Posted on 08/07/2006 6:18:10 AM PDT by topcat54
David Brog has written Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State. The ten reviews I read on Amazon were quite favorable, and it is being advertised on WorldNetDaily. The fact that the Foreword was written by John Hagee, author of Jerusalem Countdown, From Daniel to Doomsday, Beginning of the End, and Final Dawn over Jerusalem, is a clear indication that the book’s thesis fits with the modern-day prophetic system known as dispensational premillennialism. I doubt that the book covers what this article reveals.
In my debate with Tommy Ice at American Vision’s Worldview Super Conference (May 26, 2006), Ice pointed out that one of the unique features of the dispensational system is that near the end of a future, post-rapture, seven-year tribulation period, Israel will be rescued by God. After nearly 2000 years of delayed promises, God will once again come to the rescue of His favored nation. Ice and other dispensationalists imply by this doctrine that they are Israel’s best friend, and anyone who does not adopt their way of interpreting the Bible is either anti-Semitic (Hal Lindsey) or a methodological naturalist (Tommy Ice).
In the debate, I wanted Tommy to explain how a belief in Israel’s glorious future results in the slaughter of two-thirds of the Jews living at the time the Great Tribulation nears the end of its seven-year run. I quoted the following dispensational writers to show that there is no glorious future for “all Jews who are under siege,” to use Tommy’s words, in the dispensational version of the Great Tribulation.
There are geopolitical implications to the dispensational system that some people have picked up on.
Dispensational theology as it relates to Israel is alarming to some Jewish leaders as well. Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, asks, “To what extent will a theological view that calls for Armageddon in the Middle East lead [evangelicals] to support policies that may move in that direction, rather than toward stability and peaceful coexistence?”(2) The most probable scenario is that prophetic futurists will sit back and do nothing as they see Israel go up in smoke since the Bible predicts an inevitable holocaust. It is time to recognize that these so-called end-time biblical prophecies have been fulfilled, and Zechariah 13:7–9 is certainly one of them. Those Jews living in Judea prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and who fled before the assault on the temple were saved (Matt. 24:15–22).Convinced that a nuclear Armageddon is an inevitable event within the divine scheme of things, many evangelical dispensationalists have committed themselves to a course for Israel that, by their own admission, will lead directly to a holocaust indescribably more savage and widespread than any vision of carnage that could have generated in Adolf Hitler’s criminal mind.(1)
1. Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1986), 195.
2. Quoted in Jeffery L. Sheler, “Odd Bedfellows,” U.S. News & World Report (August 12, 2002), 35.
Gary DeMar is president of American Vision and the author of more than 20 books. His latest is Myths, Lies, and Half Truths.
Permission to reprint granted by American Vision P.O. Box 220, Powder Springs, GA 30127, 800-628-9460.
The tendencey here (in my experience) is that those who hold to a pre-millenial dispensationalist view are regarded by those who hold to an a-millenial view as the Christian equivalent of "trailer trash." Well maybe we are the trailer trash of evangelical christianity. I don't know, I'm not that dogmatic about my position. All I know is what the Holy Spirit teaches me. And when push comes to shove I have to assume that the other guy is being taught by the holy spirit as well. So we can use the Sword to either sharpen each other or to cut each other down. The choice is up to us.
I definitely have trouble with preterism because of full preterism.
Let me know when someone actually comes along and "insists" on that, Marlowe, especially when you claim that "many posters" have actually done so.
...if they insist that their position automatically means that they have been blessed with a greater gift of grace because of it
Again, when these "many posters" show up and start insisting they have a "greater gift of grace because of" their eschatology, please ping me. I would really like to read those posts. Somehow, despite claims of "many posters" who are "insisting" on these things, I keep missing their posts on these threads.
All I know is what the Holy Spirit teaches me. And when push comes to shove I have to assume that the other guy is being taught by the holy spirit as well. So we can use the Sword to either sharpen each other or to cut each other down. The choice is up to us.
Whoever they are, my guess is that these "many posters" are seeing, from the numerous mischaracterizations of their position, and the less-than-admirable motivations assigned them by other posters re their position, just what choice some have already made.
I think you're on exactly the right track. In fact, I have yet to find an event described in the Torah that didn't have a prophecy associated with it.
So, when Christ was called out of Egypt, that was an intentional parallel to Israel's odyssey.
As His forty days being tempted in the wilderness paralleled their forty years.
I think Christians have too narrow a definition of "prophecy" to refer only to "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" style proofs.
Absolutely correct. Which is not to say that such proofs don't exist--but we need to understand the full range of prophecy in the Bible on its own terms.
Check your freep mail.
FReepmail deleted, unread. If you have a problem with a fellow Christian, I'd encourage you to take it to him/her privately. Since you've already made it a public issue and named "many posters" as the accused, I'd prefer to keep further discussion of it public until it is resolved or retracted.
You asked me to show you an example of what I was saying, so I freepmailed you a couple of posts as examples.
Rather than see what response I had, you deleted the freep mail without reading it. Oh, well, you can't say I didn't try.
And frankly I don't care what you "prefer". I thought it was out of line to point to specific examples as they would only cause additional tension on this thread, which is unnecessary. Suffice it to say that some people do think they are more spiritual because of their eschatology. If you don't want to believe it, then fine, don't believe it. But don't say I didn't try to show you the evidence.
This discussion is over.
Speaking of that passage, in what verses did the prophets (plural) make the following claim?
Matthew 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
Matityahu is therefore employing a pun to call attention to the numerous prophecies that refer to the Messiah as the Branch of David (Isa. 11:1; Jer. 23:5 & 33:15 and Zec. 3:8 & 6:12 use a synonym in the Hebrew, Tzemach, which means the same thing).
To a Christian with a sense of history, the conflation of the terms "spiritual" with "good" sounds so quaintly victorian. Not to say gnostic. I rejoice to concede that particular bragging right, and yield the floor to my far more spiritual brothers, the dispensationalists.
You see, I have no desire to be "spiritual." I am a man, as my wife can tell you several times each week. I am not an angel. My materiality is something I rejoice in, since this is what God has made me to be and to enjoy. God looked at His material creation and called it "good." And who am I to argue with my Maker? God considers the material creation SO good that the Word became flesh without being defiled, then died and rose again to ultimately redeem all of creation for His glory. "For God so loved the world..." that He took steps to redeem a race or restored caretakers for it.
I do not wish to be "spiritual." I seek grace to be obedient.
Do you see the difference? Satan is a purely spiritual entity -- but not an obedient one. Not a good one. As a redeemed man, I have opportunities and responsibilities to care for my corner of creation, to steward all that God entrusts to me, to husband it (and her!) and to see to it that I put more into the system than I take out of it. To leave my corner of the world a bit better than I found it, so that my children will get a head start in their race.
The problem with seeking to be "spiritual" is that the seeker can too easily spiral into his navel. The "spiritual" guy can be a failure as a husband, father, employee, and steward of the opportunities God drops in his lap -- and still congratulate himself on how "spiritual" he is. In a secret zone, defined so narrowly that no one can see it, he is "victorious." Who cares if his house and family and nation are crumbling around him? "I got mine, jack. To hell with everything else."
A truly incarnational Christianity cannot be dispensational. We do not have the right to despise the world God has entrusted to our care. To do so ultimately maligns our Creator. Gnosticism, like dispensationalism, writes off the whole world in exchange for esoteric "spiritual" thrills. Both are disobedient to the total counsel of God, and the flourishing of His Kingdom.
Either you are missing the point or avoiding the issue.
One problem with the futurist view of Zech. 13 and Matt. 24 and Revelation is that it gives us no basis to reasonably understand the killing of 2/3 of the Jewish inhabitants of the land during the future "great tribulation".
The context of all these passages is judgment upon Israel for specific deeds. In the case of Matthew, for example, Jesus speaks specifically of the punishment to be meted out against an unbelieving generation for their treatment of the prophets and the killing of the "son of the landowner". (Cf. Matt. 21:33ff; 23:34ff; 27:25).
Now the futurist projects "this generation" thousands of years into the future. But we know that punishment was limited to "the third of fourth generation", according to the law (Ex. 34:7). The extent was not unlimited in scope.
So the futurist has a problem. Either they ignore all the context for these verses and say that the "great tribulation" holocaust Jews of the future are killed merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or they must project the wrath of God from 2000 years ago onto a people who did not directly participate in the persecuation of the prophets and the killing of the "son of the landowner", or they must associate guilt and punishment with these folks merely by identifying themselves as Jews.
While you may scoff at the view that sees these vereses in the context of judgment against 1st century Israel, and therefore fulfilled, the alternative understanding either willingfully ignore part of Scripture or it paints God as being in vioaltion of His own law.
Full Preterism is probably heresy.
Why are you hedging your bets? Either it is or it isn't. And just to repeat myself for the n-teenth time, I'm not "full preterist". I affirm the historic creeds of the church as reflecting the scriptural teaching on Christ's second coming.
It makes no difference to me that you are not a full preterist. Full preterism is probably heresy. While it in all likelihood is heresy, I'm being kind to any of its adherents who might be reading this. Perhaps they have some comments to offer.
If it is true that predicting the destruction of people is belief in a hateful God, as you and others have posited; then that is just as true for the past as it is for the future. It is just as hateful to allow the killing Jewish babies in the Bethlehem of yore as it is to allow the deaths of Jewish unbelievers in a judgement of the future.
You might as well be consistent.
In fact, you call into question God's righteousness in judgement, as if God cannot impose terribly destructive judgements and still be a righteous God.
Do nearly full preterists believe in hell?
So it was the Jews who really are responsible for killing Christ, huh? So Jesus wasn't serious when he cried out from the cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do?"
And you dare to attach vile motives to futurists? Can you point to a single Jew who was "refined" in 70AD by the destruction of the Temple? If 2/3 of the inhabitants of Israel were all killed and that 1/3 of the inhabitants of Israel who weren't were all "refined" in 70AD, don't you think that this mass conversion of every Jew who was left alive in Israel in 70AD might have made it into the history of the church somehow?
Can you point to this event in any early historical document?.... You can even use the gospel according to Josephus.....
Crickets....
I thought not.
If you say this sort of thing in a public forum, and won't supply the evidence to support it, then it amounts to slander, even if specific parties are not mentioned. (We all know who you are talking about.)
It seems to me both sides are prone to dish out the epithets when convenient. But, hey, who's counting?
"Many posters", not just one or two. There are at most four of us postmils on this thread. Given "many posters", chances are only one of us hasn't managed to come off "more spiritual" like the rest of us have.
What did I do wrong?
Why don't you just read this thread and see if you can find it.
Honestly, this statement inevitably comes up in many of these threads:
I have noticed a tendency on the part of many posters to insist that their <insert theological category> makes them more spiritual than the other guy.This is hardly unique to eschatology threads.
To a Christian with a sense of history, the conflation of the terms "spiritual" with "good" sounds so quaintly victorian. Not to say gnostic. I rejoice to concede that particular bragging right, and yield the floor to my far more spiritual brothers, the dispensationalists.
You see, I have no desire to be "spiritual." I am a man, as my wife can tell you several times each week. I am not an angel. My materiality is something I rejoice in, since this is what God has made me to be and to enjoy. God looked at His material creation and called it "good." And who am I to argue with my Maker? God considers the material creation SO good that the Word became flesh without being defiled, then died and rose again to ultimately redeem all of creation for His glory. "For God so loved the world..." that He took steps to redeem a race or restored caretakers for it.
I do not wish to be "spiritual." I seek grace to be obedient.
Do you see the difference? Satan is a purely spiritual entity -- but not an obedient one. Not a good one. As a redeemed man, I have opportunities and responsibilities to care for my corner of creation, to steward all that God entrusts to me, to husband it (and her!) and to see to it that I put more into the system than I take out of it. To leave my corner of the world a bit better than I found it, so that my children will get a head start in their race.
The problem with seeking to be "spiritual" is that the seeker can too easily spiral into his navel. The "spiritual" guy can be a failure as a husband, father, employee, and steward of the opportunities God drops in his lap -- and still congratulate himself on how "spiritual" he is. In a secret zone, defined so narrowly that no one can see it, he is "victorious." Who cares if his house and family and nation are crumbling around him? "I got mine, jack. To hell with everything else."
A truly incarnational Christianity cannot be dispensational. We do not have the right to despise the world God has entrusted to our care. To do so ultimately maligns our Creator. Gnosticism, like dispensationalism, writes off the whole world in exchange for esoteric "spiritual" thrills. Both are disobedient to the total counsel of God, and the flourishing of His Kingdom.
All I can say is the apostles did not interpret Jesus's words from the cross in the same way you do.
"Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know-- Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; (Acts 2:22,23)
Note Peter's words, "you have taken". And what was the response of the "men of Israel" to these words? "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?' " (v. 37)
Peter gives another "men of Israel" message in chapter 3. In that message he says, "But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses." (vv. 14,15) Again, the men were smitten by Peter's words and called upon the name of the Lord for forgiveness.
Stephen gives a similar message in Acts 7.
"You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it." (vv. 51-53)
Notice the parallel of Stephen's words about "killing the prophets" to those of Jesus in Matthew 23. These people were acting just like their fathers. But unlike the men in Peter's audience, these folks decided not to listen to the message, but rather to kill Stephen.
Those Jews who responded to the words of the apostles were included in the people of Israel being regrafted into the root. They were the ones in and around Israel who were to told to flee to the mountains to avoid the punishment to come. There made up the citizenship of the new kingdom, the leadership of which Jesus transfered from the old Sanhedrin to the new made up of the apostles and elders (cf. Matt 21:43).
So, if you read the entire Bible and don't prooftext your theology you'll come to a more satisfying understanding of the truth.
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