds, take the Bible seriously and you read it, it will absolutely change your world, it'll change your world.

(25:44):

See, that's what happened to me at the age of 17. I was finally converted, didn't know what happened to me. All of a sudden, other people came to me that knew me really, really well and they said, "What's wrong with you? You're very different, there's something different about you," and I hadn't recognized it in myself. I had started reading my Bible, I had been around the Bible my entire life but didn't care what it said and, all of a sudden, on my break at work, I was reading the Bible. And when this person pointed it out, my demeanors, how I acted had started to change drastically. I was a new person. But it wasn't something that I decided for myself, it wasn't something that, "I read the Bible and, all of a sudden, I realized Jesus loved me," or, "I prayed the prayer."

(26:36):

No, you didn't. Jesus Christ sends His spirit to raise those into new life that He has chosen, that the Father gave to Him. Those are the ones who are raised from the dead, those are the ones given new life and new birth to become a new creature, not to sit waiting for the bus. Your job is to get out there and get to work and that means to preach and to teach in everything you do. Now, you can become a street preacher but that's not what it means. It means, in everything that you do, you show forth the law and the love of God to the world. Now, they will appreciate that on one level. Well, the level is simple because, when you don't steal from somebody, they appreciate it. When you don't lie to them, they appreciate that. When you don't try to hurt them, they appreciate that. All those things, they appreciate that you are treating them in a just manner, a righteous manner, a godly manner.

(27:41):

Now, don't expect them to do it to you, of course, but they appreciate it when you do it. And then, on the other hand, they hate you because your good deeds reprove their evil deeds and that's what the kingdom of God is all about. You are going to be shining forth as a light on a hill, you can't avoid it if you're a Christian. You are salt, you're preserving everyone around you from the wrath of God because, like Sodom and Gomorrah, God preserves men and nations if there are righteous people, they're worth preserving and having. Now, God is raising churches, institutional churches to the ground because, sadly to say, there may not even be 10 righteous in most denominational places that you go, sad. And maybe it's not the fact that they're not Christian but maybe they're just worthless tools who have rusted from non-use. They didn't grease up the wheels, they let the transmissions expire and now they are worthless.

(28:53):

That's what this is about. We are called to productivity and it starts with viewing ourselves in a realistic manner. Don't try to make yourself sound better than you are, you're not. Even a truly converted person struggles with sin daily, it is part of the Christian life. The differences between the Christians and the non-Christians is the non-Christians love it. They're like the pigs who love the mud and the crap that's in it and they're just going to roll around in it. And you can try your best to wash them off all you want but that's not where they're happy. They're not happy dressed in a suit, being all clean with their hair combed, they want to be down and dirty in the disgusting mud with the rest of the pigs. That's where they want to be.

(29:41):

And is that you? Are you comfortable being clean as God would have you to be? Is your church full of clean people or are they a bunch of pigs who are just dressed up in their suits with their hair combed but they really, when they leave on Sunday, they take all that off and just jump in the mud the rest of the week, they just roll around in all that crap and mud and they just cherish it. And then, of course, by the time Sunday morning rolls around, well, we're going to wash that pig off and we're going to put some nice clothes on him and we're going to comb his hair and we're going to let him sit in a pew and show for attendance. It doesn't mean he likes to be there because he's just one of the pigs. Or, are you a saint? See, there's a difference.

(30:25):

When you start talking candidly, people can't handle it. That's right, people don't like it because you're not supposed to tell the truth. You're not supposed to really change anything, you're not really supposed to believe that what you believe makes a difference in your life. It's supposed to be a theological concept, it's just supposed to be a think tank corporation. No, it changes your life or you are just a pig dressed up in a dress and a suit sitting in a pew but you're not a Christian. You must look at yourself realistically if you want to be part of that wonderful, glowing, victorious future that we all have, that we are either part of now and will be part of later. You want to have a reward and be said of you by Christ Himself, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," then you're going to have to be a faithful servant.

(31:22):

See, Christ is going to win. The Christian saints already won. Our faith is the victory that overcomes the world but are you a rewardable saint or not? That's the big difference. It doesn't mean that we're not going to win because you are a loser, it doesn't mean that Christ is somehow going to cry because He needs you. "Please, pick up your hands and raise them to Jesus as you sit in the pews." He doesn't want your hands raised up to Him in a church service if you aren't doing productive labor all week long. If you are a light that doesn't shine, if you are a salt that's lost its savor, then you're good for nothing, He's just going to cast you out and let men stomp all over you.

(32:13):

Do you not know what kind of God we serve? Perhaps you've taken your head and you stuck it so far into your denomination that you have forgotten what the Bible actually says. "But my denomination, it doesn't teach that." Well, nobody cares what your denomination teaches, those are for the losers. It doesn't mean that denominations get everything wrong but, when they consider themselves to be the determiner of truth, when they separate themselves from other saints based off of arbitrary, non-biblical reasons, their interpretations, then we have a major problem, a major problem. Because you do not love the saints, you don't love them.

(33:01):

In fact, look at what happened to the Christian reconstruction movement. Completely fell apart, completely fell apart. Everybody shattered and ran their own way. They're full of people who hate each other's guts, they do nothing but bad mouth each other. Social media was a complete crazy house some years ago. I was involved in it a little bit as far as listening to it, finally got tired and sick of it and said, "You know what? Forget all of you. Forget all of you. Don't need this kind of worthless drama in my life. I'm sorry, there's productivity to be had." We're not sitting around yelling at each other about who is the best and who is the best doctrine and we're going to argue with each other, we're going to hurt each other, destroying people's reputations because you want to raise yours.

(33:49):

No, no, no. These are not people anyone should associate with and, you know what, God makes sure that happens. You don't have to do it, God does it for you. You can sit back and say, "You know what, I'm just going to go be productive. I'm going to try to be productive. I'm going to work on myself, I'm going to work on my family, I'm going to work on my vocation, I'm going to work on trying to produce things that edify and help other people, help the church collectively. That's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to get to work, I'm going to ignore all of the other stuff going on, all the fighting and I'm just going to get to work. That's what I'm going to do. I want to be a productive person who, at the end of the day, is rewardable. I don't want to be saying that I was in there trying to wrestle pigs in the mud, trying to put dresses on them and get them to comb their hair, no, I want to edify the saints, I want people to fight with sin in their own lives and be overcomers."

(34:49):

I want them to reconstruct, not just themselves, but their families. I want them to train their children. I want them to respect their wife, respect their husbands. I want them to be a shining example of what Christian character is in the world and show people that we actually have something worth imitating, something worth respecting because, sadly, the vast majority of Christians today, what they call themselves Christians, are not respectable in the least and they don't act any way different. They don't act any different. They go to church on Sundays, they might go on Sunday night, they might go on Wednesday night, they might go to prayer service, they might go soul winning but you catch them out anywhere else and they act and look like everybody else.

(35:29):

Their families are falling apart, their children are hopping into bed with everything that moves, they are falling apart, they're destroying every person around them and they're calling themselves victors. You're not a victor, you're a loser. And we all have to be careful, we all have to be careful or we are going to be the losers. You might have your soul saved in eternity because, through the graces of God, you got in by the skin of your teeth. However, you are not worth giving any reward to in eternity, you're going to be the garbage man and, right now, you're still going to be the garbage man. And there's some people that I know that call themselves Christians, that obey the law of God so much that they are eating out of trash cans out of the back of a Chinese restaurant.

(36:21):

Why is that? Why would a Christian be eating garbage at the back of a Chinese restaurant? Because the commandments of God, they do not tend to poverty, the commandments of God tend to success, wealth, health. We have a message that will change the world, change the world. Teaching people to obey God and His commandments will change everyone's lives, especially those that are Christians. But even the non-Christians, even non-Christians can have a better life now. And even it is said in the Bible that there will be many who are beaten with many stripes and some with few. There are layers of success in heaven and there are layers of punishment in hell and both are based in what we do now but the commandments of God change us now, they help identify us now and they can also help us to change and sanctify society.

(37:20):

Now, that's not our goal, it is a byproduct of doing our jobs. We are going to win. We can't help but win. We are overcomers and our faith will overcome this world. But you will not win, you will not be part of that, you will not be celebrated unless you are worth celebrating. Now, if you listened to this entire podcast episode, this first one here so far, to get a little bit of idea of how this entire thing is going to go, I'll want to be as candid as possible but this is just an introduction episode. In the upcoming episodes, I want to talk about lots of other things. If you're not familiar with R.J. Rushdoony's Easy Chair, his Easy Chair was talking about things that were interest of him. He was a teacher, he was a preacher and people were very interested in what he said and what he did.

(38:12):

And so, what we're going to do is we are going to talk about those things and we are going to talk about culture, talk about media, talk about everything that's out there from a Christian perspective because you have to evaluate yourself, you have to evaluate society, how we're supposed to influence the world. What areas we have that are successes, we can celebrate about ourselves and each other and where we can see that we need to fix things. Both. Things we have to warn ourselves about, our children about, things that we have to do something about, what we can do about that. But you have to start with one thing, your standard and that's why this first episode has been what it is. If it was a little too candid for you, I don't apologize because I believe that candid talk lets you understand where a person is coming from.

(39:02):

Me, I have no time or patience for fakers, I have no time or patience for unproductive people. I have no time or patience for scorners, for backbiters and for idiots. No time for any of that. What I have time for is helping other people, trying to edify. And the Bible is very clear in Second Timothy 3:15 and 16 that the Bible, this word of God, is given to us for a few things which I think people miss. One, doctrine, it lets you know what you're supposed to believe. Reprove and correction, the two things that nobody ever wants, they don't ever want to be reproved. Don't believe it? Go on to social media and try to tell somebody they're wrong and show them where in the Bible, they aren't going to listen to you but that's what I'm hoping to do as well to help.

(39:58):

And the main reason, what is the culmination for everything we're supposed to do? That the people of God, the man God can be perfect or mature, able to perform good works. See, where I grew up, it was all about praying the prayer and Jesus being there for you but that's not enough. That is just planting the seed and, all of a sudden, it's sprouted. When you see that little tomato plant sprout, that's a wonderful moment, that is people who have been converted, they're just a sprout. Now what are they supposed to do? They're supposed to grow and they are supposed to produce good works or fruit. If that plant grows and it doesn't produce fruit, it's not a real convert. And this might be surprising to some people but there are four types of people who listen to the gospel message, four types, and only one of them is a real Christian.

(41:06):

Four types. The first type is the person who hears it and completely ignores it, doesn't want to know anything else about it. They reject it outright, they identify themselves as a goat. The next two accept the message but, through various things, they, either because they really love to commit adultery or because there's persecution involved, they run away, they cease to believe as they say. Well, that means there's three types of people that hear the message and don't ever achieve the fourth type which is the person hears, they grow, they produce fruits, good works. That's the Christian. And if that's not you, you're not a Christian. Period, end of story and that's why people create denominations because they can hide in them. They aren't concerned about good works, they're concerned about membership, membership.

(42:15):

Did you know there's no such thing as church membership? Did you know that? The only way you can be a member of the true church is through conversion. That's right. There's no such thing as, "Well, I want to put an application in with the institutional church and become a member," that's not how it works. But I won't go into that now, I'll talk about that maybe later. But for me, that's what I want to do with this podcast, I want to be very positive in things that I think we can help each other with and a lot of that is not always pleasant. Sometimes you need somebody to get the hammer to bang off the rust, it's not always pleasant. You need somebody to speak the candid truth to you and, as Paul says, "Have I become your enemy because I've told you the truth?"

(43:04):

So, this is Jeremy Walker for The Last Kingdom. We're going to be talking about faith, family and the future, the utter confidence we should have about our faith, our Savior, our future. Thank you again for joining me and God bless.