Here's another outtake from last Wednesday night's Bible study, given by Richard Jordan, defending dispensationalism in the wake of a much-discussed recent appearance of Christian commentator and former pastor J.D. Hall on the "Tucker Carlson Show" in an episode entitled, "Origins of Christian Zionism; How it Corrupted American Christianity":
J.D. Hall was on Tucker Carlson's (June 22) and Carlson is an antisemitic always talking about how terrible Israel is. J.D. Hall is a quote "Christian evangelical" who believes God has set aside the nation Israel, cursed them with all the curses of the law, and then took all the blessings promised Abraham and gave them to you and me today. It's called "replacement theology" or the "church has replaced Israel." In other words, when you see promises made to Israel, their blessings belong to us now.
I listened to the hour-and-a-half study and it was real obvious that Hall doesn't know there were Bible preachers and Bible teachers before John Nelson Darby who were teaching dispensationalism.
One of the kids at the Bible conference was telling me about talking to a friend who said, "Dispensationalism didn't exist before Darby." The kid's response was real good. He said, "How about Ephesians 3:2?"
Ephesians 3 begins: [1] For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,
[2] If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to youward:[3] How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
[4] Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
Where did dispensationalism begin? Must have begun with Paul because he was a dispensationalist. So it didn't begin with Darby; it began with your Bible. So when people tell you it didn't begin until Darby or the 1800s, they don't know anything about church history.
There have been people teaching right division all through church history. Now the problem a guy like Hall has is that he's a supporter of the structured or the state church. The authority for him is "the church has always taught."
Historians tell you that empires never die; they just change form. The Roman Empire when it fell didn't die; it became a church. The British Empire, when it fell, it didn't fall; it became a bank. Well, the Roman church is the controlling authority through church history.
You say, "Well, where is it in church history?" It's in the same place your face was before you washed it; it's behind the dirt. Now, I'm quoting Charles Haddon Spurgeon when I say that.
The point is that the Bible's got to be the authority and when you take a guy like Hall who, in this video, just trashes C.I. Scofield, and he does it in a way that it's obvious he doesn't really know what he's talking about; he's not aware of anything.
Hall said, "Well, Scofield abandoned his family," and he did. "He was irresponsible and didn't pay his debts," and that's true. "He was a lawyer who had bad associations." That's true--then he got saved. Scofield didn't get saved until his early 40s.
Could it be said of you, or maybe J.D. Hall, or Tucker Carlson, that there was a time when you were not such a reliable person? Scofield had a real past and before he got saved he trashed his family and he never was able to put it back together. That's true. He was a lawyer who was a crook--then he got saved!
When he got saved the same thing happened to him happened to a lot of you; it transformed his life. And for the rest of his life, he lived a godly life, a life of study of the Word of God, and he had associations with people who would not have associated with a man was who was a godless wreck and wretch.
So when you hear Carlson say, "Oh, Scofield, he's the family-abandoner," well, he was before he got saved. Well, if you're not aware of that and then you want to trash somebody based upon what they were before, that just tells you you don't know what's going on.
Scofield had associations with prominent fundamentalist leaders of the day who would not have associated with someone who was being a derelict like that.
They said, "Well he didn't have the financial capacity to do these things." Listen, when you understand the people Scofield associated with, you understand that the finances, the backing available to publish the Scofield Reference Bible--there was a large brokerage house in New York, the Finch family. Ma Finch bought the original plates to publish it. I know that from the testimony of people who were there.
You know who Carson Pirie Scott is (from the department-store chain)? Mr. John Pirie was a part of the Bible conference ministry in that era and he was one of the people who went to Scofield and encouraged him to publish a study Bible.
You think somebody like that who was a multi-millionaire might have had some ability to back what he was doing?
Listen, if all the bad stuff said about Scofield was true, what's the Word of God teach? That's really the issue and the claim that dispensationalists believe that Israel's chosen by God and special in a way that you are not special, that's a quote from J.D. Hall in that interview with Tucker one hour and seven minutes into it.
He said, "Dispensationalists believe that Israel is chosen by God and special in ways that you are not chosen." I don't know any dispensationalist who believes that, because you're "complete in Christ."
You're "chosen in Him before the foundation of the world." You're "blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places." Nobody's got more blessings than you do! So, all that stuff is just bad doctrine; bad premises. And they have bad goals in it.
(to be continued . . . )