Welcome to Branch of Hope, Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Thank you so much for coming tonight. We've been having a series of debates and different events here at the church, some with atheists, some with Christians. With the Christians, it's always kind of different. The atheists are never into the worship as the Christians are. It's kind of an awkward moment. They're always, you know, should I sing? Should I just stand here and look rough? What should I do? But this is an event for brothers and sisters in Christ to come together in the power of the Spirit of God to discuss things that are important to us. To Christians, we don't take that view that doctrine is something that's unimportant. As a matter of fact, it's so important that when we disagree about something, we can come together and have a discussion about it with the absolute best of intentions, that the Word of God is supreme over all, and we all submit our hearts and minds to it. So tonight, we have two of the best thinkers on this subject, of course, really needing no introduction, but we'll introduce him anyway. is Dr. Thomas Ice. He's the executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center. He founded the center in 1994 with Dr. Tim LaHaye to research, teach, and defend the pre-tribulation rapture and related Bible prophecy doctrines. Dr. Ice has co-offered over 30 books. written hundreds of articles, and is a frequent conference speaker. He has served as a pastor for 17 years. Dr. Rice has a BA from Howard Payne University, a THM from Dallas Theological Seminary, a PhD from Tyndall Theological Seminary, and has done post-doctoral work at the University of Wales in the United Kingdom. Dr. Rice lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Janice. They have three grown sons. Also with us tonight is Pastor Paul Vigiano. Pastor Paul has been the pastor of Branch of Hope OPC for 27 years. Prior to that, he was a youth pastor at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. He's also served on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ. Paul has a master's degree in apologetics from Biola University and has been an instructor at various high schools and colleges. He attended Talbot Seminary, King's College Seminary, Bonson Theological Seminary, Westminster Seminary, and Fuller Seminary. The Soledad Gloria radio program has been broadcast for more than 15 years every Sunday on KKLA 99.5 FM in Los Angeles. Paul lives in the South Bay area of Southern California. He and his wife, Jennifer, have four children. They're here tonight. Where are you kids at? Just to put you on the spot. Now the format tonight will be a little different. It'll be in brief. Each of the speakers will have five minutes to present formal arguments, introduction, rebuttals and such. So as we go by, you'll see the pacing of it. It's a little bit more in brief so that you can get straight to the heart of the arguments for each position to hopefully help you to home in on exactly what's being said by each, their differences and their strongest and weakest arguments. So right now I'll pray before we open up and Pastor Paul will be presenting first. Lord, our God and Father, thank you so much for bringing us together tonight. We truly do pray that you would break our hearts according to your word, that you would show us truth and lead us into truth, that if any of us do err, Lord God, that you'd bring us to repentance so that we might know you, the one true God, as you have revealed yourself in Holy Scripture. We thank you for all of these things in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Good evening, thank you for attending. I'd like to begin by citing that there are numerous things, way more things on which my brother Tommy and I agree than we disagree. What we're going to have tonight is a disagreement between brothers. We would even agree on certain things surrounding the issue of the debate, that the scriptures teach that there's a great period of distress and tribulation, and that we would agree that there's wonderful promises throughout the Old Testament that would be fulfilled by the victory and reign of the Messiah, who is Christ. For example, these wonderful promises, I'm just gonna give you a couple of passages, going all the way back to the beginning of Genesis, that through the seed of the woman, the head of the serpent would be crushed. That through the seed of Abraham, all the families of the earth will be blessed. We read in Psalm 22, a great messianic psalm, that all the ends of the world shall turn to the Lord. All the families shall worship him as he rules over the nations. We read in Isaiah 11, 9, the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. And by the way, the waters cover all the sea. Even as Mary, and this is in the New Testament, saying in the Magnificat at the prospect of the birth of Christ, his mercy is on those who fear him, he puts the mighty down from their throne, he exalts the lowly, he fills the hungry. Now we would also agree that many of these wonderful promises are kept in a period known as the millennium, this age of Christ's reign. So where would we disagree? Our disagreement really surrounds when and how these wonderful promises take place. We would also agree on the timing of the horrible things and the timing of the wonderful things which may come into play in this discussion. Now the term that I use to describe my position is post-millennial. Now that prefix, post or pre in my opponent's case here, indicates when you think the second coming will take place. It is either post after, or pre, before the millennium, or that age of Christ's reign. Now my understanding of eschatology, I have to say, is amazingly simple. And it's not one conducive to books, or movies, or novels, or charts. So don't get excited. It is long, it is slow, and it is maybe even a bit laborious. Yet I would argue that it is sure, and it is powerful. So what is it? Well, let's go back a little bit. Very briefly stated, before and during the time of Christ, we read that all the world lay under the sway of the wicked one. But when Christ came, he won a great victory. He triumphed over the wicked one, we read in Colossians 2.15. He ascended to the Father, and he sat on his throne. Having been given all authority in heaven and on earth, he gave his followers a commission to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them all that he had commanded. Now, with that great commission, I'm sure we've all heard of, came a glorious promise of success. The devil would be bound, a chain put on him, not destroyed, not thrown into the pit, but bound in such a way that he would deceive the nations no longer. So we see that message would go out and the message would hit its mark. And here we begin to see how God keeps his wonderful promise to bless all the families of the earth. Christ accomplished the work of redemption and his spirit would apply the work of redemption through the preaching of the word. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. It is through the accomplished work of redemption and the applied work by the spirit that we begin to see these wonderful promises that we just read about being kept. So the position that I offer you for your consideration, a position, by the way, which would be the majority report, I'm going to argue, throughout history, especially if you look at the Puritans and the Reformers, even though the terms, like premillennial and postmillennial and amillennial, they didn't really exist. But this would be the majority report is that the great promises made by God are fulfilled through what Jesus, and this is key, has already done, not by what he has yet to do. We recognize that Jesus is currently the King of Kings. He is currently the ruler over the kings of the earth, Revelation 1.5. He's been given all authority. And it is through the preaching of the gospel through history and the power of the spirit and changed hearts over the centuries that God will keep his wonderful promises. The millennium is that period between the first and second advents of Christ, where his spirit through the gospel brings life where there was only death. My opponent and I would agree that the spirit does regenerate sinners. What I'm submitting to you is that the work of the cross is sufficient to fulfill all the promises. The advancement of the Kingdom of God, through which the promises are fulfilled, is prior to the Second Coming. It is not a cataclysmic thing, it is a gradual thing. Every example we see in Scripture describes it this way. It's like a mustard seed that begins small and then becomes large. like leaven that slowly permeates the loaf, like a stone that strikes the nation and then becomes a mountain filling the whole earth, like water flowing from a temple which begins at our ankles, then to our knees, then our waist, then it becomes an impassable deluge. When Jesus comes again, he will not contend with sin. He will not finish a job left undone. He will not start his kingdom. His kingdom is already, as he said in Matthew 12, 28, but if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Thank you. Where's the timekeeper? I'll be the timekeeper tonight, Pastor. Okay. And you have five minutes. Okay. Just so you know, that was exactly five minutes. First of all, I want to start off by defining premillennialism. It is the belief that Christ returns before the millennium and that there are two resurrections, the resurrection of believers and the resurrection of unbelievers at the end of the millennium in preparation for eternity. And as opposed to a general resurrection that you have in postmillennialism where the church age is viewed as a kingdom, usually they have two phases, the advancing phase and then the millennial phase. So, we would obviously be in the advancing phase. And through the preaching of the gospel, God is going to save the world. People like Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield said that included every individual, but most Postmills believe that it is just the majority. And Christ will rule from heaven through the church who has reached a certain level of ruling over the world. Now, the definition of the kingdom is, and something I got from Mike Vlock, who's here tonight, a professor at Master's Seminary, the universal kingdom is something that we believe is a sovereignty of God. And you see it in the book of Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar confesses that the most high rules over the affairs of man. God causes the wrath of man to praise him, the remainder of wrath he restrains. He's always in control sovereignly. However, the mediatorial kingdom is what God's rule on earth through man who acts as God's representative. you know, the psalmist says that God rules in heaven, but man rules on earth. And that's what we see in the Garden of Eden. Revelation 5.10 says, and thou hast made them, talking about the martyrs coming out of the tribulation, a kingdom of priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth. And Oswald Alice of Post Mill said, literal interpretation has always been a marked feature of premillennialism. and dispensationalism and has been carried to an extreme," he says. We have seen that this literalism found its most thoroughgoing expression in the claim that Israel must mean Israel and that the church was a mystery unknown to prophets and first made known to the Apostle Paul. Now, if the principle of interpretation is adopted that Israel always means Israel, then it does not mean the church. Then it follows a necessity that practically all of our information regarding the millennium will concern a Jewish or Israelite age, and I agree with this. assessment by this post-millennialist. Post-millennialism has to at some point make many Old Testament passages relate to the church and the preaching of the gospel during the church age rather than seeing the church age as a mystery that was introduced by Christ in the upper room discourse the night before he died and expounded upon by the apostles. And Mike Vlock in his book on premillennialism has this summary of premillennialism. And so you see, it concludes with Revelation 20. It starts in the Garden of Eden with the cultural mandate. And I strongly believe in the cultural mandate. It's still there. It's man's task to rule over from and over the earth for the glory of God as his vice regent. And it's reaffirmed in Psalm 8. We see the Old Testament passages that I think support this idea of an earthly kingdom. The Old Testament passages predict a coming earthly kingdom under the presence of Messiah in various passages in the Old Testament. And we see passages like Isaiah 2-2, now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains and will be raised above the hills and all the nations will stream to it. It goes on and talks more about the millennium. Then we see that other Old Testament passages that predict an intermediate kingdom with conditions better than the present age, but not perfect like the eternal state. And so we see this as the mediatorial kingdom on earth. Isaiah 65, 20, Psalm 72, Zechariah 8, and 14. And we see in Isaiah 65, 11, it says, no longer will there be in it, referring to the previous verse to Jerusalem, an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days. For the youth will die at the age of 100, and the one who does not reach the age of 100 shall be thought accursed. And here you see an anticipation of the thousand years that are going to later be revealed in the book of Revelation. If an infant lives to be, dies at 100 and he's thought to be an infant, then that would anticipate a thousand year lifespan. And then we have New Testament passages that continue unobstructed into the New Testament. It predicts a future and our earthly kingdom. you know, Matthew 5.5, Matthew 19.28, Matthew 25.31, Luke, the early passages in Matthew where Mary and the Magnificent, for example, sees millennial events in the future of her son, the Messiah, as well. And in Matthew 19.28, Jesus said to them, truly I say to you that you who have followed me in the regeneration, and here he's not talking about individual regeneration, He's talking about the regeneration of the earth. And this is one of the things that I think separates premillennials and postmillennials. We believe that creation has to be regenerate and resurrected or made new. And so he is talking about creation here so you need resurrected man to be able to and the curse being removed in order to have a kingdom. When the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne you also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And then we see the New Testament passage is the earthly intermediate kingdom of a thousand years in Revelation 20. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God and those who had not worshipped the beast or his image and had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. So they are resurrected before that time. Pastor Paul, now for your first constructive arguments. Well, actually, we're back at Tommy. We're going first, second, second, first, and so forth. We agreed to a change there. We have our own thing going here. He's going to go four times in a row. We conspired together. a biblical argument for the system. Well, I've just done that and I can continue. I believe that you have basically premillennialism in that form is the fact that Jesus returns in chapter 19 and the millennium takes place for a thousand years. And so we, unlike postmillennialism and amillennialism, we have an actual passage that suggests our view. Jesus returns in chapter 19. Satan is then bound for a thousand years and put in the abyss and it's sealed over. And then you have the millennial blessings for a thousand years. And then you have the end of history. In fact, you have the apostles who said in the book of Acts, it talks about how Christ during the 40-day interval before his ascension, after his resurrection, was speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God in Acts 1-3. And so when he had come together, they were asking him, imperfect meaning they were repeatedly asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time that you're restoring the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know the times of the epics, which the father sticks in his own hand. In other words, he tells them to go out and preach the gospel at this time. Of course, I would argue that's because, as we learned in Matthew 13, because of Israel's rejection, the kingdom has been postponed, but it's going to come. And that's where the mystery doctrine of the church comes in. In the interim, the church is to preach the gospel. The church age is an elective age in which God is drawing out through the preaching of the gospel those who will reign and rule with them. the future and so it is not the kingdom in any way shape or form there is a spiritual dynamic you have the church beginning you have the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit all these things that began on the day of Pentecost the rapture of the church was developed and revealed by Christ in John 14 to end the church age so that God can do what deal with the nation of Israel during the 70th week of Daniel and then you have Peter preaching to Jews in Acts 3. He says, But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of the prophets, that His Christ, His Messiah, should suffer, He has thus fulfilled. So the suffering phase of the Messiah has been fulfilled by Christ's first coming. And we all know that Christ's coming is divided into two periods. His humiliation or suffering phase which he was victorious over that's not only why he was raised from the dead but he also ascended to heaven and is at the right hand and then his glorious phase and this is what it keeps talking about in the future and he says repent therefore and return The Jews today even talk about a wayward Jew who comes back to Judaism doing shuva, turning, repenting, that your sins may be wiped away in order that the times of refreshing may come. And so the condition for the coming of the kingdom is that the Jewish people have to be converted. And I think Paul talks about that in Romans 10. They're going to be converted. How shall they call on Him in whom they haven't believed? And there are many passages that we could deal with that show about a future conversion of the nation of Israel where they believe the gospel. This is not just God taking unsaved Jews, but the nation, the entire nation will be converted, and they will call on Him to rescue them. And that is the condition for the coming of the kingdom, that He may send Jesus the Messiah appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His Holy Spirit. Holy Prophets from ancient times. And then we see another important passage in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem Council. And we see that James gets up and makes a comment. James answered saying, Brethren, listen to me. Simeon, or Peter, has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophet agree, just as it is written. After this, I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it." And so we have a pattern set up. And in Amos, where he quotes this from, it says, in the last days, James drops that out and says, after these things, after the church age, where he's taking out from among the Gentiles a people for his name, he will deal with Israel. Okay, well just so you know, and we're not getting into the critique of our opponent's position yet, but we believe as post-millennialists that the exaltation of Christ happened at the Ascension, and that everything that my brother here is talking about is in fact true, but it's a result of Jesus currently on the throne, not something yet future. Just kind of park that in the back of your mind a little bit. What we're talking about tonight, though, is really whether or not the gospel will have a positive effect upon the world. Many years ago, before I had really done any spade work and study on the question of end times, years ago, almost 30 years ago, a friend asked me a question. I want us all to ask ourselves this question tonight. And that is, if we were to leave all of our preconceived notions behind, if we left the books and the movies and the charts and the headlines and appealed only to the plain, natural, obvious understanding of Jesus and the Bible, here's the question. Do we think the world will be a better place as a result of Jesus having come? Now I'm talking about the observable world, things like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, delivering the oppressed, political peace, economic wisdom, unity of households, things that we see included in God's covenant promises, things that are going to happen in that golden age of Christ's reign. I recall thinking how odd it would be to answer that question in the negative. Do you think the world would be a better place because Jesus came? I thought, how can I say no to that? Almost any child in Sunday school, if asked, will Jesus make the world a better place? would say yes. In a very broad sense, the natural reading of the Bible really yields a post-millennial answer. An immediate response to that might be to ask about all the passages to which we both agree horrible things are taught. Again, this might go beyond the spectrum of this debate, but it must at least be briefly answered, and you can do your own study afterward. All we're trying to do is whet your appetite, and then you can buy books and study. But it would appear that Jesus and the apostles were warning their audience about horrible things that the listener or the reader was going to have to endure. Many of those horrible events, things like wars and earthquakes are taught, obviously, by Jesus on the Mount of Olives in the Olivet Discourse. But in the midst of that sermon, Jesus says this. Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. And keep in mind, every single time Jesus uses that phrase, this generation, in Matthew, he's talking about the generation of his time. It is the near demonstrative. He could have said that generation, but he didn't. He said this generation. How would they have understood that? If they were sitting at the feet of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, how would they have understood Jesus? How would Timothy have understood these words of the Apostle Paul, words so often assumed to be speaking of the 20th century or the 21st century? You've heard it. I won't read the whole passage, but you'll be familiar with it. But know this, in the last days, perilous times will come, for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters. And you know that passage, it goes on and on. And then he says, having a form of godliness, but denying its power, and this is the key, and from such people turn away. Now, when Paul exhorts Timothy in second person singular, which isn't as obvious in the English as it is in the Greek, and from such people turn away, would Timothy have understood these words to be addressing some far future generation? Or would be Timothy think, I need to turn away from these people? Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. It is not the post-millennial position that there will be no tribulation or pain or suffering for Christians. It is not a prosperity gospel. It is their position that the pain and suffering will, in fact, yield all sorts of fruit. Consider the words of Jesus in Mark 10, 28 through 30. He's answering Peter. He says, Surely I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brother or sister or mother or father or wife or children for land's sake for my gospel's sake, or land for my sake or the gospel's, who shall not receive a hundredfold, now in this time, not a future dispensation, now in this time, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come, the next age, heaven, eternal life. Now again, this isn't Jesus promoting a prosperity gospel. This is a very general statement in which Jesus is teaching at least three things. I'll look at them backward. One, following Christ, and this is where my brother and I agree, yields eternal life in the age to come. Secondly, expect persecutions in this age, in this time. But third, expect the world to be changed. Houses, lands, family, in this age. Does the Bible teach postmillennialism? One would be hard-pressed to read the scriptures without seeing it almost everywhere. Where my brother and I disagree is, he just automatically throws it all into the millennium, where I'm saying, well, it is in the millennium, but the millennium started when Jesus won the victory. So we would agree, we just don't agree on the means by which these promises come. Another example would be, I think, one of our favorite Christmas passages, and I'm almost done here. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this. Now this very familiar passage moved from the birth of the child to the full establishment of his kingdom with no mention at all of an intervening period. There's no mention of the second coming. Two chapters later, we read even a stronger post-millennial verse. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. The post-millennialist sees these and other passages like these to be fulfilled in such a way as to genuinely affect the human race in every aspect, both spiritually and physically. This will not be the result of human wisdom and ingenuity, but of Christ's finished work on the cross, changing the hearts of sinful people. As opposed to Jesus finishing the job at His second coming, Perhaps the single most post-millennial passage in scripture is the one from the Old Testament that is quoted in the New Testament more than any other verse in the Old Testament. Psalm 110, verse 1, 1 Corinthians 15, for he must reign until he puts all of his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. Jesus is the reigning king. Thank you, Pastor Pohl. What we've heard so far is opening arguments from both sides, and now we've heard positive, constructive, biblical arguments from each side. Now we will begin with negative arguments against a position, beginning with Pastor Paul. One second here. I'm going to fix my stopwatch because I'm really going over, and Tommy's so patient. You did kick me a minute ago. No. I actually wanted to reach out and grab you here. I think it was a restraining of the Holy Spirit. That doesn't sound like a dispensationalist to me. I've got some notes, and I've started my clock, that there's a lot of talk about how this is going to happen in the millennium, and the millennium, and the millennium. I think it's important for you to note that the millennium is not talked about until Revelation chapter 20. And so a lot of things are thrown into the millennium And yet, arguably, one of the most difficult passages in all of scripture to understand, and we're using it to reinterpret the rest of the Bible, I think is, well, it's kind of, in my opinion, putting the analogy of faith on its head. Nonetheless, in my critique of my opponent's position, which has clearly become the majority report in Western evangelicalism, I realize I'm in the minority here. after The Late Great Planet Earth was written by Hal Lindsey, became the top-selling book in the world in 1970, and the top-selling book in the entire decade of the 70s for Christian books. I wish to emphasize my respect for him and the dispensational instructors that I had at one of the dispensational seminaries that I attended. I have no desire at all, and I hope that comes through clearly, to vilify godly men and women, and I hope that there is charitable toward me. Nonetheless, As I took several years to examine the various eschatological positions, I found that the futurist premillennial dispensational approach to scripture to be, quite honestly, the most unnatural reading of the Bible. Perhaps this is why, from Augustine, to Anselm, to Aquinas, to Luther, to Calvin, Edwards, and on and on, you will not find any of them approaching anything that really resembles this grid by which dispensationalists read prophecy. The most popular view in the West today really bursts on the scene, in case you don't know, in 1830, either through a 19-year-old girl named Margaret MacDonald, who apparently received a trance, but we won't go there, but really through John Nelson Darby, either way, It does not become part of the theological landscape of the Christian faith until less than 200 years ago. You won't find this if you read the Reformers. Now, of course, that doesn't make it wrong, but it's worth noting that this is not a mere tweak in the theological wheel. It is a major shift in the way the Bible is to be read. a shift unseen by the greatest theologians in the Christian faith from Augustine to Whitefield. Now, some might say that as a post-millennialist, wouldn't I expect theology to get better? Of course, that becomes kind of a weird little thing, doesn't it? But it is not the position of the post-millennialist that the advancement of the kingdom does not have its ups and downs. We don't think that it's just going to get better and better and better. I watch Dick Van Dyke, and it's wonderful. And I watch whatever's on TV now. I can't even watch it. I can't draw my theology based upon 50 years. And I would say that in the past 200 years, at least in the West, things have bottomed out a bit. To be sure, there were, by the way, and my opponent might point out, in the first couple of centuries, those who held to a premillennial position. But this was not dispensationalism. And it was, to be honest, it was prior to the early councils. And it was a time when the Trinity wasn't organized and the deity of Christ was still kind of up for grabs. So these types of things were not worked out, let alone eschatology. But it's not merely a lack of its historical strength that leads me away from the premillennial dispensational approach. It is, as I said earlier, how unnatural one must read the text in order to make it work. It's a very confusing system with its seven dispensations and its three people groups. You've got believers, unbelievers, Jewish believers, Gentile believers. Gentile unbelievers all receiving various and distinct promises based upon their faith, ethnicity, and the dispensation in which they're living. It makes the Bible a very difficult book to read. But just because it's complicated and unnatural doesn't make it wrong. There are two other issues that we can only touch on here, and I want to mention them briefly. One is its lack of adherence to historical, biblical, creedal orthodoxy. And secondly, it's pessimistic, and I would argue unbiblical view of the power of the cross of Christ. Now we live in an era where much to our destruction, the ancient creeds, I don't know about the audience here, are viewed as expendable. We don't view the Nicene Creed, the Apostle Creed, and the ancient confessions in our day and age with a lot of respect. We ignore, I think, the biblical admonition to respect teachers that God would raise up for our benefit, not just the ones who are alive now, but the ones who have gone before us. But it was the universal position of Bible-believing Christians that there was, as Tommy said, he no longer believes or doesn't believe in a general resurrection. We see a general resurrection taught in the Apostles' Creed and in the Nicene Creed. These creeds and virtually every confession that speaks of the resurrection speak of the resurrection, not multiple resurrections. We see the sheep and the goats standing together being judged. We see the wheat and the tares growing together until the time of harvest. Jesus taught very clearly, do not marvel at this for the hour is coming in which all those who are in graves will hear his voice. It is a single hour not separated by a thousand year period and come forth those who've done good to a resurrection of life and those who've done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. But the dispensationalist departs from Christian orthodoxy when it requires multiple resurrections. That's no small thing. According to Charles Ryrie, well, Tommy said he believed in two resurrections, but Ryrie was a professor of systematic theology at Dallas Seminary. There may be up to three resurrections. There's one resurrection at the rapture. There's one resurrection or a second one. seven years later at the second coming, and then a third resurrection at the end of the millennium for the unsaved. So you see three resurrections, or at least two. Now, another significant departure from orthodoxy is seen in the writings of Louis Sperry Chaffer, who is the founder of Dallas Seminary. And I'll just leave you with this. As many of you might know, one of the primary ways Christ has always been defined throughout history is as prophet, priest, and king. But Chaffer observes this. He is now serving as priest and is not king. The general resurrection and the kingship of Christ are noteworthy departures from historic biblical Orthodox Christianity. Thank you. Where do I start? I agree with Paul that the disagreement is over the when and timing. And we believe that the second coming will cataclysmically introduce the millennium. He believes it's gradual and slow. But there are passages that talk about, like in Daniel, smashing the enemies and all of this, which is a catastrophic description there and things like this. It doesn't talk about it unless you take that one parable in Matthew 13 to refer to a slow process, which I don't. uh... and how yes we believe that jesus who was humiliated on planet earth and who successfully when he died on the cross qualified to become the king and the millennium head of the millennial kingdom but he had a two-phase plan and that's because part of his plan was the church age just as we saw James explaining that he's going to take out from among the Gentiles of people for his name. And that's what's been going on. And, of course, we know from Ephesians 2 that they're brought together into one unique body of Jew and Gentile believers during the church age. And therefore, in order for God to fulfill His calling and destiny for Israel, which is all throughout the Old Testament. And once again, you have to allegorize those and say Israel doesn't mean Israel in order to somehow make them refer to the church. And we also believe that there is victory in history. He mentioned earlier that we did not. We're pessimistic. We have a different timeline for the optimism, but we believe that God will successfully bring all the elect to faith in Christ, and then we will reign and rule with Him as resurrected beings, and the curse will be removed. Otherwise, you have to dumb down the millennium as some great period like in Geneva or sometimes in the past, instead of it being an actual time where the curse, apart from death, is totally rolled back. And twice the Bible says the world is under the power of the wicked one, 1 John in Galatians. The great commission is to go preach the gospel. We believe in redemption. The first phase is spiritual. And that's why we are being tested as a bride of Christ in this current age, awaiting then being taken to heaven to reign and rule with Christ as His bride. And just as there are male and female, there are different human beings, different racial groups, God has a very multiplicity plan, but everybody's saved the same way through faith in Christ. There's no other way of salvation, but he has different things he's doing in history. And the Puritans were primarily premillennial. in the 1600s. It wasn't until the early 1700s when the Enlightenment came that Puritans shifted to a more post-millennial thing. There were a couple of free post-millennial Puritans, but Increase Mather, for example, who Cambridge grad immigrated early on to America, the father of, when I say Increase, I meant Richard Mather, who was the father of Increase Mather, and then the grandfather of Cotton Mather, said that they were all pre-millennial. referring to the Puritans. And that's why America is filio-Semitic, very pro-Israel. Increase Matters' favorite book was about how the Jews would be restored. Even the post-millennialists back then believed that. Today, if you combine post-millennialism with preterism, then they don't see a future for the Jews. Maybe a conversion, but that's it. Then you have the advancement of the kingdom of God being gradual, and once again that is not something, it requires just as the coming of Christ at the first coming where He came and cataclysmically died on the cross and paid for our sins, at the same time the second phase will be when He comes back and does that. Whether or not this world is better today than it was 500 years ago or 1,000 years ago is not the issue in the Bible. The millennium is a time when righteousness will rule and dominate the world. How many of y'all living in Southern California think righteousness is dominating the world? No. It's a time in which we're caught. He is calling out, you know, believers for this future reign. And yes, there's accumulation of technology That gives people a false idea that they are smarter and smarter and all of this kind of stuff going on. And we do have a better life physically and all of these things. Now, the Millennium says that there'll be tremendous agricultural productivity and all these other things, but this is not the Millennium. If it is, I'm living in the ghetto side. But there is no ghetto in the Millennium. The condition for the coming of the kingdom is for the Jews to accept Jesus as a Messiah, and that's why you have the 70th week of Daniel that precedes that. He gave some arguments for preterism. Preterism is not a proof for post-millennialism. Preterism, you can be an Amil like J. Adams or Ray Summers or some of these people who are Amil preterists. That's not an argument for premillennialism. These passages... the passages he quoted referring to the millennium pre-millennialist degree. Except I would argue that post-millennialists have to see that being dumbed down and we see an actual total change in things. And we're not doing what he said in Revelation 20 because pre-millennialism was taught before Christianity ever came along. And the creeds he's right that the early church was futurist pre-mill. It wasn't dispensational because they had a wrong view of the Jews. And you can't be a dispensationalist. And that is something new. Our organization, Preacher Research Center, has found a dozen pre-Darby rapture statements all the way back to the 280s. 300s, et cetera. And we're finding more and more. Now, I'm not saying they were dispensational in rationale, but they were. Tweese, who was head... What did I say? You said, I'm not saying they were, but they were. No, I meant, I'm not saying that they had... They were female, right, yeah. But they were pre-trib. They were pre-trib. Tweese, who was head of the Westminster Confession, and dozens of others who attended the Westminster Confession were premillennialists back in those days. And pessimism, how is pre-millennialism pessimism when Jesus is going to return, remove the curse, and reign on earth for a thousand years, which is a warm-up for His earthly kingdom, I mean for the eternal kingdom that will come later. And we agree, prophet, priest, and king, first taught by, first formulated in that way by John Calvin. But we believe that His kingship will be during the millennium, which is what it's for. At this time, Dr. Rice will continue with his rebuttal arguments. Okay, I was... I know, it's kind of confusing. You're already rolling, we're just making it official. Okay, well how much time do I have left? Four minutes. Okay. You're just saying that, right? Also, the pastor mentioned that You should read the Bible for what it meant in its day. That's not grammatical hermeneutics, grammatical historical. Here in the 70s, Biblical Inerrancy Council, they did a book on hermeneutics, and they said, we affirm the necessity of interpreting the Bible according to its literal or normal sense. The literal sense is the grammatical historical sense, which is the meaning which the writer expresses. It's authorial intent, not how people would have understood it in their day. Because all you have to do is read the Bible to know that they misunderstood a few things that Jesus said. And here's Milton Terry, a preterist, who says the same thing. The grammatical historical as the method which most fully commands itself to the judgment and conscience of Christian scholars, its fundamental principle is to gather from the scripture themselves the precise meaning which the writers intended to convey, authorial intent. It applies to the sacred books the same principles, the same grammatical process and exercise of common sense and reason which we apply in other books. I cannot understand why he accused, toward the end of his previous comments, premillennialism as teaching that we get it out of Revelation 20 alone. that's just not the case uh... there were jewish people before christianity came on the lot on the saying that speculated that the book the kingdom the jewish kingdom would be a thousand years because they were using what's called the septa millennial view i don't agree with the septa millennial view personally but that's what they use almost all the church fathers to the six seven eight hundreds taught the septa millennial view that Seven days of the creation week, and therefore history will be 7,000 years. Six days is when man works. That's earth history. And then the seventh will be 1,000 years. There are pre-Christian Jews who taught that. That view was circulating. There were some other views. Some Jews taught it was 7,000 year millennium or kingdom. And so this idea of a kingdom of the Messiah coming and then reigning with him, you know, he talks about in Matthew 19 that Abraham and Isaac and the, you know, other, they'll be sitting in the kingdom with Jesus and the twelve disciples etc judging the twelve tribes of Israel you see and so if you take the Bible literally and what we mean by that if you look at Oxford English Dictionary the mother of all dictionaries it says literal means according to the letter what is written on the page that's literal interpretation it's not we don't believe in literalistic interpretation where you use wooden literalism to do away with figures of speech. We recognize all of this stuff. But, for example, they often say, well, you know, 1,000 years in Revelation 20, does the Lord own the cattle on 1,000 hills? Or 1,000 first hill? Well, if you read the next phrase, do you know what the next phrase is? It says God owns everything. It's clearly in context a figurative use of that. But when you come to Revelation 20, you can't do illegitimate totality transfer where you bring the context from the psalm and plug it into the narrative in Revelation 20. Clearly you have that. I remember Lewis Johnson pointed out that you have in Revelation where they sing the visions, what he sees, and then you have an interpretation. At least the last two of those six references in Revelation 20 are an interpretive comment. And so you don't give an interpretive comment or an explanation with another figure of speech. Pastor Paul, your rebuttal arguments? Okay, well, this is where we're kind of winging it because I wasn't sure what his critique was going to be of the things I'd say. So let me just kind of hit on some of the things. Yeah, Psalm 5010, we talk about my Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills. And yet Deuteronomy 111 also says, may the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are. Or Deuteronomy 7, 9, therefore know the Lord your God, he is faithful. to keep covenant and mercy for a thousand generations for those who love him keep his commandments of course thousand generations from back there would be. Forty thousand years if I was a thousand times forty years. I was written about thirty five hundred years ago which means if he's if you're going to take a thousand literally. Now we're here for another thirty. 6,500 years, the point here is that the number 1,000 isn't just there, but so many, almost every time that the number 1,000 is used in the Bible, and I've got a few more here, it's used to describe either a large number or a long period of time. When you have numbers like 17,333 people were killed in a battle, that you need to understand literally. But when you see this number 1,000, It's almost never. Matter of fact, what my brother says here in terms of Psalm 50 kind of indicates to us in that we can use that in terms of the analogy of faith to know that when God says 1,000 and then he describes and defines 1,000, it means a whole bunch, even his own description of it. Moving along here. Tommy says that it's going to be cataclysmic, that the description of it starting small and getting big. And he talks about the stone in Daniel, right, in chapter 2, hitting the image. Cataclysmic. And then what happens to the stone? Everybody know? It becomes a mountain. You see, a mountain doesn't hit the image. A stone hits the image. And then it becomes a mountain. It starts small and it gets big, just like all the kingdom parables. So even the very passage he's using to say, no, it's cataclysmic. When Jesus comes, he's gonna subjugate all the nations immediately. But even that, if you look at the imagery of Daniel, it's not cataclysmic. I mean, it's cataclysmic if you're gonna say the cross was cataclysmic. But even when we look at the cross, how does the kingdom grow? It starts small. and it gets big, literal. And we agree on that. That's why, by the way, I'm not an amillennialist, because I think they just, in my opinion, the amillennialist just gets too loosey-goosey with the text. But going back to the hermeneutic of original audience, Tommy's right if you're saying we don't, we wouldn't assume what the original audience understood if the original audience was wrong. But it is, there is a hermeneutical principle of original audience, and that is, if they understood it correctly, what would they have thought? Not if they understood it incorrectly. So you still wanna go ask yourself, if I'm in that room and Jesus is teaching, and I'm understanding correctly, what do I think he's saying? So you don't assume that the people heard it incorrectly, you assume that if you were in that room and you did all your homework that you would understand it correctly, but the original audience hermeneutic is an important hermeneutic. The church being a mystery. Now this one, you know, the mountaintops of prophecy, maybe you've heard this, where the church is the, there's a parentheses. So you have the first coming of Christ where all the suffering took place. And then the second coming of Christ where all the victory takes place. And then in between these two mountain peaks of prophecy, you have the church age unseen by the prophets of the old Testament. Okay, here's the problem with that. If you believe, say, that Israel becoming a nation again in 1947 or 1967, or whatever date you wanna pick, was a fulfillment of prophecy, you need to abandon the notion that the prophets didn't see, because that would be a prophecy fulfilled. See, the argument there is that if you believe that the prophets didn't see the church age, that means nothing happening in the church age is a fulfillment of prophecy. That is a highly problematic position for the parentheses position. All right, moving on. Again, I'm not saying people didn't hold a millennial position. There might have been all sorts of people prior to Jesus holding a millennial position. Oh, okay. But I will say this, that the millennium is only mentioned in Revelation chapter 20. Now you need to understand, our driving hermeneutics are a little different. I'm Reformed, so my driving hermeneutic is the analogy of faith, and that is scripture interprets scripture. And one of the sub-principles of the analogy of faith is the clear interprets the unclear. And so when you get to Revelation 20, I don't know how many of you have read it lately, it is one of the least clear passages. Everybody agrees in all the Bible. So what you don't want to do is use that which is unclear to reread everything that is much more clear. And as I pointed out earlier, even in on and on and on, you have this promise of a child being born, starting a kingdom, a kingdom growing, And then the righteousness of God covering the earth as the waters covering the sea with no mention of another intervening period or a dispensation or a second coming. It's when the child is born. You think about this. You have that image in Daniel. You've got this statue, right? And representing the Medo-Persians and the Babylonians and the Grecians and the Romans. And then a stone falls. and hits it, and then it becomes a mountain and covers the earth. When was Jesus, what kingdom was in power, what empire was in power when Jesus was born? The Roman Empire. See, the dispensationalist has to argue that that is a future event. I would argue the most simple reading of the text is that there was the Roman Empire, and then that stone cut without hands fell upon that image. And now it's covering the earth. And we could say, well, you know, this is a ghetto and all that stuff. But let me tell you, I was in China a number of years ago. And they pray that the leaders will change their positions. Because to be faithful means to be in a labor camp, where we, our biggest problem is we got lights that are bright, and we have too rich of diets, and we're going to have a heart attack at 60. Well, it's too late for me. So, we see that the world has changed in a positive way, and that's not because the devil wants it. Well, there's more defense, but that's all I have time for right now. At this time, we'll time for cross-examination between our two speakers. So, Pastor Paul will begin, and he'll be able to ask questions to Dr. Rice. We'd like to see five questions with one-minute answers, if possible. rather than one question with 15-minute answers. All right. I'm asking first? Yes. Okay. Tommy? Yes. How do you keep such a nice full head of hair? It's like Jerry Dunphy up here next to me. Okay, obviously, you know, we both agree that ultimately there's heaven, and he agrees that the golden age is the millennium, and I think we're in the millennium. And so in this current age, things are gonna get worse, even with an antichrist and what have you. So here's my question. Since you're firmly convinced that we are living in an age or in a dispensation where things are gonna get worse and worse and worse, How do you pray? Do you pray that the world will become a better place? Do you pray along the lines of your dispensational conviction that it'll get worse? And I'm sure you don't do that. Or do you just not pray about it? I bet you you and I voted for the same candidate for president. Maybe for different reasons. In fact, I strongly considered becoming a post-millennialist back in the 70s and early 80s. In fact, I was a theotomist, a reconstructionist for eight years. And then they came out with preterism, and I knew about the post-millennialism, and I actually decided I was going to become a post-millennialist for a couple of three days, you know, and then I realized, you know, I was going to go back. I had been to Tyler, to the new Geneva, and had talked to a bunch of the leaders there. And when I was driving back, you know, I realized that I could not allegorize Israel, and that's what kept me. And I realized I hadn't really read, as much as I'd spent reading all this Reconstructionist literature over the years, I hadn't really read our guys. And I went back and read them, even though I was a Dallas Seminary grad, you know. I believe that the Bible is talking about righteousness and because I'm pre-trib, we don't know whether the economy will be good or bad. There could be a great economic boom when the rapture occurs. Those passages that talk about bad things are the seven-year tribulation that happens after the rapture. We may be spiraling downward, we may not, but that's a sociological judgment. And because I'm pre-trib, we don't know. And whereas a non-pre-trib post-millennialist would think that you're going to go into those bad times. But the scripture, the third most frequently mentioned subject in the epistles is apostasy. Now unless you want to put all of those as referring as you alluded to earlier to the 37-year period up to A.D. 70, then there's warnings and there's tons of warnings for the pastor to protect the sheep from false doctrine and false teaching. And one guy showed that that's statistically the third most frequently mentioned I have those passages in my writings somewhere. And so we're talking about within the church that the church will grow and become universal, global. We pre-millennials believe in a global thrust of the gospel, but we believe that it will become the church, inside the church, not the world. All of those talks and comments in the epistles are talking about what's going on in the church, not what's going on in the world, whether the world is good or bad. OK, my second question, I'm just mentioning, you know, just a little thing in here. All of Hebrews is written because of apostasy. And I would say that's probably that was a big issue that was happening in that 37 year period. But anyways, we'll get that. I shouldn't say that. Well, I agree. So was Jude. So let me ask you this. We read in Daniel 7 that, I watched till thrones were put, and the Ancient of Days was seen in his garments. And one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven, he came to the Ancient of Days. Now, Walvard and Zuck, and every dispensationalist I've ever read, says that's the Second Coming. Right. All right, and yet I did some Hebrew homework on this just so I was ready. But the natural reading of this is accurate. I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds, he came to the Ancient of Days. Right. Now, do you think the Ancient of Days is on the earth, or is the Ancient of... Who's the Ancient of Days? Well, I think that's God the Father. Okay. So if that's the second coming, why is it having the Son of Man going to the, just so you know, it's my position that that's the ascension. If he's going to the Father, how is that a record of him coming to the earth? Well, my Hebrew professor, Alan Ross, who I took five courses with and then other professors as well, said that that's a neutral word, in other words, a Hebrew word there. And you may take a view like you did from the context, but it's a neutral term. So if you think that That means what you said, fine, but you cannot argue from the grammar of that text against our view. Well, my Hebrew professor at a dispensational seminary told me it actually did mean that, so any Hebrew scholars in here to... Yeah. Alan Ross is a world-class, well-known... My Hebrew scholar was kind of a... Yeah. Still is a world-class professor. Last question, Pastor Paul. All right. Let me pick a good one here. All right. We'll stay in Daniel a little bit. How would you understand, and this is a kind of three-part question, who are the nations in that image? the image of the dream? All non-Jewish nations. Okay, so you would agree that it was Babylon, the Medo-Persians, Greek and Roman? Yeah, Babylon. All right, will you at least give me this? Throw me a bone here. I was in a Daniel revelation class in a dispensational seminary and I said, it seems to me the most natural reading of this is the stone who is Christ is born during the Roman Empire. And he said, well, we'll correct that when we get to revelation. And when we got to revelation, I had a similar question. He said, well, we discussed that in Daniel. Would you say that the most natural reading of that is that the stone who was Jesus came during the Roman Empire that existed 2,000 years ago and not a future Roman Empire? Dr. Reagan No, I think it's a future Roman Empire because in both Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 there's a focus on, in Daniel 2, the feet made of, and they're different qualitatively than the iron, which represents Rome. It's iron mixed with clay. And then in Daniel 7, there's a focus on, what are they in Daniel 7? Beast, yes. And those, you know, there's a tremendous focus on those. And then when you go to Revelation in the New Testament, you go to chapter 17, it says there are seven And when you count them, and these I believe relate to the persecution of the Jews because that's the focus of Revelation 12 and others in the context. And the seven are Egypt that the Jews at the Exodus. Then Assyria that took the northern kingdom away. Then Daniel picks up with Babylon that took away the southern kingdom. Then you have the Medo-Persians you have the book of Esther and their persecution. You have then the Greeks and you have Antioch's Epiphanies. And then you have Rome which of course did a lot of bad things to Jesus and other things. And then you have the one who is to come, he's the sixth, and that's the revived Roman Empire. I'm sorry, did I? No. it's seven. See how complicated it all is? It is. When you take the Bible literally it's more complicated than just reductionist saying it's all going to work out in the end. But you have the... It's a good thing Jesus came for the simple. Yes, but let me finish. that's always been the, back to Eusebius. Ok, Eusebius said in the Ecclesiastical History of Papias that he was the father of premillennialism. He was only discipled by the Apostle John. And he said he's a man of wee little intellect. And that's always been the argument that is used against premillennialism historically is you don't go to the deeper spiritual meaning and all of this kind of stuff, you take the literal. And we hear it today from those like Eusebius. Dr. Reagan That's a bad accusation. But nevertheless, yeah, it's bad. But let me finish the last one. And he said then there's a, the seventh is the Antichrist in the first half of the Tribulation. And he said then there's an eighth, and I believe that Antichrist is killed and resurrected by God as a strong delusion in the second half of the Tribulation and that's the eighth. And that's where it sorts these things out. And there's no way that that could have been fulfilled in the first century. All right, so let me get this straight. In Daniel 7, where we see the Son of Man going to the Ancient of Days, you understand that as Him coming to earth. And in Daniel 2, where we see the stone who is Jesus hitting the clay toes of the Roman Empire, which it did have clay toes, by the way, the argument is that the Roman Empire kind of self imploded. That, let me ask it this way, if all you had If you and I were an island and we became Christians because of whatever, and we had one chapter in the Bible, and it was Daniel 2, would you at least then go, well, if this is all I have, this sure seems like Jesus came during the Roman Empire. Well, I would probably live on the right side of the island. But, nevertheless, I mean I don't know that you could interpret Daniel 2 just with Daniel 2. You know, because... You've got to start somewhere. Pastor Ice, if you could begin your cross-examination of Pastor Paul now. Yes, I believe in the doctrine that Scripture interprets Scripture. But you see you have to first understand what Scripture means to then interpret another passage. So you always end up interpreting that passage based on what it means in its context. Dr. Reagan So we'd be here all night figuring out where we actually depart, you know. Dr. Reagan Yeah, so in Revelation 20 I still haven't heard you give any statement from the context in Revelation 20 as to why those are not literal things. If you're limited to Revelation 20 you wanted to do Daniel 2. Because when you're doing proper exegesis there has to be reasons in the context to not take something to mean what it says. Dr. Reagan Alright, well let's start off with the way Revelation is introduced from the very beginning. John tells us right at the very beginning that these are the things that he sent and signified by his angels. So we see that John is giving us kind of an exegetical tip right here, signify or signify. I'm going to show you these things through signs. And so you go to through revelation, and what's interesting is we want to look at it literally, but what I found with my dispensational brothers is they look at the literal passages figuratively, and the figurative passages literally, because right there in the very beginning, we read that these are the things which must shortly take place. We're not into apocalyptic language yet. And then he even says it again, blessed is he who reads and knows to hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things written in it, for the time is near. So we see twice John kind of going, look, these are things you're going to have to contend with. The time is short and the time is near. Anyways, that doesn't answer your question at all. But you see signified or signified. But then you go to Revelation 20. And why do I look at some of that as as literal and maybe some of it figurative. Because I don't believe, for example, that you can hold the devil with a literal chain. A chain is put on the devil. Well, the devil is a spiritual being. So you're going to, at best, start mixing metaphors when you're going to go, well, it's a literal chain. Well, no. It's a metaphorical chain, but it's a literal 1,000 years. Or it's a literal pit, but it's a metaphor. And so we recognize that it is a tough passage, because we do want to go with the natural, ordinary meaning of the text. But Revelation is a book that's written in apocalyptic language. And so the reason I don't take it literally is because there are some places, right there in Revelation, because you don't think it's a literal chain either, I would imagine. I don't know yet. Yeah, right. Well, you're not committed to it then, right? Right. OK. So that's why I don't necessarily take it literally. And so it's a tough passage. So I allow the clearer passages to trump Wrong. Wrong. I was tempted to say that during the debate. He got elected. Is this the last Trump? Can you answer that? No, that's not my question. Okay. I hope you're enjoying yourself. I am. Show me a passage that teaches post-millennialism. In other words pre-millennialism as I've said has passages, Jesus returns in Revelation 19 and you're seeing narrative development. And I saw, and I saw by the way Revelation is said four times in the book of Revelation to be prophecy. never calls itself apocalyptic. People have to take the first word, revelation, and turn it into something called apocalyptic. But show me a passage that teaches post-millennialism similar to the passage like Revelation 19 and 20 teaches pre-millennialism. Okay, well I mentioned a bunch of them. I think it's very post-millennial to say that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. I think that it's very post-millennial to say that in the seat of Abraham, all the families of the earth shall be blessed, where the Apostle Paul, even though dispensationalists take that great promise in Genesis 12 to refer to Israel, the Apostle Paul takes it to refer in Galatians 3 as justification by faith. I think Psalm 22, which is a reference to the cross, if you read Psalm 22, that's the psalm where we read, you know, you have forsaken me, why have you forsaken me? And you can see his bones and his beard is being plucked out. But as that moves, there's no mention of a second coming. So if you read it naturally, It goes to, then all the ends of the world shall turn to the Lord, all the families shall worship Him as He rules over the nations. I mean, if that's not a postmillennial passage, I don't know what is. There's no mention in there of Him coming a second time or of a special dispensation or of a millennium. It goes right from the cross to these wonderful promises. Isaiah 11, the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. Other passages, a man will not have to say to a man, no the Lord, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God. On and on and on. Like I argued, I think you're hard pressed to find any in the Bible, that's not post-millennial. But the difference is that my brother, you put those in the Millennium after He comes again, I'm saying what Jesus has already done. And I hope that if nothing else comes through this comes through. And that is the power of the cross is sufficient for all those promises. Dr. Reagan And you know I totally agree with everything you've said. Dr. Reagan Welcome to the post-millennial era. The problem is you haven't shown a passage that teaches postmillennialism. You have that idea and you started your mail according to your a priori understanding. But we have a passage that at least we can point to from the Bible that actually teaches premillennialism. No, you don't. No, I'm just kidding. No, hey, you just watch yourself. Ladies, I'm just out of control. She's a front row person. That means she's really interested. Next will be the opportunity for cross-examination from the audience. Now, there are just a few rules to this. First, you have to address your question to one of the two speakers. That speaker will have two minutes to respond, and then the other speaker will have one minute to respond. Second, have a very clear idea in mind of what your question is and be brief. Third, don't touch my microphone. Hi, my question's for Pastor Paul, and it's coming from Isaiah, the same passage that you've referenced. Just before that, the verses read that the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf, and the young lion and the fatling together, and the little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed, and the young one shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the suckling child shall play on the whole of the asp. I don't see any of that happening, so how are we in the millennial kingdom? I hadn't thought of that. No, I'm just kidding. That's a good, yeah. Yeah, you read of these promises associated with the cross. And those are a way to describe the wonderful things that will happen as a result of what Jesus has done. As Tommy had read, you know, somebody will die at 100, and they'll say they died in their youth. See, now here are your options. If you're a non-millennialist, you have to say, that that is heaven, and you have people actually dying in heaven. That's why I shy away from that. But if you're a premillennialist, you have a glorified Christ on the earth, surrounded by some glorified, resurrected Christians, surrounded by sinners and those who are not resurrected dying and then you have the event you're talking about actually taking place. The way I understand that is it's a way for Isaiah to express the wonderful things that will happen as a result of the cross of Christ. Not literal, maybe literal. I mean, you look in these guys playing with lions and bears, and you mean, you know, domesticating, you know, my wife's domesticated me. That's got to be a testimony to post-millennialism. But does she rule over you? Pastor Rice, your response to that question? Yeah, those numbers are literal because the millennium is going to start with 100% mortal believers as well as co-mingling with resurrected believers from Adam up to the end of the tribulation. And every Jewish person from that point on will be a believer. God will make it up to the Jews. There won't be any unbelieving. So those are unbelieving, those are people who entered the Millennium, they have children, and they still have to accept Christ, the children of those who were sheep in the sheep-goat judgments of Matthew 25. And by the way, let me just throw this in, that's why you have sacrifices in the Millennium mentioned. in six different Old Testament passages because it's to cleanse the cultus. In other words it doesn't represent the finished work of Christ that is finished, but because there are mortals there they have to approach God through holiness. And this ritual cleansing of the priest, the elements in the temple, and the temple itself is because there is still sin and people that need to do it. because Israel is going to be the head over the nations, God's working through a temple again. Of course, Ryrie says it's just done as a memorial. You're saying there's an actual functional purpose to it. Ryrie actually changed before he died. John Whitcomb wrote a key article back in the late 80's. Did he become post-millennial? No, he changed on that issue. It's not just a memorial because five times it uses the word kippur, atonement. Right. Okay, question, Dr. Ice. Pastor Paul brought up, I'm just sitting down because I'm being lazy. There you are, okay. He brought up in one of his five-minute things the Hegenea in the Olivet Discourse, this generation, and I didn't hear you respond to that. Would you care to respond to the argument about this generation and what he was implying with that? Yes. I didn't hear you respond. I believe that it will be the generation that sees all these things, and Matthew 24 never talks about the destruction of the temple. In fact, I would just say quickly that Matthew 24 is about, from verses 4 through 31, is about the Jews being rescued. And three times they're called the elect. And in one of those three uses it's a quote from Daniel where it says, everyone whose name is found written in the book will be rescued. And Jesus shortens that circumlocution into the term the elect, and he quotes the rest of that passage. So he's referring to a passage from Daniel that's talking about Jewish believers, and therefore they are being rescued. At the end of Matthew 23 they are being judged because of their rejection of Messiah and their temples, their house, their temple is going to be destroyed. And so it kind of forms an intercalation where you have them being rescued. It's the very same word that was used at the end of Matthew 23. And so you have the theme that you have all throughout the Old Testament is judgment and restoration. And so this generation is governed by the phrase, all these things in that context. And this generation does refer to the generation alive at the time except for one other instance and that's in Hebrews chapter 3, it refers to the Exodus generation. And so you have that referring to the seven-year period. So it doesn't matter how long a generation is, it's not going to last more than a seven-year period. Yeah, my response to that is, to me, that's just an eisegetic imposition on the text. And I just hope you're listening. You've got Jesus going to the Ancient of Days, but that's him coming here. You've got Jesus coming during the Roman Empire, but that's a reconstituted Roman Empire. You've got Jesus using the near demonstrative this generation. But there is a far demonstrative that you can use. He could have said that generation. didn't. And I don't understand, I really don't understand how you could say Matthew 24 isn't talking about the destruction of the Temple where Jesus says, do you not see all these things? Surely I say to you not one stone shall be left upon the other. They were looking at the Temples. I mean the context of the very discussion was them looking at this Temple which represented a system that was obsolete the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 8.13 and was vanishing away. And and it was persecuting the Church, and it was in the way, and people were tempted to go back to it. So I don't understand how you could make the argument that he's not talking about that. I think the natural reading would be... Dr. Reagan Can I just make a comment? Okay. Yeah, in verse 3 he is referring to the Temple, and I think that's answered in Luke 21, 20-24 where you have seven judgment statements referring to A.D. 70. So part of it is talking about the beginning. None in Matthew and Mark, yeah he says that but that's why I said 4 through 31 verses 4 through 31 there is no judgment of Israel language. The focus is on when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming. And in Luke he deals with the temple issue in 21, 20 through 24. May I respond a little bit to that? I would have to argue, you could take a look at it yourself, but I think we have synoptic Gospels, all three of them are accounts of the same event. I think, again, I think it's an, you know what I mean by an eisegetic imposition? You have a position and you impose it on the text. I think a natural reading of those three would indicate quite clearly that Jesus is talking about the same event. So you're saying ice does eisegesis, huh? Yeah, this question is for Pastor Paul. Is there any importance to the nation of Israel as it currently exists or for Jews on this planet as they currently are? Is there anything special about them? Are they the peculiar people anymore? I bless those who bless acres. Are they just another nation like Poland, Brazil, or Thailand and stuff like that? Well, I'm a Presbyterian, and my secondary standards are the Westminster Confession and the larger and shorter catechisms. And I think it's question 191, and the larger catechism says that we should pray for the conversion of the Jews. So there is a sense in which in the Reform community, as a covenantal rather than dispensationalist, you are praying for the conversion of, it doesn't say Israel, but it says the Jews. But if you start reading the New Testament, and right away John the Baptist comes in and he says, don't even begin to tell me you have Abraham as your father, I'm not impressed. Well, he doesn't say it that way, but he says, God can take these stones and turn them into sons of Abraham. Jesus says in Revelation two and three, they say they're Jews, but they're not. Talking about people who are ethnic Jews, Romans nine, not all Israel is Israel. So I think that we need to recognize that, oh, you look at Ephesians chapter 2, where you've got this problem in the church of the Jewish Christian and the Gentile Christian, and Paul labors saying, no, you were once far off, but now you've been brought near, and you are members of the same commonwealth. And it's a very political term. The Greek word is politeia. And so he's going, look, the two men have become one. The Jew and the Gentile who come to Christ, they've become one. There's no more wall of separation. And I would say that to walk out of that church service in Ephesus, and for a Jewish Christian to look over at a Gentile Christian and say, but I still get things you don't get, would be completely antithetical to what the Apostle Paul seemed to be wanting to achieve. So your answer is? No. Other than what I said. Other than my qualification. Our last question, ladies and gentlemen. Dr. Ice, over here. Here, hi. Okay, so I just want to clarify, in the millennial kingdom, your view is there's regenerated people living on earth with unregenerated people. Those unregenerated people are sacrificing animals? Is that right? Yes. And then later on in that period, is there a war of the unregenerated people against the regenerated people? Yes. Doesn't that seem kind of crazy or absurd? Yeah. Doesn't that seem weird? Yeah, it does. Sin makes you do weird things. But that's what the Bible says. And we have, you know Jesus was there 40 days hanging out with mortals in His resurrection body. And that's why the millennium in our view is an intermediate state to the eternal state where everybody is resurrected. And so it's part of the eternal kingdom But the purpose of the Millennium in our view is that Christ is going to be victorious in history, the place where He was humiliated. And that's why it says He must reign in 1 Corinthians 15 until He puts all things under His feet. He's going to do that. And history is mnemonic, it's teaching lessons. in history. And so God is putting us through different paces or situations, and He's demonstrating no matter what situation we're in, a sinner is a sinner is a sinner. And so even with Jesus present, that sin nature, the bondage of the will is still operative. It's just that during the millennium those people are, you know, like some Christians are today, Secret Service Christians, they're going to be afraid to rally against the Lord until Satan is released. And that shows us one of the roles that Satan does. You know they do all these sociological studies about how people act differently in a crowd than they will as an individual. You see they'll do all kinds of things. Well in a sense, that's an illustration not a proof. That is a sense what Satan does. When he's released he's like a magnet that attracts all the unbelievers and they become emboldened and they do something really stupid They surround the city and God, instead of taking seven years to judge them, zaps them with lightning, you know. I had the opportunity to talk to J.I. Packer about that years ago, and I asked him, I go, can you explain to me what effects upon Christology it would have to have him sitting in a man-made temple with human beings killing animals as sacrifices before him? And Packer, I mean, he was old then, and I thought he was gonna have a heart attack. He just thought the idea that you would sacrifice a lamb before the Lamb of God was as close to an abomination as you could possibly imagine. And so I do think the oddness of it is in fact not just odd. I think the notion of sacrificing an animal before Jesus Christ is ironically backward. And so that's where obviously our paths would diverge. Yeah, one quick comment is when you look at the Levitical sacrifices, they're all laid out there. The ones that depict the sacrifice of Christ are absent from the millennial sacrifices. The only sacrifices you have in the millennium are what we call ritual cleansing, which are mnemonic or teaching devices to show people that you have to approach God through holiness. I'm going to exercise moderator privilege. Do both of you gentlemen believe in a literal physical return of Jesus Christ? Yes. Yes, but I would guess that he thinks some of the passages that I believe teach it are not, it's the Roman Army, you know. Yeah, some of them, you know, when Jesus says in Matthew 16, 28 that you will not go through the cities of Jerusalem before you see the Son of Man come. Or he says, some of you will not taste death before I come. I take that very literally, that that coming was a different coming than the second coming. But I do believe that Acts 1 talks about a literal second coming. I do believe at the end of Revelation 20, that is a literal. So I do believe in a literal physical second coming. I'm not a full preterist. Gary DeMar has three passages that he thinks teach the second coming. And Ken Gentry I think is up around 12. So there's a spectrum among partial preterists on these issues. But clearly some of you will not taste death. Peter, James, and John fulfills the sum and He was glorified before them. And in two of the three passages it follows in the very next verse. So that was a literal fulfillment of that. I believe in that. I don't understand what you're saying. Well, I bet you do. No, I really didn't understand. Some of you will not taste death, are you saying? Until you see the Son of Man coming in His glory is a statement that I think you refer to A.D. 70. Right, and you think it's... First of all, I don't know how the destruction of Jerusalem was glorious. But secondly, coming in as glory means, you know, the Shekinah glory and all of this kind of stuff. And so he took them up, two of the three synoptic passages that talk about that. It's the very next passage. Dr. Reagan Oh, you're talking about the Transfiguration? Dr. Reagan Yes. Dr. Reagan Oh, I didn't realize that was what you were saying. Dr. Reagan It is the Transfiguration where He was transfigured before them. And three people plus based on a consensus of church history only John was still alive in August of A.D. 70. So that would not fulfill the term some. Well, if Jesus is saying that some of you will not taste death, and then the event he's talking about was one week later, that wouldn't, I mean, if I were to say to you, we're gonna have another debate next Friday night, and some of you will not be dead. That wouldn't make any sense. But if I said, we're going to have another debate in 30 years, and said, some of you will not be dead. Well, of course, you and I will. You're right. We'll probably agree in heaven, right? Yeah, you're right if you cast it in that light. But I think a better light is he's saying, in other words, they believed that they were going to see God in His glory at their death. And so that's why he's saying some of you will not see death until you see the Son of Man coming. In other words you're going to get a sneak preview like at the movies, a preview of a forthcoming movie. And I also take literally that the you will not have gone throughout Israel, etc. as referring to the tribulation period. Audience I know they're arguing with each other but that's what I came here for. Do both of you gentlemen hold to the doctrines of biblical inerrancy and infallibility? Yes, fully. I'm more than he... Do both of you hold to the classical doctrines of the humanity and deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity? Undiminished deity, true humanity, united in one person forever yet without commingling or confusion. Yes, and the Trinity. Homoous. I'm going to say it in Latin because I want to overdo him here. Homoous, yes. Yes. When will the millennium begin or has it and how long will it be? Haven't we already been talking about this? It started at the first advent of Christ. It started when Jesus, as we read in Acts 2, sat on the throne of David, sent his spirit. There are five or six passages in the epistles that talk about the millennium or the kingdom as a future event. And even though the kingdom was at hand since this is Super Bowl weekend, you can ask Buffalo and Minnesota about how the Super Bowl championship was at hand four times each. It was at hand, but it never came. And the reason the kingdom was at hand was because Jesus was there. But Israel rejected Him, and that's why the kingdom never came. And it's postponed. That's what Matthew 13 is all about. Dr. Reagan Of course, Jesus said, if you see these signs and wonders, the kingdom has come. And he had done signs and wonders, so I guess I'd be on the other side of that. Yeah, it was in their midst, as Luke says, because he was there, the kingdom is in their midst, but they still have the condition of them having to accept their Messiah. At this time we'll have closing arguments beginning with Dr. Ice. I don't know what to say here in my closing, because I said it all. Can I say something before you close? Sure. We had prayed back. You're the man. We prayed back there. And I'll tell you something that's really important to me, and that is that we don't agree, I mean, clearly. But if we were somewhere else, we'd really be agreeing, depending on if he was with me and Dr. Shermer arguing the atheist, we'd be shoulder to shoulder, so importantly. If anything, if you're gonna learn anything out of this, I hope it is how to amicably and ironically and lovingly disagree with somebody who's a brother or sister in Christ. That is just so, I know for me as a Reformed person, because you know how Reformed people are. They try to ruin every Bible study they go to. And to be able to recognize in love that there's a disagreement, but not turn it into something sour. And I do pray that if you walk away with nothing else, you walk away with that, along with becoming a post-millennialist. It's interesting that if it weren't for Presbyterianism in the United States, it's doubtful that Dispensationalism would have survived. Up until about the 1920s, something like 75% to 80% of all Dispensationalists were Presbyterians. And that's because of them being the most scholarly, I think, in their schools. They had the dominant schools, et cetera, and their emphasis on literal interpretation. In fact, in the 1930s, three of the four largest Presbyterian churches were pastored by Dispensationalists. In fact, the founder of pre-tribulationalism in the United States was James Hall Brooks, and he was the most important Presbyterian head of the session at the national level in the late 1800s. He was a Princeton man and also ordained at Princeton Seminary. When Princeton went liberal in 1929, two of the professors came over to Dallas. It was Machin's assistant, E.F. Harrison, who taught for 17 years at Dallas. Dallas was founded by Presbyterians. It met its first year at the first Presbyterian church before it got a building. And up until 1950, 80% of Dallas grads went into the Presbyterian Church, but because of their dispensationalism, especially in the Southern Presbyterian Church, they did not receive them, and therefore Bible churches were started. And that's where Bible churches come, because you can't be an independent Presbyterian, right? You have to be part of a session. And McLean was also Robert Dick Wilson's guy who came one year to Dallas and he went back and started a faith Presbyterian seminary. So, I'm saying that many of our forefathers were dispensational because it made sense. And the reason it made sense is they were fighting liberalism back in those days. And Schofield was a Presbyterian, Louisbury Chafer was a Presbyterian, John Walvoord, Dwight Pentecost, all those guys, Merrill Unger were Presbyterians, and they came out because of their premillennialism. They were not allowed. Walvoord pastored a Presbyterian church for 17 years in Fort Worth before he became president and things. So, I'm saying we do have a lot in common. And if it wasn't for the good old Presbyterians, I don't know. We're holding you up. We are holding you up. No, I'm just kidding. Dispensationalism would have gotten very far, or even premillennialism, as they called it back then. And therefore, we do have a lot in common. And I appreciate this opportunity to be here and be able to talk with you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, I guess I'm going to finish here. Now, those are such nice words. I hate to do this, but. Since our debate is to focus on the expectation of the Christian faith in the world in which we live, I want to finish by observing what I had said earlier, the general pessimistic outlook of this system, although Tommy kind of indicated that he might not be entirely in that camp, and he may not agree with some of the other dispensationalists I'm going to quote here. But we read a very common phrase you've probably heard, dispensationalist J. Vernon McGee, very famously quipped when speaking about the positive influence Christians can have on society, he made this statement, why polish the brass on a sinking ship? In other words, the world is destined to crumble, so we should seek to just get as many people saved as possible and have them raptured, rather than seek to fix the ship. You've probably heard this, right? Don't adjust the lawn chairs on the Titanic. Now, in order to avoid misrepresenting my opponent's position, I want to also quote the founder of Dallas Seminary, Lewis Perry Chaffer. He wrote this. Another error to be avoided in connection with this subject is the supposition that the divine purpose in this age is the conversion of the world. It is true that the world will be converted, and there is yet to be a kingdom of righteousness in the earth, but according to the Bible, that day of a transformed earth, so far from being the result of Christian service, is said to follow rather than precede the return of Christ, and is said to be made possible only by his personal presence and immediate power. And I would say it's the power of the cross, something he's already done. So I would say amen to that. It's not something he's going to come and do. He's already done it. Now, in order to show that this is no isolated quote, noted dispensationalist Clarence Larkin, in this book, which is Still for sale, by the way, in bookstores, Dispensational Truth. I have the book jacket. It's the greatest book on dispensational truth in the world, is the title. They could buy an updated version out in the lobby on the way out. Oh, you have that? No, we did one. But just so you know that what is being promoted, I want to show you the chart, Bill. If you have the chart there now, if you look a little closer, maybe you can dial in a little further. This is the chart that Larkin wrote. Can you hit it again? No, is that it? Yeah, there you have it. The failure of Christianity. Now here's what he writes. It is evident that there are more than 100 times as many persons born in the world each year as there are persons newborn. And thus far Christianity as a world-converting power is a failure. All of which proves that if after 1900 years of gospel preaching, the world is not converted, it is not God's purpose to convert the world by the preaching of the gospel in this age, but simply to gather out and elect body the church. The millennial age will be the dispensation of the spirit. Then righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters cover the deep. And I can't tell you how much I think language like this will lull the church into a sense of even evangelistic complacency. We are the church militant. We have marching orders. We are called to go out and preach the gospel, and as even they started doing in the very beginning, turn that world upside down. We are not to pine away for the rapture. We are to do battle. Of course, the weapons of our warfare are love and faith and wisdom and goodness and the word and the sacraments. But this general pessimistic attitude, I think, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy in Western evangelicalism. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming. Let's give our speakers a round of applause. And why don't we pray again before we dismiss? Lord, our God and Father, thank you so much for gathering together these people of God here tonight. We pray that if we have limited understanding of the scriptures, Lord God, that you would open our minds and hearts to know and to understand you, that you would reveal yourself to us. We know that sanctification is a process through time, and so we pray that you would be a dearly loving father to us as you guide us into deeper and deeper truths through your word. We pray that everyone here would be blessed on their way home, that you would keep us safe and give us traveling mercies. We thank you for Pastor Paul and Pastor Tommy and pray that you would bless them exceedingly with all of their riches of knowledge that they have to give away. We pray that you would increase your church in the world and that the gospel would go forth and by your Holy Spirit it would be effective in the hearts of people. We thank you for all of these things in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, amen.