The world is going through a period of intense crisis

From the spiralling cost of living, inflation, economic crashes, war, and a total loss of trust in the governmental systems. It is, without a doubt, a period of time when there is a lot of turmoil in the world.

A city on a hill

This is the time where our light will shine brightest in the darkness. I think that the eschatology of victory is more important than any time ever. The problem is that many Christians have an eschatology of defeat and a theology of retreat and escape. I became very tired of the illustration of the church being the lifeboat in a sinking world and trying to get as many people off the sinking ship of the world into the boat as we wait for an imminent escape.

I think even many Christians have become very jaded over decades of that message because we have to deal with the everyday problems of life, the here and now. Many Christians feel defeated, they feel frustrated and they feel just resigned to fate while we wait and wonder why our captain tarries and he doesn’t show up on the sea. But actually, everything in scripture shows that we are the city on the hill, we are the light to the world.

We are the true progressives

And the prophecy of Daniel showed that when the rock, which is the government of Christ, broke down the mixture of clay and iron, it said the mountain grew to fill the entire world. And so there is a process of growth in which the kingdom of God is going to expand and fill the earth.

And I think that is what true progressiveness is, is that as believers, we are meant to progressively disciple the nations, take the gospel of the kingdom to all the earth. And this is a worldview that is the eschatology of triumph. I also have been thinking about the fact that this is a time where, you know, we need faith much more than unbelief. You know, I believe in the situation parallel with the children of Israel when they crossed Jordan and God asked them to take the land, he had given them the entire land.

Reigning with Christ in the here and now

And so God was their king and they were to advance under the victory that God had already given to them. And we see that when Jesus resurrected, he said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. And so we should go and disciple the nations. And so as our reigning king who has ascended into heaven, we are meant to go into the world and reign in his millennium. And the millennium really is our inheritance that through which we extend God’s kingdom all over the earth.

And so, you know, the decision each generation of believers have to make is whether they would go in faith or in unbelief. And so, you know, just like there was Joshua and Caleb, you know, who said they would go into the land and attend spies and were in unbelief. Each generation of believers has to make a decision to say, you know, would we believe in faith and go in? Or would we be afraid and not go?