Common Questions

David Guretzki and Marc Jolicoeur · Tidal Church Moncton · March 30, 2025 · Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation series

David Guretzki, president of the EFC, answers common questions about Revelation, including the rapture, Gog and Magog, and Revelation 5 and 7. He points to Christ's coming victory, the church as a kingdom of priests, and praying for peace in politics.

More from David Guretzki · More from Marc Jolicoeur · The Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation series

Topics: Hope, Prayer, Mission & Outreach

Transcript

[0:00] Man, the EFC does a lot. Holy smoke. You guys do a lot. We are blessed this morning, church, to be joined by David Guretzki, who is the president of the EFC that we just heard, believe it or not. I think just a little bit about, so, David, we're really glad to have you here. We welcome you here. I just want to, do you have a word of greeting that you'd like to share with our congregation here in Moncton on behalf of EFC? Thank you, Marc, for having me here today. Real privilege to be here in Moncton. I haven't been here too often, maybe four or five times. It's always a joy to come and, yeah. Just to continue to pray for the EFC and all of the work that we do. We have an office in Ottawa. We're just a few blocks away from Parliament and a few blocks away from the Supreme Court. And we're always seeking the common good of our country and speaking biblical principles into our land.

[0:51] And of course, right now with what's going on, I don't know if you've heard, there's a thing called an election going on. And so one thing that you might be interested in finding, each time that there is an election, the EFC usually puts out a resource guide. We talk a little bit about what churches can and can't do. Sometimes people aren't always exactly clear on what churches can and can't do in an election. And just to highlight some of the issues that we think are important for us to be talking, to be to our candidates and people who are engaged in the process. So you can go online. I won't give you a web link, just type in election and you'll be able to find that. But yeah, thank you for having me here today. EFC depends on thousands of people across the country to pray for us and support us and I'm just grateful to be here.

[1:40] That's good. Yeah. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, you are, I don't know if you personally, but the EFC will be back in, I think it's in May. We'll have the details available here to do some teaching. Yeah. In general, that kinda hits on parents and parenting and how they can think about raising their kids in this world. Is that right? Yeah, there's two seminars we're gonna do on the first weekend of May. And one seminar on parenting, faith parenting and Grandparent Parenting Faith. What we can do is parents and grandparents to bring our kids up in the faith. And then the second one we're doing, I'm doing a workshop on medical assistance in dying, or MAID. And so there's two workshops during the day at Hills, Hillside, Hillside. I'm not sure that it is actually, but I think it's at a different, it's at a different church, I think. But either way we would highly recommend, we'll make sure those details are available.

[2:29] I've had the privilege of sitting in on kind of both of those teachings you've done. And just as a parent myself, the parenting faith stuff was just like really helpful. So I wanna make sure that that's available to the church here. Yeah. Thank you. You also have a table that's gonna be available out in the, yeah, there's a bit of a table at the back. And Sheldon McLeod, who's one our Atlantic Director, regional director. He's here from Moncton. And so he'll be out at the table there. I'll come and join him too. So if anyone wants to come and say hello, I'd certainly happy to do that. And we've got all kinds of materials. It's all free. Take what you can use and free that. It's free. Oh my gosh. You're not leaving here with a thing today. Yeah. You're gonna go home empty handed. You are. They're not. That's the point. We don't wanna carry it. Yeah. Beautiful. Well, hey, that's actually all for free, because that's not the reason that we actually invited you here.

[3:18] Those of you who are joining who've been with us before, you're like, we don't normally sit down like this. Yeah. And we don't normally have, you know, greetings necessarily from other ministries. We're here at this section to talk about the Bible. Mm-hmm. And for the last three weeks, we've been talking about the book of Revelation. Now you could say serendipitously or you could say the Spirit hath provided a gentleman who has spent an awful lot of time in the book of Revelation, and particularly over the last few years. So David, first of all, what has been your experience with Revelation and why have you been kind of so drawn towards it? Right. Well, I'm probably a little bit more typical than people realize, a little bit different at some levels. I actually spent 24 years as a professor of theology at Briarcrest College and Seminary out in Saskatchewan.

[4:05] And I remember when I first started, they had me teaching all kinds of things. And I actually taught a class called Hebrews through Revelation. Now, I didn't know what I was talking about, but it was biblical studies, you know, and, and that was actually the first time that I'd been forced. I was very young, to actually teach through each of those books, Hebrews through to the book of Revelation. I'm not sure how helpful I was at the time, but that was, and I remember growing up, I was probably, a lot of people have the similar kind of experiences growing up. Maybe kind of being a little bit afraid about Revelation, maybe not sure what to do with it. And I wanna guarantee or help everyone to know that we're not alone. Some of the great minds in church history have not known what to do with the Book of Revelation. For example, John Calvin, he wrote commentaries on all the books of almost all the books of the New Testament, except for Revelation.

[4:56] 'Cause he wasn't sure exactly how to deal with it. But it was really about three years ago when I was being asked to consider joining the EFC as president, I was already on staff as VP. And the board had asked me to consider joining, and I was praying and reflecting. And the Book of Revelation actually became a book that I return to often. And it has really been foundational for me in terms of the vision that I believe the Book of Revelation gives for the people of God and what God is hoping for, for the people of God. That's not often the way we think of the book, but, I think there's a revelational doctrine of the church that we have to look at. It's aspirational. It gives us insights into the heavenly and what God actually desires for the church.

[5:45] And so, certainly for the last two, three years, I've been in the book a lot. I've even gotten little pocket versions of Revelation that I carry around with me and reread, and I reread it twice, the last week to get ready for this. So you're primed. I'm primed. I'm primed. Alright. Good stuff. Woo. Good. Because we're gonna ask you only tough questions. Yeah. That's literally what we're for. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, you've already alluded to the fact that, you know, the book has been intimidating for a lot of people. Yeah. And I know that for me, it kind of was, it was kind of, kind of scary a little bit growing up. And so, part of the reason is 'cause there's a lot of disagreements over the ways of reading it. Yeah. And so, I mean, you're, you, this is not gonna be a blindsided question. We've had this conversation already, but what do you do with, for example, the question of whether or not there will be, get ready for this, folks, a rapture? Yeah, yeah.

[6:39] This moment at the end of the world, or kind of right, maybe right before it, where people will, their bodies will be kind of disembodied and there will be clothes left behind and all this kind of, you know, cars careening off the roads and whatnot because of what's happening. What is actually going on? Oh, boy. With this image, way to put me on the spot. Right, right. On the front. Well, it's interesting because the Book of Revelation doesn't actually use the word. In fact, there's only one time in the New Testament when the word rapture is probably used. And that's 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, when Paul says, at the coming of Christ, the dead in Christ will be resurrected. And those who are still alive when Christ comes are caught up with them, with Christ and with the resurrected. And that word caught up means rapture.

[7:26] So of course, a lot of it depends upon how the Book of Revelation has been read. And historically, it's really only in the last about 150 to 200 years that there's been a strong movement of reading the Book of Revelation almost as if it's entirely a futuristic kind of book, only talking about future events. And certainly that's a valid way, one of the valid ways of reading the Book of Revelation. But there are other ways that the book has been read as well. For example, there are some scholars who've viewed the Book of Revelation as really historically situated. It's called a Preterist reading, that the author John was seeing visions of things that were about to happen to the church.

[8:12] And he was speaking to a very particular historical situation, probably the destruction of the temple in AD 70. There's another kind of reading that says the Book of Revelation is all about the whole history of the church from the beginning to the end. It's not just about the future, but it's a... And that's called a Historicist reading, where it says the Book of Revelation kind of outlines the various phases in which the church will go through until the end. And then there's another reading of Revelation called a symbolic or idealist kind of view that kind of, kind of puts Revelation as giving these timeless images and timeless ideals or timeless symbols that are true all of the time, all throughout the history of Revelation.

[9:00] So I'm avoiding your question. You can tell. So the way I view the book of Revelation is, it's interesting. There's this language that's repeated several times: things that were, things that are, and things that are to come. That type of language is repeated in different kinds of ways in the Book of Revelation. So I think there's a sense in which the book is both historical about what the church is actually facing in and through its history. It's also a little bit about what's coming into the future. But it's not meant, I don't believe that it's meant to be sort of a solid hard chronology of how things are to go in the ordering of events. And so, from my perspective, I think the bigger, the bigger thing that the Book of Revelation talks about is there's the kind of two sides to it.

[9:49] Number one, encouragement to the church that there's going to be some tough times, there's going to be some hard things that the church should be prepared to face in her history and at all points in her history. But there's also this wonderful, wonderful, hopeful message that says, the King, the King is coming. He's going to make wrongs right. He's going to ensure that injustices are righted, the oppressed are taken care of, and that He is victor. And so there's a sense in which Jesus wins. I think the bigger image of the Book of Revelation has less to do about sort of this rapture of the church as it is that there is, there is a time coming when Jesus Christ will come in glory, will gather His people together and will right the wrongs in this world.

[10:44] Did I avoid that enough, or... Yes. Just masterfully. Yeah. Well, I don't even remember the original question this one time. You did such a good job. No. Okay. Let me, that's beautiful. Yeah. And that very much ties in with what we've been saying over the last few weeks here. But the idea that, hey, there's, you know, there's team, Team Dragon and Team Lamb, and we believe that Team Lamb is the one that wins. And yet we see all this kind of struggle and heartache in the meantime. And so I think maybe in some respects, that's why, and for many people, the idea of rapture is comforting because it's like, at one point in time, the chute will get pulled and I will be removed from this. And so whether that happens or whether what happens is ultimately we see Christ's victory come kind of in full, the idea is He will show His victory to be complete and total, right?

[11:35] And we will be caught up with Him. We will be kind of like, 'cause we are in Christ, now we're seated with Him in the heavenly places, as the Scripture says. Right? Yeah. So, but that kind of already is gonna also kind of break into the not yet. Right. Kind of the details maybe are fuzzy, but the facts are there. Now, let me throw another harder one at you. Yeah. Okay. There's these, and this is, you've read this recently, so, Gog and Magog, I don't, I honestly, I know a little bit about those references, but not enough to know. I just know that often there's also this reading that kind of comes in with Revelation that says there's gonna be some kind of cataclysmic battle that's gonna happen. And often it gets interpreted as happening in a specific piece of geography in the Middle East. Yeah.

[12:24] Yeah. And now people have access to 24 hour news cycles on their phones and on TVs, if they're still using those, that kind of point them towards some kind of image or picture that can easily look like maybe what they're envisioning when they read through the pages of Revelation. Yeah. So what I'm asking you is current events, do they look like they're pointing to, you mentioned already these kind of multiple readings, like, is it already all done? Has none of it been accomplished? And we're all looking to the future? Obviously this question is somewhat predicated upon a bit of a futuristic reading of the book, but for those of us who are kind of just thinking through it, is what's going on in the Middle East now an understandable reading of, quote unquote, the end of time?

[13:12] Wow, that's a big one. So I'm gonna go back to that threefold kind of phrase that you kind of see throughout Revelation. Things that were, things that are, things that will be. There's all kinds of these big images: Babylon, these metaphors, Babylon, the Great Harlot, the beast, the dragon. There's all of these images that are given. And those images are intended to be big. They are intended to be big. And then when you get to Gog and Magog in Revelation chapter 20, by the way, just a quick side note here. If you're reading the Book of Revelation and you're wondering, like, where do all of these images come from? Probably about 90% of the time, if you look into the Old Testament, you'll probably find those images.

[14:03] So Gog and Magog, for example, in Revelation chapter 20, are direct references to Ezekiel 38-39, I believe it is. Where there's this prophecy about this king named Gog, from the Kingdom of Magog. And so he, and the prophet Ezekiel actually speaks directly to him. And what's really interesting about who Gog was and what he's described to be is more important than who he was. Interestingly, Gog was being accused of attacking a people who were more or less peaceful and defenseless. Hmm, interesting. So, and, and God says when He sees that kind of tyrannical, dictatorial, empire imperialistic, I'll use all kinds of different, those kinds of words happening, we're already getting a sense even from the Old Testament prophets.

[15:01] And then this is repeated in the New Testament in Revelation chapter 20, that God doesn't like that. And so, when I say things that were, things that are, things that will be, Gog and Magog speak about perhaps a future time when there's going to be this great battle, very possibly, very possibly. But it's also speaking about any time that that happens in history and anytime that it has happened in history. And so we can look, I'm actually a historical theologian. And so if you look back through the history of the church, you and the history of civilization, you see these things happening over and over again, right?

[15:46] Where empires rise, dictators rise, they abuse the poor and the oppressed. And usually that self-destructs at some point. But I think the book of Revelation also says, someday that'll be all over. God's not gonna let that keep happening over and over again. I think that the way that Jesus talks in, for example, in Matthew chapter 24, when you'll recall the story. The apostles and Jesus are standing at the temple. And I actually had the opportunity to be in Israel a few years ago and stand at these massive stones of the temple, if any of you have ever been there. Like, these stones are, some of these stones are six feet by 20 feet, by four feet of slab.

[16:39] Like, they're huge, massive foundational stones. And the apostles are admiring this temple and how beautiful this temple is, Herod's temple. And Jesus says, "Hey, someday all of these stones are gonna be toppled, all of these stones," and the apostles are amazed by this. And I think what Jesus is saying, doing there is exactly the kind of thing, because He was probably predicting AD 70 when the temple was destroyed. But He was also talking about the coming of the Son of Man later on in Matthew chapter 24. And biblical prophecy tends to do this, it tends to speak about things that are maybe right now, things that are maybe coming shortly, but also things that are like far into the future.

[17:29] And so when Jesus says, "When you see these things, then you know that the end is gonna be near," I think those are the types of things that we need to say. Okay. If those things are happening, we'll probably be able to perceive that they're happening. But until they happen, of course, the apostles could have never anticipated that the temple was gonna be destroyed. But when they saw the temple destroyed, they probably, those who were still living, remembered Jesus' words. And I think the Book of Revelation is meant to be read that way. We read it with an understanding that these things are always happening, but there's also a time when they're going to happen in a kind of a final consummate kind of way.

[18:20] And we can't know, I don't think we can know in advance who Gog and Magog are. The church has made a lot of mistakes of trying to predict that over and over again, who this is. But when that actually happens into the future, the church hopefully will have been reading the book of Revelation and will say, "Oh, now we know who this is." But until it happens, we really can't know that in advance. Yeah. That's really, I think that's really helpful, because for me, what it encourages me to do is to look for how God is, not for how He could be or for what, but like how He is. Where is He right now? Yeah. Where is He moving?

[19:07] Where is He working? And then me as an individual, us as, you know, at the church, how can we respond here and now? So not always looking for what could be, you know, what's lurking around the corner. That's 'cause that, I mean, certainly that tends more towards fear than towards hope. Right. There's little Gogs and little Magogs right now. Yeah. They may not be the final ones. Right. But they always are. They're always in our histories. Yeah. Yeah. Good. So don't be too, like, don't be trying to just kind of, like, discern. Discern. Yes. But don't be trying to guess. Don't try to guess. Right. But guessing is a waste of time. Game. We'll know it when it happens. We'll know it when it happens. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. Well, as you're reading through the book then, you alluded to this near the beginning of the conversation there, you find, you know, maybe these kind of guessing games not as helpful and not as hopeful, but there are all these kinds of just these images of hope that emerge from the pages of Revelation.

[19:59] And one that you actually, in a conversation we had, you pointed out to me that I hadn't noticed as much. I mean, I certainly remember the turn of phrase, but I don't think it kind of leapt off the page the way it has for you. What do you find when you see the words kingdom of priests or kingdom and priests, right, throughout the book of Revelation? Yeah. So I only noticed these motifs in the last couple years, particularly kingdom and priests. And it's repeated several times. It's not always exactly the same way. Sometimes it's actually a bigger concept. There's a concept of kingdom and constant concept of priesthood. But what I think that in particular, we should probably read one of those passages because that'll give us some context.

[20:46] Um, Let's see here, if I can find it. Sorry, I just gotta find it here. Revelation chapter 5. So this is the vision of the elders and the multitudes around the throne of the Lamb. And the prayers of the saints, they sang a new song saying, "Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransom people for God from every tribe, language, and people and nation. And You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth."

[21:34] Those two images, the kingdom and priests, I think, give us actually insight into the nature of the people of God. What the people of God are right from the start of creation, of course, God has given the earth to us, and we're supposed to have dominion to co-reign with God as regents of the earth. And of course, this language of the kingdom of God, Jesus comes announcing, right, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And so that's a repeated theme in the, certainly in the Gospels. And of course the priesthood is also, so all through the Old Testament, you have these themes of the kingdom. You know, the kingdom of Israel, the kings of Israel. And of course you have the priesthood all throughout the Old Testament too.

[22:23] The Levitical system, the sacrifices and so on. And for the people of God, it says that we have been made kingdom and priests, or a kingdom of priests, which represents both really elements of what the church is supposed to be about. We're supposed to be about the kingdom of God. We're supposed to be co-reigning with Christ. That the difference is that when we reign as followers of Jesus, we don't do it like Jesus says, like the Gentiles do, you know, lording it over the others. We do it through sacrifice. We do it through giving of ourselves. We do it through loving God and loving our neighbor. That's the extension of the kingdom of God for the common good of our society. So even if people aren't Christians, it's not just about Christians.

[23:09] It's about in what way do we speak about the ways of God that are good for all people, whether they believe in Jesus or not. This is the kingdom of God. You know, the signs of the kingdom of God coming here on earth. And so we're pointing to God's kingdom as He's announced it in Jesus Christ. But the role of the priesthood is, so there, a kingdom role is almost like a prophetic role. I kind of put it that way. It's almost like a prophetic role. And a prophet speaks the words of God to the people. And so that's really what the church is supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be announcing the word of God that Jesus has revealed to us in His preaching and through the apostolic preaching. And we're announcing that the kingdom of God to the world.

[23:55] That's the prophetic nature of the church. On the other hand, priests do what? Priests are intercessors. That's a really important thing. Priests are there to intercede on behalf of others. So while the prophet speaks from God to people, the priest speaks from people to God, right? And so there's a function of the church where not only are we supposed to be speaking the kingdom of God to the world, we're also supposed to be bringing the world to God, you know, representing the world to God. So I love that there's this I wouldn't say it's a tension. They work out as a tension in practice. But really both of those responsibilities are ours as the people of God.

[24:41] This is why I'm also interested that how often in the book of Revelation, the saints are seen as praying. They're praying, they're interceding. Now, of course, we only have one King, Jesus, and we only have one Prophet, Jesus. And we only have one High Priest, Jesus. But we're in Christ. And so when we are in Christ, we do all of these things in Him. That's really good. That's really helpful, I think. So one of the things that leapt off the page for you, and also I resonate with this one, I'm gonna have to read this a little bit 'cause this is a little bit more heady. But, you know, why it stood out to me when you shared it with me, is that it resonated with one of the things that kind of always scared me again about the book of Revelation was I kind of grew up thinking, man, the Revelation kind of gives the impression that not very many people are gonna make it to heaven.

[25:35] Not very many people are gonna be saved. There was this kind of like, this kind of closed, kind of narrow aspect to it, which of course resonates in some respects with the teachings of Jesus. You know, He is the, yeah, the narrow way. But you pointed out that so often, I think it's seven times through the text, it mentioned something about the idea that every nation, every tribe, every people, and every language will be gathered. So even if I just read, you read from Revelation 5, I'll read from Revelation 7:9. It says, "After this I looked and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all the tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the Lamb." So my question to you is how do you, you know, you already mentioned the idea of tension, whether this is a tension or not.

[26:21] How do you think about the idea of both the kind of narrow and also the incredibly expansive vision that Revelation gives us for the future of humanity? Right. I'm gonna push us back to chapter 4 and 5, where again we see this image of the 24 elders around the throne, worshiping around the throne. And that kind of mystified me for a while until I until I think I realized that I won't I won't say I'm a hundred percent right, for sure. But a lot of commentators will say, why 24? Well, 24 probably represents the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles, right? And so when you look at the 24, it's meant to represent both Israel, the original 12 tribes of Israel, plus the 12 apostles who go out and preach the gospel into the whole world.

[27:18] When you get to chapter seven from where you read just in the previous verses, you have this long list of, there's these 144,000 that are sealed, that says from the sons of Israel. And so there's 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. And then immediately after that, you have this vision of a multitude that no one can number from every nation, tribe, people, and language. So what I think is happening in the Book of Revelation, we have these people, nation, tribe, language. It's sometimes in different orders, seven times in the Book of Revelation. And the first two times in chapter five and chapter seven, it is definitely speaking to the multitudes that are around the throne together with the 24 elders.

[28:07] And this gives me goosebumps when I think about it, because in chapters two and three, we have these letters to historic churches. And those letters are still relevant to us. We need to hear the words that are spoken to those churches. And then in chapter four, at the beginning of chapter four, it says, the author says, "I looked and a door was standing open in heaven," which tells me that the vision that he had was not just a vision of the future, which it is, but a vision of already what already is. And he was given a glimpse into the multitudes of people that are already worshiping around the throne of God. And this, of course, gives us a picture of the future as well.

[28:53] So I'm tying this all together to say those first two instances of every tribe, every nation, every people, every language are very specifically the ones that are around the throne. Then a number of times through Revelation, it actually speaks to the entirety of all of the nations, right? So I don't think that it's so much tension as it is that the Book of Revelation keeps showing us that God keeps giving opportunities for all the nations, all the tribes, all the peoples, all the languages to come into repentance, to turn away from their wicked ways, and to serve the living, true living God. And that the future people of God will be representative of all of these nations, tribes, languages, and peoples. It's interesting that for whatever reason, what we see happening in Acts, in the Book of Acts on the day of Pentecost, Jews are speaking the glories of God and the gospel in the languages of the nations, right?

[29:59] And Revelation is repeating this and saying, "Listen, and this mark, this is a message that we really need today in the church." God's people are not restricted to any one nation, anytime. That historically, when the church has said, "Well, it, you know, we need to protect our nation," as if that's the highest priority. The Book of Revelation, speaking directly against that, saying that the people of God are representative of multiethnic, multilinguistic, multicultural representation of the grand people of God. So while there's a restrict, yes, there's a small number, smaller number maybe of taken out of all of the, all of the nations around, across the world and throughout history, God says, there will be someone from everywhere represented.

[30:58] Now, I don't know how He's gonna do that. Like, one of the mysteries that I I don't understand is, like, what about people who haven't heard about Jesus? I don't know how God's going to do that, but it seems to me that the Book of Revelation is this beautiful, hopeful book of the beautiful mosaic of God's people. It also tells us that this is what we need to look like now. 'Cause that's what's gonna look like in the kingdom. This is what we need to look like now, which means that we are going to have to do the hard work of figuring out how we are churches that don't downplay some of these ethnic, national, tribal, linguistic differences, because they're all gonna be there in the kingdom. They're all gonna be there in the kingdom.

[31:44] That might be the most controversial thing you've said so far. Forget about the other stuff. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Just thank you so much for that. Yeah. So just the last question here in the last few minutes we have, and you, this is a, you know, perfect segue over towards this. You mentioned it near the beginning. Apparently there's some kind of an election that's gonna happen here in the next few weeks. And so, you know, as somebody who's wearing multiple hats, one of them, you know, somebody who lives and breathes and has this being in the Book of Revelation, has been studying this, and obviously the political context from which it emerged and that it speaks into, and then also somebody who's wearing a hat with, you know, religious freedom in Canada and how to help kind of represent Christians. You're standing as a priest, as it were. Yeah. Between Christians and the government and the government of Christians.

[32:29] You know, a lot of us have been led to believe that politics is the answer. A lot of us have been led to believe that politics is the problem. Can it be both? I don't know. You tell us what word of kind of comfort or encouragement might you have for the church here and now? That's a lot. Scripturally. It seems to me that all through the Scriptures, including in the Book of Revelation, God doesn't downplay the reality that there are these political authorities that exist. Right? And we see that in the apostles. We see that in the Old Testament. We see that in Paul and in Peter, and certainly pictured here in Revelation that, that for some reason, God has chosen to mediate His authority, His kingly authority through humans.

[33:22] And humans are called upon to be co-regents with God. They're called upon to reign with God. And interestingly, the Book of Revelation even says that we're going to reign with God for all of eternity. So for some reason, God has decided that this is how it's supposed to be. Not surprisingly, we don't always do so well, right? And so the problem becomes, I believe, is when political authorities begin to forget why they're there. So there's two things here I'd like to say. On the one hand, political authorities are supposed to be there under God. They are not ultimate. They're not the ultimate mediators of the common good.

[34:09] They're there to be held accountable to God. And therefore, the church's job is always to remind the political authorities that they too are accountable to God, they're accountable to God. What are they accountable to do? Well, they're accountable to ensure that all peoples, regardless of whether they believe in Jesus or not, are taken care of, that they're loved, that they're not oppressed, that they're free to go about their lives, to have livelihoods, to have families, to worship. Now, of course, we wish they would worship like we worship. We wish that they would all worship the same God that we worship.

[34:56] But at the same time, we have to say that if, God has given humans freedom to, to choose Him or to reject Him, that means we, that the ideal is for us to live in a society where people are free to do that. So as we're entering into this political season, into this election season, I think that we have to be praying, especially for our authorities. Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 2, he says, you know, I want everyone to be praying prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings for everyone. He says, but then he qualifies it. And he says, for kings and for all those in authority, and what are we supposed to pray, that we might live peaceful and godly lives? That's exactly what we need to be praying.

[35:43] So it doesn't, God doesn't necessarily, I don't think that God necessarily has the ideal political system that we think it might be. What He wants is that no matter the political system, no matter the political leaders, that they understand that they're servants of God and they're servants of people. And that's what we need to be praying towards, praying for peace. Certainly in our process as we go into election, I don't think we've ever seen election in recent times that has seemingly as much tension as we do right now. So let's pray for peace. Let's pray that the church would be a good witness to the goodness of God, that we wouldn't get caught up in the divisiveness, and that we would model what it means to love our neighbors, even those who don't agree with us.