Ah...
The title FOOLED me!
It SHOULD have pointed out the NARROW definition found here!
There is enough scripture to support all 3 major ways of looking at it; if ones CHOOSES their bible selections carefully.
There is enough scripture to support all 3 major ways of looking at it; if ones CHOOSES their bible selections carefully.
I'm not saying that you personally are guilty of this, but that very attitude expressed in that statement is why we tolerate so much heresy at the expense of the Gospel.
Unfortunately, nominal Christians approach the Scriptures as a way to support their preconceived notions rather than submitting themselves to the authority of the Word. This is how we get the various heresies such as Pelagianism/Arminianism ("Free Will"), Benny-Hinn "miracle" workshops, Gap Theory/Day-Age Evolutionary Origins, Prostitutes for Jesus and Premillennial Dispensationalism.
The Goal is to implement hermeneutics that harmonize the entire body of Scripture, rather than to cherry pick proof-texts, redefine technical terms and then eisegete the remaining missing parts.
Staying within context of the OP, The Futurists reject the most fundamental premise of Scripture, in that the prophets prepare the way for the LORD. Rather the Futurists view the OT as a totally worthless collection of writings and prophecies that bear absolutely no relevance to the past three thousand years of human existence, and only serve as some future puzzle-book for a band of God-hating reprobates that will allegedly be "Left Behind" after this post-Christian Western culture completes making their mess of things.
That is why these Cosmic Chicken Littles spend the vast majority of their time conjuring up camp-fire stories to scare the living Hell out of each other, and justifying their "Everyone is Doomed Except Me So I Will be Anxious Anyway" theories with obscure and vague "Bible Truth"™ hidden deeply in the Scripture via Hebraic acrostic "Bible Codes" that once extracted by modern computer programs, will Divine the Truth better than any Ordained Prophet of God.
It requires total biblical illiteracy to sleep at night after spreading the FUD that makes their hysterical system "work". That is why they have no problems whatsoever in perverting "confirm the Covenant" to mean something totally opposite of its meaning (aka the Covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and boldly assert, through the miracle of circular reasoning, that it can only mean a modern "Peace Treaty authored by the AntiChrist" (even though the idea of AntiChrist proposed in 1&2 John, a half millennia later bares no resemblance to anything they describe here)
There is no "rapture" of any sort that matches the Dispensational scheme. In order to sell this, they must totally reject what Jesus Christ Himself said regarding His Parousia. They must reject the Tares & Wheat Parable. They must reject all of the "this generation", "you", "at hand", "immediately", "very soon" and "now" time references that He made, and replace them, with "thousands of years from now" and "hundreds of generations from now".
Dispensationalists can't agree on three, four, six, seven or eight Dispensations that are "clearly described" in Scripture" yet they totally reject the Two Age model that Jesus Christ and the Disciples consistently and plainly taught.
I submit that gnostic Futurist camp-fire stories where the narrator can trash America (total abuse of the "Curse those who curse you.." clause), condemn their reprobate neighbor, be completely ignorant of Bible doctrine, secular foreign policy and human nature yet somehow be the smartest person in the room by claiming Nostradamus-like ability to parse Ezekiel 38 and various passages from Zechariah, is popular and preferred over giving glory to God and His love for His Church.
“There is enough scripture to support all 3 major ways of looking at it; if ones CHOOSES their bible selections carefully.”
Answer:
This kind of reply really kills me.
Unfortunately, it is so typical of our Modernist pick-n-choose Churches and theologies these days.
What this writer is saying is that there is no absolute Truth. That it is wholey fine to confuse Jesus for the Devil and that there are no ramifications.
I disagree.
Dispensationalism is wrong because it attacks the Cross. We are not talking about some mere doctinal difference here. We are talking about a denial of the Cross. Hence, by implicaton, a denial of the atoning work of our Saviour.
No ... it is not OK to be ‘cute’ with the Bible just to justify one’s position. Especially, when one confuses Jesus at the Cross with the Devil.
I’m sorry, that crosses the line.