Pre-tribulation Dispensationalism, (PTD)
One; causes dissociated or double-minded conduct among its adherents and
two, is a poor witness
to the lost world because they observe PTDist Christians claiming one thing
with one breath and acting is if what they just said isn’t actually true. I
have had personal conversations with Christian leaders in which they claim with
one breath that it is important to have a positively transformative effect on
society, culture, politics, etc., when in the next breath they unabashedly
stated that none of it will last – tomorrow; all the work Christians have done, all the
work they themselves do on behalf of God, all the work they believe they were
called to do by God Himself will disappear – all of it will be destroyed in
the blink of an eye with the sound of a trumpet. They actually believe God
calls them to be victorious and have a transformative effect here and now but
God also has decided that they’ll all eventually become impotent and powerless
in the face of evil because God has willed it to be that way.
Often pastors saying they are glad when things go wrong in societies both local
and afar. They actually report with delight that they are glad when the efforts
of supposedly God-directed Christians go awry because that failure means the
end is close at hand. Consider how many pastors went from vehemently
fighting against homosexual marriage to
zealous delight in “knowing” the end was close at hand. You can turn
on Christian radio any day of the week and throughout the day hear pastors
encourage and exhort gospel-involvement here and now and by shows end tell the
listeners the world is going to hell in a hand basket any day now and there’s
nothing they can do because God has decreed it that way.
The world sees and hears all this and they use it as an excuse not to believe.
I’m the first to acknowledge that one excuse is as good as another in the mind
of the lost. Their hearts are darkened and their thoughts are futile so one
self-lie compared to another isn’t particularly important when it comes to the
need for God to change hearts when we preach. The problem is this: we are not
here solely for the purpose of proselytization. We are here to make disciples
of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit and teaching them Jesus’ commands. Critics of the critics often ask
“Has that happened yet?” as some perverse form of post hoc
apologetic and they do so apparently completely oblivious to the fact that the
Great Commission hasn’t yet happened. The world sees us trying vainly and
hypocritically asserting the Great Commission all the while watching as we do
so with our next breath saying, “The Great Commission will never be
realized. Jesus commanded us to preach but his Father has already commanded
destruction. Jesus said we would prevail over the gates of hell but his Father
had already determined we’d be an impotent double-minded lot who would need
rescuing from our own failure as the defeated enemy, Satan, manages to foment
one more radical resistance that will destroy God’s creation.
The net result is the abdication of any credibility we might have. Go and
search the scriptures for what they say about integrity and the importance of
being people of integrity, people who not only mean what they say but people
who have integrity in and between thought, word, and deed. Understand that the
kind of eschatology PTDers preach lacks both internal and external integrity.
Since its inception it has led to…
1) Decade after decade of false prognosticators, including date-setters (all
the while saying no one can know the day),
2) Inconsistent preaching wherein victory in Christ is declared, gospel change
is promoted societally, culturally, politically, economically, academically,
etc,, all while imminent destruction is taught.
3) Inconsistent and often times blatant contradictory, or on occasion foolhardy
behavior (like selling one’s home) is manifested as a consequence of this
inconsistent or contradictory preaching.
4) Division within the body! If there is a removal-from-earth rapture then we
amils and post mils and historicists Christians are going be leaving with the
PTDers, but that would never be known by the way we’re often treated. We’re
often called names and our salvation is called into question.
5) Poor stewardship of God’s creation. If we’re going lose this battle in which
we’re now involved and God will later renew the earth then it really doesn’t
matter whether or not the planet is trashed. It can be trashed in neglect or
with a fiery onslaught of nuclear explosions and lasers from space. The
destruction is okay because it’s all in God’s plan for us to any day now say
“Good-bye” to all the work we’ve done for God in Christ.
6) Hermeneutic hypocrisy. One of the core tenets of PTD hermeneutics is literal
reading of prophesy. They boast in this but do not practice it with any
consistency.
7) Deceit, either willful or in ignorance. Many a PTDer will argue that this
early church father or that early church father asserted PTDism and they’ll
rely on mentions of “dispensation” to support that claim but the
facts of history are clear: early writings on dispensations were always in the
context of covenant, not the new meaning Darbyites give the term. This is what
they teach and this is what their acolytes learn and in turn preach because
their acolytes don’t know any better. They think what they’ve learned is the
truth because men of God taught it to them.
8) Compromises in long-held core church doctrines. Again sometimes this occurs
willfully and sometimes in ignorance. It doesn’t seem to dawn on many PTDers
that by separating Israel from the church and arguing a future history God has
for them that they must practice before they are converted a works-plus-grace
soteriology is being argued. By teaching the radical future destruction of
Israel they are anti-Semitic. By teaching the defeat of the church they are
over-turning centuries of ecclesiology. By claiming Jesus cannot rule from afar
but will rule from afar and then rule here and then rule from afar not only are
the inconsistent but their Christology is corrupt. Their god is a god of
victory who on one hand directs victory-living while simultaneously requiring
defeat and destruction. Understand what this means, folks: Theology,
Christology, ecclesiology, and soteriology are each and all fundamentally
changed by PTDism and they are either ignorant of these real consequences or
teaching it unabashedly leading others to do the same… while the lost world
watches. For eighteen centuries the church, even amidst the differences
in eschatology, was united in these four doctrinal arenas but PTDism boasts in
its differences (heresies, imo) and fervently teaches them to others. Josheb, CARM forum.
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The Prophetic Word 