Dangers of Dispensationalism

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32

Dispensationalism theology is a doctrine I unknowingly embraced long before I ever heard the term, or understood what it meant. Most evangelical, Protestant churches teach dispensationalism, never explaining it, or revealing that it is a way to interpret the Bible which originated from very specific men in the late nineteenth century. It has been spread far and wide as the only way to interpret scripture, just by the fact there is rarely any other options given. For simplicity, I am going to use Theopedia.com to help explain dispensationalism. This is much like Wikipedia with the original sources cited on the website.

“Dispensationalism is a theological system that teaches biblical history is best understood in light of a number of successive administrations of God’s dealings with mankind, which it calls “dispensations.” It maintains fundamental distinctions between God’s plans for national Israel and for the New Testament Church, and emphasizes prophecy of the end-times and a pre-tribulation rapture of the church prior to Christ’s Second Coming. Its beginnings are usually associated with the Plymouth Brethren movement in the UK and the teachings of John Nelson Darby.” theopedia.com

This belief system grew in the late nineteenth century and is a primary source of pre-tribulation rapture doctrine, the “political state of Israel can do no wrong”, and that the church has a different eschatological destiny than “the Jews”. If any of this sounds familiar, then you have been exposed to dispensationalism theology.

A well known teacher of dispensationalism theology is Dr. David Jeremiah. A small group study I took part in, where we watched a series of videos by Dr. Jeremiah on end times prophecy, began the process of alerting me to the errors of this belief system. The more I watched, the less sense it made, viewing the scriptures in the entirety of their context.

Why is there a picture of the all seeing eye of Horus in the backdrop of the Shadow Mountain Community Church? Dr. Jeremiah succeeded Tim LaHaye , from the Left Behind fame, as senior pastor at this church. All conspiracy theories aside, it is just bizarre. It may be a clue to where this doctrine was birthed.

Another well known teacher of dispensationalism theology is Pastor John Hagee. He is a strong supporter of the political state of Israel. I see nothing wrong with supporting a political state or a politician; however, it becomes a problem when a political state and a politician become part of the theology.

One of the premises of dispensationalism is that Israel, or “the Jews” have a different path in bible prophecy than the “church”, and that anyone who “blesses Israel” will be blessed, anyone who “curses Israel” will be cursed. Unfortunately, a scripture in Genesis is being taken out of context to justify this belief system.

Gen 12:1 And Yahweh said to Abram, “Go out from your land and from your relatives, and from the house of your father, to the land that I will show you.
Gen 12:2 And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great. And you will be a blessing.
Gen 12:3 And I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse. And all families of the earth will be blessed in you.”

In order to understand this blessing, we must look at why Yahweh blessed Abraham. Anyone familiar with my blog posts won’t be surprised by the answer. Abraham followed the commandments of Yahweh.

Gen 26:1 And there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine which was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, to Gerar.
Gen 26:2 And Yahweh appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land which I will show to you.
Gen 26:3 Dwell as an alien in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you, for I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham you father.
Gen 26:4 And I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and I will give to your descendants all these lands. And all nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring,
Gen 26:5 because Abraham listened to my voice and kept my charge: my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

Aside from that, let’s look at what the Apostle Paul has to say about the descendants of Abraham and this promise:

Gal 3:16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.

A little further in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he explains more:

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Gal 3:29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

These verses alone should clear up any questions. Mixing politics with theology, like we have seen in an unprecedented way as of late, is a slippery slope, and many Christians are in a free fall with false prophesies and worship of evil men. Placing a political state on a pedestal, and standing by that political state based on theology, is equally dangerous. Yahweh said the following in the book of Leviticus:

Lev 18:24 “‘You must not make yourself unclean in any of these things, because the nations whom I am driving out from your presence were made unclean by all of these.
Lev 18:25 So the land became unclean, and I have brought the punishment of its guilt upon it, and the land has vomited out its inhabitants.
Lev 18:26 But you (neither the native nor the alien who is dwelling in your midst) shall keep my statutes and my regulations, and you shall not practice any of these detestable things
Lev 18:27 (because the people of the land, who were before you, did all these detestable things, so the land became unclean),
Lev 18:28 so that the land will not vomit you out when you make it unclean just as it vomited out the nation that was before you.
Lev 18:29 Indeed, anyone who does any of these detestable things, even those persons who do so shall be cut off from the midst of their people.
Lev 18:30 Thus you shall keep my obligation to not do any of the statutes regarding the detestable things that they did before you, so that you will not make yourselves unclean by them; I am Yahweh your God.'”

Are there any political states currently in the world following the commandments and statutes of Yahweh? When a nation continually rebels against the commandments of Yahweh, the land will vomit them out, and another group of people will take over. Consider these verses concerning the two witnesses:

Rev 11:3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
Rev 11:4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.
Rev 11:5 And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed.
Rev 11:6 They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.
Rev 11:7 And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them,
Rev 11:8 and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.

Dispensationalism theology has robbed the people of God of their identity. The last one hundred years has seen Christians believing “the church” is some how separate from Israel, and that Yahweh did not foresee the “Jews” rejecting Jesus, so He had to go to a plan “b”. Teachers of dispensationalism will say that there are no prophecies concerning the church in the Old Testament. More from theopedia.com:

“In addition to these dispensations, the real theological significance can be seen in four basic tenets which underlie classic dispensational teaching. Dispensationalism maintains:

1. a fundamental distinction between Israel and the church, i.e. there are two peoples of God with two different destinies, earthly Israel and the spiritual church,
2. a fundamental distinction between the Law and Grace, i.e. they are mutually exclusive ideas,
3. the view that the New Testament church is a parenthesis in God’s plan which was not foreseen by the Old Testament,
4. a distinction between the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ, i.e. the rapture of the church at Christ’s coming “in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17) precedes the “official” second coming (to the earth) by 7 years of tribulation.”

Paul has something different to say regarding the people of Yahweh God:

Rom 11:17 Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although you were a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and became a sharer of the root of the olive tree’s richness,
Rom 11:18 do not boast against the branches. But if you boast against them, you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
Rom 11:19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off in order that I could be grafted in.”
Rom 11:20 Well said! They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand firm because of faith. Do not think arrogant thoughts, but be afraid.
Rom 11:21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
Rom 11:22 See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity upon those who have fallen, but upon you the kindness of God—if you continue in his kindness, for otherwise you also will be cut off.
Rom 11:23 And those also, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, because God is able to graft them in again.
Rom 11:24 For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

Where is “the church” found in the new covenant?

Heb 8:8 For in finding fault with them he says, “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
Heb 8:9 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took hold of them by my hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I disregarded them, says the Lord.

Anyone putting their faith in Jesus is grafted into the olive tree, whether the House of Israel or the House of Judah. The Ekklesia or “church” has always been the congregation at Mount Horeb and those that sojourn with them.

Eph 2:11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—
Eph 2:12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Eph 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Eph 2:14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
Eph 2:15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,
Eph 2:16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Eph 2:17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
Eph 2:18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
Eph 2:19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
Eph 2:20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,
Eph 2:21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
Eph 2:22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Paul is speaking of the same event as he was in his letter to the Romans. The divorced House of Israel, scattered to the nations, became the means of the whole world being able to be grafted back in through Jesus. The whole book of Hosea discusses this. Dispensationalism disregards the many scriptures explaining these events.

Stephen called the twelve tribes at Mount Sinai the church, or in Greek, Ekklesia.

Act 7:37 This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’
Act 7:38 This is the one who was in the congregation [Ekklesia] in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.

How are people so easily deceived that “the church” is a parentheses in the omniscient, omnipresent Creator’s plan? That Yahweh never told His prophets that He would have to go to plan “b”? This is absurd! Amos 3:7 says, “Surely my Lord does not do anything unless he has revealed his secret to his servants the prophets”. Peter tells us the prophets from Samuel to Malachi were talking about the “church”:

Act 3:22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.
Act 3:23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’
Act 3:24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days.

Jeremiah speaks of the people of God being led astray.

Jer 23:16 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “You must not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are deluding you with visions of their mind, They do not speak from the mouth of Yahweh.
Jer 23:17 They are continually saying to those who disregard the word of Yahweh, ‘Peace it will be to you,’ and to each one who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’
Jer 23:18 For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he has seen and heard his word? Who has listened attentively to his word and heard it?
Jer 23:19 Look, the storm of Yahweh has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling tempest. It will whirl upon the head of the wicked.
Jer 23:20 The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until his doing and until his keeping the plans of his mind. In latter days you will look closely at it with understanding.
Jer 23:21 I have not sent the prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
Jer 23:22 But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have caused them to turn from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.

Another danger with dispensationalism theology is the pre-tribulation rapture. Although a great money maker for books and movies, such as the Left Behind series, it sets up the believer for disappointment and despair when tribulation comes. Instead of two comings of Jesus, it inserts a third coming where the “church” is whisked away to heaven in the knick of time, while the “Jews” have to deal with tribulation. Since this dispensational rapture is before the resurrection, the “church” will be floating around in the balcony as disembodied spirits with Jesus, watching Israel be under the thumb of beast and anti-messiah. Books have been written to untangle this web of deception, so I will not try to do that in this blog. Make no mistake, there is only one return of Jesus, and this is how Peter describes it:

2Pe 3:4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”
2Pe 3:5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,
2Pe 3:6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
2Pe 3:7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
2Pe 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
2Pe 3:11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
2Pe 3:12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
2Pe 3:13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

The evil works of men are going to be exposed by the Messiah, not military, courts or any political group. Any earthy group that claims to be doing this is simply another arm of the beast system.

Another fallacy of dispensationalism theology is that the “church”, being a separate entity from the “Jews”, no longer needs to be concerned about the commands of Yahweh. This lie predates dispensationalism, but dovetails nicely with the spiritual “church” and earthly Israel dichotomy, and the law and grace dispensations. Please consider these verses:

Rev 14:12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.
Rev 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”

Rev 21:2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
Rev 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Rev 21:5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Rev 21:6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
Rev 21:7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
Rev 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

When Rome took over the church and politicized it, anti-Semitism had already grown roots. The people of the Way and Natzereem sects were persecuted, tortured and killed for being so-called Judiazers, meaning they followed the commandments of God rather than man. The Roman church brought in the gods they were already worshiping, and blended the traditions of Saturn, Mithras, Venus, Ishtar, and others with Christianity. The Sabbath was replaced with Sun god day, the date of the Passover was changed, and many new holy days were invented. What does the sovereign God, Yahuah, have to say about this sort of activity?

Deu 12:29 “When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you are about to go to, to dispossess them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land,
Deu 12:30 take care so that you are not ensnared into imitating them after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’
Deu 12:31 You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods.
Deu 12:32 All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.”

Study the scriptures and learn for yourself. Do not rely on men, such as the inventors of dispensationalism theology and their protégés, who will lead you astray.