Unclouded vision of Rapture

(new article tomorrow)

In his 2016 book, “The Rapture: A Controversy Settled,” Bible scholar R. Dawson Barlow correlates the word Rapture, a simple redefinition of the phrase “caught up” in the King James Bible, with the Raptor birds of Europe and Asia.

He explains that while the doctrine of the “catching away” is often “explained away as an emotional experience and its true significance gets lost in a maze of spiritualized, subjective and mystical explanations," Noah Webster’s “now rare” definition of Raptor birds “offers a very vivid reminder of the old literal definition of the Rapture."

“Webster defines them as, ‘Living on prey, having feet modified with sharp, curved claws, for SEIZING prey . . . hawks, eagles, owls, vultures.’ ”

Barlow recalls a PBS documentary on Raptor birds that “actually photographed a large eagle swooping down on a newborn mountain goat, snatching him away and carrying him far up into the air. The narrator of the program said there is regional folklore concerning human babies who were left alone and were snatched away by these birds.”

*****

At the Rapture, the Body of Christ is literally brought together into one unit in the air to then meet with Jesus Christ.

“We really have the reunion before we get to be with the Lord, and it’s at this point the Body of Christ is completed,” explains Richard Jordan (shorewoodbiblechurch.org). “He’s the head, we’re the body, and we’re put together, all in our glorified bodies. We’ve lost all connection to Adam and we’re caught up together for the very first time, but we’ll all be together.”

Among clear statements detailing this extremely literal pivotal event in history, is I Thessalonians 2:16-17: [16] For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
[17] Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Jordan says, “Now when Paul talks about being caught up ‘in the clouds,’ there’s a discussion you hear people have about what are the clouds. People say, ‘Well, they’re not rain clouds. It’s not storm clouds.’

“There’s that verse in Matthew 26 where it says the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come ‘in the clouds of heaven,’ but it’s not a thunderstorm we’re talking about here.

“People say the clouds are really angels, the heavenly host, but that’s not it. When the Bible talks about the Lord of hosts, it’s talking about a host of angels. Seems to me if Paul had wanted to say ‘angels’ he would have said angels, and if he wanted to say 'the host of heaven'--that’s certainly what angels are.

“When he says we’ll be caught up together with Him in the clouds, I think it’s going to be clouds. Clouds are clouds are clouds.

“Hebrews 12 begins with, ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses . . .’

“You see that expression? The word ‘cloud’ there is not talking about a cloud of water vapor. It’s talking about a big group of witnesses. It’s talking about all the people he’s listed in chapter 11. You can use the word ‘cloud’ in the sense of talking about a big group of people. Not just like a cumulus water vapor cloud in the sky.

******

“In a passage that prophetically looks toward the Second Coming of Christ, II Samuel 22:8-13 says,

[8] Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth.
[9] There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
[10] He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet.
[11] And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind.
[12] And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies.
[13] Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled.

“This is a psalm of David that matches Psalm 18. The issue is, under Jesus Christ’s feet was darkness and thick clouds. Psalm 97 says, ‘The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. [2] Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.’

“The way He made darkness pavilions round about Him is with clouds that veil off His glory. If you get clouds that are thick and dense enough to black out the sun . . . I’ve flown into a cloud bank that looked just as dark as night but when you flew into it, the clouds were just as light and white. What the darkness really is is a shadow.

“You get these thick clouds with water vapor in them and they block off the sun and under the bottom of that cloud you really have a shadow and it looks dark, but they’re just as white as can be because it’s the optics of the thing. What the cloud does is veils back the sunlight. Around the Lord He does the same thing. He has clouds to sort of veil off His glory.”

*****

“In I Timothy 6:16, Paul writes about God, ‘Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting.’

“Paul’s talking about the light of the majesty of the manifestation of His person. God as being God cannot be limited by time or space, but because He is God, and He does have a creation that He has made, He chooses to manifest Himself to His creation.

“He chooses to do that in a geographic location. That’s part of what the third heaven is about. When He does it, it’s in a blazing representation of light and it’s called ‘the glory of God.’ But when that glory appears (when the manifestation of his person appears) it is so overwhelming that you can’t approach to it.

"So He veils it off in the Scripture over and over, and what He veils it with are clouds. The clouds put a filter, as it were, on the glory and what you have to veil off that light to which no man can approach is a ‘pavilion round about Him.’

“According to the dictionary, a pavilion is a temporary building erected for the use of an exhibitor. In other words, God builds a temporary structure around Him in which He exhibits His glory and the pavilion is made of clouds.

*****

“I Kings 8:10-13 says, ‘And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD,
[11] So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.
[12] Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that he would dwell in thick darkness.
[13] I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever.’

“Notice what happens in verse 12. In other words, what that cloud is doing is holding back, making it so you could approach to the Lord.

“This happens all through the Old Testament back there with Israel. In Exodus 19, the Israelites had the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. The cloud represented the Lord’s presence in their midst, but it’s a cloud because it’s engulfed. It’s veiled off.

*****

“Exodus 19:9 says, ‘And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the LORD.’

“Verse 16 says, ‘And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.’

“There’s the cloud in which the glory of God is and what you’re seeing is the majesty of His glory but it’s veiled so they could look at it.

“Exodus 20:21 says, ‘And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.’

*****

“In the Book of Nahum is a passage that while historically referring to God’s judgment of Nineveh, is looking forward to the Second Advent. It reads, ‘The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.’

“The Book of Job also talks about the Lord’s Coming and it’s like a whirlwind and the clouds are the dust of his feet. So when the Lord has a dustup what happens is you have clouds. You know when somebody’s whipping across somewhere, they make a big cloud plume and it encompasses them. In a case like this, when it comes to the atmosphere, God’s presence makes such a disturbance in the atmosphere that it generates clouds, storms.

“At the Rapture, Believers will be caught up into this giant pavilion that accompanies the presence of the Lord and the clouds will veil what’s going on from everybody else.”

Character of King James the person

During the Q & A at last month's Bible conference seminar entitled, "Tyndale's Impact on the King James Bible," someone asked, "What would you say to those who accuse James of being a homosexual?"

Michigan Pastor Bryan Ross answered, "I would not even probably dignify it with a response. The people who said that are like the National Enquirer writing stuff after James' dead."

For time immemorial opponents of King James have tried to falsely peg him as a homosexual.

“Fifty years after he died, a Roman Catholic antagonist came out and said James was really a homosexual,” explains Richard Jordan in a study. “There’s not one scrap of evidence of that contemporaneous to King James’ life at all. In fact, all of the evidence is to the contrary.

“He is on record in writing denouncing sodomy. He’s on record in writing, books he wrote, teaching against, and warning against homosexual activity. And yet people from afar, again opponents, people who are not his supporters but his enemies, and given the time he lived, when we’re talking enemies . . .

Here is part of the heroic true story of James:

When James was 13 years old, as the young king in Scotland, he had a distant cousin, Esme Stuart, a French Catholic, who came to Scotland to befriend King James and seek to convert him into Catholicism.

As an account reads, “Though still in his early teens, James used his most persuasive arguments on his cousin, causing him to become a Protestant convert. He was to die a Protestant. Esme wrote a document which ‘condemned in detail many aspects of Catholic belief and practice.’ "

“The dude’s a soul-winner at 13 years old, preaching the gospel," says Richard Jordan. "In March of 1604, James told the Protestant clergy, ‘Be more careful diligent than you have been to win souls for God. Where you have been in many ways sluggish before, now wake yourselves up again with a new diligence at this point.’

“You say, ‘Wow, what’s got him so fired up?!’ When he established the colony in Virginia, it was ‘for the propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the knowledge of the worship of God.’

“He pleaded that:

The true Word of God and the service of God in the Christian faith be preached, planted and used in the new colony of Virginia. The inhabitants of those parts live in utter ignorance of divine worship and are completely deprived of the knowledge and solace of the Word of God and probably will remain and end their days in such ignorance unless such a great evil is cared for as soon as possible.

Therefore, we ought to end that out of the love for the glory of God and the desire to work for the good and the salvation of souls to those parts. Dedicate yourselves to and perform the ministry of preaching the Word of God in those parts.

*****

In a book to his son, James made it clear, “As to the apocryphal books I omit them because I am no papist.”

“That’s good advice from a dad to his boy," says Jordan. "He wrote his boy about godliness, holiness, a fear and knowledge of God, decidedly pure and chaste conduct.

"Among James’ good qualities, one contemporary said, ‘None shine more brightly than the chasteness of his light which he hath preserved without stain, down to the present time, contrary to the example of almost all his ancestors.’ ”

"James’ writes his son about how a man should carry a 'certain natural modesty and kindness. He wears his hair short, about food and clothing he does not care, I wish therefore someone has a single coat or one living before others have doubles of plurality.'

“That doesn’t sound like the description 50 years later of King James being this prurient-interested person. He wrote in his book ‘Demonology’ that ‘evil is never to be done that good may happen. Sodomy and witchcraft are horrible crimes. When choosing friends, my son, guard against corrupt lads, effeminate ones, eschew to be effeminate in your clothes.’

“The dude was pretty clear to his son. He said, ‘Be ever careful to prefer the gentlest nature and enjoy frequently hearing the Word of God.’

*****

Sir John Oglander said about James “he was the best scholar and wisest prince for general knowledge that ever England knew.”

“That’s probably a common view of him from contemporaries but he was also a widely persecuted king. His official motto when he took the crown was ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ yet he fought with the Catholics most of his life.

“While he was king in Scotland he was confronted by a Roman Catholic conspiracy called the Spanish Blanks, in January, 1593. Basically a bunch of Jesuit priests, Father William Wright and crowd, instigated a plot to bring 5,000 Spanish troops to Scotland to take over the kingdom. It was discovered it was thwarted but it set James’ political bent—they didn’t like him.

“In The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, 13 conspirators were after James and their goal was to restore the Catholic religion in England. In 1603, there was a big plague in London in which 30,000 people died. The Catholics fomented the idea that the plague was God judging the Protestants.

“The superstition of all that gets to going and so, in order to discourage that, here comes James out of the shoot and he begins to attack the Roman system as being superstitious. As he does that, these Jesuit terrorists begin to plot his destruction.

“Here’s what Guy Faulks said in his trial: ‘Many have heard King James say at the table that the pope is the Antichrist, which he wished to prove to anyone who believed the opposite.’

“And it was that opposition that James took to the front that caused these guys to say, ‘Hey, we need to get rid of King James.’ They filled the basement of Parliament with gunpowder. They were going to do it in November of ‘05. Now what happened is it was discovered. James immediately condemns the Jesuits as a generation of vipers and things go on from there.

*****

“He lived all of his reign under the threat of personal attack by Jesuit terrorists. One of the first accounts of that I ever read was a story of a young girl who was a chamber maid; a servant in the castle.

“For King James’ protection, when he went to bed at night bodyguards would slide a bolt through the door to secure it so he’d be in his chamber locked from the inside.

“But with the bodyguards bribed to go away, terrorists managed to have that mechanism disabled and the bar taken out, so the door, rather than being locked, was open.

"This little girl found out about the plot and she ran up into the king’s chamber and warned him of what was happening. They discovered the door couldn’t be locked to keep the assassins out.

“This young girl goes and takes her arm and puts it through the hasp on the door and uses her arm to hold the door locked while James gets away. And this young girl literally has her arm broken and severed in half and dies from the wounds.

“Imagine a guy who can inspire that kind of loyalty out of young believers. As I said, 50 years after his death, he’s being hounded and claimed to be a homosexual by professed Roman Catholic antagonists.

“I just want you to understand King James was not this nefarious guy or this detached, uninterested person. When you find out who he really was, he turns out to be a Bible believer, a scholar in his own right and someone who the Jesuits targeted specifically for destruction over and over.

“His crowning achievement was probably, during his reign, the term Great Britain was applied to the British Commonwealth. He did have quite a reign."

*****

In the first decade or more after its introduction in 1611, the King James Authorized Version was simply entitled, “The Holy Bible,” and that’s all you read: “The Holy Bible containing the Old Testament and the New Testament.”

“They did not put people’s names on the Bible. King James did not say, ‘This is my Bible.’ Where King James came from is in the dedication. The translators dedicated it to the king and consequently, as Ecclesiastes says, ‘Where the word of the king is there is power.’

“By the way, it’s interesting that many of the English bibles that have been translated down through history--many of the influential bibles in the line of the Textus Receptus--have been translated under the reigns of good kings, including Alfred the Great in 899 with the Saxon Bible and Alfonso XIII of Spain when the Protestant bible came out.

"You find under the reign of some of these monarchs who were favorable to the Scripture the peaking of translations for those nations. And that’s not a fluke. That’s part of the way things operate.

“You’d be well to look into some of these things and enjoy the details. You need to be able to look across history and spot some of your kinfolk.

“King James did oversee the setting up of the most extensive translating process of any bible in history. With three separate locations, two separate translating groups checking the translations of the others and then editorial committees bringing them together; bringing in all of the peoples’ knowledge and the whole country and fine-tuning the thing, going over all the controversial issues. And they were not producing a new translation. They were also not trying to produce an easier-to-read translation."

Israel 'cast away' with change in program

Sir Robert Anderson called it “the secret crisis of the Book of Acts.” Inherent to any Christian’s basic ministry is an understanding of the monumental dispensational change that took place with the stoning of Stephen and the subsequent fall of Israel.

“I know most Christians you talk to today don’t know beans about this, but when the Spirit of God, speaking through Stephen, declared the Jews to be ‘stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, always resisting the Holy Ghost,’ Israel was set aside; cast away,” explains Richard Jordan.

“In Romans 11, in the midst of Paul writing about the status of Israel today and what’s going to happen to them in the future, you find verse 15: “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?”

“When was Israel cast away? Verse 11 says, “I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.”

“When you cast something away, you get rid of it; it’s not of any value anymore. When you fall, you move from one position to the other.

“If when Israel fell they became useless in the program of God, what’s the result? ‘The reconciling of the world.’

"You see, in order for God to bring about the dispensational condition necessary to form the Church the Body of Christ, He had to change that program. To change the program, He had to take Israel from her privileged position and put her down here.

“As Paul explains it, ‘For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
[31] Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
[32] For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
[33] O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

"You see this again in Ephesians 2; Paul just uses different terms. The verses are not talking about you getting saved, making peace with God. They’re talking about removing the enmity between Israel and the Gentiles. He’s talking about a dispensational peace that comes about by taking out the middle wall of partition, having abolished it.

“You don’t get reconciled to God in one body by the Cross except here. This is the dispensational change that takes place. God takes out all of Israel’s program. God takes out circumcision. He takes out the law and nails it away, getting rid of it so that He can form this 'one new man. '

“He’s reconciling you and me individually to God through the blood of Christ, and to one another, in one body, so today there’s no Jew or Gentile, bond or free, in Christ. You and I have been made one with one another. God has changed the program so He can form this new body of Believers through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

*****

Dispensationalists for generations have placed the fall of Israel at the Cross but that’s not where it took place.

“Israel got a renewed opportunity of repentance coming out of the Cross and that’s what the first part of the Book of Acts is all about. In Acts 1-7 they get another opportunity to repent and receive Christ and then in Acts 7, with the stoning of Stephen, they fall.

“Paul says in Romans 11:11, ‘I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.’

“As the consequence of the stoning of Stephen, the next thing you read about is the salvation of Saul of Tarsus.

“Jesus warns the religious leaders of the nation Israel in Matthew 12:31, ‘When God the Father sent John they rejected Him.’ Harod cut his head off.

"With Jesus Christ, God the Son, they demanded that Rome kill Him. The Holy Ghost comes, and if you reject Him, where do you go?!

“From the Father you could go to the Son, and from the Son to the Holy Spirit, but then you’re out. You know the saying, ‘Three strikes and you’re out’? There’s nowhere else to go!

“The whole of the godhead is exhausted and you’ve rejected all of them. So if you reject the Holy Spirit, there’s nothing left for you but wrath. There’s no salvation; it won’t be forgiven in this world or the world to come. There will just be wrath and judgment.

“In I Timothy 1:13 the apostle said, ‘Before I got saved I was a blasphemer.’ He was standing right there when Stephen was killed.

“Tell me something, if he blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, was there any salvation for him back here? Any salvation for him over here?

“In order to save Saul of Tarsus, He had to introduce a NEW program. People ask, ‘When did the church the Body of Christ begin? Something new began with Saul of Tarsus because the only way he could have gotten saved, being a blasphemer, was through a new program.

"That’s why I Timothy 1:16 says, ‘Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.’

“Saul is a pattern for a group of people who are going to believe. Something new does begin, but it’s not in Acts 2, it’s at the salvation and commissioning of the Apostle Paul and takes place historically in Acts 9. Progressively you see more and more about it through the Scripture.

*****

“There are three big events in Acts you have to get. One is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Why did he do that? He did it in fulfillment of Joel 2. There’s the outcry against Stephen where the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit takes place. Then there’s the outgoing to the Gentiles through Paul’s ministry.

“Hebrews 2: 3-4 says, [3] How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
[4] God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?

“The Pentecostal era, according to Hebrews 2: 3-4, is a continuation of what Jesus taught in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; His kingdom salvation. It’s Israel’s program; it’s not something new.

“The compulsion to have it be something new is just tradition. The compulsion to start the church the Body of Christ in Acts 2—you know, you hear people say, ‘I thought the church was birthed at Pentecost.’ Well, that’s what you thought but that’s not what the Bible teaches.

“You say, ‘Well, my Scofield Reference Bible says that. Dr. Ryrie says that. Larken says that.’ I know a lot of people say it but that don’t make it true. It’s what does the Book say?

“I realize that’s a shift that bothers people, and the reason it does is because you get so plugged into tradition and saying that that’s us, that when you read it and it’s not you, and you didn’t want it to be you anyway because there’s all kind of stuff in Acts 2 you didn’t like.

“You didn’t like the baptismal forgiveness of sins. You didn’t like tongue-talking. You didn’t like having ‘all things in common.’ You didn’t like having it be to Israel first. You didn’t like all that so you just ignored it.

“You say, ‘Well, now we aren’t going to have the Great Commission to go by,’ but you weren’t going by the so-called Great Commission anyway! There’s not one person you ever met who ever followed Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20 or Acts 1—all of them or any of them!

“Think about what they say. In Matthew 28, Jesus says, ‘All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.’ When is that commission going to be accomplished? When He’s with them!

"When is He going to be with them? Well, He’s going away. He’s not with them there. He’s going to be with them over here. You know when that commission’s going to be accomplished? When He’s there. Think about what it says.

“ ‘Go ye therefore and teach all nations.’ Go ye. He’s talking to His disciples, isn’t He? Numbers 23 says that Israel is not to be reckoned among the nations. If you follow Matthew 28:19 you can’t preach to Israel.

*****

“I’ve got a friend who runs a Jewish ministry out of Miami, Florida and he uses Matthew 28:19 as his proof text. And I tell him, ‘Brother, you can’t preach to Israel if that’s your verse because that verse says to ‘teach all nations.’ Numbers 23:9 says Israel shall not be reckoned among the nations.

“Look at all those verses where He separated Israel apart from the nations. You say, ‘Well, why wouldn’t we preach to the nations?’ Hebrews 8 says that when the new covenant comes into effect and Israel gets her kingdom, ‘they will all know me from the least to the greatest.’ No more need to teach neighbors.

“It’s redeemed Israel, converted Israel. All Israel’s going to be saved in that kingdom. They’re not going to need to evangelize each other anymore; that’s what the new covenant’s all about. The nation is redeemed and now the redeemed nation goes and preaches to the Gentiles.

“But when does that happen? You can’t do that today because the text tells you what to do and you can’t do what the text tells you to do. He says, ‘Teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.’

*****

“In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 Jesus says, ‘Anybody that doesn’t teach the law can’t be great in the kingdom.’

“Now, that’s what He commanded them. Go read Matthew 5: 19-20. He that’s great is going to teach the law; the commandments. Well, Paul says you’re not under the law but you’re under grace. How are you going to do that?

“One of the commandments is, ‘Keep the Sabbath day holy.’ Today’s the Sabbath, not tomorrow. People say, ‘Well, it’s the Christian Sabbath.’ Where’d you read that in the Bible? You didn’t; you read that in a bunch of church history.

“You see, sooner or later you’re going to read verses that are going to contradict what the preacher says. You’re going to go ask the preacher about those verses and he’s going to say, ‘You’re trying to cause trouble; beat it!’ Some of us have been there, done that and then we say, ‘Well, now what?’

*****

“Mark 16:15. Don’t you love that verse? ‘And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.’

“Who couldn’t love that verse? But you know, when you leave it in its context it doesn’t sound so good. Jesus is talking to His disciples and says, ‘[16] He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
[17] And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
[18] They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’

“Two days before He died, He told them in Matthew 24, ‘And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.’

“You know anywhere in your Bible between the time He said that and five days later when He told His disciples to go preach the gospel, where He changed the gospel? No. What gospel are they going to preach? The gospel of the kingdom.

“You know they preached the gospel of the kingdom for three years and didn’t know Jesus was going to die on the Cross and be resurrected? Can you preach the gospel today without knowing that?

“So the gospel message was different. Besides that, He said they would be ‘damned.’ You say, you mean you got to be baptized to be saved? That’s what it said. All you got to do to be damned is don’t believe, but to get saved, you got to be baptized.

“You don’t preach that. You go to missionary conferences, you see Mark 16:15 on the wall, but you never see verse 16, unless you go to a Campbellite or Apostolic church.

*****

“Then it says, ‘In mine name they shall cast out devils.’ I was in a meeting one time with a guy who believed all that and I brought a can of Drano with me and took it out of my briefcase and put it on his desk and said, ‘I want to see you demonstrate the verse.’

“He said, ‘You’re trying to tempt God.’ I said, ‘I’m not trying to tempt God; I’m tempting you. You’re the one running off at the mouth about how you can do what this verse says. Let’s see if it works.’

“You know what, he didn’t do it. He knew it would kill him. He knew those verses didn’t work.

“Now, why don’t they work? You know what fundamentalists and evangelicals do? They redefine them. They say, ‘Well, when you get saved, you speak with a new tongue. You quit cussing and lying.’

“That’s got nothing to do with what that verse says. How do I know? I read Acts 2 when they spoke with new tongues; they spoke in the tongues of all the languages that they previously hadn’t learned so that all those people could hear the message.”

Debate on 'Christian Zionism,' plus debunking Book of Enoch

On Pastor Joel Hayes' YouTube podcast (Fellowship Bible Church Orlando) last Friday addressing the controversy stirred by Tucker Carlson's recent interview with J.D. Hall on Christian Zionism's origins and motives, he said:

How would you define Zionism? The way it's used by some people today you kind of get this feeling like Zionism is some secret cult that's, you know, like the Illuminati and their pulling all these strings and all this stuff.

Zionism goes back to the days of Scofield and it's basically Believers who had this view that the Jewish people had the right to a national homeland in the historic land of Israel. That was basically all it was. Allowing people this view that the Jews should be able to get their land back.

I guess you would also define it as Israel having a right to exist as a Jewish state. That term 'Zionism' always confused me growing up because it just makes no sense that that would be the definition of Zionism. Zion is the mountain upon which Christ is going to rule in His Millennial kingdom.

That's Mt. Zion, so to me when you say Zionism, my mind automatically goes to Mt. Zion and the Millennial Kingdom, which to me means God is ultimately going to give them their land regardless of what happens in the age of grace. 

Christian Zionists generally believe that God permanently gave the land to Israel through the Abrahamic Covenant and Israel remains God's covenant nation. But is it right now?

The modern state of Israel has prophetic significance? Does it? God's promises to Israel have not been transferred to the church. Well, they got that right.

My question is, is Israel entitled to the land in the age of grace after they've been set aside by God? If Israel has been set aside by God, this is what Romans 11 teaches.

Romans 11: [11] I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.

Here then Paul proclaims his unique apostleship: [13] For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

[14] If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
[15] For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

In verse 15 you have a clear-cut, absolutely irrefutable presentation and doctrinal declaration that we are living in an interruption of the prophetic program. They have been cast away but there comes a future point in which they'll be received again.

So, this whole period in which were living, under this dispensation of grace, is an interruption of the prophetic program; a gap in prophecy.

Israel has been cast aside temporarily, and in the future they will be received again. So, if we're living in a gap in prophecy, and Israel has been cast away (set aside for a reason and for a season) well, do they have any rights in God's eyes to land or any of the covenant promises today? Absolutely not, I would say. 

Does that mean that Israel can't have their land? No, it doesn't. If circumstances worked out that they could have their land, praise the Lord. That's how it worked out after World War II.

Does that mean that it's a fulfillment of prophecy? Absolutely not. We're not living in a prophetic time; we're living in a gap of prophecy, a period of grace in which God is now in the business of reconciling Himself with all the unbelievers of the world through the gospel of grace.

Politically does this mean we are required to support them? No. Does it mean we don't have to support them either? We're at liberty to support them or not. Makes no difference. In God's eyes, Israel today is no different than any other pagan, gentile nation.

So, the whole Zionism thing is crazy. There have been a number of articles of late about dispensational theology and Christian Zionism corrupting Christianity, but Zionism has nothing to do with dispensational theology.

One of my favorite points about people who accuse Scofield of being a Zionist is, have you ever read Scofield's notes on Romans 11? He's arguing that Israel has been set aside! Why should he be a Zionist if he's also, at the same time, saying Israel's been set aside?!

*****

On this subject of Christian Zionism vs. dispensationalism, Richard Jordan, in his study last Wednesday, referenced Arno C. Gaebelein (1861-1945), one of the editors of the original Scofield Reference Bible, who said in a speech about Zionism, "Zionism is not the divinely promised restoration of Israel."

"So, Zionism is not the result of dispensationalism, because a dispensationalist who edited the Scofield Bible said Zionism is not the divinely promised restoration of Israel," argues Jordan. "I don't care how many times you hear people say that that's what dispensationalism teaches, a real dispensationalist says, 'Not.' 

Gaebelein goes on, "Zionism is not the fulfillment of a large number of predictions found in the Old Testament Scripture which relate to Israel's return to the land. . . Indeed, Zionism has very little use of arguments from the Word of God. It's rather a political and philanthropic undertaking. Instead of coming together before God and calling upon His name, trusting Him that He is able to perform that which He so often promised, they speak about their riches, their influence, their colonial bank, their court of favor. The great movement is one of unbelief and confidence in themselves instead of God's eternal purpose."

*****

In an article entitled, "Does Jude 1:14 Endorse Enoch's Book?" Bible Hub online reports, "This verse cites the figure of Enoch, who appears in Genesis 5:21-24. Ancient Jewish writings outside of the Hebrew Scriptures, such as the Book of Enoch (also called 1 Enoch), contain expanded traditions associated with this patriarch. Jude’s brief reference has caused many to wonder whether Jude’s words endorse those extra traditions--including the Book of Enoch--as Scripture . . .

"One reason Jude’s quoting of Enoch stirs interest is that some form of Enochic traditions (portions of 1 Enoch) were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. These scrolls demonstrate that parts of the Book of Enoch were esteemed by certain Jewish groups."

Jude: [14] And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

If you'll notice it doesn't say Enoch wrote of these things. It says he prophesied of these things. That's not the same, says Columbus, Ohio preacher David Reid in a recent study.

There's something very interesting going on in Matthew 27:9 to help with this:

[9] Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

If you read the Book of Jeremiah, there is no reference to 30 pieces of silver and so the sceptics . . . Have you noticed that people want the Bible to have errors? People in their heart frequently want the Bible to have errors and what's their motivation? Because then you can ignore it.

If the Bible has errors then maybe it's wrong about what it says about the lake of fire. Maybe it's wrong about what it says about eternal judgment.

Man, in his natural instinct, wants there to be errors in the Bible; he wants there to be contradictions because then the Bible's not true and all the things it says that are fearful, "I don't have to worry about them."

But here's what's going on. Zechariah 11: [13] And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.

Matthew 27:9 talks about the 30 pieces of silver and says it was spoken by Jeremy the prophet (Jeremiah), but it's not in the Book of Jeremiah; it's in the Book of Zechariah.

So people say, "Look, Matthew 27:9 is wrong because that's not Jeremiah; that's Zechariah." Well, you can take that position if you want to find an error, or you can simply read what it says and what it's telling you is this: Matthew is saying that Jeremiah SPOKE it, but Zechariah RECORDED it.

It's possible for one prophet to speak something and another one to record it. Isn't that okay? God's allowed to do that if He wants, isn't He? So, Matthew 27:9 is not an error; it's simply revealing the fact that the prophecy recorded in Zechariah was actually spoken by Jeremiah.

Scripture says there can be a difference between prophesying something and writing it. Now take that principle and what does Jude actually say? 

Enoch didn't necessarily write a book and, in fact, I don't think he did. He simply spoke a prophesy that the Holy Spirit decided to record a couple thousand years later. It's not any different that Jannes and Jambres.

Exodus happens, Jannes and Jambres are there when Moses is writing his five books. He doesn't record their names. Nothing requires him to; the Holy Spirit didn't need it to be included. And then the Holy Spirit decides to add that detail later on.

We talked about how Genesis and Revelation are very similar. God decided to record what Enoch spoke, not in Genesis, but in Jude near the end of the Scriptures.

I don't believe for a second that Jude is recording the Book of Enoch. What's obviously the case is the Book of Enoch is written after Jude and quotes Jude almost verbatim as evidence of, "SEE! You were quoting me!"

And I think also that whatever manuscripts exist in the old script were intentionally written that way to give the appearance of age, the same way with Archaic Mark.

We are what we believe we are

"Everywhere, except in theology, there has been a vigorous growth of skepticism about skepticism itself."--C.S. Lewis

The majority of Christendom thinks God's through with Israel and has replaced them with Christianity and the theologians who push this belief are proud adherents of "replacement theology."

Every major Christian denomination believes they're Israel. That's Rome, the seven major Protestant denominations, the Orthodox branch--they all claim to be Israel, says Richard Jordan.

That's why Rome and the Orthodox have all those ceremonies and stuff. Where'd they get them? They got them out of Israel's rituals. That's why Protestantism has all these sacraments and ordinances. That's why the Bible-believing part of Protestantism hangs onto water baptism.

Here's an outtake from a Believer's written testimony online:

"Part of Satan’s strategy has been to infect the Church with what was historically called Supersessionism. This is the idea that God has replaced the Jews with the Church. It’s only in the 20th Century that this concept came to be known as Replacement Theology.

"I was subjected to the attitude of Replacement Theology in my church growing up through the teaching that all of the Old Testament had been nailed to the Cross and was therefore irrelevant to Christianity. We called ourselves 'A New Testament Church,' and when the minister told us to be sure and bring our Bibles to church, we knew he meant our New Testaments. Many of us did not even own a complete Bible.

"The beginning of my liberation from these viewpoints occurred when I was about 30 years old and started reading the Minor Prophets. I was captivated by them. Their messages seemed so relevant to modern-day problems.

"It was the book of Zechariah that proved to be my turning point. After reading it through from start to finish for the first time in my life, I was impacted by the fact that it is full of Messianic prophecies about the First Coming, and that every one of them meant what they said. It suddenly dawned on me that if the First Coming prophecies in this 'apocalyptic' book meant what they said, then the Second Coming prophecies must mean what they say.

"My study of Bible prophecy since that time has convinced me that the twisting of scriptures through spiritualization is a terrible abuse of God’s Word. It has led Christians to reject the Genesis account of creation as well as the promises of God for the future."

*****

When you ask somebody why they think they're "spiritual Israel," there's a passage in Galatians that most of the time they turn to, and like any other passage similar to it, you have to ignore the context, says Jordan. 

"A text without a context is a pretext." So, they pull it out hoping you won't see the rest of it.

Galatians 3:29: [29] And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

"See!", they say, "You're the seed of Abraham. You're spiritual Israel and an heir according to the promise God made to Abraham."

But look at the verses right before it: [26] For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

[27] For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
[28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

If in the Body of Christ there's no status of being a Jew or a Greek, how could you then be a spiritual Jew? There is no such status in the Body of Christ as being a spiritual Jew or a spiritual Israelite. Why? Because we're all one in Christ with no distinctions like that.

When Paul says, "And if ye be in Christ you're Abraham's seed and heirs," what's he talking about? You notice that's verse 29? There are 28 verses before that have educated you about some of this stuff, that if you had read them and got there, you wouldn't be confused.

When he says you're "heirs according to the promise," what promise are we talking about? Look at verses 13-14: [13] Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

[14] That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

So, you've been made heirs of the promise of the Spirit through faith. What did the Spirit do for you? Verses 26 and 27 tell you He put you into the Body of Christ.

God justified Abraham in uncircumcision as an uncircumcised Gentile so that when the time came that He's going to justify Gentiles, you've got a pattern. Abraham is the pattern for being justified by faith without works.

Galatians 3:

[6] Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
[7] Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
[8] And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
[9] So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

God, knowing that you were coming, knowing that the dispensation of grace was coming, what did He do? He preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying "in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed."

God justified Abraham in a very special way so that he would be "the father of all them that believe"; not just the circumcision, but the uncircumcision. Because God knew there was going to be a new program coming where everybody's considered uncircumcised.

If you don't understand some dispensational things in your Bible, and know how to study your Bible dispensationally, you're never going to understand anything.

*****

Here's an article I posted a couple of months back and will take another dive into the dispensational debate (arising from "Christian Zionism" claims) tomorrow: 

“When someone says to you that dispensational Bible study is new, you say, ‘No, it’s as old as Paul. It’s as old as Jesus. It’s as old as Moses.’

“The fact is it’s the divinely prescribed method of Bible study and it’s the only way to understand God’s Word. If nobody in history you ever know believed in it, it would still be God’s way to do it, says Jordan.

“A noun generally gets its meaning from its verb form, so the Bible word ‘dispensation’ means ‘to dispense, to give out.’ Another word for the same idea is ‘administration,’ used by Paul in I Corinthians 12: ‘There are many administrations but the same Lord.’

“A dispensation is not a time period; it’s what’s given for man’s obedience during a particular time. The issue is what He gave for man to know and to obey and to follow. Here’s this truth given to Paul and that issue of, ‘Have you heard it or not?’ is the key.

“People say what we teach started with John Nelson Darby and that kind of thing, but that’s nonsense. I like to quote a guy from the Protestant Reformation era who, when asked, ‘Where was your faith before Martin Luther?’ answered, ‘The same place your face is before you wash it; behind the dirt.’

“So, there’s just common-sense ways to understand things that don’t require . . . when people require you to be able to show them your history in history you know those are people who don’t really care about that Book sitting in front of you.

“Historic theology is where you study the development of history and the development of theology through history. The problem with this is it requires you to know everything there is to know about everything anybody’s ever thought, written or done in history for you to tell me everything that people knew in history. You understand how impossible that is, right? What about the stuff you didn’t find?

“People who calls themselves a historical theologian, a scholar, pretend to make you think they’ve already studied everything there is to study and know exactly when something started. When somebody tells you a particular thing began to be taught at such and such a point by this certain guy, just run up the flag because that assumes they know everything prior to that and they don’t.

*****

“When you study the history of dispensationalism what you’re studying is the history of Bible study. In the mid-1800s, the zenith point out of the Protestant Reformation for understanding and learning the Bible, there was what was called the Bible Prophecy Conference Movement in America. The Scofield Reference Bible was published then.

“If you know the department store in Chicago, Carson Pirie Scott, Mr. John Pirie was a Bible Believer who helped finance the publishing of the Scofield Bible. In fact, it was his idea. He took Scofield aside and said, ‘I will raise the money to finance you getting the thing done.’

“So these were great days in the late 1800s, early 1900s, of people who studied the Scripture. Our understanding of Mid-Acts dispensationalism, Paul’s distinctive ministry, comes out of that study.

“If you look at Ephesians 3 in a Scofield the last thing the note at the bottom of the page says is that ‘in Paul’s writings alone are found the walk, the doctrine, the duty and destiny of the church.’ They knew Paul was our apostle and that’s where our doctrine comes from.

“I can draw a diagram on the chalkboard and go through all the names where you go from Darby and others like William Newell, H.A. Ironside, Donald Barnhouse. You go into the late 1800s and there’s James Coates, Fritz Ridenour, Howard Grant. They were the predecessors teaching a great host of people. J.C. O’Hair, who is more or less our ancestor, worked with those people (O’Hair’s North Shore Church on the North Side of Chicago is the church I’m pastoring now in its current incarnation).

“The Independent Fundamental Churches of America, which was founded in 1930 and is still in existence, represented a bunch of fundamentalist groups fighting the Fundamentalist-Modernism controversy; the modernism of the World Council and the National Council of Churches. (according to a website, "These churches banded together to forcefully stand for the major doctrines of the Bible in opposition to the apostasy of that time.")

“It started at the Cicero Bible Church (founded 1892), Billy McCarrell’s ministry on Laramie Avenue in Cicero, Ill. The next year it met at North Shore Church. J.C. O’Hair was in the founding group. The next year it met at Grand Rapids at Dr. M.R. DeHaan’s church. O’Hair spoke at the dedication of their church.”