I never thought I would see the day, but I have come to believe that we are watching the slow death of dispensationalism before our very eyes.
In case anyone may not know what is meant by the word "dispensationalism", just think of the never-ending end-of-the-world talk in churches or conferences. Is the Antichrist among us? What is the mark of the Beast? When will the temple be rebuilt in Jerusalem? Are you ready for the Rapture? What will happen during the seven-year period called the Tribulation? Will America be around then? Are we seeing the signs of the end of the world with all these natural disasters?
According to the dispensational scheme, there is going to be a secret rapture of Christians anytime soon, and only unbelievers will be left behind (hence the name of the famous book and movie) for the seven-year hell on earth tribulation, with the world ruler Antichrist breaking covenant with the nation of Israel and therefore slaughtering many of the Jews, but 144,000 male Jewish evangelists will be preaching and many can be saved during the tribulation (like a second chance after the rapture), a revived Roman Empire, the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, then after other disasters the Second Coming of Christ (or part two of the second coming, with part one being the rapture), etc. This is in a nutshell the framework of dispensationalism.
The books of Daniel and Revelation especially have been the campgrounds for dispensational fervor. What Daniel and Revelation were originally meant to show, that the four successive world Gentile empires back then (Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome) known as "the time of the Gentiles" that would dominate old Jerusalem proper, have been sensationally stretched out 2000 years and counting. It sure is more scintillating to say that Iraq today is Babylon, or Iran today is Persia, or the European Union today is Rome, or America is something somewhere in the Bible.
How do I say that dispensationalism is dying? I cite some evidences of that:
(1) Dispensationalists are turning up the heat and coming out more vigorously. That could be the action of those who are so sure of themselves, but it also could be the action of those who are on the defensive, and not the actions of those who can really defend their position well. In fact, I know for a fact that many well-known dispensationalists, even some in my area, have refused over and over again to engage in a civil debate over eschatology with those who think dispensationalism is wrong. If a person is so sure of his position, then he will welcome any opportunity to explain it in a public forum. When a person has doubts that he can defend his position, then it is much safer to "preach to the choir" where he already has loyal followers, be it his church congregation or some well-orchestrated conference. If a pastor or conference speaker is so sure of his dispensational position, then he would not be afraid of inviting a fellow Christ-loving, Bible-believing brother to offer a variant view. But we don't see or hear of that happening, do we? It is more like "my dispensational way or the highway."
(2) Most seminary graduates and most younger pastors totally refute dispensationalism. This scares the old vanguard in the dispensational camp. They don't see enough younger church leaders to carry the torch into the future. About 15 years ago I attended a John MacArthur's Shepherding Conference locally, and most of the attendees, like myself, were younger pastors, like in their 30s and 20s. It was a large gathering. In one session, the leader from MacArthur's church in California, asked how many of us were dispensationalists. I was afraid that I would be about the only one who would not raise his hand. Instead to my shock, and to the shock of the leader, no one raised his hand. It took a while for the leader to recover from his surprise before he could move on with his talk. The leaders in the dispensational movement are aging, and they don't see enough church leaders to carry on their work, and read their books, and attend their conferences, and listen to their sermons.
(3) Dispensatonalists have been proven wrong on more occasions than a person could possibly count. In fact, dispensational teachers and preachers are banking (like you continue to buy my books so I can take my money to the bank) on the fact that people have a very short memory. Dispenationalists are losing followers today, though, because more and more people are wising up and remembering past predictions that have not come true. Hal Lindsey assured us in my generation that Christ would come back maybe in 1981, because that was seven years before 1988, the 40th anniversary of the birth of Israel. Forty years is a generation, ala Matthew 24:34, so 1981 would be the Rapture. Oops! He revised it by saying the rapture would be 1988. Oops again!
Other dispensationalists, like Hal, had to revise their charts and diagrams too over time, several times over. 2011 sure is way past 1948. Y2K rolled around, and one day is as a thousand years, so with the six days of creation, and the earth created at 4000 B.C. and the new millennium starting up at 2000 or 2001, then Christ was supposed to come back maybe 1993, or some other dates, because the millennial reign of Christ would be at 2000, but who cares now, because they were all wrong.
It has been those in the dispensational camp that have thrown out guesses after guesses who the Antichrist was supposed to be, the 666 guy, and there again, wrong again, every time. A friend of mine reminded me recently that I once said that Barney the purple dinosaur was the antichrist. I had forgotten all about saying that. I have the dispensational bug I guess.
We were told that this war or that war in the Middle East was going to be "it", Armageddon, but "it" never became "it", and we are waiting for the new dispensational "it" to surface. First I was told it was U.S.S. R. that will come from the North to invade Israel. Then I was told it was going to be Red China. Then I was told it was going to be Iraq. Then I was told it was going to be Turkey. Then I was told it was going to be Iran. Next year it might be Mozambique, Madagascar or Mississippi. (The last one is not a nation, but with dispensationalism, facts are stubborn things anyway.)There are still plenty of nations around the world we can go through to see if we can hit the right one eventually.
You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. I sense more Christians are putting two and two together, and their short memories are getting longer and longer all the time. Dispensationalism has become a breeding ground for endless end-time speculations, and the awful truth is that the world may look upon us as silly nut jobs. I am all for being a "fool for Christ", like what Paul said, but repeating the same mistakes at a fanatical pace is a different kind of foolishness.
(4) A deepening awareness of history is discounting the whole dispensational viewpoint. Because of the alternative educational choices, like private school and homeschooling, a big push has been underway for us and our children to know the true history of our country and of the world. Historical revisionism is rightfully despised and scorned. Well, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. The more a person studies any branch of history, the more his eyes are opened up to the truth, that is often ignored or purposefully overlooked. And this applies to church history as well as American history.
As one studies the origins and development of dispensationalism, one finds out very readily and easily that dispensationalism was not known until the 19th century. It had its beginnings in a cult-like atmosphere in England. Just google the "origins of dispenationalism" or something like that, and you can read the history for yourself. This means that practically no Christian and no church in the first 18 centuries heard of anything like dispensationalism, let alone believe in it. With this indisputable fact being so, how can anyone believe the central tenets of dispensationalism? Are we going to overlook this historical fact and thus be hypocritical when we emphasize so much our knowing of American history?
Are we saying that the Christians in the first 18 centuries were all wrong, and it was not until the 1800s that Christians finally got it right? Did Christians evolve into smarter human beings in the 1800s than the apostles? A dispensationalist once told me, "If it is new, it must not be true." He was saying that about something else in modern church life, but did he really know what he is saying (which I agree with) when he said that? He is hammering the final nail in the coffin of dispensationalism.
I don't expect dispensationalism to die off anytime soon. It will linger around for a long time to come, but it is losing adherents all the time. I am running into people all the time who once were dispensationalists, and then their eyes were opened to biblical and historical reality.
If Acts 17:11 really is a favorite verse among Christians, then we need to demonstrate it in the area of eschatology. Yes, I have books I can recommend that can guide one to a more sensible (and less sensational and always changing) interpretation of key books and passages in the Bible about end-time matters. But my main interest is that a child of God have a teachable, humble spirit, which means he may have to unlearn some things in order to learn the right things. Some of those things which he will unlearn will be hard to let go of, because they have been part of his belief system for decades maybe. But truth can not hang on to error, no matter how long error has hanged on to us.
The Bible is not a complicated maze of riddles left to the fertile imagination of man to figure out. It is amazingly direct and simple. Man has muddied the eschatological waters, and once a Christian decides it is not a good thing to drink continuously from muddied waters, then he will be able to enjoy and appreciate better the refreshing waters of the simplicity that is in Christ.
I once was a dispensationalist, but I abandoned that in my late teenage years. The purpose of this article is not to label dispensationalists as "heretics", nor is it to shame anyone who is reading this who might be a dispensationalist. We all were something once, but if God's grace has made its way in our hearts, then we have been made into something else. Sanctification is the lifelong process of being made into something else, in the area of behavior and beliefs. May God help us to pursue sanctification, without which no one shall see the Lord.
