Friday, October 12, 2012

Some more background on Dispensationalism

I'll never master all this theological stuff, I can hardly keep most of it in mind for any length of time.  But once again I feel a need to TRY to get a better understanding of this pernicious doctrine called Dispensationalism, in this case because it's the main source of the criticism of The Harbinger.  If it weren't for this sort of discovery, of how a theological system can so unfairly assault other Christians and bring suspicion on valid biblical reasoning from another theological system, I'd so much rather just forget all this stuff.

But anyway, as I'd heard many times but never really checked out, it's fair to call Dispensationalism a JESUIT PLOT.  The link above gives a historical sketch, and includes this summation:
Through the espousal of Jesuit Futurism by J. N. Darby and his followers, some one thousand five-hundred years of orthodox Christian prophetic history was discarded. Rome wants everybody to believe that the interpretation placed on Bible prophecy concerning anti-Christ has nothing whatever to do with the Roman Church. The Papacy wants us to believe that when Rome fell prophetic fulfilment halted, and will continue to be fulfilled from the time of the supposed Rapture
Some quotes from some anti-dispensationalists from that same site:
"My brother, I am a constant reader of my Bible, and I soon found that what I was taught to believe did not always agree with what my Bible said. I came to see that I must either part company with John Darby, or my precious Bible, and I chose to cling to my Bible and part from Mr. Darby." George Müeller (1805–1898)

I am quite convinced that all the promises to Israél are found, are finding and will find their perfect fulfilment in the Church. It is true that in time past, in my expositions, I gave a definite place to Israél in the purposes of God. I have now come to the conviction, as I have just said, that it is, the new and spiritual Israél that is intended. G. Campbell Morgan (1863-1945)

Dispensationalism is a device of the enemy, designed to rob the children of no small part of that bread which their heavenly Father has provided for their souls; a device wherein the wily serpent appears as an angel of light, feigning to "make the Bible a new book" by simplifying much in it which perplexes the spiritually unlearned. It is sad to see how widely successful the devil has been by means of this subtle innovation. A. W. Pink (1886-1952)

It is mortifying to remember that I not only held and taught these novelties myself, but that I even enjoyed a complacent sense of superiority because thereof, and regarded with feelings of pity and contempt those who had not received the "new light" and were unacquainted with this up-to-date method of "rightly dividing the word of truth." For I fully believed what an advertising circular says in presenting "Twelve Reasons why you should use THE SCOFIELD REFERENCE BIBLE," namely, that: "First, the Scofield Bible outlines the Scriptures from the standpoint of DISPENSATIONAL TRUTH, and there can be no adequate understanding or rightly dividing of the Word of God except from the standpoint of dispensational truth."

What a slur is this upon the spiritual understanding of the ten thousands of men, "mighty in the Scriptures," whom God gave as teachers to His people during all the Christian centuries before "dispensational truth" (or dispensational error), was discovered! And what an affront to the thousands of men of God of our own day, workmen that need not to be ashamed, who have never accepted the newly invented system! Yet I was among those who eagerly embraced it (upon human authority solely, for there is none other) and who earnestly pressed it upon my fellow Christians. I am deeply thankful, however, that the time came (it was just ten years ago) when the inconsistencies and self contradictions of the system itself, and above all, the impossibility of reconciling its main positions with the plain statements of the Word of God, became so glaringly evident that I could not do otherwise than renounce it. Philip Mauro (1859-1952).
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Ex-Catholic-Priest Richard Bennett is a great source of knowledge about the history of Catholicism and its plots against Protestantism.  In this talk he only mentions Dispensationalism briefly, as one of Catholicism's plots so it's not a study of that theology itself, just a confirmation of how it serves Rome. 

Roman Catholic Counter Reformation, Antichrist, Dispensationalism, Jesuits, Islam ...

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The following links are to a series of teachings by Pastor Borgman I may have heard when he gave them though I'd forgotten most of it if so.  It's very thorough but although he mentions that it was a Jesuit who invented it to get Rome out from under the label of Antichrist, he doesn't pursue the implication that Rome is still plotting against the Reformation and succeeding.

The Origins of Dispensationalism

The Spread and Influence of Dispensationalism

The Teaching of Dispensationalism

Of particular interest to me in the third of this series was Pastor Borgman's observation that Dispensationalism engenders an attitude of suspicion toward those who don't believe as they do, which is what I've been noticing about the attitude toward Jonathan Cahn.  And again, it's not that I'd be completely in favor of Cahn's theological system either, as I have my own objections to elements of the Messianic movement, but overall he's completely within orthodoxy as far as I can tell from his book and information at his site, and the suspicion creates doubts that are undeserved and unfairly poison people's minds against him.

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You can find arguments against all this of course, even calling this point of view a conspiracy theory and so on. 

"Heaven" stories believed because the Bible is undermined?

I got this message today on that same post on the Heaven stories that still attracts so much attention:  "Counterfeit "heaven" stories deceive even Christians...":
I disagree about the author of this articles position about ' scripture being enough' for true Christians. I work hard to stay in the word, but there are often times I am challenged or am unable to interpret the meaning of a passage or a chapter. There are numerous translations which change meanings slightly. If a good person is motivated to pray more, to accept Christ or to perform works for others, then why is it impossible to believe that God is using it as a tool to reach people. The bible is a collection of historic stories written over hundreds of years. Why cannot the 'stories' be continuing to evolve? I don't think you can believe Jesus Lives and say that his word is unchanged since his death?
I don't know what branch of the Church this person belongs to but if he/she is in a standard evangelical/Bible-believing church this is a very sad message.

I didn't say God can't use these stories to reach people, I'm sure they can be used for that purpose just as so many other things can be, but that doesn't make them true in themselves.   The problem is that these stories teach a false Christ so you can't say that they lead people to "accept" the true Christ. 

But what is most distressing about this comment is the way the Bible is treated as something that could continue to evolve rather than the foundational truth it is.  Truth can't "evolve" in the direction of something that contradicts it and that's what these stories do.  Yes I certainly CAN say His word is unchanged since He lived on this earth.

This comment also suggests exactly what I've been trying to get across on my blog about the Bible versions, The Great Bible Hoax of 1881 It is only too clear that at least for some people the many different "translations" only lead them into distrusting God's word, and I suspect they have some of that effect on all of us even if we don't go as far as this writer does.

I feel a terrible sadness when I hear a good sermon preached quoting from one of the newer Bibles, because of the lack of sensitivity to the problem of confusing the listeners among other things. 

In Isaiah 9 just for an example, "But His hand is stretched out still" in the KJV becomes "But His hand is still stretched out" in one of the newer translations and nobody recognizes that that simple little change, so inoffensive, so merely more in our own style, contributes to the undermining of trust in the Bible, and to the problem in the churches of a confusion of tongues, and the very fact that such a LITTLE change was made is an affront in itself to God and to His people.   

I had to live in this problem for a while before that became clear to me so I can't expect anyone to recognize it just on the basis of my say-so, but how I wish I could.  This is the biggest most destructive Trojan Horse within the Church there has ever been, and its armies are devastating the people of God and hardly anyone notices.