The PERFECT Millennial View Doesn’t Exist… But Ruslan KD Just Nailed It

[0:00] If you are anywhere near the Christian YouTube space, then you probably know who Rouslon KD is. And he's been one of my favorites for a long time. Like a long time. As long like before I was even on YouTube. I loved Rouslon stuff. And if you don't know who that is, you're welcome. I'm going to introduce him to you today. He's one of the e-christian YouTubers. He's got like 750,000 subscribers or something. That's not him. That's Aragorn. But he I was sent this video by a few people who wanted me to respond to it since a lot of my material is esquetology focused or at least it should be and I want to do more of it. So I'm just going to come over here and do a reaction. See what Rouslon has to say. Many Christians are getting this wrong about the end times and it's dramatically impacting their day-to-day life. Tariffs are rising. The Dow Jones keeps bouncing up and down. Recession fears are back. Political violence is rising and being normalized.

[0:48] And now we're hearing renewed threats about the Iran nuclear war. With everything that's going on, it's fair to ask, should we be worried? For many Christians, for decades now, these different types of events are seen as signs of the end. And depending on how you've been taught to view the end times, it could shape everything about your life from how you vote to whether you decide to build or retreat. But here's he's exactly right. I mean, I know that where he's going to go with this is he's going to kind of compare. I haven't seen this video yet, so I'm not sure. But I love the way that he frames this up because how you view the ending of the story. We've talked about this on this channel, right? How you view the ending of a story adjusts how you go through the story now. So I imagine he's probably going to start talking about the different millennial views, right? So if you're a premillennial person, then you're going to interpret that stuff as fear-based. You're going to be

[1:36] looking at that and say, "Oh my gosh, these are just the birth pangs. These are the beginnings of the end. we must be getting closer to the end times. And then you'll do things like missing the macro trend, which is that violence on the whole is actually going down. Historically speaking, the number of violent crimes that actually happen in the United States, in the world per capita are actually declining. They're still happening and interesting, a lot of them are happening against Christians and things like that, but the data doesn't necessarily support that things are getting worse and worse until the end. We'll let him cook, but I'm interested in seeing where he takes this. But he's right that the way that you perceive things in the present is going to be influenced by what story you think you're living in and how that story ends. Here's the question that's been bothering me. Are many of us missing it because of how we understand

[2:23] end times prophecy. But before we get into all that, guys, my name is Rousan. This channel exists to encourage, empower, and inspire you to live a life that blesses God. This connects to that topic so importantly because many people who get really into end times end up missing the practical side of what it means to live a life that blesses God. Oh gosh. Okay, we got to come we got to bring it back. I absolutely love this thing that Rouslon does. It's one of my favorite things that he's about because he's 100% right. I think that Michael Heiser was the person who said that esquetology or an obsession with esquetology to him was a waste of time. And there's a version of that makes complete sense to me. Like if I were so focused on esquetology stuff to where I'm building charts of the millennium and when the rapture is going to take place and all that stuff. And if that's what I meant by an obsession with esquetology, huge waste of time. But a

[3:11] big part of my channel, of course, I'm not a premill. I talk about how premillennialism, dispensational premillennialism is dangerous. And if you disagree with me on that, that's totally fine. Drop your comments down below. I don't mind the fire. I don't mind the heat for saying that. When it comes to esquetology in the Bible, it's not even really about the next things. Esquetology means the study of the last things. It's the next things are all the stuff that we argue about like rapture, tribulation, millennium, all that stuff is what's next. What we should be focused on as Christians is what's last. The actual last things. What is the actual end state that we're going toward? Why is that important? And how does that affect how we think about our lives today? That's really the subject of my book. That's the focus of my book, The Overlap Life, was really trying to help people figure out how to live every second of their life in light of not the

[4:01] millennium, not in light of the rapture, not in light of the tribulation, but in light of what the Bible really says about eternity. That's going to be a bigger focus. And if we could live there, it's going to change how we live today. And I love Rouslon because he's actually trying to help Christians live a better life now to have more impact now to be able to look around at their context and not just sort of helplessly throw themselves back and say, "Well, you know, there's nothing I can do about it. There's nothing that we can do about this. You know, it's the end times and it's all just going to happen the way I think he's also kind of like counter Calvinist. There's some like determinist things that he kind of pushes back against in his work as well. He's super friendly. you know, a bunch of his a bunch of the people that have also been on his channel are Calvinists and whatever, but he wants to empower people to live a life, like he said, that

[4:48] blesses God. And I think it's just it's awesome. He talks a lot about like theology of work and what you're doing being pleasing to God, using your time, talent, and treasures to live a life that blesses God. His material is great. If you are a fan of what we talk about here, then you'll probably be a fan of what he talks about over there. But let's let him keep cooking because I'm interested to see where he takes it. So, if you're new here, or if you're not new here, do me a favor, hit that subscribe button. There's a huge percentage of the people that watch this channel regularly, unfortunately, are not subscribed. All right, let's jump into this video. Now, the issue we're going to be discussing is actually connected to some of the culture built around the International House of Prayer and Mike Bickl, who had a massive scandal several years ago. But we're going to come back to that in a second. To understand how so many Christians may be missing it, we first have I just want to touch on that.

[5:37] That's such a heartbreaking situation. Everybody that was connected with Mike Pickle, the whole thing is just tragic. But if you want to hear me talk about, I don't really like talking about pastoral scandals and things like that, but if that's valuable for us to discuss, let me know in the comments and I can maybe comment on it. I would be doing so with a broken heart, but I think I know where he's going where there's all these young people who are just spending their entire lives praying and not really doing anything else with their time, which is a really disjointed way of living life. But let's see where he goes. Just have to take a look at the three different types of views on the end times through scripture and embraced in church history and actually how they relate to The Walking Dead, Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix. The first view that's probably most popular is the view of premillennialism. Premillennialism is

[6:25] basically the walking dead of Christian esquetology. And when I use that word esquetology, I'm talking about the end times view in terms of how the return of Jesus will happen. The world is falling apart fast. Evil is rising. Systems are collapsing. And survival becomes the name of the game. Just follow me for a second. In The Walking Dead, society has crumbled under the weight of a zombie apocalypse. And the few that are left hold on to hope while constantly fending off threats, not just from the undead, but other desperate humans. That's a lot like the premillennial view where things are expected to get worse until Jesus returns bodily and sets it all right. Think of the scene where Rick Grimes, the lead character in Walking Dead, wakes up in a hospital, completely unaware that the world around him, the world as he knew it, is gone. As he stumbles through the empty halls and looking outside, there's this overwhelming sense that the world has changed. That is how many premillennial

[7:14] believers feel about the world today. Not just broken, it's beyond repair, and only divine intervention will fix it. The return of That's a really good take. I hate it, but I love it. And I love it for a few reasons, honestly. Yeah. I remember being I was a premill before I became anything else before I really studied any of this. And this is sort of the default like you said it's the most popular. It's not the most popular view historically. Not even the most popular view in the whole world today. It's really popular in the United States and it's very popular because of a lot of teaching that has come out of ultimately it comes from John Nelson Darby and the publication of the Scoffield reference bible and all of that stuff. But yeah, I remember just like you open the book of Revelation and if you assume that this is all literally or semi literally going

[8:02] to happen in the future and that after about chapter 4 verse one of Revelation, pretty much everything after that is yet future and we're talking about, you know, giant scorpion manticor creatures coming out of the pits and pestilence and death and meteors named wormwood falling into the ground. All kinds of stuff. It is absolutely for the Christian just kind of like a this world right now is doomed. It's you know doing anything for this world in that sense is basically just polishing the brass on a sinking ship. There's really nothing for it. There's nothing good that comes out of it. It's a waste of time because it's destined to burn and it's just all going to get ripped apart. And our hope is that we're going to get, you know, airlifted out of here before God comes and nukes this place like the Death Star. And then there's a millennium which again in premillennial terms they believe Christ returns before he starts

[8:51] a millennial kingdom. But then in that millennium people are still sinning. People are still rebelling against God's rule. In fact after the millennial rule is over there's a rebellion that involves the whole world. And so yeah in view it seems to have a pretty low respect for the effectiveness of Christ's governance. Like he can't actually create a world. Even if he's ruling here for a thousand years in physical, bodily form, he still can't really create a kingdom where people are actually obedient to him. It's a pretty dim view of Christ is viewed kind of like a helicopter that's going to swoop down and scoop up all the leftover survivors. Now, the second view, and probably lately the least popular, is the view of postmillennialism. And this one is a lot like Lord of the Rings. In Lord of the Rings, the world is under the threat of Sauron's rising, but the story is not about hiding or escaping. It's about ordinary people like Froto

[9:37] and Sam playing their part to push back against darkness. Over time, small acts of courage shift the tide of history. That is the heartbeat of postmillennialism. The idea that the gospel is going out, transforming hearts, cultures, and even nations, gradually ushering in a golden age of godly influence before Christ returns with glory. Think about the famous battle scene in Helm's Deep. The main characters are fighting a seemingly hopeless battle. But just when all seems lost, Gandalf appears at the top of the hill with reinforcements. That moment captures the postmillennial spirit. Hold the line. fight the good fight because help is coming. But we've got a real role to play in the meantime. This view encourages believers to lean into what's happening in culture and not run away from it. Now, last but not fascinating. Okay, I don't disagree with his take on postmillennialism, but I don't think that the view that he just espoused is really unique to postmillennialism either. There's certainly a version of this where like hold the line, continue

[10:26] to be faithful, fight forward, and help is coming is something that certainly I would believe as an a mill. He's about to describe my view and I'm really interested to see where he takes it. But post mill and a mill have always been kind of like close. They've been, you know, an a mill is often called a pessimistic post mill and a postmill is often called an optimistic a mill. I think that's a little bit too simplistic. There's a lot to like in his analogy there. And Lord of the Rings is a good way of framing it up for a postmill person. I think they'd probably appreciate what he's saying there. But yeah, the key differentiator is that a post-millennial believer is someone who believes that the kingdom of God will come in fullness. The day of the Lord will come in fullness to usher in the new heavens and new earth after an age which they would believe is the

[11:13] millennial kingdom. All this is from Revelation 20. There's a whole the whole long discussion we can talk about, but they believe that the kingdom of God in fullness, it's here right now and it's spreading. And I agree with that part. But they believe that Jesus returns to a world that has in some ways already been Christianized. And what they mean by Christianized is that not only has the gospel gone out and found purchase in the lives of most of the people who live on the planet, but that it's also gone ahead and changed institutions and governance and how the different world philosophies work. that it's ultimately going to eradicate all of those things before Christ returns. That essentially the battle has already been won by the time Jesus comes back. He comes back to a world that has been prepared for him.

[12:01] And that's really the main reason that I can't affirm postmail in that way. And that's why I'm an a mill. And we'll get to that in a minute. But the key difference is that an amillennialist is free essentially to believe that the gospel still has power. It makes difference. It makes a difference in the world. It goes out and has an impact in the lives of those who choose to accept it. But the difference is that not everyone believes the gospel. Not everyone accepts the gospel. God still has enemies that are still at work in the world and they still have their say while the battle is ongoing until God comes and ends the battle and decides that it is enough and he has decided that his patience has run out with his enemies and the battle will be over now. And he has the ability to decide that at any time until then the battle is ongoing. And so the gospel goes out and changes those who accept it. But

[12:49] actually in some ways those who oppose it are hardened more and more in their opposition to it. So that the wheat and the chaff, the wheat gets more wheaty and the chaff gets more chaffy until the very end when the day of the Lord happens and it all goes down and the whole thing ends. Now again and Postmill would both reject the idea of the tribulation in general. There's a whole discussion here around like Daniel and the 70 weeks of Daniel and there's far too much for us to do. I've done other videos. You can go check those out on the channel. I'll link some of them down in the description. The key difference that you should understand between a mill and postmill is that Postmill thinks that the world will be Christianized at the end of the millennial reign, which we're in right now. The Amill also believes we're in the millennial reign right now. But the Amill does not believe that the world will be Christianized. It believes that the gospel will go out and have purchase and that it will change, even radically

[13:37] change the lives of those who accept it and that the kingdom of God will continue to spread and expand, but that the battle is ongoing and doesn't necessarily get won before Christ returns. That the day of the Lord is the day that Jesus comes back and decides to end the war, which is still ongoing when he comes back. That's the key difference. I'm interested in seeing I think I might have seen the Matrix involved before this. So, I'm wondering if the Matrix is how he presents a mill. Not least is the all millennial view. And this one is kind of like The Matrix. Not because it's sci-fi, but because it sees a deeper, more invisible war happening right now. Beneath the surface of what most people don't perceive. In The Matrix, Neil lives in a world that seems normal until he's awakened to a hidden reality, a digital illusion masking a brutal conflict between humans and machines. Once Neil wakes up, he realizes that he's been living in a false world, and that resistance is

[14:24] already at work. That's a millennialism in a nutshell. The millennium as described in the end times literature is not some future apocalyptic world. It's here and now. Christ is already reigning from heaven and the church is his resistance force on earth and the spiritual battle is ongoing until his return. One of the most iconic scenes that many of us are familiar with is when Morpheus offers Neo the red pill or the blue pill. Stay asleep or wake up to the real story. A millennialism is like choosing the red pill. You realize that evil does not need to get worse in order for Jesus to win cuz he's already won at the cross. We still live in attention. The kingdom is here but not fully visible. It's already but not yet. The mission is not to escape the world or take it over, but to live faithfully within it, knowing that one day the illusion will fall away and the true king will be revealed to all. Okay, here's a chart to hopefully help you understand. Dang, hold on. This is actually really, really good. Okay. Yeah, this is a goated take, I think, as the kids would say. This is goated.

[15:11] Okay, so Rouselon is 100% on board with that when he talks about amalennialism. He called it a millennialism halfway through that, but it is what it is. And that chart he has up is not exactly accurate, but we'll get to that in a minute. I have had a problem with some a mill believers who have talked about the kingdom of God or Christ reigning over the church in such terms as like he's only doing it in heaven. He's only reigning in heaven and that the church that is alive now is not really his kingdom. His kingdom is just spiritual. It's just kind of out there. I think that's disjointed and broken with the actual way that Jesus talks about the kingdom. Now whenever you hear about the gospel in the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, what you are hearing is the good news about a coming kingdom and Jesus as its king. And he says that the kingdom of God is at hand. Meaning it's here. He's bringing it with him wherever

[16:00] he goes. And the invitation is one to abandon the kingdom of darkness and to join the kingdom of God and his Christ where Jesus is the king by abandoning your allegiance to the kingdom of darkness and choosing allegiance to Jesus instead. And that's good news. You have been invited. The battle is already won, right? Especially for those of us on the other side of the cross and the resurrection. The days of evil are numbered. The time is running out and they are in the death throws lashing out wherever they can to try to destroy as many people as possible and destroy as many lives and image bearers of God as possible on their way to the loss. But the fact of the matter is that the battle is over. It has been won in Christ. The victory has been gained and it belongs to all of those who belong to Jesus who are citizens of his kingdom. Whether they have already passed on and are now in the presence of their Lord or

[16:48] whether they are still here, all of those are the body of Christ who is the victorious king over the forces of evil. And I think that's a proper a mill view. That doesn't mean that Jesus won't be reigning in some unique sense in the future. Of course, he will. In the new heavens and new earth, that will be a very different state of affairs. The presence of evil will be eradicated by that point. There will be no more existing sin or death or evil or mourning or crying or pain because all of those things will have passed away and the new order will have come. But in the meantime, we are supposed to occupy. We are supposed to continue to expand the borders of God's kingdom in every facet of our life. That's our focus. obedience to our king in every area while we are here knowing that we belong to a kingdom that has been established by Christ at his death, burial, and

[17:37] resurrection. When he was crucified, they elevated him. They put the crown on him. They gave him wine to drink. They put a robe around him. And although it was this grizzly scene, it's very subversive in that they are giving the crown and they are elevating the king of the universe at his death. And then when he died and then Christ was resurrected and God vindicated him in so doing. And then when he ascended on high, he took his place at the right hand of God the Father. And he is now ruling and reigning over the entire universe as its rightful king. Having won the victory and having defeated the enemies of God at the cross and through his death, burial, and resurrection. It's a lot. It's technical. We could probably do more videos about this. probably should do more videos about this. But that's why I'm kind of a halfway point between what people usually call postmill and what people usually call a mill. Because

[18:24] the postmill properly recognizes that the kingdom of God is at work now, here and now. And a mill sometimes don't. They sometimes reduce the kingdom of God to his spiritual reign in heaven with those who are already passed on. And that the kingdom isn't really here right now. The kingdom and church are different. There's sometimes that kind of thing going on. That's weird. But I'm also an ail in that I think things get better for the church and worse for those who oppose God and the gospel. Not everything getting better until the very end when Jesus returns to a world that's already been Christianized. I think they both get some things right and some things wrong. But it is what it is. Maybe I should talk about these things more. And again, yeah, let's coming back to this chart here that he borrowed from the Bible explained isn't exactly right. Most post mills aren't full predtoists. They're partial predtoists. And most a mills are also partial predtoists. Only some of us are idealists. This is a

[19:11] whole like way of interpreting the revelation. There's four main views. Futurist, historicist, predtoist, and idealist broadly. So this is very simplified. And yeah, again this am thing where it says spiritual he reigns in heaven for a long time. That's not properly Amill. Not everybody who's a mill believes that. Sam storms who wrote an amazing book on Amalennialism called Kingdom Come: the Amalennial Alternative does not believe that. Most modern Amills don't. Anyway, it's a whole long conversation, but anyway, let's just let's let him cook for a little longer and see where we go. three different views. Shout out to the Bible explained. This is from their YouTube page. They do a good job of diving into this. I just wanted to use their chart cuz I thought it was great. So, there's the premillennial, postmillennial, I'm millennial. We already kind of g you some examples. Now, when it comes to like the book of Revelation, like Matthew 24. In the premillennial views, they view that most of this has not yet been fulfilled yet. Okay? In the postmillennial views, they believe

[19:58] what's called predtoism. Meaning that a lot of revelation or Matthew 24, the end times passages were already fulfilled in the first. He's right with one caveat. There's full predto which I don't believe is a viable biblical view. Full predtoism believes that every prophecy happened in the first century or has already happened and we are now on the other side of all prophecy and that all the discussion around like the day of the Lord, the resurrection, the new heavens and new earth is actually describing when we die, go to heaven and are in heaven with God or something of that nature. I just think that there's far too much emphasis on physical bodily resurrection and the redemption of our bodies for that to really be the case. But then there's partial predict which is everything about like the destruction of the temple and all of that stuff. Most prophecy has already happened. What we are still waiting for is the day of the Lord, the defeat of sin, death, and

[20:47] evil and all of God's other enemies, the inauguration of Jesus as king, and the reunification of heaven and earth. That's partial predtoism. I'm a partial predtoist. I could defend that in a debate all day. It would be an absolute blast. But so anyway, there's some play in the joints here. First entry with the destruction of the temple in 78. The amalineal view is usually viewed that it gives a poetic picture of the Christian life. So it doesn't have to be literal. It doesn't have to be either or. It's kind of like I don't know Jesus is going to return. It's just how they view those cases of revelation is there. Now I want the record to show that I think all of these fall within Christian orthodoxy. And I think all of them when properly applied can lead to a life of being present in this world and this life and impacting this world for good. Okay. But I'm going to give you guys some extreme examples of this in a moment with the Mike Bickle situation. But first, let me kind of explain the rest of this. Again, the return of Christ in a premillennial view is before the millennial, meaning that Jesus returns in a bodily state

[21:36] fixes everything on earth. And then there's a millennial, a thousand-year reign of Jesus on the throne on the side of eternity. Okay, first off, I want to say that I agree with him that all of these are within the bounds of like I hate the phrase orthodoxy. None of these systems arises self-evidently from the text and none of these systems does undo violence to the text. You will come to one of these views based on decisions, hermeneutical and interpretive decisions you make elsewhere before you get to this discussion. It is because of a hermeneutical approach that I take before I get to Revelation, before I get to end times prophecy discussions. It's because of this hermeneutical approach that I take elsewhere that I landed on a mill and not on premillennialism. So, all that to say that good men differ. people who love Jesus just as much or

[22:23] more than I do and know more than I do about the Bible believe all three of these different views. So that's not these people are also brothers and sisters in Christ. This is a situation where good men differ and brothers and sisters can unite even if they disagree on this issue. But I disagree that the prim view actually says that Jesus fixes everything. He doesn't in that view. He doesn't. He comes and he establishes a kingdom here where he's physically reigning for a thousand years. But there's, like I said, there's actually a rebellion that takes place after that that involves all the peoples of the earth. So the efficacy of his reign is called into question. It does not actually achieve the end for which most people would expect the kingdom of God to be fully looking for. People still rebel against him after the fact, like a physical ring. In the postmillennial view, there is a thousand-year revival of the church and Christians ushering in

[23:11] transformative power on this side of eternity, the thousand-year, and then Jesus comes back. It's the same thing in the amaloial view, but it's less of a thousand-year literal reign. It's more of a symbolic reign. He's on the throne. And it may well again, so post mills and a mills could differ on this and agree on different points. Typically, both post mills and a mills agree that you could have a literal thousand years. Not likely. More likely is you just have a long time. A thousand years. The number 1,000 in scripture is almost always symbolic anyway. The Lord owns the cattle in a thousand hills. Well, only a thousand of them or all of them, you know, or a thousand years is like a day to the Lord and a day is like a thousand years. Is it literal? We're supposed to do like literal calculations one way or the other or is it just a long time is like a short time and a short time is like a long time to God. He experiences time differently than we do at a

[23:59] different resolution and granularity. I think that's the claim. So a thousand doesn't have to be literal a thousand years, 365, you know, days times a,000. That's not how it has to be. I think again typically po both postmills and a mills will agree that the kingdom of God is present on the earth here and now. It's not limited to spiritual. Again old a mills might have thought that that's not been the case for a while. Most a mills have moved to the point where they think that the kingdom of God is at work in heaven and on earth. Again the key difference is how they think the effects of that kingdom working are going to change the world. Postmills think that the entire world will be Christianized. Amills think that the enemies of God will still be pushing back and fighting until the very end where a fruit of rebellion gets shut down when God decides that he wants to bring his

[24:47] justice and is no longer going to tolerate rebellion. But anyway, it may not even be a literal thousand years. It could just be a symbolic number, right? I think my millennials, I'm sure, will correct me in the chat. The millennial, the thousand-y year reign is in the future. In the postmillennial view, it's happening now. Okay? And in the millennial view, it's in the spiritual realm. He reigns in heaven for a long time. the type of folks that would fall into these categories. I believe like my Catholics and my Eastern Orthodox folks would fall more into a millennial. They probably wouldn't like that label. I think postmillennial would be a lot of folks that are talking about theat. And oddly enough, so folks in the reform circles, I think James White, Jeff Durban in some of the reform circles. And there's this weird horseshoe theory where the other people are like hyper charismatics that are like waiting for revival to come any minute and going in and the seven mountain mandate and all that kind of stuff. I can't get into all of it now. And then a premillennial will be like a typical non-denominational Baptist neo evangelicals think the movie Left Behind that sort of view and this

[25:36] is more the prevalent view within many non-denominational neo- evangelical in some Protestant circles in the United States that Christians tend to experience. Again, I think all these views can work. What happens is they remove the reality that there's going to be a new heaven, a new earth, a fixed reality that we're going to experience when Jesus returns. I think all three of these views have Jesus on the throne. But I think what can be prevalent in the premillennial view, which is kind of the background that I come from, and even in some amalennial circles, is you start being so heavenly minded that you're of no earthly good. You're living out the imminency of Christ, expecting Jesus to return, but you're missing the rest of Matthew 25, which is the parable of the talents and caring for the least of these. Let me explain. So, in Matthew 24, we see all of the crazy stuff with the abomination of desolation and Jesus talking about when you can expect them, right? So, you must also be I did a whole video on this. It's called the It's about the Olivet discourse is what that is. Matthew 24, other passages,

[26:24] too, but that's all talking about the destruction of the temple. I proved it. Again, I would be willing to debate this if someone disagrees with me. That's all well and good. But man, I love what he's saying here. He's exactly right that the idea is some premills and some a mills. If they don't remember that the end of the story, we've talked about this so much. The end of the story is a new heavens and new earth. It's not just us getting airlifted to heaven while God nukes this place and then we go to an eternal worship service in the sky. The ending of the story being a restored world where we are given back everything that God intended for us to do and be in the beginning when he first made humans as his partners to rule over the world and take it someplace beautiful in service to him alongside him as co-creators and co-rulers. If we don't

[27:12] understand that's what we're being restored to, that's going to lead us to a disjointed view of what our goals are, we'll sort of consign this world to the trash heap and then look forward to the day where we get airlifted and everything gets fixed, but only in the sense that the world is now no longer in existence. It's really disjointed and it kind of throws off a lot of things. So, I agree with him entirely. Now, I kind of make fun of the so heavenly minded you're of no earthly good comment in my book, but I broadly agree. If you're only focused on the eternal worship service in the sky, then that's going to rob you of what you're supposed to be focused on now. And it's going to make the commands that Jesus gives us to follow here and now. It's going to make them feel disjointed with the ultimate goal he seems to be working towards. It's like loving the poor and caring for

[28:00] the least of these is like a means to an end evangelistically only so that we can get more people rescued and saved so that they will be on the airlift when God rescues us to heaven to nuke this place. And that's not the case. That's a very truncated broken view of what God's goals are. His goal is the new heavens and new earth. So be ready because the son of man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Now in our Bibles we have these things called verses and chapters. This isn't how it was initially communicated. Meaning Matthew 24 flows right into Matthew 25 which is the parable of the 10 virgins. Okay, these are the wise and foolish virgins that were not prepared for the bridegroom to return at night. So they didn't have oil and so some of the virgins are left out. But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet and the door was shut. Later the others also came and said, "Lord, Lord," they said, "Open the door for us." But

[28:48] he replied, "Truly I tell you, I don't know you. Therefore, keep watch because you do not know the day of the hour." So we are to keep watch. We don't know the day of the hour. This is important. This is scriptural. But the interesting part is many times Christians forget that right after this remember these verse number well and the day of the hour of what would be my question right it's not the day and the hour of a rapture where we get airlifted and then the whole world goes to hell for seven years I would say that one is the hour that we're waiting for the day or the hour of the day of the Lord beginning the last day the destruction of all evil and all sin and all death and we want to be prepared for that day alternatively depending on what passage we're looking at we could be talking about the day or the or of the destruction of Jerusalem. But those are the events that we're we don't know when that's going to happen. The destruction of Jerusalem happened in 70 AD. There was the destruction of the temple. It's this whole thing again. Check out my video on the Olivet discourse. But he's right. People forget

[29:37] that the next story is the parable of the bags of gold, right? Of the parable of the talents. So let's see what goes next. Numberings like 12 and 13 were added like 600 years ago. So the way Jesus is teaching this is all one long teaching that he's giving, right? In verse 14, he goes into the parable of the bags of gold. We also see this same parable taught in Luke chapter 19. Many of us may be familiar with this, but this is also an end times teaching about the master going away, giving one of his servants five bags of gold, another two bags of gold, and another one bag of gold according to their abilities. And then it says, "The man who received five bags of gold, brought it over to the master. He said, "You entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more." His master replies, "Well done, good faithful servant. Same thing for the guy with two bags. But the guy with one bag received one bag. He said, "Master, I knew that you were a hard man. Harvesting where you have not swn and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. So the guy with the five doubles up. The

[30:24] guy with the two doubles up. The guy with the one buries it and the master is upset. He says, "You wicked lazy servant. So you knew that I harvest where I have not sewn. Gather where I have not scattered seed. Well then you should have put my money on." What is this music by the way? I don't know what the deal is with the piano music in the background. It's a little odd, but I'm kind of digging it. Deposit with the bankers. So that when I return, I would receive it back with interest. So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has 10 bags. For whomever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken away. So here we see Jesus as the master. He's giving people resources. In this actual story, it's bags of gold. It's money. But I think this is usually meant for all of us in terms of our time, our talent, our treasure, the things that we have access to, the technology, the time that we're born. We're all given different bags, okay? And we are to be faithful with it. This is the biblical principle of stewardship. Okay? And the consequences

[31:12] of being a poor steward is you're thrown out into the darkness where there would be weeping and nashing of teeth. Okay? Again, I'm not talking about works based salvation. I'm talking about salvation then transferring and impacting us to do good works. Now the interesting part is these two things are connected. The third part of the chapter is the sheep and the goats where Jesus says on the last days this is no longer a parable. He says all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and on the left. Then the king will say to those on the right come you who are blessed by my father take your inheritance the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. Okay. In other words, what we do with our time and our effort and our resources, our time, talent, treasure, the way the Rouselon frames it up is vitally important to our witness to the world. When he is looking at us and evaluating our lives as his followers, our actions, our deeds in the

[32:01] body do actually factor in, not to whether or not we are saved. The foundation is laid on Christ and Christ alone. You have nothing else to hope for in your rescue than Jesus himself. But you build on top of that foundation with the kind of life that you live. Paul says you could build with wood, hay, and hastily found product and it's all just going to get burned up when it gets tested. Or you could build with stone, precious stones and things that are going to last. And then that will get proven. That work will be proven by the fire of the day of the Lord and you'll be rewarded. And the one who all their stuff gets built with all the kind of crappy materials still is rescued but only as one being saved barely through the flames. Meaning what we do now in our lives bodily matters for how God evaluates us as his followers in the

[32:50] end. What you do does matter not for your salvation but for God's own estimation of the what you did with the time and the talent and the treasure that he gave to you. And so the question for me is which of the millennial views A is more faithful to scripture? That's more important than anything. But then B actually helps us to properly be prepared to live in the right story in the right context for how to invest our lives and invest our story and invest our decision-making into the things that will what prepares us for that. So let's see where he goes next. Okay. Then the righteous will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? We're thirsty and give you something to drink. When did we see your stranger? Right? And the king will reply, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." We see the end of days in Matthew 24. We then see Matthew 25, which starts with living as if Jesus

[33:39] could come back at any minute, unexpected. Then that goes into making the most of our time, talent, and treasure, our resources. And then we see caring for the least of no longer a parable. He's speaking about the end of days. Where people get it wrong is they get so obsessed with the end times, speculation, when is Jesus coming back, that they miss what's in front of them right now. And this is most evidenced by the culture that was built at the International House of Prayer. Some of you guys may have heard recently Mike Bickl, the gentleman who founded this movement ended up having a massive scandal and blowout. Now, I don't need to get into the particulars of this. It's really terrible. You guys could do the Googles on your own. What I did want to do is highlight something my friend Michael from Remnant Radio talked about the situation with Mike Bickl and the old culture and how dangerous it was for people involved in it and then I'll give you guys some further thoughts. So, this is from their clip called Remnant Doesn't Call Out Wolves. I'll try to link it below. You guys can watch the full You know, I had always long before I was even part of a room at Radio. I didn't like the whole prayer room model of like where young people are like sacrificing their 20s and then like, you

[34:26] know, suddenly I guess I got to get a job and, you know, get married. Jesus didn't come back yet. And and just I never liked that. And I would, you know, but like just some of those red flags. I mean, that is what like a machine does is it causes people to sacrifice everything to keep the machine going. And the Pharisees devoured widows homes and they put heavy burdens on people's shoulders. I mean, that was IHO to a tea. And I just overlooked some of those things. And yes, I regret that. in this clip it. Okay, like there's I'm not equating with what I'm about to say all institutional church models with IHOP because it is different. The heart's different, the intention is different, but the machine does perpetuate the existence of the machine. The purpose of the system is to perpetuate the existence of the system. And so, yeah, it'll prioritize things that are good for the system over the people who exist within that system. And so, that's rough. That's difficult to say, but it's true. It was especially true at IHOP in really tragic ways. But again, the story

[35:15] that they were living in broadly premill caused them to say, "Well, this world and all that's in it really doesn't have anything for me." And that's an issue of terminology. Again, by the way, I want to be very careful when I say this, too. There's this world. What most people mean by this world, I think, is the world system, this age, the governing philosophy and spiritual warfare at work, causing people to believe stuff that's contrary to the gospel, all of that. I think that's what most people mean by this world. But if you're not careful and you're not precise, and most of us aren't, and I even battle with this sometimes, some of what people will mean by this world is this created existence, the globe, the world, the universe, even the physically embodied

[36:02] universe that God originally created and called good. And they'll go, I could inflate them. And this is not the same thing. There's like this is the the cosmos, the creation, and then there this is like the order of things, this age, this Ionius, right? That's what we're dealing with here. So these people at IHOP if you don't know what IHOP again international house not of pancakes of prayer and they were essentially the people would go imagine people in their young you know 20s early 30s essentially abandoning the secular stuff of getting married having a job owning a home doing things out in the world in the created order but like maybe it's also this thing like if you're in a physical existence and enjoying the physical world that God made and called good. Maybe you're also

[36:49] participating in the world's like unhelpful conflation and just shoving all that over here and then saying what really matters is the spiritual world cuz we know that God is going to nuke the world. He's going to get rid of the world system or is he going to get rid of the physical existence or both? It was all really messed up in this thinking. And then the thinking is also hey let's just invest our lives in what's spiritual which they meant prayer and Bible study and all this stuff. And it was a really disjointed kind of a broken way of looking at these things. And Rouslon, I think, is helpfully pointing out kind of a roundabout way, but I think you would probably agree that there's this problem of like the sacred secular divide thinking. And I really need to do I did a whole video with Justin Baldwin, which was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful conversation. You should go back and and listen to it. But we were talking about this sacred secular divide thinking and how it breaks our hearts and breaks our minds in ways and causes us to to miss

[37:38] so much of what is good and right in the physical existence that God's given to us and to not see it for its spiritual significance. And Rouslon is all about people spending their lives now and investing their lives with their time, talent, and treasures now to bring God maximum glory now. And so I'm really grateful that he does that. Let's see where else he takes this. Is that IHOP, the International House of Prayers, created this 24-hour prayer thing. And that may have sounded good on the surface. Young people coming together, praying non-stop, praying for days and days, sometimes weeks. Sounds good on the surface, but the consequences of it was people sacrificing their 20s. young people sacrificing the time that they should be developing themselves, that they should be growing in stewardship, that they should be growing in character and sleeping for goodness sake. So, what do I think Christians need to do when engaging this conversation around the end times? I actually think Jesus gives

[38:26] us a hint of this in Luke 19:3. This is the Luke version of the parable with the bags of gold. And Jesus said once he called to his servants to occupy till I come. Regardless of what view of end times you hold to, Jesus's prescription is that we are to occupy until he comes. that we are to make the most of our time, talent, and treasure while we're here. And that's exactly what my first ever book, Godly Ambition, is about. Helping people unlock the potential of your time, talent, and treasure. This book doesn't come out till September 9th, but we just launched pre-orders right now. The big issue we're dealing with. I didn't know Jerusalem was writing a book. That's awesome, bro. And look, godly ambition. Oh my goodness. There's a whole conversation here. There's theology of work. There's sacred secular divide thinking. There's developing yourself as a human being and taking the person that you will be in the new heavens and new earth and dragging that person into your present

[39:14] context to live out what they would do in all of your work, your rest, your relationships, and everything. And I haven't talked about this enough lately. I want to get back to this more because I do think people look at me like I've got five heads still sometimes when I talk about these things. But I think that this is going to be the thing that causes the church to get its influence and its power back. Someone who read my book and listened to my sermon series when I first was writing all of that stuff out called this the message that will be at the heart of the next great awakening. And I think that he's right. And I think that anybody who's talking about this, I'm super pumped for Rouslon's book. I'm definitely going to go pre-order it as soon as I can. But I think that the spirit's at work in all of us to move something like this forward. I'm eager to get back to more stuff like this with is the demonization of godly ambition. And here's the reality. Ambition isn't the enemy. It's

[40:01] the answer. So, we're doing a special right now. If you pre-order the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, anywhere books are sold. You can go to my godly ambition right now. Hit claim this offer and receive the got that typo says rule son. We got to get him a message about that intro in the first chapter, a 25% discount to our store, and be entered for a chance to be one of 10 winners to receive the whole book before anyone else does. So, this is my first official book. It's with amazing publisher. So, go to Amazon or wherever you buy books, pre-order it, grab a screenshot, go back to my godlyamission.com, hit claim this offer, put in your information, upload the screenshot, and you get the intro in the first chapter, 25% off with the code and a chance to be one of the first to read the full book. All right, I'll see you over there. Let's go, Rouslon. That's awesome. But yeah, let's bring it back. He's talking about stuff that we've been talking about on the channel forever now. And I agree, and I love what he's talking about. What is required from God's people in this day and age is godly ambition. is to recognize that we have been tasked with

[40:50] furthering and expanding the borders of God's kingdom in the midst of a war, pushing back the forces of evil, working against their purposes for taking the world back into disorder and chaos by living every second of our lives in faithful obedience to our new king and the new marching orders that he's given us, which in reality are just the old marching orders from the very beginning to be God's partners in the world to rule over it alongside him, taking it all some place beautiful with him side by side as co-rulers as partners in every second and every area of our lives utilizing our time our talent and our treasures our work our rest and our relationships to take this world someplace beautiful in service to God which will make the message of the

[41:38] gospel that leads to our salvation more winsome because hey person who is not a Christian yet all of those things that are important to you all of your environmental concerns, all of your concerns for people that you believe are oppressed and are being attacked and are being held down. God thinks those things are important, too. In fact, he views those things as part of the evil that is at work in the world to destroy what he made and called good. And his plan in the end is to destroy it, to undo it, to make all things new. And if we live that way as though that's also important to us, then it makes our message more winsome to those who are also hoping for a new world, working for a new world, which if you didn't notice is actually everybody. If you hear nothing else, hear this. Our evangelism can be

[42:27] impacted positively by focusing not on rescue and airlift to heaven while God nukes the planet, but actually in focusing on living now what we should be doing to make the world look more like the new heavens and new earth in our context and then inviting other people to participate in it with their own gifts and their own passions. you're inviting them into a much better story than, "Hey, you get a get out of hell free card and then you just escape the nuking project that God has on deck." It's very different. Very, very different. So, man, thanks for everybody who suggested that I watch this Rouselon video. It's I'm going to go get Ambition on pre-order right now cuz unlocking the full potential of your time, talent, and treasure is like, man, that is that is the best. And man, if there was some way I could start a conversation with him, I think that we would have a lot of fun stuff to talk about cuz yeah, this is

[43:15] everything. I've been a sales director, you know, I've been an entrepreneur. I build websites. There's been all kinds of stuff that I've done in terms of ambition. And having all of that stuff aligned and unified has been very freeing for me in a way that I think a lot of people still, frankly, struggle with. And they think about the stuff that they do that's not spiritual or not church stuff as being something that God doesn't particularly care about and maybe even will burn up. And that's just a fundamentally disjointed way of viewing the time, the talent, the treasures, our work, our rest, and our relationships and all of the different things that God gave to us, a as gifts, and then b as things to steward and maximize for the world that he's creating. So good for Rouselon. Go check out his channel if you guys don't know him. You should. He's awesome. And as I have not said in a while on this channel, I'm going to say it now. Further up and further