Building a Better World

Jeremy Walker (00:21):

And welcome back to another episode of The Last Kingdom. I'm your host, Jeremy Walker. This is episode number 24 for September 27th, 2024, and the name of this episode is entitled Building a Better World. On this episode, we'll be discussing the basic nature of the Gospel of Christ to the world and how it affects both God's people and those that remain enemies of God. We're also going to be doing a bit of quick fire as we have time, discussing various content, news and events from a Christian reconstructionist point of view. And of course, this podcast is dedicated to discussing faith, family and the future. So let's go ahead and get started with this episode with our main focus being, of course, building a better world. Well, I want to thank everybody for joining me again on The Last Kingdom as we share a optimistic view of the future for Christians, God's people. And there is a big division between God's people and those that are not.

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It's all throughout the Bible, and it is very important that we as Christians see ourselves as being part of a new family. At one point, we were all part of the family of Adam and underneath the curse of Adam. The same common thing that binds all of mankind together is their curse that they have upon them and their war, of course, with God. Well, I want to go ahead and start with one of my favorite passages in the entire world, and it is from John 10. It starts by discussing this question about the people of God, the sheep versus the goats, and it's very interesting in the concept of taking care of handling animals.

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I did not know, so I started learning some more about the subject, but sheep in particular only will listen to the voice and call of their shepherd. There could be lots of shepherds and flocks that gather together in certain areas to feed and/or to give water to their animals, but when it comes time to leave, the shepherd will call and his sheep will then separate from other flocks, from those who have a different shepherd, and only his sheep will follow him.

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Now, a lot of the imagery that the Bible uses, we don't get as modern-day Christians because we don't live in an agricultural world like they did. The vast majority of people throughout all of time have lived in agricultural elements in their society. We just have a more specialized society now to where if I had to butcher a cow, I couldn't do it. I'm not even sure I'd have the stomach to do it to be honest with you. But this was a common thing, animals and their handling and how they worked. And so whenever Jesus is talking about sheep, everybody understood exactly what he was talking about whenever he gave certain analogies.

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Now, I want to start with John 10, starts with verse 14. Now I always encourage everyone, when you read the Bible, context is everything, so never be the perpetrator of quote mining. That's where you have your favorite Bible verse and that's your Bible verse and that's how you built your entire life on, one verse extracted from the Bible and this is your calling card of life. Now, it doesn't mean you don't have your favorite Bible verses, but of course that one Bible verse sums up at times larger doctrines that are completely explained in context. But let's go ahead and jump into John 10:14.

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"I am the good shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Therefore, doth my Father love me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. There was a division therefore among the Jews for these sayings and many of them said, 'He hath the devil and is mad. Why hear ye him?' Others said, 'These are not the words of him that hath the devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?'

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And it was at Jerusalem, the Feast of the Dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's Porch. Then came the Jews round about him and said unto him, 'How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.' Jesus answered them, 'I told you and you believed not. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me, but ye believed not because ye are not of my sheep, as I've said unto you. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.' Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him."

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And we're going to stop there. Now, this is one of those calling card moments in the Bible. It's one of those really pivotal points in time where Jesus is confronting the Israelites, the Jews of his day, and saying that you are not of my sheep. You might be Jews by ancestry or racially, you might say, or even culturally, but you're not God's people by spirit. That's right. Giant different. They might be the children of Abraham and could trace his lineage, but they are not the children of Abraham by faith, only by race and certainly not by grace. And Jesus gave them the way of knowing if they were of his flock or not, and that would be they understood when he called, this is my shepherd, and they would follow him, but they didn't. They refused to follow him and eventually of course they killed him because they hated Christ. He was not their shepherd. And later on he even says, "You're of your father the devil," which of course is why they really hated him.

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But the point is is that Christians have to understand and get this point. If you are a teacher, I'm a teacher primarily, I'm also a preacher, I'm also a father, but when we teach and preach, we influence, that's for sure, but we don't save. You don't give life to a soul that is already dead. You can't change the heart of stone to be a heart of flesh. That's something only God can do. We sow seeds, which is of course the Gospel and the Word of God, but we are not responsible for the cultivation of the ground or how it's received. You cannot give life.

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Now, when we call out, there'll be lots of people who will listen to us, some who will ignore us entirely. The Bible gave, of course, the parable of the sower where there are four types of ground. The one type was when they heard the Gospel, they walked completely away because these openly were defiant of God and wanted everyone to know it. The other three types seemingly liked this message, accepted the Gospel, and claimed Christ as their Savior, their Lord. Then there were two types who eventually walked away. One because of course they loved themselves, they loved what they wanted, they had their own lusts and they were not going to change for God. And the other because they were not going to suffer persecution for God either. So they walked away, no root in them. And only the last stayed. And so this was beyond what we're talking about here. You can almost say that the Pharisees were just that first category.

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Then the rest of the Bible goes through explaining to us how we can tell, now that you've accepted the Gospel, how do you know that you really did? How do you really know that you actually are a sheep of God, not just that you answered the call. Because apparently the Bible tells us that there are some who will try temporarily to follow him, but then they'll eventually go away and show that they were never of God. So there's a whole lot of doctrine built behind all this, but it all comes down to two types of people, the sheep and the goats. And the goats might try to mill in with the sheep every now and then, but eventually they're going to scatter and walk away and only the sheep will be left.

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It's very important also, many people will claim that God's people were a race of people by ancestry, and this is where Christ was doubly offensive because the Jews of his day had this viewpoint. He says, "I have other sheep that are not of this pasture," and he's going to bring them all together and there will be one shepherd, there will be one flock. In other words, it wasn't just the Israelites, the Jews of their day, and their ancestry, but the Gentiles, so the entire world will be brought in as well. And this was always part of the plan. Christ's sacrifice was never just for a race of people or a family lineage. It always was for the entire flock. We won't get into all of that, but that is important for us to know and to teach. Now, let's go ahead and jump into some things about what makes it different. I call this episode Building a Better World because that is what the people of God do. They build a better world. So how is it that the Gospel of Christ changes the world?

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I have four points here. The first is that the Gospel of Christ is primarily a declaration of the return of Christ as owner and sovereign Lord of this world. When we go out and teach, we are declaring Christ's lordship, end of story. That's what it's all about. Paul on Mars Hill, this is what he did, and he is saying in times past, God winked at paganism, but now he commands that all men everywhere repent and they're all being pushed into the kingdom and they're going to be identified as wheat or tares. Number two, the Gospel of Christ is a call for the sheep of Christ to return to him and then to live in terms of his kingship. So that's the call and that's where some of the goats were going to try to flock in. They liked the message, they liked the imagery, they liked the whatever, but eventually when the rubber hits the road, they're not having any parts of it. They're not going to suffer for Christ and they're not going to change for him.

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So the first way that the Gospel message builds a better world is with the sheep themselves, the individuals. See, we first of all are not trying to go conquer our enemies. We are trying to convert them. We're looking for the sheep. Many people who we think are our enemies today are going to be our friends. They're sheep and they don't even know it until they hear the call and then they come back to where they should be. The prodigal son was just about this message. And so we're converting those who were enemies of God and now bringing them in to be sons of God. This is the message. It is not a message of conquest. Some people get caught up in the concept of Christian nationalism where we take the law of God to force people into a law system.

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No, we take the law of God to convict them of their sin and push them towards Christ. It's quite the opposite. And then because of that, they then will start to live in terms of God's kingship over them. Their lives will change. We are changing and building better people. We are building God's people up. 2 Timothy 3:15 and 16. Doctrine, reproof, correction. So that the man of God can be fully furnished unto good works. We build a better world by converting and bringing the sheep back to God and then having their lives changed. They used to be enemies of God and now they're going to be obeying God and that affects everything and every relationship that they have.

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Number three, the Gospel of Christ is a warning of upcoming judgment for all those who have rebelled against Christ's ownership and have tried to take it for themselves. This is the second aspect of it. The law of God is not there to punish these individuals. It is the indictment upon them to say, "You are at war with God and Christ has returned and your time is coming. You might be able to continue doing evil now, but you are going to pay for it." It is a judgment. And number four, the Gospel of Christ is a two-fold plan. Part one is what we do here and now, and part two is what we will be doing when the time of this world is over and of course the new world is now remade. And we get a glimpse of what that looks like, heaven on earth where all evil is gone. No more tears, no more sadness, perfectness everywhere, holiness upon the entire world.

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Now Christians, we take part in that in building a better world here and now, and of course maintaining a perfect world in the future. So our jobs now are to preach and to teach and disciple the nations. A lot of Christians want to limit what we do to simple soul winning, as they call, or just Gospel preaching to bring in people to their churches, to make a profession of faith. And that's it. They don't teach, "Okay, now that we have brought the sheep in, how are they then supposed to live?" And that's where the problems come in. The churches don't have the law of God. They have no answer for that question of how we supposed to live besides we're supposed to love. But what does love mean without the law? Love is defined as the keeping of the commandments in the Bible. And without that, the Christians cannot build a better world.

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And if you look around, that's exactly what has happened. Are the Christians themselves really any different inside the church or out? No, because they don't have the law as a standard, as a person can view their sanctification and progress, and therefore the churches are full of goats and they're not pushed out because nobody's pointing out that they are a goat. And you know a goat is because it acts like a goat. It doesn't act like a sheep. And on top of that, the people of God aren't getting better. They're not getting more sanctified, they're not having better families. They're not having better business relationships, friend relationships. Nothing is getting better for them. And that's happening, they are not building a better world as they're supposed to be because they have given up the law of God as their standard of life.

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Now, once again, we shouldn't be spending our time with all the enemies of the world out there and telling them how they need to keep God's commandments. That's just their indictment. It's our way of life. And if we are going to build a better world here and now and earn reward for that, that's what it's all about. Earning reward here and now, being a good example and disciple of Christ, you will earn reward by what you do now, and that means you need to know the commandments and you need to keep them and you need to teach them to others and to your family. That is the only way we can help build a better world today and of course, earn reward in the world to come.

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Now, having said all that, it's important. Now let's do some quick fire to talk about what is it that we're trying to fix. If we're trying to build a better world, we have to kind of see what is broken in it, primarily ourselves. We do start with ourselves and our family, our local Christian communities first. But we are supposed disciple the nations, teaching them what they're supposed to do, and of course, try to help them as well push out evil.

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Now, having said that, I ran across a article and of course there's been a whole lot about illegals, especially Haitian illegals, eating animals and things like that. Well, somebody came and posted an article, and this comes out of Munson, Pennsylvania, where three men face more than 1400 counts of sexually abusing animals in a Pennsylvania farm. And apparently they made videos of these incidences, which of course included animals like dogs, horses, cows, and even goats. Now, this is bestiality, something that the law of God teaches absolutely against, and this kind of conduct should be taught against and punishable by law, so they're correct. These things should be criminal. And as we Christianize the world, as we build a better world, these kinds of things will cease to exist, specifically in Christian communities, but also around the world as we influence.

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Next article I have here for you says, "From the Daily News. Former New York City COVID czar Jay Varma was fired after news of pandemic sex parties surfaces." So while all these people were faking their mask up and telling you to stay at home, they apparently were having sex fueled drug parties and laughing, laughing, laughing at all of us who if you did listen, shouldn't have listened. And hopefully we've learned our lesson. But what it teaches you is a valuable lesson as Christians is that there are people who are going to use and abuse you and you do need to learn yourself and teach others discernment. These people, it shouldn't shock you when evil people act evil. So it doesn't surprise me at all that this was going on. It goes on today. Right now, P. Diddy is in the news for having all kinds of terrible things. Is this shocking or surprising? No. But what should we expect with non-Christians to act like non-Christians?

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But if we can influence the world properly, Christians of course will learn how better to properly view who they listen to, when they listen to, and to what extent they listen to, and of course what they should not be doing. We should never be using our power to put others down, but only to serve them. And if we build a better world, we get better leaders. But you don't get better leaders until you have a better people because the people then of course will be reflected in their leadership. So why is it you're having people like this who are in charge? Probably because the people are the same.

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Next, of course, I have another one. This is a meme of Homer Simpson pointing at a sign and it says, "Just because your lifestyle is disgusting doesn't mean that I am afraid of you." Now, this comes from the concept of phobias. Everything is a phobia. They put a word and put a phobia in front of it. You're just a whatever-phobe. You get the idea. And the point is it's not just disgusting, it's sinful. And that's the point. As Christians are building a better world, they would teach this concept that it isn't that people hate you. In fact, we love you, which is why we tell you the truth. And the saddest part is most of the things that are considered phobias are sexual deviant behavior and what they're not telling people that engage in such things, love is love, no, it's not. The people that engage in sexual deviant behavior are cursed and they know it. They're disease-ridden and have very short lives and they know it.

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So if you love your neighbor, you'll skip past the concept that we're just going to call you disgusting. We want to help you. We don't want to just punish you for your deviant behavior. We want you to cease from it. We want you to come to Christ and to then be converted if you're a sheep. If you're not, well, they're just going to keep doing this anyway, so you just keep going. You don't need to go to their pride parties to poke them in the eye. Leave them alone. It's enough that they already know the Gospel. They don't need you to go there and poke them in the eye and tell them again and again and again. You're wasting your time. Our time is supposed to be used on helping the sheep get better, not yelling at the goats.

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Another meme was one that showed the sticker love is love next to a toilet that is clearly full of dirty water and it has the sign water is water. And so love is love, water is water. It's not. There is something that is pure, there is something good, there is something that is healthy, and then there's something that is not. And that's kind of the point of what this is talking about and what we're talking about as Christians. We build a better world by teaching the difference between evil and sin and that which is righteous and good. One thing will benefit you and one thing will hurt you. Even a non-Christian will have a better life here and now if they keep the commandments of God. Businessmen, people who are going to have a family, take care of their spouse, work hard, they will be benefited here and now if they, of course, are not going to break God's commandments instead.

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Then there was the little book I saw, Ginger the Giraffe (who wanted to be a horse) from Andrew Torba, this is the Gab guy. And I found it interesting. They're trying to put out Christian books to combat the entertainment that's out there from everybody else. And I think that's a very noble goal to do. We should have our own forms of entertainment, which is like what this podcast is about. It's a teaching tool and children need Christian entertainment as well. And so I think this is a very good positive thing also to support. We need more Christian entertainment. We need Christians who are going to build better art, build better TV, build better movies, build better music, everything, and it's all going to be under Christ. Just because it's Christian doesn't mean it can't be fun, adventurous, and entertaining. It just means it can't be godless. Giant difference.

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Well, anyways, thank you again for joining me on this episode of The Last Kingdom, Building a Better World. That's our goal, and hopefully you will get busy building a better you, a better family, and a better life under Christ. Thank you again for joining me and God bless.