Posted on 02/21/2011 1:42:36 PM PST by topcat54
I’m beginning to see that prophetic speculation is taking place on the fringes of the Christian publishing industry. Of course, you will still find the occasional prophetic pot-boiler. Mark Hitchcock writes a couple of prophecy books a year. They are mostly exercises in “newspaper exegesis,” driven more by current events than the Bible. Consider these three, all to be published in 2009: The Late Great United States (Multnomah), 2012, the Bible, and the End of the World (Harvest House), and Cashless: Bible Prophecy, Economic Chaos, and the Future Financial Order (Harvest House). How do you go from The Late Great Planet Earth, Hal Lindsey’s mega-best seller from the 1970s, to the end of America? It seems to me that The Late Great Planet Earth would have included the United States. Anyone familiar with Lindsey’s timetable will remember that it was all to happen before 1988. Of course, these publishers are counting on people not remembering or not even knowing of past failed predictions. As P.T. Barnum is reportedly to have said (it was actually David Hannum), “There’s a sucker born every minute,” and these suckers make money for companies that continue to publish out-of-date prophecy books that end up being an embarrassment to the Christian faith.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanvision.org ...
Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of GodYour last paragraph, I need to re-read carefully before commenting or even commenting at all.
The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it.under the regimen of the Old Covenant, people who possessed the charity and grace of the Holy Spirit and longed above all for the spiritual and eternal promises by which they were associated with the New Law
The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ.
There’s an app for that.
Indeed. By “spiritual offspring” I meant those dispensationalists who are theologically related to Mr. Darby and his “unique” form of eschatology. I.e., spiritual as opposed to physical.
Indeed. Not Replacement...Expansion!
You have to keep repeating it for it to sink in with some folks. We’re all a bit slow. It took me a while to throw off my dispensational blinders to recognize the truth, by the grace of God.
It doesn’t read as though you understand the meaning of spiritual.
A spiritual gift is very real, not imaginary,...given by God, by His race. The Christian life is a spiritual life.
Perhaps you merely confuse what you call deception on my part with blindedness on yours.
Now give us your explanation, in light of Scripture and historical events, what “for an everlasting possession” means biblically. I’ve asked for it before. I’ll ask again.
You don’t really have much to say unless and until you can explain what apparently seems so clear in your world of Futurama.
And while you’re at it, explain where Gal. 3:16 placed any limitation of the “promises” that have been made in Jesus Christ, the Seed. Remember, the apostle Paul is our infallible interpreter of the Genesis covenants and associated promises, not Mr. Darby or Mr. Scofield.
Those verses don’t per se involve God’s EVERLASTING promises of land etc. to the children of Jacob, at all.
No one here is denying that God made everlasting promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What seems to be happening on the side of the Futurists is that they are universally replacing the recipients of those promises (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) with people who hate God. I submit that the Futurists don't understand the Covenants because they won't read about the Covenants - rather, they read a few phrases and fill in the rest once it breaks from the template.
Let me give yet another example:
Leviticus 18 our LORD tells Moses to instruct the people to not do the things that others do, rather, they should keep the "statutes, judgments and ordinances if not, then (v25) "the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants" Three verses later God tells the people of Israel that they will lose the land if they do not keep his "Statutes, judgments and ordinances" This is repeated again in Lev 20:22.
Now flip over to Ezekiel 36. We begin with the Prophet speaking to the "mountains of Israel", that is, the land. For the first 15 verses we see that God is commanding the land to "devour men no more, and the remaining passages are condemning the people of Israel for violating Leviticus 18 (among many others) and thus forfeiting the land.
Those with ears to hear should be silenced regarding "replacementarian" charges beginning with v 21. Our LORD, who had pity for mine holy name had a remedy, and that was to no longer have the stone hearted people of Israel defile the land and blaspheme our LORD's Holy name. The remedy is the mystery revealed, the opening of the hearts of men from stone to flesh, and for the gospel to be preached to all men of every nation. Israel rejected God, violated His statutes, judgments and ordinances therefore forfeiting the land promises, making themselves a reproach to God. It was through this that the Purpose of our LORD to open the Gospel to all men came forth.
So the argument here is "replacement" in the plain sense, but in v24 we see "For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries" as a refutation to "replacement" and to that of "expansion". God will take both Jews and Gentiles out of the nations and from their renewed spirit, make for Himself a people who are no longer a reproach, and will not violate his statutes, judgments and ordinances (in Christ) and thus will be able to inherit all of the land (the "land" here is the whole world).
Beginning at Pentecost, and to this day, we see the truth in its fulfillment as men of all nations have come to Christ with renewed hearts, spirits and minds.
So you see, even Ezekiel rebukes the Dispensationalists
More nonsense from the REPLACEMENTARIANS.
That was very well put.
Worth repeating. the real REPLACEMENTARIANS, are less interested in Jesus than in a socialist secular Christ-hating political entity. A Christian REPLACEMENTARIAN views this political entity, rather than Jesus, as the fulfillment and focal point of the Father's activity and favor. You have to ask yourself, WHY?
Perhaps, because of the subtle but incredible power that idolatry works upon the imagination. Ask any porn addict. Or watch the REPLACEMENTARIANS on this site squirm and squall and go ballistic when someone suggests that the eternal Second Person of the Trinity is somehow more important, more significant, and more crucial than their idol, a secular socialist political entity.
Ok, RJR — what exactly do you mean by a Replacementarian?
Sigh... you clearly defined why you are not a “replacementarian” by quoting “in v24 we see” and yet the person you addressed the post to did not read your well-thought out remark but instead just said “More nonsense from the .....” —> he never read it I’m sure and the dismissal seems to suggest that even indulging in conversation far less in debate is futile.
I was using it as a metaphor. Think literary art.
Excellent work. Thanks. It makes so much sense when one follows the Reformers’ analogia fidei.
“He that has ears to hear.”
By REPLACEMENTARIAN, I mean a nominal Christian who replaces, in his mind and discourse, the Crown Rights of King Jesus with fealty to an anti-Christian political order and deference to an anti-Christian religion.
Idolatry is an easy trap to fall into. It's hard to stay focused, on the beam, to make the main thing the main thing. I have dear Christian friends who maintain a little devotion to the BVM on the side, as an optional / additional channel of grace. A dear friend from high school, and a favorite novelist, both proclaim publicly their allegiance to, and love for, the Lord Jesus Christ -- but are Mormons. Sadly, the vast majority of American evangelical Christians also participate in the worship of Caesar, with offerings more precious than gold -- the hearts, souls, bodies, and minds of their children.
I think it's appropriate to dub as a REPLACEMENTARIAN anyone who asserts that a mid-east socialist political order is more central to history than the Lord Jesus Christ. This is especially sad, when John introduces his Apocalypse with the words "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him ... " For the REPLACEMENTARIAN, this book isn't about Jesus, but about the carnival ride / freak show that they think they have tickets for, and are eager to watch from their heavenly bleachers.
Idolatry is an easy pit to fall into. In this fallen world, all of us are tempted to compromise at some point, and I imagine that most of us fall into skewed perspectives. Much of growth in grace consists of getting up, wiping off the whale vomit, and trying again. I find it easy to skewer the absurd REPLACEMENTARIAN claims of my dear fellow saints -- but just reached the end of my unemployment payments. How godly was it of me to start that gravy train rolling way back when? How long will it take to recover the character, zest, and energy that was sacrificed? May God have mercy upon all of us, as we seek to "see you more clearly, love you more dearly, follow you more nearly, day by day."
GROSS NONSENSE.
Fact: people who once smoked dope can detect that fragrance decades later, even when those around them can't. People who have been delivered from any or all of these cults have fine-tuned detection apparatuses in place, and the discernment to see where any movement that REPLACES Jesus as the core of the Gospel comes from a place other than heaven.
It’s important to point out that this hard-core Israelolatry has existed mainly in fundamentalist and charismatic/pentecostal churches for the last century. Broader evangelicalism doesn’t seem to give a hoot about eschatology, but they fear being labeled “anti-Semites” so they tend to go along with a mild form of Israelolatry.
Scriptures teach us that Jesus Christ is the true Israel of God, The Lamb sacrificed before the foundation of the world, the Temple of God, Our true High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Everything we find in Moses and the Prophets, every type and image, is ultimately a signpost to Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel.
When Jesus came into the world the focus of history was immediately cast upon Him. Kings and religious leaders because fearful at the thought of His presence. They tried to have Him killed on more than one occasion, failing because “His time had not yet come.”
Earthly Israel, as represented by its leadership, abandoned the truth of God for a lie. Jesus warned them that if they continued down that path, “the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.” He told “this generation” that they would receive all the curses from preceding generations of unbelief.
Thankfully, not all of Israel succumbed to this hatred of the Son of God, the Son of the Landowner. God had sovereignly preserved a faithful remnant, who, in the person of the apostles, became the pillar and foundation of the new covenant people of God, the new Israel, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. With the believing gentiles they were identified as God’s “chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people.”
These are the spiritual children of Abraham, by virtue of their faith in Jesus Christ, who have been raised up with Jesus Christ and seated on Mt. Zion in the new Jerusalem, the only true Jerusalem we know. And so from those earliest days on, the Church has proclaimed the truth that “there is neither Jew nor Greek” this side of the cross.
We cannot shrink from this truth just because short-sighted men call us names, and offer a half-baked pseudo-theology. They are the true scoffers who fail to understand and appreciate the reality that we, “the one new man,” have in Jesus Christ in this age.
THANKS
FOR AGAIN associating such hideous inaccuracies, falsehoods, distortions, UNBIBLICAL HOGWASH, UNHISTORICAL HOGWASH
with your screen name.
A worship of the nation-state of Israel, replacing Jesus is what I see many doing. Perhaps they do not sense what they are doing, but just do it based on incorrect reading of scripture
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.