Actually, that is how it works. Those who make big claims need to make their case. For thousands of years, no one has interpreted "this generation" as "that generation" until Dispensationalism came along. Now Dispensationalists just assert their wild claims as truth and then wave off the millennia of scholarly research that confirms that "this generation" means, quite literally, "this generation".
But Dispensationalists are special. Since their promoters are largely unskilled, and illiterate in terms of the original languages, theology, doctrine, literary forms, culture et al, we can't expect coherent and reasonable answers. We are expected to answer the fool according to his folly, and this folly is horrible hermaneutics and unsubtantiated claims.
When Jesus Christ said "Assuredly, I say to you..." (v34) Dispensationalists, without any support whatsoever say that Jesus really meant "Assuredly I say to Americans thousands of years from now". When our LORD said "this generation", Dispensationalists, without any support whatsoever demand that Jesus meant "that generation [thousands of years from now]".
When we read in the prolog of Revelation "these things must shortly take place" the Dispensationalist declares by fiat that it really means "these things will take place thousands upon thousands of years from now" (1:1). When God literally said that Revelation was for "His Servants" (1:1), Dispensationalists categorically reject that and claim that Revelation is really only for the Reprobate (who already hate God and would never receive God's blessing).
The argument they make is total fiction. They claim that the word used in this passage, γενεα, can only mean "nation" even though "generation" has the article which means a literal generation of people, not a nation.
But here is an interesting fact. Dispensationalists admit through their own predictions that "γενεα" literally meant 40 year generation of people. Proof? In the claims that Jesus Christ was to return on the Feast of Trumpets in 1988, 40 calendar years after the UN formed the secular nation Israel. Their main evidence that 1988 was the year? Why Matthew 24:34 - "this generation".
You see, the fortune tellers want it both ways. First they easily trick you into agreeing that Matthew 24:34 means "this nation" so that you will interpret "flee to the hills of Judea" as not a literal thing, but have a metaphorical meaning. Then once you accept the bogus proposition that "this generation" can only mean "that generation", then they perform the bait-and-switch and say "this generation" really means "the generation that is living at the time the secular nation of Israel is carved out of the M.E. by the UN.". We are pretty far past the "40 years" of a standard generation. Then 2008 came by, and no return of Jesus, so the modified definition of generation = "sixty years" proved to be yet another lie by the fortune tellers.
What now? Are we going for 100 years? How about 950 which was the life span of your typical antediluvian? How many times are you going to let these Phalse Profits keep feeding you crap and garbage?
Personally, I beleive that you will easily scoff down whatever they feed you because you love it because its fresh, hip and doesn't require any biblical training. You can take a look at any calamity, troop movement, or weapon development and boldly declare that you are an authority on how and why it happened when you don't even have a clue. It is so much better to reject the Holy Scriptures as being the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and far more fun believing that it is a guide to identifying the antichrist and Day Planner for the Reprobate. Using Scripture to grow and be perfected is boring. Abusing Scripture and making parlor games out of Bible Codes and matching articles and op-eds from the NYT with OT prose only requires a fertile imagination and utter contempt for Spiritual Truth.
And your hatred for the Elect is well documented in this thread and in many others. It is marked by constant insults, slander and deliberate mischaracterizations - abuse that we rarely see even from the hard-core atheists.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
Dispensationalism has been traced to the early Church.
Try again.
So far I’ve yet to see anything that passes for sound hermeneutics from the “frothing at the keyboard” crowd.
I do see a lot of ranting, raving, name-calling and other childish antics. But that’s beside the point.
What they don’t realize is many of those so-called “anti-Christ” verses they wall-papered the forum with don’t even point to any anti-Christ without first layering their own eschatology on top of them.
Their “proof” is the same proof that passes for evolutionists who use fossils to date the rock strata in which they’re found, but then use the age of the rocks in those strata to date the fossils!
In other words, their “proof” amounts to little more than “There’s an anti-Christ in that passage because I say there is” without any scintilla of evidence to support it.
They have become both the ultimate authority on their interpretation of the Bible and the ultimate arbiter as to what everyone else should think about it to, lest you be condemned as a “heretic of the devil.”
Creepy, really, how some people react when their beliefs are challenged. It’s like watching jihadists respond to that Danish cartoon of Mohammed, or when fatwahs were issued against Salman Rushdie for daring to print “The Satanic Verses.”
I dare say, I’d be hard pressed to pick some so-called “Spirit-led Christians” here out of a lineup with their Jihadist brethren, such has been their response. LOL!
Personally, I beleive that you will easily scoff down whatever they feed you because you love it because its fresh, hip and doesn’t require any biblical training.
Impressive . . . NOT!