Well, we're going to talk about dispensationalism today. Don just related an interesting story. Don, say that briefly again, what happened at the church you went to. So before 1830, there were no Christians ever. So what we've seen is that the landscape in America, when it comes to prophecy, completely changed. with the advent of this new movement called Dispensationalism. And that's what most of you are very familiar with now. And it changed so completely because up until that time, the ethos or the eschatological outlook for America was mostly post-millennial. We talked about that when the Puritans came to America. What did they think America would be? Light on the Hill, eschatology wise, what did they think America would be? The New Jerusalem. This is the post-millennial kingdom, the Golden Age, where Christ would begin to reign in a very unique way in America and that would spread throughout the world. They were convinced we were in this glorious time. Well, That only lasted so long and what really ended up destroying it is the wars, you know, especially the Civil War. You know, it's hard to be optimistic when half the country is killing the other half, right? And so that optimism was slowly fading away and that's when a man named Darby stepped in with a pessimistic view in a sense. that just the opposite of what you thought is actually happening. So let's look at what changed everything. A little bit of the history. John Nelson Darby. We're not going to blame the Irish again. Go ahead, Don. No. He attended Trinity College in Dublin, but he became a lawyer, did not study for the ministry. He entered the Church of England as a deacon and then a priest. But he was always criticizing the church for its worldliness because it was a national church. And so he left and he joined the Brethren Movement, the Plymouth Brethren Movement, known there as the Brethren Movement. Is anyone familiar with the Brethren Movement? How many of you are? Some of you? I wish Mike Adams was here. He was part of that for a while. They pretty much separate themselves from the church and they There's really no pastors. Usually there's no training. Kind of do it on your own type thing. So he led worship and Bible studies on his own. He stressed a literal interpretation of the prophecies in scripture. He became a futurist regarding revelation. That's the idea that revelation is predicting just what's going to happen in the last seven years before Christ returns. He rose as a strong leader in the movement and he called for all the Christians to leave the Church of England. He would say, the Church of England is dead and if you're alive, leave it. He contributed this idea, this was new, of a rapture. No one had ever heard of the rapture before, Darby. And he began a new teaching that the church the Gentile Christians will be raptured away and then God in seven years will bring the tribulation time before final judgment. And for Darby, this sounds familiar to what Don just said, if you really take the Bible literally, you would be a dispensationalist in his mind. If not, you really don't believe the Bible. That's the type of rhetoric you heard from him. So in 1859, he began to come to Canada and the United States with this new teaching. He was amazed, and you can read his writings, that no one really listened to him. He really had two important doctrines in his mind. One, leave the church. The church, all the established churches are dead. Leave it and form Bible studies. What movement in the 90s said the same thing, by the way? No, because Calvary Chapel was still a church. What said leave all the churches? Harold Campion and Family Life Radio, exactly. It was that type thing. Leave all the churches and join little brethren groups at your homes. That didn't get a hearing in America. People weren't interested in that type of radicalness in that sense. But he did get a hearing for his prophecy and his strict distinction between Israel and the church. Israel, he said, was saved by the law and the church by grace. And he said that most of the New Testament is actually for Israel until you get to Paul. For example, he taught the Lord's Prayer was only for the Jews and not applicable to New Testament Christians. And so the secret rapture could happen any time in his prophetic understanding. And in his mind, that would wake people up from dead religion. If you knew that any second You could disappear and be in heaven with Christ. You better get ready, right? Anyone remember the 70s song? What's the big song in Christian circles? I wish we'd all be ready because the rapture is coming and you better be flying Delta Airlines. Anyone remember that one? No one remembers that rumor? No one? The rumor was that only Delta knew the rapture was coming, so they would put a Christian pilot with a non-Christian pilot in the plane. So if there is a rapture, somebody could land the plane. Because if you're in the plane... No, if you're not... Yeah, I forget the... I don't know. It's a good question. Anyway. Oddly enough, Darby found his most ardent ally in a Presbyterian of that time, James Brooks. He pastored a very large and well-known church, Walnut Avenue Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, and that became the center for this new movement in the 1800s in St. Louis. And so at first, he turned people off in America because when people come from another place and call your whole Christianity and church dead, usually that doesn't take too well, right? Especially if you're a foreigner. So he came to America and he said the church was dead pretty much. But he did find a hearing again because of the Civil War. Because after the Civil War, everybody, Post-millennialism was beginning to disappear. It's hard to be optimistic about the future of your country after all that murder and all that killing and division. And so he did find a hearing historically that things were not going to get better and better and better into this beautiful golden age. That things were actually getting worse. And so things, there was a stance I put here that things were not going well in America. So it began to grow in the 70s and 80s after his death, especially through prophecy conferences. You've heard of prophecy conferences, right? This is the first time you had these national, you could go to any city to the tent and he would have the charts in the back and show all the events. And he would look at politics around the world and show why the rapture will happen in this generation, etc, etc. They all, dispensationalists, then started their own Bible colleges. And the idea was you don't have to go to seminary, you don't have to learn the languages or church history or get so technical. Just come and learn the literal interpretation of the Bible and go out. And so the Bible college movement really took off. the Dispensational Bible College movement. And that's how this movement spread, really, is through young men. Instead of going to seminary, they would go to these colleges, and you really didn't, you weren't trained the way a seminary would train you. And so, and then, of course, I put in, if the King James Version is good enough for King James and Paul, And so King James became the only dispensational translation you should use. So by the 1900, there were 50 Bible colleges teaching this view in the United States. Yes. Yeah, was there another name for Dallas before that? Yeah, I don't I don't remember. Dallas became one of the main ones, of course, in the 20th century. So what really picked up steam was Schofield. There's a book out now. Can anyone read it? On Schofield's life. That the guy was really a fraud. That they looked back and he lied about much of his life. That he said he had a degree from somewhere. They went back and there was no record of him ever attending this college he said he had a degree from. Anyway, there's a book out now about him. Born in Missouri. What's with Missouri? St. Louis was the center. Now we're picking on any Missourians here? No? One? Okay. So Schofield had no formal Bible training, but he became a pastor and a teacher. Served in a church in Texas. Guess we can pick on Texas too. He published his own Bible in 1909 with his own notes, teaching dispensationalism, on the side of the notes, and thus became the very famous Schofield Bible. Yes. When you say original, what do you mean? Wow. Huh. Dispensationalism never quite caught on in the rest of the world. It's interesting. As it tried to spread, they weren't quite as interested as they were here, where it was huge. Now it's the dominant thinking today in the Protestant Church. Catholics never bought into it. Lutherans never bought into it. But among Baptists especially, it became the prominent view. Any questions on the history or thoughts? Yes, Robert? Yeah, the circuit riders were a little different than the Bible colleges. Yes, circuit riders, you could be converted and become a circuit rider the next day. That wasn't unusual. You had to own a horse and they didn't live very long, most of them. Most of them died pretty early because it was so rough. A lot of them got beat up when they'd go to a town. They'd get pummeled by the locals. They'd get back on their horse and move on. A lot of them reached the slaves, though, actually. It was the circuit riders who went into and preached to the slaves. But that's an interesting story. But the Bible colleges were a way to teach dispensationalism without having very high standards for what the seminaries used to do. So you get a guy in and out real quick who really didn't want to study Hebrew or Greek or things like that. And you have Schofield notes. I mean, there you go. And this is just explaining why now it's the most prominent view in our country among Protestants, what happened. And it was, it isn't an issue that it really started just 1830s or so and here we are. Now everyone's heard of the Rapture, right? And everyone's heard of the Tribulation Period and the Antichrist and what's the new one? The Blood Moon? That's the new one from... yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I think it's slowly dying. I think it's slowly... I think it's reached its heyday and now it's going to slowly dissipate. Kind of like evolution. Any other thoughts on that? Yes. Yeah, I would say that's my experience. When I first became a Christian and went to a Bible church, it was pretty much dispensationalism or liberalism. That was the only option. You didn't really know about older theology, Reformed, or anything else. Yeah. Yeah, you mean the prophecies? Yeah. Go ahead. Right. Any other thoughts on the history? We'll get to the basic teaching in a moment. Yes. Oh, at Philly, yeah. Even back then? Yes. And it's difficult when you're younger. You don't know there are any options. It's like, well, that must be it. What else is there? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, you want to be careful there. I would say that there's different types. And I've known a lot who aren't like that, who just they are Christ centered, gospel centered, and it's it's more of a minor point. But you're right, it can be very obsessive among. Yeah. Yeah, and that's not quite my experience, but it just depends who you're around. I mean, I went to a Bible college like Philly, and they were very open to questions, and they weren't. Assemblies of God are dispensational, traditionally. Let's look at the basic teaching. First, they came up with this idea of seven dispensations, that's why it's called dispensationalism, in which man relates to God. And I won't write them all out, because you don't hear much about this anymore, but you have the Adam in the Garden, where he had to pass the test. Then you had the post-Adam, I forget what they call that. Who remembers? The age of, pardon? Yeah, I guess the age of promise, where God promises. Then you have Noah, and then you have the age of government with Noah. Then you have the age of Israel and law. Then you have the age of grace, in our age. And you have the age of the kingdom when Christ comes for the Jews, and that's a different relation to God. So there's seven dispensations. The key there is what you've said, number two, all prophecy should be interpreted literally whenever possible. Even though we talked about last time, remember, that prophecy is symbolic. That's the nature of prophecy. They would say it's literal. So when God makes a promise, you take it in a very wooden, literal sense. as much as possible. They're not always consistent on that. There's some you just can't. Yes. Yeah, look at number three. That's our next point. But that's okay. You're thinking right where I was. Emphasis on what the original prophecies, how they were understood over how the New Testament explains their fulfillment. So, for example, when God says to Abraham, I will give you this land, Canaan, The New Testament says Abraham was able to look past the type and also see the reality. In other words, he knew ultimately Canaan pictured heaven, that this wasn't the final eternal place, that God would just have this little parcel of land. But the dispensatious would say, no, what did God say to Abraham? Canaan, that's all you can take from that. So God promised that land and he will give him that land. So even though the New Testament moves us past the land and say that was symbolic, they would say all that matters is what we think Abraham would have understood, or God isn't being honest. So if Abraham heard Canaan, then that must be a promise that will come true, that God will give them the land of Israel, the land of Canaan. That make sense? And so we would say, as Reformed people, how we understand that is how the New Testament interprets those promises, right? What does the New Testament say how they're fulfilled? Not necessarily what exactly was understood, which we never ultimately know what's going on in the mind of an Old Testament person. Number four, Christ came to bring the physical kingdom of Israel to the Jews. So when Christ came to the earth, the Jews would have gotten They're all their land back that God promised Abraham, and they would have ruled the world in a sense and been blessed like Solomon's kingdom. When the Jews refused the Messiah, then God went to the Gentiles. But because God promised Abraham that land, that was going to happen, but just later. It wouldn't happen then, it would happen later. So now Christ will return and do what he couldn't do because of their unbelief. the first time. 5. There will be a secret rapture where Christians will be caught up to heaven in order to clear the way for God to do this thing for Israel. So all the Christians are caught up to heaven then God begins to do what he promised to the nation Israel just for the Jews and so the Christians are sort of out of the way so God can now judge the rest of the world and bless Israel and the Jews and protect them. It's never quite clear what happens to when Christ comes back In the dispensational scheme, he lands in Israel and he rules there among the Jews. Well, the Gentiles are supposedly up in heaven, Gentile Christians. It's not quite clear where they'll be. Do they come down and... Do they stay in heaven for a thousand years? Or are they sort of in the other areas? It's... No, not particularly. They're like crossing things. Okay. During what time? The thousand year or the tribulation? Well, that would be the 144,000 number from Revelation. Those will be Jews who become Christians during the seven year. And that leads us to number six. There will be a seven year tribulation. The Antichrist person will rule the world. Israel, the nation, will be attacked and then rescued. And then God will bring judgments on the other nations. Remember, this is all new. So if you were around in the 1830s, this is a whole new scheme of what the Bible teaches. You never would have heard this before. Number seven, then God will fulfill all those Old Testament promises to the nation Israel in a thousand-year millennial kingdom. Eight, one can discern the signs of the end times by keeping an eye on political events surrounding Israel. So what really helped this movement was what? 1948 Israel becoming a nation Giving the land or a small part of the land that really fueled Dispensationalism see We're in the end times Israel's back. This is the promise And they got Jerusalem they just don't have their temple yet and Then we talked about nine and ten the church is not the fulfillment of Israel God They'll call it replacement theology, and you'll hear very critically speak of what they call replacement. They'll say the church has replaced Israel. We don't say that. We say the church is the fulfillment of the promises to Israel. So that's the basic teaching that both Darby and Schofield started that is so prominent. And before we get to the verses, any thoughts on that? Yes. Did he clean it out? Some people end up Some people end up leaving. Oh, no. OK, yes. Yeah, and they don't always agree on this. I mean, the more extreme would be what's the guy in San Antonio? Hagee, John Hagee, he would actually believe the Jews don't have to become Christians. By virtue of being Jewish, you're God's people. You have nothing to worry about. So they don't even need salvation. They don't need Christ. They have a promise already from the Old Testament. Now, not all dispensationalists will say that, but the more extreme ones do. Yes. What happened in the 80s is some of the modern dispensationalists saw how extreme the older ones were. And they sort of ratcheted up and straightened out a lot of things. You know, the idea that most of the New Testament until Paul isn't for the Jews, that's pretty bad. So they straightened that out. The idea that Schofield taught that in the Old Testament you were saved differently, they straightened that out. And that's called progressive dispensationalism. How many have heard of that? John MacArthur would probably be the most common proponent. These guys are more balanced. And they're very, they're more gospel centered. So they, what they've done is they've really seen the extremes of how it started. And they've done a really good job of straightening it out. And so we would have a lot more in common with the, what's the other guy, Daryl Bach? Who's heard of Daryl Bach? He's at Dallas, is he? Dallas Seminary. He's a good guy. I've met him before. He's straightened it out. He has a pretty good commentary on Luke, actually. So some of the more modern ones have really done a good job of getting rid of the extremes. Now they still hold to a basic framework, but they're not like some of these people you've come into contact that sounds like some of the more extreme. Yes. In eschatology, he's dispensational. He is a Calvinist, and that's why they say he's reformed. But he's still a dispensationalist. Yes. Yeah, I've heard those stories, but it's hard to tell. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, because the Old Testament, traditionally, that would be for the Jews. This is a different dispensation, so it's hard to know what to do with that. Instead of seeing the fulfillment through Christ for all of us. Oh, let me go. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I haven't seen a difference as far as dispensationalism. They have a difference as far as salvation than the Baptists and their view of baptism. They tend to be ardent dispensationalists. Again, you have to take each person individually, because they're not all extreme. Some are just very good Christians, and it's just sort of a minor point of how it ends. Kind of like some of you, when I asked you what your view is, about half of you raised your hand and said, it'll all pan out in the end. There's a lot of dispensationalists like that, that they don't, they're not extreme. But the ones that are extreme tend to get all the media attention in the play, right? And they're the ones that are sort of railing. I mean, there's an old saying that if you want to start a church and get a lot of people, you always start with Revelation or Daniel. And you try to pique their interest in prophecy. And with a dispensational scheme, you can use the newspapers and all the events. And that's really exciting. It doesn't work. I mean, it's wrong. Any other thoughts? Let's just look then, if you guys could be at these verses. Views versus refuting dispensationalism. If some of you could look ahead and just be ready with this versus, and these are just some I could have put a whole bunch, really the whole New Testament, but Galatians 3.29. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. If you Gentile Christians belong to Christ, you are Abraham's children, and you receive the promises that were promised to Abraham. The same promises come to the Gentiles now in Christ, as well as the Jews. There's not two separate promises. Ephesians 2 11 through 22 little long let's just do the last three verses but keep that section in mind who has that yeah Okay, what are the two that have become one now? Jews and Gentiles have become one. Temple, isn't that interesting? Remember, God would bring back the temple. Here's the temple according to the New Testament. Jew and Gentile as one body, one. And Christ is the foundation of the temple. That which the temple pictured is now here. Galatians 6.16. Who's Galatians written to The church mostly Gentile Christians, what does Paul call them the Israel of God That's interesting, right First Thessalonians 4 we did this two weeks ago The point is that there's no rapture remember that when Paul looks ahead the dead in Christ arise are risen and And then all God's people are together and they meet the Lord. There's no secret rapture. And that's when the trumpet happens. You know, it's interesting that when the way they deal with Revelation, there's no rapture in Revelation. That's a difficult one for them, because here, Revelation is supposed to be laying out everything that happens in the last seven years. You would think it includes the important event of the rapture, but there's no rapture. What they'll say is the rapture happens between chapters three and four. That's what they'll teach. How many of you heard that? It's between the two chapters. So it's not mentioned, but you have the church on earth in chapter three, and now you have the saints in heaven praising God. So there must have been a rapture that is just not mentioned. That's the only way they can find it. Yes. Oh, when John comes up? Huh. Okay. Symbolism, they shouldn't do that. Go ahead. What other way? Oh yeah, yeah. Right. Right. Yeah, it's not all the same. Acts 15, we've talked about where. James is reporting to the Jerusalem elders about the Gentiles around the Greek world becoming Christians, and he says this is the fulfillment of the Amos prophecy that said God would rebuild David's temple. You get it. What's the fulfillment of the prophecy that God would rebuild David's temple? If you're a dispensationalist, how would you say that has to be fulfilled? David's temple literally has to be built again. The apostles looked at that passage and said, here's how it's fulfilled. Gentiles are coming to Christ. God has a new house on the earth and it's with his people, Jew and Gentile. That's the fulfillment of what that pictured. I have a good friend who His wife was a dispensationalist and he wasn't. And they really started liking each other. They were dating. And they thought this would be an issue. If she's, as far as spiritually, a dispensationalist and he wasn't. Where would they go to church? How would they understand the Bible together? So he said to her, you know what, let's not go any further in our dating. Let's do this. This Acts 15 passage right here that I just mentioned, you get four or five commentaries on both sides, dispensational and reformed, and read them on this passage. And let's get together and come to our conclusion. So she did that. She's a very sharp girl. They came back about three weeks later and they were both reformed. And they've been married now how many years, Cheryl? About 20 years. She said, yeah, I just I couldn't see their answer was no answer to this passage. It's so clear. Philippians 3.3, just a couple more. Somebody read that. All right, Paul is speaking, he says, we, who's we? The Christians in Philippi are all Christians. We are the circumcision. What does the circumcision mean? We are, we are the true Jews. We are truly God's people now, that which the Old Testament Jews pictured. So he's calling Gentiles Jews here. Which brings us to Romans 9, 6-8. Somebody read that one. That's our last one. In essence, that some Jews are making the dispensational argument against Paul. They're saying God, God literally promised that all the Jews would be blessed. And yet in this gospel, you have most of the Jews are rejecting Christ. Where's their blessing? Where are these great promises landing on Jews? And what is Paul's response? Not all Israel is true Israel, right? The Israel that would truly be eternally blessed is Israel of the promise or of the spirit, not of the flesh. Israel of the flesh is simply people born Jews. But the children who receive the blessings, the eternal blessings, are those of the Spirit. And who's Israel of the Spirit? All who trust in Israel's greater Son, Jesus Christ, right? Yes. Right. Well, nobody can obey the law. Yeah, that's why Christ needed to do it for us. Right. And they all failed. So all they had was Christ as a hope. Yes. Right. Again, it's the mistake of not allowing the New Testament to exegete the Old Testament for you. That's the problem. If you want to really, in a nutshell, nail where they've gone wrong, it's not allowing the New Testament to have the final word of what the Old Testament means. So that was a perfect example. So, when you're around some of them, they will have sort of a haughty attitude because they've been so grounded in this is the only literal way to believe the Bible, that they'll be suspicious of you. But the key for you is not to reciprocate with the same type of haughtiness. That you're not haughty because they're off, but that you're humble and, you know, if they're brothers in Christ and sisters in Christ, if that's really their hope, And that's our hope, too. We should be careful. We shouldn't respond to them the way some of them. What's the guy? Oh, it was Hal Lindsey. I was watching Hal Lindsey on TV once. And he said, you know who was responsible for the Holocaust? Now, I'm expecting Hitler, you know. I know enough of history to know who it was. He said, a millennialist. I mean, he's blaming Christians for the Holocaust. And he says, because all mills don't believe the Jews are God's special people. And I'm thinking, well, you know, I don't believe any nation is God's special people, but I don't support their annihilation. I mean, what is the connection? But he's trying to say, you know, you're I mean, that's just unconscionable to speak that way about fellow Christians. Historically, it's stupid anyways, but... Yeah, I'm sure Hitler was sitting there with his men. Hey, what did the Ommels say about this? I'm not sure we can invade Poland because, have you heard? There's not enough... I mean, come on. Anyway, any other thoughts on this movement? Yes. Yeah, the one we looked at a few weeks ago that they often use this as a rapture because it says they'll be caught up into heaven. That's their rapture passage. But the passage itself is the return of Christ when this happens. The trumpet sounds. The trumpet is always used throughout the Bible for the return of Christ. And the dead are raised, which doesn't happen in a dispensational rapture. So here the dead are raised first. The trumpet sounds. And then we're caught up, all of us, to meet Christ. So there's no rapture before the second coming in this. But this is the only verse which has the word rapture caught up. So that's their passage. It's so secret. Yeah, it's not there. Yeah. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Well, if you have the dead in Christ rising first, it's not the dispensational rapture. That doesn't happen in their scheme, and yet in 1 Thessalonians it does. And you don't have a trumpet, which is very loud, because in their view it's secret. But that's it. That's kind of their verse. Any other thoughts? Does that sort of explain that the landscape today gives you a sense of why you keep going, when you turn on TV and you hear prophecy, it tends to go in this direction, you think, Where'd that come from? Well, now you got a little history of it, where that kind of thing came from.